ting off
all hope of access. By this time it was late, and, afraid of being
overtaken by darkness on this wild range, we turned back. Night was
upon us when we again reached the shore. The sandy beach was now a
welcome relief, and at a late hour we again reached the hut, having
come to a rapid conclusion that a frequent repetition of this walk
would be neither pleasant nor profitable, and that, in order to get
through our work with the celerity we aimed at, it would be necessary
again to take up our abode among the ruins.

The next, morning we set out for that purpose, escorted by the younger
Molas, a fine lad of about twenty, who considered our arrival the
greatest incident that had ever occurred at Tancar, and before we
reached the end of the beach he wanted to go travelling with us.
Ascending the cliff, and passing beyond the two buildings we had seen
the day before, we descended from the rear of the last to the head of
the chasm which had seemed to cut us off from the principal object of
our visit; ascending again at the other end of the ravine, we entered a
gloomy forest, and, passing a building on the left, with "old walls"
visible in different places indistinctly through the trees, reached the
grand staircase of the Castillo. The steps, the platform of the
building, and the whole area in front were overgrown with trees, large
and principally ramon, which, with their deep green foliage and the
mysterious buildings around, presented an image of a grove sacred to
Druidical worship.

Our boatmen and Molas cut a path up the steps, and, carrying up their
loads, in an hour we were domesticated in the Castillo. We had
undertaken our long journey to this place in utter uncertainty as to
what we should meet with; impediments and difficulties had accumulated
upon us, but already we felt indemnified for all our labour. We were
amid the wildest scenery we had yet found in Yucatan; and, besides the
deep and exciting interest of the ruins themselves, we had around us
what we wanted at all the other places, the magnificence of nature.
Clearing away the platform in front, we looked over an immense forest;
walking around the moulding of the wall, we looked out upon the
boundless ocean, and deep in the clear water at the foot of the cliff
we saw gliding quietly by a great, fish eight or ten feet long.

[Engraving 59: Front View of the Castillo of Tuloom]

The plate opposite represents the front of the Castillo. A few of the
tr