The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-01-09

800 bnck," I said.
travels, though muOn OF IL is nldden III
bush, for wherever the traveller wanders
there he finds vast palaces of marble, car
ven within and without, and sculptured
teocallis and the huge images of grinning
gods. Often have / wondered what ma
ton was strong enough to build such a
capital, and who were the kings that dwelt
in it. But these are secrets belonging to
the past and they cannot be answered till
some learned man has found the key to
the stone symbols and writings with
which the walls of the buildings are COW
cred over.
In this city hid with my men, though
it was no easy task to persuade them to
take up their habitation among so many
ghosts of the departed, not to speak of the
noisome fevers and the wild beasts and
snakes that haunted it, for had informa-
ton that the Spaniards would pass through
the swamp that lies between the ruins and
the river, and there 1 hoped to ambush
them. But on the eighth day Of my hid
ing l learned from spies that COrtes had
crossed the great river higher up and was
cutting his way through the forest, for OF
swamps he had passed more than enough.
So hurried also to the river, intending to
cross it. But all that day and all that
night it rained as it can rain nowhere else
in the world that I have seen, till at last
we Waded Oh our road knee deep in water,
and when we came to the ford of the river
it was to find wide, roaring flood that
no man could pass in anything less frail
than Yarmouth herring boat. So there
on the bank we must stay in misery, suf-
fering many ills from fever, lack of food
and plentitude of water, till at length the
stream ran down.
Three days and nights we waited there,
and Oh the fourth morning [ made shift
to cross losing four men by drowning in
the passage. Once over, hid my force in
the bush and reeds and crept forward with
six men only to see if [ could discover
anything of the whereabouts of the Span
iards. Within an hour I struck the trail
that they had cut through the forest and
followed it cautiously. Presently we came
to spot where the forest was thin, and
here COrtes had camped, for there was heat
left in the ashes of his fires, and among
them lay the body of all Indian who had
died from sickness. Not so yards from
this camp stood huge ceiba, a tree that
has habit of growth not unlike that of
our English oak, though it is soft wooded
and white barked and will increase more
in bulk in 30 years than any oak may in
100.
Indeed / never yet saw an oak tree SO
large as this ceiba of which [ write, either
in girth Or in it's spread of top, unless it be
the Kirby oak or the tree that is called the
King of Scoto, which grows at Broome,
that is the next parish to this of Ditching-
ham, in Norfolk On this ceiba tree many
zaphilotes or vultures were perched and as
we crept toward it 1 saw what it was they
came to seek, for from the lowest branches
of the ceiba three corpses swung in the
breeze. Here are the Spaniards' foot
prints" said. ''Let us look at them, ~
and we passed beneath the shadow of the
tree.
AS came, a zaphilote alighted on the
head of the body that hung nearest to me-
and it's weight Or the waiting of the
fowls wing caused the dead man to turn
round so that he came face to face with
me. [ looked, started back, then looked
again and sank to the earth groaning, for
here was he whom had come to seek and
save, my brother, Guatemoc, the last en-
peror of Anahuac. Here he hung in the
dim and desolate forest, dead by the death
of a thief, while the vulture shrieked upon
his head. I sat bew1dered and horror