g slabs of stone, so
placed as to form a bridge; and where it turned sharply around a high
shoulder of rock, the face of the cliff had been quarried away. Yet that
this all had been done in a very remote time was shown by the fragments
of rock which had fallen into it here and there, and which were
blackened by age. "The same fellow who set that statue in place probably
was in charge here," was Rayburn's comment, "and he was a first-rate
engineer. I wish I knew how he managed to swing those stone slabs over
that crevice. There's no room there to set up a derrick, and it would
puzzle me to set blocks like that without one."

And Rayburn's admiration for the professional skill of this engineer of
a long past age was still further excited when the path came fairly into
the valley, and thence was carried downward along the gentle slope
towards the lake, by a perfectly even two-per-cent. grade, over a broad
way paved smoothly with squared blocks of stone. And Fray Antonio and I
were much interested in this work also, for we both perceived the
identity of its structure with the paved way that is found on the east
coast of Yucatan, and that is continued on the island of Cozumel.

By this paved avenue we entered the city--for, as we presently found, it
was entitled to this more dignified name. The first houses that we came
to were but small buildings enclosing a single room--such as are found,
inhabited by working-people, on the outskirts of any Mexican city at the
present day. They were silent and deserted; but they gave, at first
sight, the impression of being but momentarily abandoned, for the
belongings of their owners still remained in them as though the
every-day affairs of life still went on within their walls. In the first
that we entered we found an earthen pot still standing on a sort of
fireplace, and beside the fireplace a little pile of charcoal. There was
a fragment of bone in the pot, and beneath it were some scraps of
charcoal which remained unconsumed. It was as though cooking had been
going on here but an hour before. Rayburn even put his hand into the
ashes to feel if they still were warm. But closer investigation gave us
a juster notion of the long lapse of time that must have occurred since
any fire had burned upon this hearth. In one corner of the room we found
a pile of mats, but on touching these they crumbled into fragments in
our hands; and the bone in the pot was so dry and so porous that it was
ligh