In December 1890 I crossed the Gulf of Mexico from Vera Cruz to Progreso in one of the Ward Line Steamers, and was then transhipped into a coasting-boat belonging to the same company, which was to take me to Frontera, at the mouth of the Tabasco river, whence I was to find my way up the stream, and inland to the ruins of Palenque. Never did I put to sea with such misgivings: it was still the season of the ’Norte,’ the fierce cold wind which sweeps down the Mississippi Valley and across Texas from the frozen lands of the North, and the vessel in which I was embarked was a stern-wheel river-steamer, with seven feet of hull under the water and twenty feet of cabins and flying-deck built up above it! The captain owned to me that he had been very nearly blown over on his last voyage down the coast, and that should he be caught in really bad weather there would be no alternative but to turn the ship’s head to the shore and pile her up on the beach. Of course this stern-wheeled barge was provided with all the orthodox certificates from a wise and protecting government, drawn up in beautiful official language, to the effect that she was a vessel properly fitted and equipped to trade between certain ports of the United States and the ports in the Mexican Gulf. When on the third or fourth day out we crossed the bar and anchored off the little town of Laguna, on the Isla del Carmen at the eastern edge of the Tabasco delta, the sky was so threatening, that I deemed discretion the better part of valour, and took all my traps ashore, determining to start up the river from Laguna instead of Frontera; and the captain endorsed my view of the weather by not venturing out of port for three days.

It was now the middle of the wood-shipping season, and Laguna was at its busiest: about twenty-three sailing-vessels—English, American, Swedish, and German—were lying off the town, and one might say roughly that twenty-three mates were feeling very hot and using strong language as the mahogany logs, which had been floated down the great river, were detached from the rafts alongside and hauled on board, and that twenty-three sea-captains were on shore on the spree.

My lodging was in the main street, at the house of a Frenchman, who also kept a sort of restaurant. Here I managed to secure a room to myself; but as one door opened on to the pavement of the street and another into the sitting-room, which also opened on to the street, and everyone seemed to walk in and out just as they felt inclined, I did not secure much privacy.

It did not take long to become acquainted with the principal inhabitants of Laguna. Two or three sea-captains dropped in to dinner, drinks were freely offered, and I was soon introduced to all their friends. Three-card Monte began, as far as I could make out, about nine o’clock in the morning, but I am not sure that in some cases it was not a continuation of the game of the night before. Play went on anywhere, sometimes with a table and chairs set out in the street; but the principal resort for gambling was the club. I never found out that any election, or even introduction, was needed to enjoy the privileges of that institution. Anyone seemed to wander in, order drinks, and play. There were three or four professional gamblers, who had come for the season, always ready to keep a bank as long as anyone had a dollar to stake; and I must add that the game seemed to be perfectly fairly conducted, with, of course, certain chances in favour of the bank, and that I never heard the slightest dispute which was not settled at once and quite amicably. Now and then a rough-looking man wandered in in his dirty shirtsleeves, and one wondered how he had become possessed of the big pile of dollars which he placed in front of him and doubled or lost with equal good temper and nonchalance. The money was probably the result of nine months’ hard work on the river or at the wood-cuttings.

On three nights in the week the military band played in the plaza, which was well kept and planted with shade-trees. The band-stand was in the centre, and on the broad walk round it circled the beauty and fashion of the town, gorgeously arrayed. Two or three girls usually walked together arm in arm in front of the father and mother, or more often the mother and some lady friend, for the men, more especially the young ones, don’t care much for the promenade, but prefer to sit round on the stone benches, smoke cigarettes, and criticize. It appeared to be quite contrary to custom or to fashion to talk to one’s young lady friends in public—that was to be done by stealth later on at the iron ’reja.’

On the other nights of the week society was not so formal, and the Spanish lady had to give way to the apparently more attractive Mestiza. One can generally tell from the flare of torches where a fandango is going on, usually in one of the large wooden houses just off the main streets. Here the Mestiza comes out in all her glory; and very pretty she looks in her spotlessly white petticoats and low cut camiseta, each garment very prettily embroidered along its edges. Alas! these white and coloured borderings are now machine-made and bought in the stores, and are no longer the work of her own delicate little hands. Her smooth black hair is combed straight off her forehead, and fixed at the back with a large gilded comb; she wears large gold earrings, and if she is prosperous two or three coloured bead and golden necklaces round her neck.

