received neither pay for his services nor pension
for his wound, he was a little disgusted with patriotism and fighting
for his country. He was by trade a blacksmith, which business, on the
recommendation of Dona Joaquina Peon, he had given up to enter our
service. His usefulness and capacity were first clearly brought out at
Kabah. Knowing the character of the Indians, speaking their language,
and being but a few degrees removed from them by blood, he could get
out of them twice as much work as I could. Him, too, they could ask
questions about us, and lighten labour by the indulgence of social
humour, and very soon I had only to give instructions as to what work
was to be done, and leave the whole management of it to him. This
doubled our effective force, as we could work with two sets of Indians
in different places at the same time, and gave Albino a much greater
value than that of a common servant. He had one bad habit, which was
that of getting the fever and ague. This he was constantly falling
into, and, with all our efforts, we could never break him of it, but,
unluckily, we never set him a good example. In the mean time Bernaldo
sustained his culinary reputation; and, avoiding the bad habit of
Albino and his masters, while all the rest of us were lank as the
village dogs of that country, his cheeks seemed always ready to burst
open.

While we were working at the ruins, the people in the village were
losing no time. On the eleventh began the fiesta of Corpus Alma, a
festival of nine days' observance in honour of Santo Cristo del Amor.
Its opening was announced by the ringing of church bells and firing of
rockets, which, fortunately, as we were away at the ruins, we avoided
hearing; but in the evening came the procession and the baile, to which
we were formally invited by a committee, consisting of the padrecito,
the alcalde, and a much more important person than either, styled El
Patron del Santo, or the Patron of the Saint.

I have mentioned that Nohcacab was the most backward and thoroughly
Indian of any village we had visited. With this strongly-marked Indian
character, its church government is somewhat peculiar, and differs, I
believe, from that of all the other villages. Besides smaller saints,
the favourites of individuals, it has nine principal ones, who have
been selected as special objects of veneration: San Mateo, the patron,
and Santa Barbara, the patroness of the village; Nuestra Senora de la
Concepc