Alfred Percival Maudslay

The first historical notice of the Maya Indians comes to us from Columbus, who did not get in touch with the more civilized races of America until the end of his career as an explorer, and then by an unlucky chance he failed to follow up the clue. During his fourth voyage Columbus landed on Bonacca, one of the Ruatan group of islands lying about thirty miles from the northern coast of Honduras, and the story of his meeting with the Maya Indians is well told by Washington Irving:—

“The Adelantado, with two launches full of people, landed on the principal island, which was extremely verdant and fertile. The inhabitants resembled those of other islands, excepting that their foreheads were narrower. While the Adelantado was on shore, he beheld a great canoe arriving, as from a distant and important voyage. He was struck with its magnitude and contents. It was eight feet wide, and as long as a galley, though formed of the trunk of a single tree. In the centre was a kind of awning or cabin of palm-leaves, after the manner of those in the gondolas of Venice, and sufficiently close to exclude both sun and rain. Under this sat a cacique with his wives and children. Twenty-five Indians rowed the canoe, and it was filled with all kinds of articles of the manufacture and natural production of the adjacent countries. It is supposed that this bark had come from the province of Yucatan, which is about forty leagues distant from this island.

“The Indians in the canoe appeared to have no fear of the Spaniards, and readily went alongside of the admiral’s caravel. Columbus was overjoyed at thus having brought to him at once, without trouble or danger, a collection of specimens of all the important articles of this part of the New World. He examined, with great curiosity and interest, the contents of the canoe. Among various utensils and weapons similar to those already found among the natives, he perceived others of a much superior kind. There were hatchets for cutting wood, formed not of stone but copper; wooden swords, with channels on each side of the blade, in which sharp flints were firmly fixed by cords made of the intestines of fishes; being the same kind of weapon afterwards found among the Mexicans. There were copper bells, and other articles of the same metal, together with a rude kind of crucible in which to melt it; various vessels and utensils neatly formed of clay, of marble, and of hard wood; sheets and mantles of cotton, worked and dyed with various colors; great quantities of cacao, a fruit as yet unknown to the Spaniards, but which, as they soon found, the natives held in great estimation, using it both as food and money. There was a beverage also extracted from maize or Indian corn, resembling beer. Their provisions consisted of bread made of maize, and roots of various kinds, similar to those of Hispaniola. From among these articles, Columbus collected such as were important to send as specimens to Spain, giving the natives European trinkets in exchange, with which they were highly satisfied. They appeared to manifest neither astonishment nor alarm when on board of the vessels, and surrounded by people who must have been so strange and wonderful to them. The women wore mantles, with which they wrapped themselves, like the female Moors of Granada, and the men had cloths of cotton round their loins. Both sexes appeared more particular about these coverings, and to have a quicker sense of personal modesty than any Indians Columbus had yet discovered.

“These circumstances, together with the superiority of their implements and manufactures, were held by the admiral as indications that he was approaching more civilized nations. He endeavoured to gain particular information from these Indians about the surrounding countries; but as they spoke a different language from that of his interpreters, he could understand them but imperfectly. They informed him that they had just arrived from a country, rich, cultivated, and industrious, situated to the west. They endeavoured to impress him with an idea of the wealth and magnificence of the regions, and the people in that quarter, and urged him to steer in that direction. Well would it have been for Columbus had he followed their advice. Within a day or two he would have arrived at Yucatan; the discovery of Mexico and the other opulent countries of New Spain would have necessarily followed; the Southern Ocean would have been disclosed to him, and a succession of splendid discoveries would have shed fresh glory on his declining age, instead of its sinking amidst gloom, neglect, and disappointment.”

Intent on discovering a strait by which he might gain the southern sea, Columbus ignored the advice of the Indians to travel towards the west, and thus the discovery of Yucatan and Mexico was left to others.

In the year 1517 an expedition was organized in Cuba under the command of Francisco Hernandez de Cordova, for the purpose of discovering new lands to the westward, and among the volunteers who joined the expedition was that perfect type of the Spanish “conquistador,” Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who was the eye-witness of so many stirring events of those days, and whose delightful account of his adventures, dictated to his children in his old age, is one of the most valuable contributions to the history of the time. On leaving the west end of the island of Cuba the three vessels which carried the explorers were nearly lost in a severe storm, and it was not until the twenty-first day of the voyage that they made land near Cape Catoche, the north-east point of Yucatan. Here, for the first time, the Spaniards saw Indian houses built of stone; to quote Bernal Diaz, “From the ships we saw a great town about two leagues from the shore; as we had never seen in Cuba so great and populous a place we named it ‘El Gran Cairo.’” The natives, who came off to the vessels in large dug-out canoes, made friendly overtures to the Spaniards and induced them to land and march towards the town, but as soon as the Spaniards got into broken ground a treacherous attack was made on them, and they were forced to retreat and take refuge in their ships. The expedition then coasted along the north and west shore of Yucatan, until it reached the town of Campeche, when again men were landed, and this time met with a somewhat better reception from the natives. “They led us,” Bernal Diaz writes, “to some very large houses well built of stone and plaster, which were the sanctuaries of their Idols, where we saw figures of great serpents and other Idols carved and painted on the walls surrounding an altar which was drenched with blood still fresh.”

