And I whispered back, "If the secret things that folks worship to-day could be materialized, they would look enough sight worse than this."
Sez I, "How would the mammon of Greed look carved in stun, or the beast of Intemperance?"
"Oh!" sez he, "bring in your dum temperance talk everywhere, will you? I should think we wuz in a bad enough place here to let your ears rest, anyway."
"Wall," sez I, "then don"t run down folks that couldn"t answer back for ten thousand years."
But truly we wuz in a bad place, if humbliness is bad, for them idols did beat all, and then there wuz a almost endless display of amulets, charms, totems, and other things that they used to carry on their religious meetin"s with, or what they called religion.
And then we see some strange clay altars containin" cremated human bein"s.
Here Josiah hunched me agin--
"You feel dretful cut up if you hear any one speak aginst these old creeters, but what do you think of that?" sez he, a-pintin" to the burnt bodies. Sez he, "Most likely them bodies wuz victims that wuz killed on their dum altars--dum "em!"
"Yes," sez I, "but we of the nineteenth century slay two hundred thousand victims every year on the altar of Mammon, and Intemperance."
"Keep it up, will you--keep a preachin"!" sez he, and his tone wuz bitter and voyalent in the extreme.
And here he turned his back on me and went to examine some of the various games of all countries, such as cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, etc., etc.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Josiah turned his back on me.]
Which shows that in that savage age, as well as in our too civilized one, amus.e.m.e.nts wuz a part of their daily life.
Wall, it wuz all dretful interestin" to me, though Skairfulness wuz present with us, and goose pimples wuz abroad.
And out-doors the exhibit wuz jest as fascinatin".
Along the sh.o.r.es of the pond are grouped tribes of Indians from North America. They live in their primitive huts and tents, and there we see their rude boats and canoes. New York contributes a council house and a bark lodge once used by the once powerful Iroquois confederation.
And, poor things! where be they now? Pa.s.sed away. Their canoes have gone down the stream of Time, and gone down the Falls out of sight.
But to resoom.
Wall, seein" they wuz right there, we went to see the ruins of Yucatan--they wuz only a few steps away.
Now, I never had paid any attention to Yucatan. I had always seen it on the map of Mexico, a little strip of land a-runnin" out into the water, and washed by the waves on both sides. But, good land! I would have paid more attention to it if I had known that down deep under its forests, where they had lain for more than a thousand years, wuz the ruins of a vast city, with its castles and monuments wrought in marble, and fashioned with highest beauty and art.
Whose hands had wrought them marble columns, and carved facades?
The silence of a thousand years lays between my question and its true answer.
I can"t tell who they wuz, where they come from, or where they went to.
But the pieces of soulless stun remain for us to marvel over, when the livin" hands that wrought these have vanished forever.
Curious, very.
But mebby some magnetizm still hangs about them h.o.a.ry old walls that has the power to draw their founders from their new home, wherever it is now.
Mebby them old Yucatanners come down in a shadder sloop and lay off over aginst them ruins, and enjoy themselves first-rate.
Here too is the city of the Cliff Dwellers--the most wonderful city I ever see or ever expect to see. There towers up a mountain made to look exactly like Battle Mountain, where these ruins are found--the homes and abidin" place of a race so much older than the Mexican and Peru old ones that they seem like folks of last week--almost like babies.
The hull of these buildin"s which is called Cliff Palace is over two hundred feet long, and the rooms look pretty much all alike. They wuz round rooms mostly, with a hole in the floor for a fireplace, and stun seats a-runnin" clear round the room, and I"d a gin a dollar bill if I could a seen a-settin" in them seats the ones that used to set there--if I could seen "em sot down there in Jackson Park, and its marvels, and I could have hearn "em tell what Old World wonders they had seen, and what they had felt and suffered--the beliefs of that old time; the laws that governed "em, or that didn"t govern "em; their friends and their enemies; the strange animals that lurked round "em; the wonderful flowers and vegetation--in short, if I could a sot down and neighbored with "em, I would a gin, I believe my soul, as much as a dollar and thirty-five cents.
The rooms are about six feet high, and they wuz like me in one thing--they didn"t care so much for ornament as they did for solid foundation. The only ornament I see in any of the rooms wuz some kinder wavin" streaks of red paint. But, oh! how solid the housen wuz, how firm the underpinnin".
There wuz some stun towers and some winders, and oh! how I do wish I could seen what them Old Cliffers looked out on when they rested their arms on the stun winder sills and looked down on the deep valley below.
Children a-lookin" out for pleasure mebby; older ones a-lookin" for Happiness and Ambition like as not, the aged ones a-leanin" their tired arms on the hard stun, while the settin" sun lit up their white locks, and a-lookin" for rest.
The cliffs are a good many colors, and each a good-lookin" one.
One thing struck me in all the housen, and made me think that though the Cliff Dwellers wuz older than Abraham or Moses, yet if I could see some of them female Cliffers I could neighbor with "em like sisters.
They did love closets so well, and that made "em so congenial to me. I never had half closets enough, and I don"t believe any woman did if she would tell the truth.
There wuz sights of closets all closed up with good slab doors, some like grave-stuns.
I shouldn"t have liked that so well, to had to heave down that heavy slab every time that I wanted a teacup, but mebby they didn"t drink tea.
I spoze they kep their strange-lookin" pottery there, and I presoom the wimmen prided themselves on havin" more of them jars than a neighbor female Cliffer did. Then there are farmin" implements, and sandals, and leggins, and weapons, and baby boards--and didn"t I wish that I could ketch sight of one of them babies!
The bodies of the dead wuz wrapped in four different winders--first in fine cloth, then a robe of turkey feathers wove with Yucca fibre, then a mattin", and then a wrap made of reeds.
The mummies found wrapped in these grave-clothes are more perfect than any found in Egypt, the hot, dry air of Colorado a-doin" its best to keep folks alive, and then after they are dead, a-keepin" "em so as long as it can. There wuz one, a woman with pretty figure, and small hands and feet, and soft, light-colored hair. What wuz she a-thinkin" on as she done up that fore-top or braided that back hair?
Did any hand ever lay on that soft, shinin" hair in caresses? I presoom more than like as not there had. Her mother"s, anyway, and mebby a lover"s, sence the fashion of love is older than the pyramids enough sight--old as Adam, and before that Love wuz. For Love thought out the World.
By her side wuz a jar with some seeds in it--probable the hand of Love put it there to sustain her on her long journey.
Wall, the centuries have gone by sence she sot out for the Land of Sperits, but the seeds are there yet. She didn"t need "em.
These seeds are in good shape, but they won"t sprout. That shows plain how much older these mummies are than the Egyptian ones, for the seeds found by them will sprout and grow, but these are too old--the life in the seeds is gone, as well as the life in the dead forms by "em, centuries ago, mebby.
Wall, it wuz a sight--a sight to see that city, and then to see a-windin" up the face of the cliff the windin" trail, and the little burros a-climbin" up slowly from the valley, and the strange four-horned sheep of the Navago herds a-grazin" amongst the high rocks.
It wuz one of the most impressive sights of all the wonderful sights of the Columbus Fair, and so I told Josiah.
Wall, seein" we wuz right there, we thought we would pay attention to the Forestry Buildin".
And if I ever felt ashamed of myself, and mortified, I did there; of which more anon.
It wuz quite a big buildin", kinder long and low--about two and a half acres big, I should judge.
Every house has its peculiarities, the same as folks do, and the peculiar kink in this house wuz it hadn"t a nail or a bit of iron in it anywhere from top to bottom--bolts and pegs made of wood a-holdin" it together.