hom came with Don Juan's
recommendation, that the doctor was seriously annoyed. Every latent
disease was brought out, and he could even have found business in
prescribing for cases that might possibly occur, as well as for those
already existing.

The next morning Mr. Catherwood made an effort to visit the ruins. Our
numerous escort of the former occasion were all missing, and, except an
Indian who had a tobacco patch in the neighbourhood, we were entirely
alone. This Indian held an umbrella over Mr. Catherwood's head to
protect him from the sun, and, while making the drawing, several times
he was obliged by weakness to lie down and rest. I was disheartened by
the spectacle. Although, considering the extent of illness in our
party, we had in reality not lost much time, we had been so much
embarrassed, and it was so disagreeable to be moving along with this
constant liability to fever and ague, that here I felt very much
disposed to break up the expedition and go home, but Mr. Catherwood
persisted.

[Engraving 30: Building at Zibilnocac]

The plate opposite represents the front of this building. It is one
hundred and fifty-four feet in front and twenty feet seven inches in
depth. It differed in form from any we had seen and had square
structures rising in the centre and at each end, as seen in ruins in
the engraving; these were called towers, and at a distance had that
appearance. The facades of the towers were all ornamented with
sculptured stone. Several of the apartments had tobacco leaves spread
out in them to dry. In the centre, one apartment was encumbered with
rubbish, cutting off the light from the door, but in the obscurity we
saw on one of the stones, along the layer in the arch, the dim outline
of a painting like that at Kewick; in the adjoining apartment were the
remains of paintings, the most interesting, except those near the
village of Xul, that we had met with in the country and, like those, in
position and general effect reminding me of processions in Egyptian
tombs. The colour of the flesh was red, as was always the case with the
Egyptians in representing their own people. Unfortunately, they were
too much mutilated to be drawn, and seemed surviving the general wreck
only to show that these aboriginal builders had possessed more skill in
the least enduring branch of the graphic art.

The first accounts we heard of these ruins date back to the time of my
first visit to Nohpat. Among the Indians ther