The next landing was made a little further down the coast at Champoton, where the explorers received such a rough handling from the Indians that only one of them escaped unhurt, and Hernandez de Cordova himself died of his wounds on the return voyage when within a few days’ sail of Cuba. Throughout the account of this expedition Bernal Diaz notes the bravery of the Indians, who fought the Spaniards hand to hand, and the excellence of their clothing, their arms, and their buildings. During the following year another expedition was despatched, under the command of Juan de Grijalva, who, also failing to make any headway against the natives of Yucatan, continued his voyage to the westward, discovered the coast of Mexico, and brought to light the riches of that country. The success of Grijalva’s expedition fully aroused the interest of the Spaniards, and it was immediately followed up in February 1519 by the far-famed expedition under the command of Hernan CortÉs, which resulted in the conquest of Mexico. CortÉs, like his predecessors, on leaving Cuba made for the coast of Yucatan, but after a stay of some days’ duration in the Island of Cozumel, he pushed on round the coast without delay to the mouth of the Tabasco River, where he fought a battle with the natives and took formal possession of the land in the name of the King of Spain. No attempt, however, was then made at colonization, and CortÉs re-embarked his soldiers and pressed on to the rich prize of Mexico. Five years later, after Mexico had been conquered, CortÉs returned to the province of Tabasco, and thence crossed the base of the peninsula of Yucatan in the course of his celebrated march to Honduras.

No effort was made to subdue the Mayas of Yucatan until the year 1528, when Francisco de Montejo, who had been appointed Adelantado of Yucatan, landed on the north-east coast with four hundred Spaniards and marched towards the interior. Unfortunately no contemporary record of this expedition is in existence, and we know little more than the fact that at the end of two years the Spaniards were driven from the country. It was not until the year 1540 that any further attempt was made at conquest; in that year Francisco de Montejo, the son of the Adelantado, marched inland from Campeche, and two years later founded the town of Merida, the present capital of the country, whilst his cousin, another Francisco de Montejo, marched to the eastward and founded a settlement at Chuaca, which a few years later was moved to the present site of the town of Valladolid. From this time forward the dominion of the Spaniards over the northern and western portions of Yucatan remained undisturbed, but they never succeeded in subduing the natives in the central and eastern part of the province, and the Santa Cruz Indians maintain their independence of the Mexican Government to the present day.

The northern part of Yucatan is little better than a coral-reef raised a few feet above sea-level, covered with a thin coating of earth which supports a scrubby growth not worthy of the name of forest. The sea around the coast is everywhere shallow, and to the northward the great Bank of Yucatan extends for more than eighty miles from the shore before the line of fifty fathoms is reached. We had drifted over the edge of this bank in a steamer with a broken shaft on my return from Guatemala in 1885, and found an anchorage in forty-five fathoms of water at a distance of over fifty miles from the land. The most curious fact about this strange country is the total absence of rivers and even of streamlets. The heavy rainfall soaks through the porous limestone rock and oozes out again along the northern coast-line. The water-supply of the inhabitants is found in deep caves or openings in the limestone, known as “’cenotes,” the Spanish form of a Maya word, which the reader will nearly approach by trying to pronounce “tznot” as a monosyllable[2].

With a low coast-line, a shallow sea, and an absence of rivers, follows a lack of good harbours; at Progreso there is merely an open roadstead, where the steamers anchor two miles from the shore, and at Campeche the conditions are much the same, only small vessels finding a little shelter by lying inside a raised coral bank.

On my voyages between Livingston and New Orleans I had frequently passed along the coast of Yucatan and had twice caught sight of the small ruined temple on the Island of Mugeres; but it was not until the winter of 1888-89 that I was able to set foot in the country with the purpose of examining some of the ruins, and I then chose ChichÉn ItzÁ as the site giving promise of the best results. There were disadvantages in thus breaking new ground, not the least of which was the absence of my faithful companions Gorgonio Lopez and his brothers, and I was well aware how greatly I should miss their assistance. Landing at Progreso on Christmas Eve I went on by rail, for a distance of about twenty-five miles, through a flat and uninteresting country to the city of Merida, and at once commenced preparations for the journey to ChichÉn.

I was soon to have experience of the inconvenience which may easily arise from the want of a good harbour, for the captain of the steamer carrying all my heavy baggage, encountering a heavy “norther” as he approached the port of Progreso, preferred the open sea to anchorage on a lee shore, and passed on to make the round of the gulf ports before returning to land my cargo at Progreso a fortnight later.

