COMALCALCO.

Description of Comalcalco—Fonda—Manners—Climate—Masks and Figures—Ruins—El Blasillo—Old Palaces Visited—Bricks and Bridges—Cemented Roads—Great Pyramid and its Monuments—Palace Described—Vases and Jicaras—Tecomates—Towers—Bas-reliefs—Small Pyramids and Temples—Reflexions—Disappearance of Indian Populations—Return to S. Juan—Don Candido—El Carmen—A Rich Wood-cutter.

The road from ParaÏso to Comalcalco is no road at all, a veritable “Slough of Despond,” in which our horses sink to the hocks, sometimes to the girths, but as the natives see nothing to find fault in it, there is little hope of improvement. The road follows the course of Rio Seco, ancient Tabasco to our right, and three hours’ march brings us to Comalcalco, a little modern town situated on an island of the river, some ninety miles north-west of S. Juan Bautista, and twenty-four, as a bird flies, from the seaboard. The place, including the outskirts, numbers some two thousand inhabitants; the streets are straight, the houses low and built with bricks. The banks of the lagoons are clad with thick long grass, in which naked urchins and ducks innumerable seem to luxuriate all day long, alternating with plunges into the water, puffing at cigars nearly as big as themselves. Comalcalco is the very Elysium of life for both ducks and urchins.

Our “fonda” is not exactly luxurious, but the civility of the people, and the excellent cooking of our hostess, a handsome woman of five-and-twenty, combine to make life bearable. True, our beds are not water-proof, for the water gets in every time it rains, whilst the quacking of the ducks awakes us twenty times of a night; but as this seems to be the normal state of things, as nobody appears to mind, it behoves us not to be over fastidious in a country in which things are taken mighty easy. Salt, owing to the excessively damp climate, is liquid, and served in bottles. The terrible Norte is nearly as much felt here as in Vera Cruz; it brings invariably persistent rain, waterspouts, trebunadas, and frightful squalls. My camera has created a furore in this out-of-the-way place, and we are besieged all day with people wanting their portraits taken, to the delight of our “tendero”; meanwhile valuable time is spent in explanations and refusals before we can rid ourselves of these simple, troublesome people. No sooner, however, did our mission become known, than everybody was eager to come as guides, and workmen were obtained with the greatest facility.

The local doctor speaks enthusiastically of the ruins lying some six miles north-east of this place, and about a mile and a half from the river. Masks, pottery, idols of the description found at Teotihuacan, have been brought to light; but what was deemed far more important by the natives, an inexhaustible mine of baked bricks of every size, with which the houses of the village have been built, and the main walk paved. When these excavations first began, statues, stones of sacrifice (indicative of later times), columns, huge flags, and cement were unearthed. Unfortunately the whole was destroyed by these ignorant people.

The ruins consist in groups of pyramids of different dimensions, so extensive as to cover twenty-four miles, and on this account are called the “Cordillera” by the natives. A country gentleman tells me that he has counted over three hundred of these artificial mounds on his own property, and that they were built with mud and baked bricks.

Besides these ruins others are to be met at Blasillo, situated on the Toltec march of migration, answering the description given by Bernal Diaz regarding Tonala. I hear from a montanero, who first discovered them, that an important Indian city formerly existed there, whose monuments, like those of Comalcalco, consist of caryatides, columns, and statues; but in this abominable weather it is utterly impossible to visit them. This city having the same origin, the same environment with Comalcalco, must have the same origin; and Toltec migration, Toltec civilising influence being admitted as well as proved, these two cities would be among the first built by them after their great migration, for the simple reason that they stand nearest their point of departure, as the most distant would mark their later settlements; and this our investigations will amply demonstrate.

We set out for the ruins, following for a time the right bank of the Rio Seco; then a path across fields, bordered with large yellow and red flowers. We notice to our right and left thick layers of cement, the remains of the old Indian road which connected the city with the river. We cross rivulets formerly spanned by bridges, of which bricks and a corbel vault are still visible.

On reaching the pyramid, we leave our horses and ascend with some difficulty the terrace surmounting it; we wander about in semi-darkness because of the rank vegetation which mantles over it. Our men clear it of the most obstructive trees, to facilitate its measurement: the shape of this pyramid is irregular, being 975 feet at the base, by some ninety-nine feet in height. Our plan gives the various monuments standing on its vast summit, measuring no less than 292 feet.

The principal monument (No. 3) was a great palace, the faÇade of which looked east and covered 231 feet, now reduced to a ruinous mass; fortunately a fragment of some twenty-two feet (No. 4) enables us to reconstruct the edifice. Our first drawing is a view of the outside, showing the dilapidated condition of the wall and its brick and mortar composition; the next a view of the interior, with fragments of thinner walls which divided the various apartments of the palace, probably seven or eight in number, of different dimensions, and having the same characteristics as the monuments at Uxmal and Palenque. It is the governor’s palace with its double bay of rooms, the slightly concave vault of Palenque; and if in our section of the palace a greater obliquity is observable, in the frieze supporting the roof, than in edifices of the same kind already known, or to be studied subsequently, this sloping finds here its proper place, and proves the intelligence of the builder without destroying the similarity of the different monuments. In fact, we shall see the roof assuming a steeper or less steep incline, according to the climate; slightly oblique at Palenque where rain is frequent, it rises in the Yucatan peninsula, where a dry climate prevails, until it forms a flat roof, resting on perpendicular walls; whereas at Comalcalco and on the borders of the Gulf, where rain is incessant, architects increase the slope of the roof to facilitate the out-flow of the water, the better to preserve their buildings.

