Near the centre of the platform, at a distance of eighty feet from the foot of the steps, is a square enclosure, consisting of two layers of stones, in which stands, in an oblique position, as if falling, or, perhaps, as if an effort had been made to throw it down, a large round stone, measuring eight feet above the ground and five feet in diameter.
This stone is striking for its uncouth and irregular proportions, and wants conformity with the regularity and symmetry of all around. From its conspicuous position, it doubtless had some important use, and, in connexion with other monuments found at this place, induces the belief that it was connected with the ceremonial rites of an ancient worship known to have existed among all Eastern nations. The Indians call this stone the Picote, or whipping-post.
At a distance of sixty feet in a right line beyond this was a rude circular mound, about six feet high. We had used it as a position from which to take a Daguerreotype view of the front of the building, and, at the instance of the Cura Carillo, who came to pay us a visit, we determined to open it. It was a mere ma.s.s of earth and stones; and, on digging down to the depth of three or four feet, a sculptured monument was discovered, which is represented in the engraving that follows. It was found standing on its feet, in the position represented in the engraving. It is carved out of a single block of stone, and measures three feet two inches in length and two feet in height. It seems intended to represent a double-headed cat or lynx, and is entire with the exception of one foot, which is a little broken. The sculpture is rude. It was too heavy to carry away. We had it raised to the side of the mound for Mr. Catherwood to draw, and probably it remains there still. The _picote_, or great stone, before referred to, appears in the engraving in the distance.
[Engraving 14: Double-headed Lynx]
Why this monument had been consigned to the strange place in which it was discovered we were at a loss to conjecture. This could never have been its original destination. It had been formally and deliberately buried. In my opinion, there is but one way of accounting for it. It had been one of the many idols worshipped by the people of Uxmal; and the probability is, that when the inhabitants abandoned the city they buried it, that it might not be desecrated; or else the Spaniards, when they drove out the inhabitants and depopulated the city, in order to destroy all the reverential feelings of the Indians toward it, followed the example of Cortez at Cholula, and threw down and buried the idols.
At a distance of 130 feet from this mound was a square stone structure, six feet high and twenty feet at the base, in which we made an excavation, and discovered two sculptured heads, no doubt intended as portraits.
From the centre of this great platform a grand staircase 130 feet broad, which once contained 35 steps, rises to the third terrace, on which the building stands; besides this there is no staircase connected with either of the three terraces, and the only ascent to the platform of the second is by an inclined plane 100 feet broad, at the south end of the building, which makes it necessary for all approaching from the north to pa.s.s the whole length of the lower terrace, and, ascending by the inclined plane, go back to reach the steps. The probability is, that the labour of this was not regarded by the ancient inhabitants, and that all visiters or residents in the building pa.s.sed in and out on the shoulders of Indians in coches, as the rich do now.
[Engraving 15: House of the Turtles]
There remains to be noticed one important building on the grand platform of the second terrace. It stands at the northwest corner, and is represented in the plate opposite. It is called the Casa de las Tortugas, or the House of the Turtles, which name was given to it by a neighbouring cura, from a bead or row of turtles which goes round the cornice, indicated in the engraving.
This building is 94 feet in front and 34 feet deep, and in size and ornaments contrasts strikingly with the Casa del Gobernador. It wants the rich and gorgeous decoration of the former, but is distinguished for its justness and beauty of proportions, and its chasteness and simplicity of ornament. Throughout there is nothing that borders on the unintelligible or grotesque, nothing that can shock a fastidious architectural taste; but, unhappily, it is fast going to decay. On our first visit Mr. Catherwood and myself climbed to the roof, and selected it as a good position from which to make a panoramic sketch of the whole field of ruins. It was then trembling and tottering, and within the year the whole of the centre part had fallen in. In front the centre of the wall is gone, and in the rear the wooden lintel, pressed down and broken in two, still supports the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s, but it gave us a nervous feeling to pa.s.s under it. The interior is filled up with the ruins of the fallen roof.
This building, too, has the same peculiar feature, want of convenient access. It has no communication, at least by steps or any visible means, with the Casa del Gobernador, nor were there any steps leading to the terrace below. It stands isolated and alone, seeming to mourn over its own desolate and ruinous condition. With a few more returns of the rainy season it will be a ma.s.s of ruins, and perhaps on the whole continent of America there will be no such monument of the purity and simplicity of aboriginal art.
