d looked through it into an
apartment below. This explained the character of the structure. A
building had extended the whole length of the mound, the upper part of
which had fallen, and the ruins had made the whole a long, confused,
and undistinguishable mass. The top commanded an extensive view of a
great wooded plain, and near by, rising above the trees, was another
mound, which, within a few years, had been crowned with an edifice,
called, as at Chichen and Tuloom, El Castillo. The padre, a young man,
but little over thirty, remembered when this Castillo stood with its
doorways open, pillars in them, and corridors around. The sight of
these ruins was entirely unexpected; if they had been all we had met
with in the country, we should have gazed upon them with perplexity and
wonder; and they possessed unusual interest from the fact that they
existed in a place, the name of which was known and familiar to us as
that of an existing aboriginal town at the time of the conquest.

In tracing the disorderly flight of the Spaniards from Chichen Itza, we
find them first at Silan, which is described by Herrera as being "Then
a fine Town, the Lord whereof was a Youth of the Race of the Cheles,
then a Christian, and great Friend to Captain Francis de Montejo, who
received and entertained them. Tirrok was near Silan; that and the
other Towns along the Coast were subject to the Cheles, who, having
been no way disobliged by the Spaniards did not disturb them, and so
they continued some Months, when, seeing no Possibility of being
supplied with Men and other Things they wanted, they resolved quite to
abandon that Country. In order to it, they were to march to Campeachy,
forty Leagues from Silan, which was looked upon as very dangerous,
because the Country was very populous; but the Lord of Silan and others
bearing them Company, they arrived in Safety, and the Cheles returned
to their own Homes." Cogolludo, too, traces the routed Spaniards to
Silan, but thence, with more probability, he carries them by sea to
Campeachy; for, as he well suggests, the lords of Silan would not have
been able to give them safe escort through forty leagues of territory
inhabited by different tribes, all hostile to the Spaniards, and some
of them hostile to the Cheles themselves. This difference, however, is
unimportant; both accounts prove that there was a large town of
aboriginal inhabitants in this vicinity, and, as at Ticul and Nohcacab,
we must either