Merida, as described by Stephens, was a charming, old-fashioned, out-of-the-world, sleepy city, with a cultivated and hospitable upper class of Spaniards and a picturesque population of Mestizos and Indians. Merida, as I found it, was a modernized Spanish-American town in the throes of a “hemp” boom. The picturesqueness of the half-caste population remained, but there all the charm ended. There is only one product of the country which Europeans have found profit in cultivating for export, and that is the Agave rigida, a plant nearly related to the American aloe, which is known locally as “Henequen,” and produces a fibre that has become of considerable commercial importance under the name of “Sisal hemp.” It is to the increased demand for this fibre that at the time of my arrival the people of Yucatan owed a somewhat sudden access of riches. The rocky soil seems to suit the plant to perfection, the cultivation is simple and not very laborious, and cheap machinery had been devised for the extraction of the fibre from the leaves, so that for some time past it had been possible to sell the product at two cents a pound and leave a fair margin of profit. The henequen fibre is much inferior to that extracted from the stem of the banana and known as Manila hemp, but so small has the world become that a hurricane in Manila which destroyed the banana plants at once brought wealth to Yucatan. The loss of the Manila crop was accentuated by the increased demand for twine in North America for use in the reaping and binding machines which are so largely employed in harvesting the gigantic wheat-crop of the Western States, so that during my stay in Yucatan the price of henequen rose to thirteen cents a pound!

This was not a fortunate state of affairs for me, as I had need of many hands to help in clearing the ruins, and now that every proprietor was eager to increase the size of his henequen plantation, field-labourers were in great demand; I could only hope that as ChichÉn ItzÁ lay far from the centre of commercial activity, the villages in its neighbourhood might for some time yet escape the effects of the “boom.” I had been accustomed in Guatemala and Honduras to depend to a great extent on the assistance of the local officials in engaging labourers; but although, through the kindness of the English Minister, I had come with ample recommendations from the Mexican Government to the local authorities, I found that I could not look for the same favourable result in Yucatan, as the Indians are less under the control of officials than they are under that of a small number of powerful Spanish families who are all large land-holders. Although the status of slavery does not legally exist, custom is slow in dying, and the greater number of Indian labourers are still tied to the soil.

After a month of weary waiting in Merida, during which time the only pleasant episodes were a short visit to Mr. E. Thompson, the United States Consul, who was at work exploring the ruins at LabnÁ, and a day spent at the celebrated ruins of Uxmal, I was at last able to set out to the eastward, travelling the first day by rail, and then in a springless cart, known as a “volan coche,” to the town of Yzamal. This town occupies the site of an ancient Indian city, and the great pyramidal foundations which formerly supported the Maya temples are still the most prominent feature in the landscape.

At Yzamal I was most hospitably received by Dr. Gaumer, an American gentleman who has long been a collector of natural-history specimens for the Editors of the ‘Biologia Centrali-Americana,’ and to him and to Mrs. Gaumer I was indebted for numerous acts of kindness during my stay in the country. Thence I pushed on to the town of Valladolid, which, with the exception of Comitan in Honduras, I may safely say is the most dead-alive town it has ever been my fate to enter. Here I presented letters from the Government to the local authorities, and made the best arrangements I could effect for a supply of labourers. I then returned by the main road as far as ’Citas, and on the 6th February rode by a bush track to PistÉ, a small village about two miles distant from the ruins of ChichÉn ItzÁ.

When Stephens and Catherwood visited ChichÉn in 1842, a flourishing hacienda had been established among the ruins, and the ground was in part kept clear for pasturing cattle. A few years later, in 1847, the untamed Indians from the south made a raid into the settled portion of Yucatan, destroyed the hacienda at ChichÉn and the village of PistÉ and carried their ravages, I believe, as far as Yzamal. At the time of my visit the village of PistÉ had been partly re-occupied and some of the ruined houses had been rebuilt, but the large church was still roofless and the whole of the site of the ancient city, as well as the church and buildings of the Hacienda, was covered by a dense jungle.

For the first few days I put up in the house of Stephen, the village judge and far the most important person in the small community. He was a young man, well-built and athletic, with frank and pleasant manners, and a certain air of command about him which became him well; altogether he was a capital specimen of a half-caste yeoman. He was perhaps a little too fond of aguardiente, but he seemed to live a happy life in a somewhat patriarchal fashion. His legal wife (for there were some others in the background) was the mother of a most delightful boy, about four years old, a child who would have attracted attention in any part of the world for his robust beauty and his charming genial manners and fearless ways. The villagers adored this boy, and in return he lorded it over them royally; he never showed any shyness of me, and we became fast friends at once; he used to prattle away to me in Maya about all that was going on, although I could not understand a word of his language. I don’t think I ever met a child who attracted me so much, and it was hard to believe that he was related to the people around him, for he seemed to belong to some superior race.