If baked bricks mixed with thick layers of lime and mortar were substituted for stones, it is because none are to be found in that alluvial plain. As to the blocks necessary for the construction of columns, statues, altars, etc., they were brought by river from the mountains. But these modifications never destroy the typical outline of the Toltec calli, to be found in the chapter on Tula, and all the monuments which we shall meet with in our explorations will have the same type and the same architecture.

But to return. The walls of the palace were without any ornamentation, save a layer of smooth painted cement; they rose perpendicularly nine feet to a very projecting cornice, then sloping in a line parallel to the corbel vault, they terminated in a second cornice less salient than the first, both serving as frame to a frieze richly decorated, so far at least as could be ascertained from the fragments strewing the ground. Above this, towards the centre of the roof, rose a decorated wall, a peculiarly Toltec device, which existed already in the temples of the high plateaux, and which we shall observe in most structures, whether temples or palaces, terra-cotta models of which are to be found in the TrocadÉro.

The building, including the walls, measures some 26 feet, the walls are 3 feet 9 inches in thickness, the size of the apartments is about 8 feet, and the depth of the vault inside some 23 feet (see Plate). The palace was brightly painted, as may yet be seen in the north corner, which is of a deep red. The miscellaneous compound to be met at Tula and Teotihuacan is not observable here, where obsidian came from a great distance and was accordingly rare; pottery was consequently replaced by fruit-shells, which had the advantage of being more durable, cheaper, and lighter. These shells are worked into a variety of shapes differing in size and value: there are the jicaras, small cups, pure and simple; tecomates, large cups; atotoniles, cubiletes, cocos, etc.; then the jicara-flor, or half-shell cut crosswise; the most prized of all, the jicara-boton, half upper shell; the jicara-barba, or shell cut lengthwise. All these shells are given elegant shapes whilst growing on the tree, and when dry are ornamented with pretty devices either sunk or in relief. A calabash having a very large shell is also fashioned into a vase called atecomate by the Indians, and painted with fast colours of which the natives alone seem to have the secret.

But if few fragments were found in comparison with those unearthed on the high plateaux, I had the good fortune to pick up two bricks covered with curious sunk designs, most rare, for Pg 201
Pg 202
Pg 203they were the only two specimens I could find of the kind. A concentric drawing covers the first, whilst the second bears the full likeness of a warrior, with feathers about his head—it is a rude drawing which was done on the soft clay before it was baked. Both bricks are in the TrocadÉro.

Some 35 feet to the south-east of the palace, on a cemented platform over 26 feet broad by 38 feet long, is a tower (No. 1 in our plan) which is supported and bound by the roots of large trees surrounding it. It is oblong in shape, most picturesque, and, save the base, similar to that at Palenque. This tower has three storeys, of which two are still standing, and it may be assumed from what remains that the second storey was divided into four compartments or small rooms, the dimensions of which are the following: two inner rooms, of 5 feet 7 inches on one side, correspond to other two, and form a kind of outward passage, having three openings, which are separated by two pillars of 2 feet on one side. The first storey underneath reproduced probably the same distribution. We penetrated in the only accessible room, measuring some 8 feet by 5 feet 8 inches.

The ornamentation of this tower must have been gigantic; the fragment which was found among a heap of rubbish, and which we reproduce, is no less than 6 feet. The figures or characters seen on the wall, and which recall Arabic inscriptions, are over 3 feet high, and in strong relief. This was obtained by applications of freshly-made plaster—a process belonging to the first epoch, and which we shall meet at Palenque, Tikal, and particularly AkÉ and Izamal in the Yucatan peninsula.

Tower No. 2, some 32 feet to the south-east of the palace, is a ruinous mass, but must have been far more important than the first. Nothing remains save fragments of walls, so shapeless as to make it difficult to draw an approximate plan of the building. To the north, however, a flight of steps in fair preservation allows us to reconstruct the first storey. The four sides were probably similar, having doors opening on the stairs by which the terrace was reached, giving access to four rooms, now underground, of about 8 feet by 6 feet 8 inches. Our drawing gives the stairs and the entrance to one of the rooms. In this tower the ornamentation must have been as peculiar as that of No. 1, as shown by an enormous unbroken fragment of wall lying on the ground, representing the full-size figure of a man, whose fine proportions are very remarkable. The upper portion of the body, the fore-arm, and part of the leg are wanting; of the clothing nothing remains save the girdle and a bit on the thigh. The statue had presumably no other covering but the maxtli, as is the case at Palenque in the decoration of the inner wing of the palace.

ORNAMENTATION OF SOUTH-EAST TOWER, COMALCALCO.