good luck or to restore health.  Carefully removing some of the stones, we saw ample evidences of such offerings, in bones, bits of egg-shells, and dried flowers.  From here, the climb was easy to the crest overlooking the village, and to the curious tower-like mass projecting conspicuously from it.  The cave is situated in this mass of rock and faces almost east; it is a shallow cavern, well-sheltered and dry, perhaps fifty feet wide along the cliff’s front, though only the eastern third, which is the more completely worn out, is used for ceremonies; it is, perhaps, no more than eight or ten feet deep, and has greater height than depth.  Within the cave itself we found a little table, a small chair, and two blocks for seats.  On either side of the table, a pole was set obliquely against the wall.  The upper end of the left-hand pole was tied with a strip of palm which was looped through a hole in the rock wall.  At two or three other places, strips of palm had been slipped through natural holes in the wall, behind bars of stone, and then tied.  To the left, were a censer and two candle-sticks, behind which, lying obliquely against the wall, were twenty-five or thirty dance-wands.  These were sticks wrapped with corn-husks and tufted with clusters of flowers tied about the middle and at each end.  The flowers used were mostly the yellow death-flower and purple ever-lastings.  Two or three of them were made with the yellow death-flower—­cempoalxochil—­alone.  A few were made of xocopa leaves.  While only twenty-five or thirty were in position, hundreds of old ones lay on the bank to the left.  Three small crosses of wood were placed near the wands; much white paper, clipped and cut into decorated designs, was lying about, as also wads of cotton, colored wools, long strings of yarn, and bits of half-beaten bark fibre.  Near the front edge of the cave was a hole with large stones; here, with a little scratching, we found feathers and bits of bone of turkeys and hens, that had been sacrificed, as well as splints of pine tied together with bark string.  Wooden spoons, probably used in the banquets of the witches, were stowed away in crevices of the rock.  Chains of the yellow death-flower were looped up against the wall.  It is said that the people of the town never enter here, but only brujas.  Nor is it the exclusive property of the witches of Atla, of whom there are but two or three, but those of several pueblos make their rendezvous in this cave.  In fact, from the crest, we could see two other little towns that are interested in this cave, though located in another valley.

[Illustration:  THE PAGAN PRIESTESS AND HER ACOLYTE; SANTA MARIA]

[Illustration:  THE WITCH’S CAVE AT ATLA]