I was able to engage a few men in PistÉ, and set them to work at once to clear the jungle around the principal buildings; at the end of a week I took up my quarters at the ruins themselves, in a building known as the Casa Colorada. Soon after my arrival in the country I had engaged a man named Pablo Parera as a general overseer, but he proved to be of very little use to me, and it was no great loss when, early in March, he begged a fortnight’s leave of absence, saying that he had received news that his mother was dying in Merida. He was very circumstantial about the doctor’s report on the lung trouble from which his mother was suffering, and at his earnest request I gave him the money for his journey and an order on my agent in Merida for a month’s pay in advance, as he expressed himself most anxious to return to me. Early the next morning he set out on his journey. It so happened that the next day I had to ride into Yzamal, a distance of about forty miles, on business, where I chanced to hear that my friend Pablo had passed a cheerful evening the night before, apparently quite forgetful of his dying mother, and, moreover, that he had boasted that he well understood how to manage me, and was going on to Merida to have a good time at the Carnival. Luckily I was just in time to send a telegram to my agent in Merida, and when Pablo walked into his office the next morning he learnt that the order for his payment had been cancelled; he wisely made no protest and I never heard of him again. I then gave up all hopes of finding another overseer and chose the most intelligent amongst the workmen to take charge of the tools and act as “caporal.” During the first few weeks all my labourers were men from PistÉ, and as they returned to their homes before dark, I was left to sleep in the ruins alone. For a few nights I paid one of the Indians an extra “real” to stop for the night; but as he could speak no Spanish, conversation was impossible, and the way he sat silently on the floor and followed my every movement with his eyes was worse than a nightmare, so I soon gave up the experiment, infinitely preferring the solitude of the ruins to his company.

In the beginning of March three local officials paid me a visit and stayed two days. They expressed great interest in the work I was doing and were most sympathetic over my troubles in engaging labourers; indeed, one of them, who was also editor of a newspaper, on his return home wrote a most flattering account of me. In a leading article he pointed out that my enterprise was one of national importance, in which every town and village in the neighbourhood should be proud to help. Unfortunately he failed to despatch the half-dozen soldiers whom he had been directed by his superior officer to send me from his own town; and I found that most of the alleged interest in my work and promises of assistance ended in the same way. However, by persistent application, by letter and in person, I managed for a time to worry a fair amount of assistance from the local officials, and secured the services of twenty or thirty Indian soldiers to clear bush, move the fallen stones, and dig away the earth which had accumulated round the base of the principal buildings.

PLAN OF THE RUINS OF CHICHÉN ITZÁ.

As usual, I had been laughed at by my acquaintances in Merida for bringing with me wheelbarrows and spades, being assured by them that the Indians would never be persuaded to use them. They told me that an Indian’s method of digging was to scrape a little earth together with his hands and, in a leisurely way, to ladle it into a small basket of plaited leaves or into his straw hat, if a basket were not at hand, and then to saunter off and empty the contents at a few yards distance. I must own that there was some difficulty in persuading newcomers that four men were not needed to take charge of one wheelbarrow, one to fill it half-full of earth and stones, and three to look on and see that the load was not unduly heavy, and then with a united effort to lift it by the wheel and two handles and carry it off bodily. I did once see an Indian load a wheelbarrow with a few stones, and (with the help of two friends to raise it up) carry off the loaded barrow on the top of his head. However, these vagaries were never indulged in for long, and as soon as they found that the wheels went round, and that their labour was lightened by the use of them, they always took kindly to the wheelbarrows. As the men went barefooted or wore thin sandals they could not work well with a spade, but they soon became skilful with a shovel. They are thoroughly accustomed to using hoes, and in handling a machete to clear jungle it would be difficult to find their equals.

Just before starting on my last journey to Yzamal, Stephen had come out to the ruins in a state of great distress to tell me that his boy had been ill for three or four days and that he feared that he was dying. I went in to see the poor little fellow as I passed through the village and found him in a pitiable state of fever and delirium. There was no doctor within forty miles, and there was nothing I could do for him beyond sending to my camp for a supply of beef-jelly and arrowroot in the hope of keeping up his strength; but I deeply regretted that I had not had earlier news of the child’s illness, when perhaps simple remedies might have been efficacious. As I rode into the village on my return from Yzamal a few days later, my first inquiry was for the boy, and I learnt that he had never rallied and had been buried that morning. Stephen came to me, looking haggard and wretched, and asked me to put up for the night in another house in the village, as his house was being prepared for a religious service. The whole village was grief-stricken, and two of the elders called on me to say that on behalf of all the villagers they had a favour to ask of me. They said that it was a great grief to them all that they possessed no portrait of Stephen’s son, and they proposed, if I was agreeable, to go at once and dig up the body so that I might take a photograph of it, and the appearance of one they loved so much would then never fade from their minds. Fortunately I could plead the excuse that I had no photographic plates ready for use, but it needed some tact to avoid hurting their feelings and a great deal of explanation before I could induce them to withdraw their ghastly request. Their distress was touching, and utterly unlike the usual callousness of the American native; but, as I have said, the child was possessed of exceptional beauty and charm of manner, and he had won his way to all their hearts.