Such is a brief description of the Casa del Gobernador, with its three great terraces, and the buildings and structures upon the grand platform of the second. From the place which we had fixed upon as our residence, and the constant necessity of ascending and descending the terraces, it was with these that we became the soonest familiar. The reader will be able to form some idea of the subjects that engaged our attention, and the strange spectacle that we had constantly before our eyes.
CHAPTER IX.
Journey to Jalacho.--Execrable Roads.--Sight of Ruins at Sennisacal.--A motley Mult.i.tude.--Village of Becal.--The Cura.--Breakfast.--Ruins.--Arrival at Jalacho.--A great Fair.--Fete of Santiago.--Miracles.--Figure of St. James.--Bull-fight and Bull-fighters.--Horse-market.--Scenes in the Plaza.--Gambling.---Primitive Circulating Medium.--A Memorial of Home.--A Ball.--Search for Ruins.--Hacienda of Sijoh.--Mounds of Ruins.--Remarkable Stones.--A long Edifice.--Hacienda of Tankuche.--More Ruins.--A plastered Wall covered with Paintings.--Annoyance from Garrapatas.--Return to the Village.--Ball.--Fireworks.--Condition of the Indians.
Having made such advances in the clearing that Mr. Catherwood had abundance of occupation, on Thursday, the 18th of November, I set out, under the guidance of the mayoral, on an excursion to meet Don Simon Peon at the fair of Jalacho, and visit some ruins on another hacienda of his in that neighbourhood. We started at half past six, our course being west by north. At ten minutes past seven we crossed a _serrania_ or range of hills, about a hundred and fifty feet high, and came down upon an extensive savanna of low, flat land, a mere cane-brake. The road was the worst I had found in the country, being simply a wet and very muddy path for mules and horses to the fair. My horse sunk up to his saddle-girths, and it was with great exertion that he dragged himself through. Every moment I had fear of his rolling over in the mud, and in some places I was strongly reminded of the _malos pasos_ in Central America. Occasionally the branches were barely high enough to allow mules to pa.s.s, and then I was obliged to dismount, and trudge through the mud on foot. At eight o"clock we came to an open savanna, and saw a high mound with ruins on the top, bearing south, about a mile distant. It was called, as the mayoral said, Senuisacal. I was strongly tempted to turn aside and examine it, but, on account of the thickness of the cane-brake and the mud, it would have been impossible to reach it, and the mayoral said that it was entirely in ruins.
In half an hour we came into a clear and open country, and at ten we entered the camino real for Jalacho, a broad and open road, pa.s.sable for calesas. Up to this time we had not seen a single habitation or met a human being, and now the road was literally thronged with people moving on to the fair, with whose clean garments my mud-stained clothes contrasted very unfavourably. There were Indians, Mestizoes, and white people on horseback, muleback, and on foot, men, women, and children, many carrying on their backs things to sell, in petaquillas, or long baskets of straw; whole families, sometimes half a village moving in company; and I fell in behind a woman perched on a loaded horse, with a child in her arms, and a little fellow behind, his legs stretched out nearly straight to span the horse"s flanks, and both arms clasping her substantial body to keep himself from slipping off. We pa.s.sed parties sitting in the shade to rest or eat, and families lying down by the roadside to sleep, without any fear of molestation from the rest.
At half past eleven we reached the village of Becal, conspicuous, like all the others, for a large plaza and church with two towers. In the suburbs the mayoral and I interchanged sentiments about breakfast, and, after making a circle in the plaza, he struck off direct for the house of the cura. I do not think the cura could have been expecting me, but if so, he could not have provided a better breakfast, or at shorter notice. Besides the breakfast, the cura told me of ruins on his hacienda which he had never visited, but which he promised to have cleared away and be ready to show me on my return. Circ.u.mstances occurred to prevent my returning by the same road, but the cura, having had the ruins cleared away, visited them himself and I afterward heard that I had lost something by not seeing them. I took leave of him with the buoyancy of old times, breakfast secured, and a prospect of another ruined city.
In an hour I reached Jalacho, where I met Don Simon and two of his brothers, with whom I was not yet acquainted; Don Lorenzo, who had a hacienda in that neighbourhood, and Don Alonzo, then living in Campeachy, who was educated in New-York, and spoke English remarkably well.
