From the
rocky nature of the country, these are very numerous; during the rainy
season they are replenished as fast as they are exhausted, and at the
time of our visit, owing to the long continuance of the rains, they
furnished a sufficient supply for domestic use, but the people were not
able to keep horses or cows, or cattle of any kind, the only animals
they had being hogs. In the dry season this source of supply failed
them; the holes in the rocks were dry, and they were obliged to send to
the rancho of Chack, the well of which they represented as being half a
mile under ground, and so steep that it was reached only by descending
nine different staircases.

This account saved them from all imputation of churlishness in not
giving our horses water. It seemed strange that any community should be
willing to live where this article of primary necessity was so
difficult to be obtained, and we asked them why they did not break up
their settlement and go elsewhere; but this idea seemed never to have
occurred to them; they said their fathers had lived there before them,
and the land around was good for milpas. In fact, they were a peculiar
people, and I never before regretted so much my ignorance of the Maya
language. They are under the civil jurisdiction of the village of
Nohcacab, but the right of soil is their own by inheritance. They
consider themselves bitter off than in the villages, where the people
are subject to certain municipal regulations and duties, or than on the
haciendas, where they would be under the control of masters.

Their community consists of a hundred labradores, or working men; their
lands are held and wrought in common, and the products are shared by
all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every family sends for its
portion, which explained a singular spectacle we had seen on our
arrival; a procession of women and children, each carrying an earthen
bowl containing a quantity of smoking hot broth, all coming down the
same road, and dispersing among the different huts. Every member
belonging to the community, down to the smallest pappoose, contributed
in turn a hog. From our ignorance of the language, and the number of
other and more pressing matters claiming our attention, we could not
learn all the details of their internal economy, but it seemed to
approximate that improved state of association which is sometimes heard
of among us; and as theirs has existed for an unknown length of time,
an