Before dark I went over to Stephen’s house to see the unhappy mother, and found the house clean and ready for the service. The small table at which I had been accustomed to write was turned into an altar and covered with a white cloth; above this was fixed a crucifix, flanked, incongruously enough, by two glaring oleographs, one of a very dÉcolletÉe German damsel apparently singing the praises of lager-beer, whilst her companion on the other side of the crucifix was a sprightly Spanish girl who apparently preferred white wine. The altar itself was graced by half-a-dozen old beer-bottles with gaudy labels, filled with flowers. I was not bidden to the service, which Stephen must have conducted himself, as there was no priest within many miles, so, thinking they would prefer being left to themselves, I returned to my house. Stephen was clearly heart-broken over his loss, but I am sorry to say the proximate effect on him was a drinking-bout which lasted a fortnight.

In March Mr. Thompson paid me a short visit accompanied by Mr. H. Sweet, who had been assisting him in his work at LabnÁ. Mr. Sweet was about to return home to Boston, but he was much attracted by the work to be done at ChichÉn, and I exerted my powers of persuasion to the utmost to induce him to stay on with me. At last he promised that should the letters he expected to receive on his return to Merida enable him to prolong his stay in Yucatan, he would come back to pay me another visit. Not many days later to my great delight he rode into camp, and I secured a charming companion for the remainder of my stay at the ruins.

By the time Sweet arrived a considerable amount of clearing had been done, and I had shifted my quarters from the Casa Colorada to the building known as the “Casa de Monjas,” or the Nunnery. This is a fine structure, raised on a solid basement of masonry, 165 feet in length, 89 feet wide, and 35 feet high. A magnificent broad stairway of forty-nine steps leads to the level top of this basement, on which stands a house with eight chambers. One of the chambers had been filled in and sealed up so as to form a secure foundation to an upper story which is now in ruins; but the remainder were in good condition, and made a most comfortable lodging for us. The interior wall-surfaces had formerly been coated with plaster and covered with paintings; but of this decoration only a few fragments two or three inches square remained. The broad terrace around the house was on a level with the tree-tops, and our view extended over the forest-covered plain to the far horizon. To the southward, where no clearing had yet been made, the sea of verdure spread unbroken from our feet. During the lovely tropical nights, when a gentle breeze swayed the tree-tops, and the moonlight rippled over the foliage, it seemed to be a real sea in motion below us, and one almost expected to feel the pulsation of ocean waves against the walls. In the daytime the woods were alive with birds; the beautiful mot-mots were so tame that they flew fearlessly in and out of our rooms, and mocking-birds and scarlet cardinals poured forth a flood of melody such as I have never heard equalled.

The east wing of the Nunnery extends towards some detached buildings, of which one, known as “la iglesia,” is shown on the accompanying plate. Huge grotesque masks or faces with projecting snouts are the most prominent objects in the decoration of this building. On either side of the middle mask in the lower frieze is a panel holding two dilapidated figures of humanized animals: the figure on the right of the central mask is clearly intended for a turtle, and that on the left for an alligator.

Looking northwards from our high platform the ruins lay spread out before us. To the right we could see the front of the many-chambered “Ak at ’cib” (“the writing in the dark”), so called from the carved inscription on the doorway of an inner room. More immediately in front of us rose the strange circular building known as the “Caracol,” from the small winding stairway hidden in the central mass of masonry. The circular form of this building, and the curiously unsymmetrical arrangement of the terraces, steps, and doorways, suggest the idea that it may have been used as an observatory, and that the direction of the lines of the terraces and the outlook from the doorways may have reference to the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies. To the left stands the Casa Colorada and the much-ruined buildings surrounding it. Beyond this, again, rises a pyramid which once had supported a temple of which nothing now remains but the two serpent columns which formed the doorway.

About three hundred yards to the N.E. of our house lay the ’cenote from which we drew our supply of water, its rocky and precipitous banks overhung by a thick growth of trees which afforded a grateful shade. The water was about sixty feet below the level of the ground, and could only be reached at one spot by a rough pathway, but we eased the labour of drawing water by rigging up a rope and pulley to an overhanging tree and hauling up the water in a bucket. Beyond the buildings I have already mentioned, we could see from our terrace the lofty Castillo and the top of the temple on the east wall of the Ball Court.

The Castillo is a stately building, even in its ruined condition, and must have been magnificent in the days of its splendour. The great pyramidal foundation, 195 feet square at its base, is ascended on each side by a grand stairway of over ninety steps, with a low, broad, stone edging. The sides of the foundation were terraced and faced with stone, and were probably at one time ornamented with mural paintings. The temple which stands on this magnificent foundation faces N.N.E., and is not set quite true to the lines of the base of the pyramid. At the foot of the northern stairway are two huge serpents’ heads, and the porch of the temple is supported by two serpent columns. Both doorways and interior columns are rich in carving, but the design and execution of the ornament is poor in comparison with that found in some of the other temples.

Westward of the Castillo is a complicated group of colonnades and temples which had not been previously surveyed. We were able only to make a surface survey, and such excavations as were necessary to ascertain the ground-plan of the temples; there still remains in this direction a splendid field for investigation by the next explorer.