The village of Jalacho lies on the main road from Merida to Campeachy, and, next to that of Yzamal, its fair is the greatest in Yucatan, while in some respects it is more curious. It is not attended by large merchants with foreign goods, nor by the better cla.s.ses from Merida, but it is resorted to by all the Indians from the haciendas and villages. It is inferior in one respect: gambling is not carried on upon so large a scale as at Yzamal.
The time was when all countries had their periodical fairs; but the changed and improved condition of the world has almost abolished this feature of ancient times. Increased facilities of communication with foreign countries and different parts of the same country make opportunities for buying and selling an every-day thing; and at this day, in general throughout Europe, for all articles of necessity, and even of luxury, every man has, as it were, a fair every day at his own door. But the countries in America subject to the Spanish dominion have felt less sensibly, perhaps, than any others in the world, the onward impulse of the last two centuries, and in them many usages and customs derived from Europe, but there long since fallen into oblivion, are still in full force. Among them is this of holding fairs, of which, though several took place during the time of my journey in Central America, I had no opportunity of seeing any.
The fair of Jalacho was an observance of eight days, but the first two or three were marked only by the arrival of scattering parties, and the business of securing places to live in and to display wares. The great gathering or high change did not begin till Thursday, which was the day of my arrival, and then it was computed that there were a.s.sembled in the village ten thousand persons.
Of all this crowd the plaza was the grand point of concentration.
Along the houses fronting it was a range of tables set out with looking-gla.s.ses in frames of red paper, rings and necklaces, cotton, and toys and trinkets for the Indians. On the opposite side of the street, along the square of the church, were rustic arbours, occupied by venders having similar commodities spread before them. The plaza was part.i.tioned, and at regular intervals was a merchant, whose shop was a rude stick fixed upright in the ground, and having another crosswise at the top, covered with leaves and twigs, thus forming a sort of umbrella, to protect its sitting occupant from the sun. These were the merchants of dulces and other eatables. This part of the fair was constantly crowded, and perhaps nine tenths were Indians from the pueblos and haciendas around. Don Simon Peon told me that he had entered on his books a hundred and fifty _criados_, or servants, who had applied to him for money, and he did not know how many more were present.
It may be supposed that the church was not uninterested in this great gathering. In fact, it was the fete of Santiago, and among the Indians this fiesta was identified with the fair. The doors of the church were constantly open, the interior was thronged with Indians, and a crowd continually pressing to the altar. In the doorway was a large table covered with candles and small figures of arms and legs in wax, which the Indians purchased as they entered at a medio apiece, for offerings to the saint. Near the altar, on the left, sat an unshaved ministro, with a table before him, on which was a silver waiter, covered with medios, reales, and two shilling pieces, showing to the backward what others had done, and inviting them to do the same. The candles purchased at the door had been duly blessed, and as the Indians went up with them, a strapping negro, with linen particularly dirty, received and lighted them at one burning on the altar, whence with his black hands he pa.s.sed them on to a rusty white a.s.sistant, who arranged them upon a table, and, even before the backs of the offerers were turned, puffed out the light, and took the candles to be smoothed over, and resold at the door for another medio each.
High above the heads of the crowd, catching the eye on first entering the church, was the figure of Santiago, or Saint James, on horseback, holy in the eyes of all who saw it, and famed for its power of working miracles, healing the sick, curing the fever and ague, insuring to prospective parents a boy or girl as desired, bringing back a lost cow or goat, healing a cut of the machete, or relieving from any other calamity incident to an Indian"s lot. The fore feet of the horse were raised in the air, and the saint wore a black c.o.c.ked hat, with a broad gold band, a short mantle of scarlet velvet, having a broad gold edging round the cape and skirts, green velvet trousers, with a wide gold stripe down the sides, and boots and spurs. All the time I stood there, and every time I went into the church, men, women, and children were pressing forward, struggling with each other to kiss the foot of the saint. The simple Indian, as the first act of devotion, led up his whole family to do this act of obeisance. The mother lifted her sucking child, and pressed its lips, warm from her breast, against the foot of the bedizened statue.
