want of water. In fact, the greatest part of his remuneration consists of water—a circumstance which makes it a monopoly in the hands of the employers of labour, and reduces the Indians to the condition of serfs. The owners of haciendas have taken full opportunity of the conditions of the country, and their estates are usually managed upon a system closely approximating to that of feudalism. The Indian is at liberty to leave the haciendas of his master should he so desire, but he is certain, should he do so, to perish of thirst. Revolts of the Maya Indians have, indeed, given the white population of Yucatan good cause to dread the immoderate violence of these usually placid but revengeful and crafty people. Under Spanish dominion, the excesses of the Indians were so much feared, that for nearly a generation the entire peninsula was abandoned by the white population to them. The terrible nature of the Indian reprisals has never been paralleled even in the annals of the Indian Mutiny. They swept through the land sacrificing children on the altars of the churches and at the foot of the crosses, tearing out their hearts, and besmearing with blood the images of the saints, the statues of which they replaced with those of their own idols, and perpetrated other nameless horrors impossible of description. The Maya Indians who inhabit Yucatan are of a race totally distinct from the Nahua or Indian peoples of Mexico, and are the direct descendants of these civilised races who built the wonderful ruined cities of Chichen-Itza and Uxmal, the marvellous carved hieroglyphs of which still baffle the attempts of scientists to interpret them. Although nominally Roman Catholics and under the guidance of Catholic priests, they certainly still cling to their ancient superstitions, or the degraded portions of them which still survive, and secret cults are in vogue among them. In general, of a mild and retiring disposition, they are still naturally cruel and vindictive, and their secretiveness makes it difficult for a European to gauge their immediate attitude towards the white population of the