To the north-west of the Castillo stands the Great Ball Court, which is perhaps the most interesting building at ChichÉn. Two parallel walls, 272 feet long and 27 feet high, standing 119 feet apart, form the side boundaries of the court, which is open at either end. A terrace, 5 feet high and 10 feet broad, projects from the base of the walls as is shown in the section. From the middle of each wall, 3 feet from the top, projected a great stone ring, measuring 4 feet in diameter and 18 inches in aperture, carved from a single block of stone 11 inches in thickness, and ornamented with a design of entwined serpents. At each end of the Court stands the ruins of a detached temple profusely ornamented with carving.

The game which was played in this magnificent court was, no doubt, much the same as the Mexican Tlachtli, which is thus described by Herrera:—“The game was called ‘Tlachtli,’ which is the same as ’Trinquete’ in Spanish. The ball was made of the gum from a tree which grows in the hot country. This tree, when tapped, exudes some large white drops, which soon congeal and when mixed and kneaded become as black as pitch; of this material the balls are made, and, although heavy and hard to the hand, they bound and rebound as lightly as footballs, and are indeed better, as there is no need to inflate them. They do not play for ‘chases’ (al chaÇar), but to make a winning stroke (al vencer), as in the game of Chueca—that is, to strike the ball against or to hit it over the wall which the opposite party defend. The ball may be struck with any part of the body, either such part as is most convenient or such as each player is most skilful in using. Sometimes it is arranged that it should count against any player who touches the ball otherwise than with his hip, for this is considered by them to show the greatest skill, and on this account they would wear a piece of stiff raw hide over the hips, so that the ball might better rebound. The ball might be struck as long as it bounded, and it made many bounds one after the other, as though it were alive. They played in parties, so many on each side, and for such a stake as a parcel of cotton cloths (una carga de mantas), more or less, according to the wealth of the players. They also played for articles of gold and for feathers, and at times staked their own persons. The place where they played was a court on the level of the ground (sala baja), long, narrow, and high, but wider above than below, and higher at the sides than at the ends (fronteras)[3]. So that it should be better to play in, the court was well cemented, and the walls and floors made quite smooth. In the side walls were fixed two stones like millstones, with a hole pierced through the middle, through which there was just room for the ball to pass, and the player who hit the ball through the hole won the game; and as this was a rare victory, which few gained, by the ancient custom and law of the game, the victor had a right to the mantles of all the spectators; and when the ball passed through the hole it was an amusing sight to see all the onlookers take to flight with much merriment and laughter in the hope of saving their mantles, which others clutched at on behalf of the victor, who had to make certain sacrifices to the Idol of Trinquete and of the stone (ring) through which the ball had passed. To those who saw the feat performed for the first time it seemed like a miracle, and they said that a player who had such good luck would become a thief or an adulterer, or would die soon. And the memory of such a victory lasted many days, until it was followed by another, which put it out of mind. Every Trinquete court was a temple, and at midnight on a lucky day two Idols—one of the game and one of the ball—were placed on the top of the lower walls with certain ceremonies and witchcraft; and in the middle of the floor they sang songs and performed other ceremonies; then a priest from the great temple with other holy men came to bless the court. Certain words were said, the ball was thrown four times, as in the game, and after such ceremonies the court became consecrated and fit to play in, but not before.”[4]

I cannot help thinking that Tlachtli must have been a much more complicated game than that which Herrera describes. To a tennis-player the presence of the rings in the wall would suggest the use of a net to divide the court; but it is useless to speculate on the rules of the game, and our only hope is that some more detailed and accurate description of the manner in which it was played may yet come to light, possibly as the result of SeÑor Troncoso’s researches into the manuscripts of Padre Sahagun which have recently been discovered in Florence.

On the top of the wall above the rings and at the boundaries of the court I discovered the remains of what were evidently the marker’s boxes.

At the southern end of the eastern wall there is no marker’s box, but its place is taken by what must have been a most beautiful little temple opening towards the court. A restoration of this temple is given on the opposite page. Unfortunately for us, the builders made use of wooden beams instead of stone lintels with which to span the porch, and, as the wood decayed, the strangely-shaped capitals over-balanced by the heavy projections in the form of the tail of a rattlesnake, fell forward and carried the front of the building with them. The shafts and base of each column with the huge snake’s head attached are still in place, and the restoration has been effected in the drawing merely by replacing the rattle-snakes’ tails, which were found amongst the debris at the foot of the wall and carefully measured, and by continuing the ornament on the sides and back of the building across the front, so that no new feature is introduced.

The wooden beams forming the lintel above the doorway leading to the inner chamber of this building are still perfectly sound, and the lower one is beautifully carved, as are also the stone door-jambs. The walls of the inner chamber are covered with mural paintings, alas! now woefully mutilated. Unluckily I had no tracing-paper with me, but by the use of thin sheets of letter-paper I was able to trace some of the better-preserved pictures and to transfer them to drawing-paper. Above the doorway is a picture which represents a human sacrifice. The serpent-priest stands over the body of the victim, which is stretched backwards over a sacrificial stone so as to expose the chest to the knife.