In the afternoon commenced the first bull-fight. The _toreadores_, or bull-fighters, all lived at the house opposite ours, and from it the procession started. It was headed by a wrinkled, squint-eyed, bandy-legged Indian, carrying under his arm the old Indian drum, and dancing grotesquely to his own music; then followed the band, and then the gallant picadores, a cut-throat looking set of scoundrels, who, imagining themselves the admiration, were the contempt of the crowd.
The Plaza de Toros was on one side of the square of the plaza, and, like that in the square of the church of San Cristoval, was constructed of poles and vines, upright, intwining and interlaced, tottering and yielding under pressure, and yet holding together firmly. In the centre was a pole, on the top of which flourished the Mexican eagle, with outspread wings, holding in his beak a scroll with the appropriate motto, "Viva la Republica de Yucatan," and strings extended like radii to different parts of the boxes, wrapped with cut and scolloped papers fluttering in the wind. On one side of the ring was a pole with a wooden beam, from which hung, by strings fastened to the crown of an old straw hat, two figures stuffed with straw, with grotesque masks and ludicrous dresses. One was very narrow in the shoulders and very broad below, and his trousers were b.u.t.toned behind.
The toros, fallen into disrepute in the capital, is still the favourite and national amus.e.m.e.nt in the pueblos. The animal tied to the post when we entered was from the hacienda of the senote, which was famed for the ferocity of its bulls. The picadores, too, were fiercer than those in the capital, and the contests were more sanguinary and fatal. Several times the bulls were struck down, and two, reeking with blood, were dragged off by the horns, dead; and this was in the presence of women, and greeted with their smiles and approbation: a disgusting and degrading spectacle, but as yet having too strong a hold upon popular feeling to be easily set aside. The entertainment was got up at the expense of the village, and all who could find a place had liberty to enter.
This over, there was an interval for business, and particularly for visiting the horse-market, or rather a particular section to which dealers sent their horses to be exhibited. I was more interested in this than any other branch of commerce carried on at the fair, as I wished to purchase horses for our journey. There were plenty of them, though, as in all other sections of the country, but few fine ones.
Prices varied from ten dollars to two hundred, the value depending, not upon bone, blood, or muscle, but upon training and paces. The young hacienda horses, with nothing but the trot, or trotones, as they were called, were worth from ten dollars to twenty-five, but as they excelled in pace or easiness of movement their value increased. No one pretends to ride a trotting horse in Yucatan, for he who does labours under the imputation of not being able to purchase a pacer. The finest horses in the country in appearance are those imported; but the Yucatan horses, though small, are remarkably hardy, require no care, and endure an extraordinary degree of fatigue.
Night came on, and the plaza was alive with people and brilliant with lights. On one side, opposite the church, along the corridors of the houses and in front of them, were rows of tables, with cards and dice, which were very soon crowded with players, whites and Mestizoes; but the great scene of attraction was the gathering of Indians in the centre of the plaza. It was the hour of supper, and the small merchants had abundant custom for their eatables. Turkeys which had stood tied by one leg all day, inviting people to come and eat them, were now ready, of which for a medio two men had a liberal allowance; and I remarked, what I had heard of, but had not seen before, that grains of cacao circulated among the Indians as money. Every merchant or vender of eatables, the most of whom were women, had on the table a pile of these grains, which they were constantly counting and exchanging with the Indians. There is no copper money in Yucatan, nor any coin whatever under a medio, or six and a quarter cents, and this deficiency is supplied by these grains of cacao. The medio is divided into twenty parts, generally of five grains each, but the number is increased or decreased according to the quant.i.ty of the article in the market, and its real value. As the earnings of the Indians are small, and the articles they purchase are the mere necessaries of life, which are very cheap, these grains of cacao, or fractional parts of a medio, are the coin in most common use among them. The currency has always a real value, and is regulated by the quant.i.ty of cacao in the market, and the only inconvenience, economically speaking, that it has, is the loss of a certain public wealth by the destruction of the cacao, as in the case of bank notes. But these grains had an interest independent of all questions of political economy, for they indicate or ill.u.s.trate a page in the history of this unknown and mysterious people. When the Spaniards first made their way into the interior of Yucatan, they found no circulating medium, either of gold, or silver, or any other species of metal, but only grains of cacao; and it seemed a strange circ.u.mstance, that while the manners and customs of the Indians have undergone an immense change, while their cities have been destroyed, their religion dishonoured, their princes swept away, and their whole government modified by foreign laws, no experiment has yet been made upon their currency.
