tablish a
rancho at this place was the existence of the ruined buildings,
which saved the expense of erecting huts for his criados; and
he was influenced also by the wells and other remains of ancient
watering-places. In the immediate vicinity of the buildings, without
inquiring or seeking for them, we came across four wells, but all
filled up with rubbish, and dry. Indeed, so many were known to exist,
and the other means of supply were so abundant, that Senor Trego was
about becoming a partner with the cura, under the expectation of
clearing out and restoring these ancient reservoirs, furnishing an
abundant supply of water, and calling around them a large Indian
population.

In the mean time the cura had constructed two large tanks, or cisterns,
one of which was twenty-two feet in diameter, and the same in depth,
and the other eighteen. Both these were under a large circular roof, or
top platform, covered with cement, and sloping toward the centre, which
received the great body of rain-water that fell in the rainy season,
and transmitted it into the cisterns, and these furnished a supply
during the whole of the dry season, as the major domo said, for fifty
souls, besides fowls, hogs, and one horse.

[Engraving 32: Building a Macoba]

The ruins at this place were not so extensive as we expected to find
them. There were but two buildings occupied by the Indians, both in the
immediate neighbourhood of our hut, and much ruined, one of which is
represented in the plate opposite. A noble alamo tree was growing by
its side, and holding it up, which, while I was in another direction,
the Indians had begun to cut down, but which, fortunately, I returned
in time to save. The building is about 120 feet front, and had two
stories, with a grand staircase on the other side, now ruined. The
upper story was in a ruinous condition, but parts of it were occupied
by Indians.

In the afternoon Doctor Cabot and myself set out for a ride to the
aguada, induced somewhat by the forest character of the country, and
the accounts the Indians gave us of rare birds, which they said were to
be found in that direction. The road lay through a noble piece of
woods, entirely different from the usual scrubby growth, with thorny
and impenetrable underbrush, being the finest forest we had seen, and
abounding in sapote and cedar trees. At the distance of half a league a
path turned off to the right, overgrown, and hardly distinguishable,
following wh