On the south side of the doorway the whole wall-surface is occupied by a battle-scene, where one party, apparently led by the serpent-priest, is attacking a town, while the women, standing on the roofs of the houses, cheer on their defenders and bewail their losses. The arms used are short spears hurled from a throwing-stick (the Mexican atlatl), and all the warriors carry shields, which in some cases are covered with feathered mantles. It is worth noting that although the use of bows and arrows is frequently mentioned by the Spanish writers, the bow is never figured on any of the Maya sculptures, and was probably a late introduction.

At the back of this temple, on the level of the ground, is another chamber which possesses features of great interest. The greater part of the roof had fallen in, carrying portions of the wall with it, and the floor of the chamber was closely packed with the debris to the height of 4 feet. When this was cleared away, we were rewarded by finding intact the lower part of the columns which had supported the doorway, and lying between them a curious altar in the shape of a grotesque tiger. Then we set to work to make paper moulds of the sculptured ornament, representing processions of armed men in quaint ceremonial costumes, which cover the whole of the surface of the interior walls and the four sides of the square columns. The time at our disposal was limited, as the moulding-paper had, for some unknown reason, been delayed in Havana, and when at last it did arrive it was found to be badly damaged with salt water, so that it was difficult to manipulate. The scene of our labours was about three-quarters of a mile from our house and nearly half a mile from the ’cenote, from which all the water had to be carried on men’s backs. The heat was terrific, for the ruined chamber formed a sort of shallow cave facing E.S.E., into which the June sun poured its rays until past noon, raising it to the heat of an oven. We could not begin work until three o’clock in the afternoon, and even then the wall was so hot that the damp paper refused to adhere to it, and the precious water had to be freely used to cool it down; time after time a half-finished mould would fall away from the heated surface and the labour would have to be gone through again. All moulding had to be done with our own hands, as no native could be found competent to help us; and as I was still busy on the survey, the heavier share fell to Mr. Sweet, who stuck to his task manfully until the paper was all used up; I hope some day soon to show him the fine cast of the interior of the building which is now exhibited at the South Kensington Museum.

To the east of the Great Ball Court are two structures which Diego de Landa, Bishop of Yucatan, writing in 1566, describes as “two small theatres built of stone, with four stairways, and paved with flagstones at the top, on which they say they played farces and comedies for the solace of the public.” He then goes on to describe the sacred ’cenote as follows:—

“There runs from the patio in front of these theatres a beautiful broad causeway to a pool about two stone throws off. In this pool they have had, and had at that time, the custom to throw into it live men as a sacrifice to the Gods in time of drought, and they hold that these men do not die although they are never more seen. They threw in also many things made of precious stones and other things which they prized, so that if this land has had gold in it, it would be in this pool that most of it would be, so greatly did the Indians revere it.

“This pool has a depth of fully seven fathoms to the surface of the water, and is more than a hundred feet across and is round in shape, and it is a wonder to look at, for it is clean cut rock down to the water, and the water appears to have a green colour, and I think this is caused by the trees which surround it—and it is very deep.

“There is on the top, near the opening, a small building where I found Idols made in honour of each of the principal buildings of the land, almost like the Pantheon of Rome. I do not know if this was a contrivance of the ancients or one of the people of to-day, so that they might meet with their Idols when they went to the pool with their offerings.”

In the year 1579, in answer to a despatch from the Spanish Government, a report was drawn up by three of the founders of Valladolid describing the Indian towns in the neighbourhood, in which the following passage occurs:—

“Eight leagues from this town stand some buildings called ChicheniÇa, amongst them there is a Cu[5] made by the hand (of man) of hewn stone and masonry, and this is the principal building.

“It has over ninety steps, and the steps go all round, so as to reach to the top of it, the height of each step a little over the third of a vara high. On the summit stands a sort of tower with rooms in it.

“This Cu stands between two zenotes of deep water—one of them is called the Zenote of Sacrifice. They call the place ChicheniÇa, after an Indian named Alquin ItzÁ, who was living at the foot of the Zenote of Sacrifice.

“At this zenote the Lords and Chiefs of all the provinces of Valladolid observed this custom. After having fasted for sixty days without raising their eyes during that time even to look at their wives, nor at those who brought them food, they came to the mouth of this zenote and, at the break of day, they threw into it some Indian women, some belonging to each of the Lords, and they told the women that they should beg for a good year in all those things which they thought fit, and thus they cast them in unbound, but as they were thrown headlong they fell into the water, giving a great blow on it; and exactly at midday she who was able to come out, cried out loud that they should throw her a rope to drag her out with, and she arrived at the top half dead, and they made great fires round her and incensed her with Copal; and when she came to herself she said that below there were many of her nation, both men and women, who received her, and that raising her head to look at some of them, they gave her heavy blows on the neck, making her put her head down, which was all under water, in which she fancied were many hollows and deeps; and in answer to the questions which the Indian girl put to them, they replied to her whether it should be a good or bad year, and whether the devil was angry with any of the Lords who had cast in the Indian girls, but these Lords already knew that if a girl did not beg to be taken out at midday it was because the devil was angry with them, and she never came out again. Then seeing that she did not come out, all the followers of that Lord and the Lord himself threw great stones into the water and with loud cries fled from the place.”