In the midst of this strange scene, there was a stir at one end of the plaza, and an object presented itself that at once turned my thoughts and feelings homeward. It was a post-coach, from a Troy factory, exactly like those seen on every road in our country, but it had on the panel of the door "La Diligencia Campechana." It was one of the line of diligences between Campeachy and Merida, and just arrived from the former place. It came up on a run, drawn by wild, uncombed horses, not yet broken to the bit, and with their b.r.e.a.s.t.s galled and raw from the pressure of the collar. It had nine inside, and had an aspect so familiar that, as the door opened, I expected to see acquaintances get out; but all spoke a foreign tongue, and instead of being welcomed to supper or bed by an officious landlord and waiter, all inquired anxiously where they could get something to eat and a place to sleep in.
Leaving them to do as well as they could, we went to the baile or ball.
In front of the quartel was a rustic arbour, enclosed by a temporary railing, with benches and chairs arranged around the sides, and the centre cleared for dancing. Until I saw them collected together, I did not suppose that so many white persons were present at the fair, and, like the men at the gambling-table, and the Indians in the plaza, these seemed to forget that there was any other party present than themselves. In this obliviousness I sympathized, and slipping into an easy arm-chair, from the time of my drag through the mud in the morning I had not so quiet and comfortable a moment, in which condition I remained until awakened by Don Simon.
The next day was a repet.i.tion of the same scenes. In the afternoon, at the bull-fight, I fell into conversation with a gentleman who sat next to me, and who gave me information of some antiquities in Maxcanu, a village four leagues distant. That I might take this place on my return to Uxmal, it was advisable to visit the ruins on Don Simon"s hacienda the next day. Don Simon could not go with me until after the fair, and amid the great concourse of Indians it was difficult to find one who could serve as a guide.
It was not till eleven o"clock the next day that I was able to set out, and I had as a guide a major domo of another hacienda, who, being, as I imagined, vexed at being obliged to leave the fiesta, and determined to get me off his hands as soon as possible, set out at a swinging trot.
The sun was scorching, the road broad, strait, and stony, and without a particle of shade, but in forty minutes, both considerably heated, we reached the hacienda of Sijoh, two leagues distant.
This hacienda belonged to a brother of Don Simon, then resident in Vera Cruz, and was under the latter"s charge. Here my guide pa.s.sed me over into the hands of an Indian, and rode back as fast as he could to the fair. The Indian mounted another horse, and, continuing a short distance on the same road through the lands of the hacienda, we turned off to the right, and in five minutes saw in the woods to our left, near the road, a high mound of ruins of that distinctive character once so strange, but now so familiar to me, proclaiming the existence another unknown, nameless, desolate, and ruined city.
We continued on to another mound nearer than the first, where we dismounted and tied our horses to the bushes. This mound was a solid ma.s.s of masonry, about thirty feet high, and nearly square. The stones were large, one at the corner measuring six feet in length by three in width, and the sides were covered with thorns and briers. On the south side was a range of steps still in good condition, each fifteen inches high, and in general three feet long. On the other sides the stones rose in a pyramidal form, but without steps. On the top was a stone building, with its wall as high as the cornice standing. Above this the facade had fallen, but the ma.s.s of stone and mortar which formed the roof remained, and within the apartment was precisely like the interior of the buildings at Uxmal, having the same distinctive arch. There were no remains of sculpture, but the base of the mound was enc.u.mbered with fallen stones, among which were some about three feet long, dug out so as to form a sort of trough, the same as we had seen at Uxmal, where they were called pilas or fountains.
Leaving this, we returned through the woods to the mound we had first seen. This was perhaps sixty feet high, and was a mere ma.s.s of fallen stone. Whatever it might have been, its features were entirely lost, and but for the structure I had just seen, and the waste of ruins in other parts of the country, it might have seemed doubtful whether it had ever been formed according to any plan or rules of art. The ma.s.s of stone was so solid that no vegetation could take root upon it; its sides were bare and bleached, and the pieces, on being disturbed, slid down with a metallic sound like the ringing of iron. In climbing up I received a blow from a sliding stone, which nearly carried me back to the bottom, for the moment completely disabled me, and from which I did not entirely recover until some time afterward.
