was formerly reached by
a road, or rather path, so circuitous and difficult that, on account of
his other duties, he was obliged to give notice that he would be
compelled to give it up. To prevent this calamity, all the Indians, in
a body, turned out and made this new road, being a straight cut through
the woods, two leagues in length.

The padre took a lively interest in the zeal lately awakened for
exploring the antiquities of the country, and told us that this
particular region abounded with traces of the ancient inhabitants. At a
short distance from the camino real we came to a line of fallen stones,
forming what appeared to be the remains of a wall which crossed the
road, and ran off into the forest on both sides, traversing, he said,
the country for a great distance in both directions.

A short distance beyond, we turned off to a large hollow basin
perfectly dry, which he called an aguada, and said it was an artificial
formation, excavated and walled around, and had been used by the
ancients as a reservoir for water. At the time, we did not agree with
him, but considered the basin a natural formation, though, from what we
saw afterward, we are induced to believe that his account may have been
correct.

At ten o'clock we reached the small village of Telchaquillo, containing
a population of six hundred souls, and these, again, were all Indians.
It was they who had made the road we had travelled over, and the church
was under our friend's pastoral charge. We rode to the convent, and
dismounted. Immediately the bell of the church tolled, to give notice
of his arrival, that all who wished to confess or get married, who had
sick to be visited, children to be baptized, or dead to be buried,
might apply to him, and have their wants attended to.

The village consisted entirely of huts, or casas de paja. The church
had been commenced on a large scale, under the direction of a former
cura, who afterward became dissatisfied with the people, and
discontinued the building. One end was covered over, and fitted up
rudely as a chapel; beyond were two high walls, but roofless.

In the square of this little village was a great senote, or
subterraneous well, which supplied all the inhabitants with water. At a
distance the square seemed level and unbroken; but women walking across
it with cantaros or water-jars suddenly disappeared, and others seemed
to rise out of the earth. On a nearer approach, we found a great
orifice or ope