Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/60

 "On another occasion I wanted to purchase some fowls from an old woman; she didn't care to part with them. I could not oblige her, nor did I wish to, so dismissed the matter from my mind. I chatted with her awhile, then took my leave; before I reached the garden-gate the fowls fell dead in the yard. Then the woman said: 'Ah, señor, your Evil Eye has killed all my birds! Why did I not sell them to you?' What fault had I? The heat of the sun must have killed the birds."

The topic was so evidently painful to the old gentleman that we told him to dismiss it from his mind, and join us in a game of malilla.

A few days later he invited us to go and examine a small ancient building, about a mile from the village. It was ten feet high outside; the interior divided in two rooms, each nine feet long, two wide, and six in height. Three doors led straight through the building, one in each outer wall, the other in the middle; they were twenty inches wide and three feet high.

From one of the outer doorways to that in the division wall there was a pier of solid masonry; on either side of it. an opening led under the room. Making our way below as best we could, we found ourselves surrounded by walls made of hewn stones,