From the top of this mound I saw two others of nearly the same height, and, taking their direction with the compa.s.s, I descended and directed my steps toward them. The whole ground was covered with trees and a thick undergrowth of brush and thorn-bushes. My Indian had gone to lead the horses round to another road. I had no machete, and though the mounds were not far distant, I was excessively scratched and torn in getting to them. They were all ruined, so that they barely preserved their form. Pa.s.sing between these, I saw beyond three others, forming three angles of a patio or square; and in this patio, rising above the thorn-bushes and briers, were huge stones, which, on being first discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, actually startled me. At a distance they reminded me of the monuments of Copan, but they were even more extraordinary and incomprehensible. They were uncouth in shape, and rough as they came from the quarry. Four of them were flat; the largest was fourteen feet high, and measured toward the top four feet in width, and one and a half in thickness. The top was broader than the bottom, and it stood in a leaning posture, as if its foundation had been loosened. The others were still more irregular in shape, and it seemed as if the people who erected them had just looked out for the largest stones they could lay their hands on tall or short, thick or thin, square or round, without regard to anything except bulk. They had no beauty or fitness of design or proportion, and there were no characters upon them. But in that desolation and solitude they were strange and striking, and, like unlettered headstones in a churchyard, seemed to mark the graves of unknown dead.
On one of the mounds, looking down upon this patio, was a long building, with its front wall fallen, and leaving the whole interior exposed to view. I climbed up to it, but saw only the remains of the same narrow corridor and arch, and on the wall were prints of the red hand. The whole country was so overgrown that it was impossible to form any idea of what its extent had been, but one thing was certain, a large city had once stood here, and what its name was no man knew.
At this time my visit was merely intended as preliminary, for the purpose of judging whether there were any subjects for Mr. Catherwood"s pencil, and it was now about one o"clock. The heat was intense, and sweating and covered with briers and burrs, which stuck to every part of my clothes, I came out into the open road, where my Indium was waiting for me with the horses. We mounted immediately, and continued on a gallop to the hacienda of Tankuche, two leagues distant.
This hacienda was a favourite with Don Simon, as he had created it out of the wilderness, and the entire road from the village he had made himself. It was a good logwood country, and here he had erected machinery for extracting the dye. In general, it was the most busy place of all his haciendas, but this day it seemed as if a desolating scourge had swept over it. The huts of the Indians were closed and locked up; no barebodied children were playing around them, and the large gate was locked. We tied our horses by one of the panels, and, ascending by a flight of stone steps, entered the lane and walked up to the house. Every door was locked, and not a person in sight. Moving on to the high stone structure forming the platform of the well, I saw a little boy, dressed in a straw hat, dozing on an old horse, which was creeping round with the well-beam, drawing in broken buckets a slow stream of water, for which no one came. At sight of me he rose from the neck of his horse, and tried to stop him, but the old animal seemed so used to going round that he could not stop, and the little fellow looked as if he expected to be going till some one came to take him off. All had gone to the fiesta, and were now swelling the great crowd I had left in the village. It was an immense change from the thronged fair to the solitude of this desolate hacienda. I sat down under a large seybo tree overshadowing the well, and ate a roll of bread and an orange, after which I strolled back to the gate, and, to my surprise, found only one horse. My guide had mounted his and returned to his hacienda. I walked into the factory, returned to the well, and attempted speech with the boy, but the old horse started forward and carried him away from me; I lay down on the platform of the well; the creaking of the beam served as a sort of lullaby and I had made such progress that I was not very eager to be interrupted, when an Indian lad arrived, who had been hunted up by my missing guide, and directed to show me the ruins. This fact, however, he would not have been able to communicate, but, fortunately, he was accompanied by an Indian who spoke Spanish. The latter was an intelligent, middle-aged man, of highly respectable appearance, but Don Simon told me he was the worst fellow on the hacienda. He was desperately in love with a girl who did not live on the estate, and he was in the habit of running away to visit her, and of being brought back with his arms tied behind him; as a punishment for a late offence of this kind, he had been prohibited from going to the fiesta. Through him I had an understanding with my new guide, and set out again.