I fear that this slight description of ChichÉn must wholly fail to convey to my readers the sensation of a ghostly grandeur and magnificence which becomes almost oppressive to one who wanders day after day amongst the ruined buildings. Although ChichÉn is not to be compared in picturesqueness with some of the ruined towns in Guatemala and Tabasco, there is a spaciousness about it which is strangely impressive, and the wide horizon, broken only here and there by a distant mound or lofty temple, is more suggestive of the easy access and free movement of a large population than the narrow valley of Copan or the terraced hillsides of Palenque. It is difficult to estimate accurately the actual size of the ancient city, for we were not able to carry our clearings beyond the neighbourhood of the principal buildings still left standing, whose position is shown in the plan; but it is almost impossible to penetrate the surrounding jungle in any direction without coming across artificial mounds and terraces and other signs of human handiwork.

Had ChichÉn ItzÁ been fully peopled in the year 1528, it is almost incredible that Montejo could have held it for two years with a force which numbered only four hundred men, and during a great part of the time must have been reduced to less than half that number[6]. It seems more reasonable to suppose either that the historians were at fault in describing ChichÉn ItzÁ as the site of Montejo’s camp, or that the city was in a state of decadence and had already been partly abandoned by its population. The latter supposition is strengthened by the passage quoted above from the Valladolid document, in which no mention is made of a great population, and no word occurs which would lead one to suppose that in 1542 ChichÉn ItzÁ was still a great living city, although it was undoubtedly still looked on as a sacred place where certain time-honoured ceremonies were performed.

In comparing the ruins of ChichÉn with those of Copan and Quirigua, one notices at ChichÉn the greater size of the buildings, the free use of columns, the absence of sculptured stelÆ, the scarcity of hieroglyphic inscriptions, and, most important of all, the fact that every man is shown as a warrior with atlatl and spears in his hand; the only representation of a woman depicts her watching a battle from the roof of a house in a beleagured town, whereas at Copan and Quirigua there are no representations of weapons of war, and at Copan a woman was deemed worthy of a fine statue in the Great Plaza. I am inclined to think that it must have been the stress of war that drove the peaceable inhabitants of the fertile valleys of the Motagua and Usumacinta and the highlands of the Vera Paz to the loss hospitable plains of Yucatan, where, having learnt the arts of war, they re-established their power. Then again they passed through evil times: intertribal feuds and Nahua invasions may account for the destruction or abandonment of their great cities, such as ChichÉn ItzÁ and Mayapan, and in these latter contests they may have learned the use of the bows and arrows with which they fought the Spaniards.

This view is somewhat strengthened by the result of a very careful examination of the caves and ’cenotes of Yucatan made in 1895 by Mr. Henry Mercer, who records the conclusions he has come to in the following words:—Firstly, that no earlier inhabitant had preceded the builders of the ruined cities of Yucatan; secondly, that the people revealed in the caves had reached the country in geologically recent times; thirdly, that these people, substantially the ancestors of the present Maya Indians, had not developed their culture in Yucatan, but had brought it with them from somewhere else.

It was not until the 2nd July that we left the ruins and set out for Merida, and even then we were reluctant to depart and leave unexamined so much that is of interest; but our store of food had run out and we found the greatest difficulty in getting supplies in the neighbourhood. Moreover, the heavy showers and great heat made such work as we were engaged on almost impossible. During the month of May we had both suffered from malarious fever. Fortunately our attacks occurred on alternate days, so that we could each tend the other in turn, and we both made complete recovery. The difficulty in engaging labourers was never smoothed away, and was the occasion of much vexatious waste of time. During the time we were ill with fever we were altogether bereft of labourers for about a fortnight, and found the greatest difficulty in supplying ourselves with firewood and water. After this matters mended, and we were better served; but towards the end of our stay, I had again to depend solely on the villagers from PistÉ, some of whom would condescend to do a short day’s work for me at about three times the current rate of wages.

To Sweet’s arrival at the most critical moment the success of my expedition was very largely due. He was keenly interested in his work, and, in spite of attacks of fever, we spent a very happy three months together. Sweet undertook all the photography, and was also of the greatest assistance in the survey; and with his ever-ready help and cheery companionship, I could make light of the numberless petty annoyances and delays which were so hard to bear when I was alone; moreover he supplied that invaluable stimulus to work which came from discussing with an intelligent companion the various problems which presented themselves for solution as the clearings widened out and the remains of the ancient city were disclosed to our view.