In five minutes after leaving the hacienda, we pa.s.sed between two mounds of ruins, and, from time to time having glimpses of other vestiges in the woods, in twenty minutes we came to a mound about thirty feet high, on the top of which was a ruined building. Here we dismounted, tied our horses, and ascended the mound. The whole of the front wall had fallen, together with the front half of the arch; the interior chamber was filled with dirt and rubbish nearly up to the cornice, and the arch of the back wall was the only part above ground; but this, instead of being of smooth stones, like all the others we had seen in Yucatan, was plastered and covered with paintings, the colours of which were still bright and fresh. The princ.i.p.al colours were red, green, yellow, and blue, and at first the lines and figures seemed so distinct, that I thought I could make out the subjects. The apartment being filled up with dirt, I stood above the objects, and it was only by sitting, or rather lying down, that I could examine them. One subject at first sight struck me as being a representation of the mask found at Palenque. I was extremely desirous to get this off entire, but found, by experiments upon other parts of the plaster with the machete, that it would be impossible to do so, and left it untouched.
In the interest of the work, I did not discover that thousands of garrapatas were crawling over me. These insects are the scourge of Yucatan, and altogether they were a more constant source of annoyance and suffering than any we encountered in the country. I had seen something of them in Central America, but at a different season, when the hot sun had killed off the immensity of their numbers, and those left had attained such a size that a single one could easily be seen and picked off. These, in colour, size, and numbers, were like grains of sand. They disperse themselves all over the body, get into the seams of the clothes, and, like the insect known among us as the tick, bury themselves in the flesh, causing an irritation that is almost intolerable. The only way to get rid of them effectually is by changing all the clothes. In Uxmal we had not been troubled with them, for they are said to breed only in those woods where cattle pasture, and the grounds about Uxmal had been used as a milpa, or plantation of corn. It was the first time I had ever had them upon me in such profusion, and their presence disturbed most materially the equanimity with which I examined the paintings. In fact I did not remain long on the ground.
It is particularly unfortunate that, while so many apartments have remained free, this most curious and interesting one has become filled up. It is probable that the walls, as well as the arch, are plastered and painted. It would have cost a week"s labour to clear it out, and my impression was, that, in consequence of the dirt having been piled up against the walls for an unknown length of time, through a long succession of rainy seasons, the colours were so completely effaced that nothing would have been discovered to compensate for the labour.
It was now nearly dark. My day"s work had been a severe one. I was tired and covered with garrapatas, but the next day was Sunday, the last of the fiesta, and I determined on returning to the village that night. There was a brilliant moonlight, and, hurrying on, at eleven o"clock I saw, at the end of a long straight road, the illuminated front of the church of Jalacho. Very soon, amid the shining lights and congregated thousands, I forgot desolations and ruins, and my sympathies once more moved with the living. I pa.s.sed by the tables of the gamblers, worked my way through the plaza and through a crowd of Indians, who fell back in deference to the colour of my skin, and, unexpectedly to my friends, presented myself at the baile. This time I had no disposition to sleep. For the last night of the fiesta the neighbouring villages had sent forth their all; the ball was larger and gayer of whites and those in whose veins white blood ran, while outside, leaning upon the railing, looking in, but not presuming to enter, were close files of Indians, and beyond, in the plaza, was a dense ma.s.s of them--natives of the land and lords of the soil, that strange people in whose ruined cities I had just been wandering, submitting quietly to the dominion of strangers, bound down and trained to the most abject submission, and looking up to the white man as a superior being. Could these be the descendants of that fierce people who had made such b.l.o.o.d.y resistance to the Spanish conquerors?
At eleven o"clock the ball broke up and fireworks were let off from the bal.u.s.trade of the church. These ended with the national piece of El Castillo, and at twelve o"clock, when we went away, the plaza was as full of Indians as at midday. At no time since my arrival in the country had I been so struck with the peculiar const.i.tution of things in Yucatan. Originally portioned out as slaves, the Indians remain as servants. Veneration for masters is the first lesson they learn, and these masters, the descendants of the terrible conquerors, in centuries of uninterrupted peace have lost all the fierceness of their ancestors.
Gentle, and averse to labour themselves, they impose no heavy burdens upon the Indians, but understand and humour their ways, and the two races move on harmoniously together, with nothing to apprehend from each other, forming a simple, primitive, and almost patriarchal state of society; and so strong is the sense of personal security, that, notwithstanding the crowds of strangers, and although every day Don Simon had sat with doors open and piles of money on the table, so little apprehension was there of robbery, that we slept without a door or window locked.