It always seems to me as if all the sorrows of the race had sunk into the Mestizas’ eyes; even when the face breaks into a smile it is a sad smile, and in the dance it is the men who grow active and excited and echo the passionate dancing of Spain, whilst the women are graceful but slow in movement, with downcast eyes, as though to mark the Indian side of the mixed blood. Of course there is a drinking-shop attached to the dancing-room; but it is pleasanter outside in the roadway, where the old women have lit their lamps under the trees and set up their supper-tables and stalls of food and fruit, and where the light does not fall too strongly one hears a low murmur of voices and occasionally a little cry of protest. And now my friends the sea-captains are in their element: they keep the barmen hard at work opening numberless bottles of lager beer; they lead out the prettiest of the dancing girls, not always to the satisfaction of their duskier partners, and feast them to their heart’s content on all the dainties which the old women’s stalls afford, whilst they keep up a conversation in the most wonderful jargon of broken Spanish and scraps of every other language under the sun.

For the first three days Laguna was amusing enough; it was not a highly moral atmosphere, but the surroundings were quaint and often picturesque, and my sailor friends were full of good stories and strange experiences: but before the end of a week I fled at the sight of a sea-captain, so as to avoid the inevitable drink which followed a meeting, and in spite of the heat of the afternoon sun I explored every road leading out of the town. Uninteresting enough they all proved to be, for after passing the suburbs which began with the white-washed adobe walls and thatched roofs of the houses of the Mestizos and ended in wattle huts bowered in shady trees and cocoanut-palms, I was always brought to a stop by the surrounding swamp. At last I settled down to a daily walk to the lighthouse on the point and a long stretch over the sandy beach, which was pleasant enough when the breeze was blowing and kept off the swarms of sand-flies; but sometimes the wind dropped, and then I wished myself back even in the stifling sun-baked streets of Laguna.

During the last part of the two weary weeks I had to pass in the town, much of my time was passed in the Custom House. Orders had come from Mexico to pass all my stores free of duty; but this did not prevent the Custom House officers opening every case and weighing the contents, and making out endless lists with gross and net weight and much unnecessary detail, to ensure, as I was told, the unquestioned passage of the goods into the State of Chiapas, but to a great extent, as I believe, to satisfy their own curiosity as to what the cases contained, and to give employment to the superabundant clerks who draw salaries and tumble over one another in all Spanish-American ports. At last my preparations were finished: Mr. Price, who had volunteered to come out from England and assist as a surveyor, had joined me, and I had secured a small steamer belonging to Messrs. Jamet y Sastre, a firm engaged in the mahogany trade, to take us up the river. In Laguna I had made the acquaintance of M. Chambon, a young Frenchman who was travelling through Mexico, and asked him to accompany us, as he wished to make his way to Tenosique, in hope of being able to pay a visit to the ruins of MenchÉ.

As usual there was some delay in starting, and after we had crossed the big lagoon and passed through the narrow passage into the smaller one our troubles began. We had missed the top of the tide and found it running out strongly against us and we stuck on one sand-bank after another; at last we reached the mouth of the river, where huge alligators lay sunning themselves on the sand-spits, and here, where the stream was at its narrowest, we stuck fast; there was no chance of getting off until the tide rose on the morrow. Then began a night of torment. The mosquitos were monsters and they came off to us in myriads: we had no nets to protect us against their attacks, and the only thing to be done was to roll one’s self up in a rug in a beddingless bunk and swelter until morning. Soon after sunrise we were afloat again and entered the broad stream of the river. The land was still low and there was not a hill in sight, but gradually the banks grew firmer and lost their swampy appearance. A short distance above the village of Palisada, which we passed before dark, the river divides in its downward course, the other half of the stream flowing to the west and reaching the sea below Frontera. Above this fork the Usumacinta is a fine broad stream, sometimes more than half a mile from bank to bank. On the third day we reached the little village of Monte Cristo, which was to be our starting-place for the ruins of Palenque; and here we parted from M. Chambon, who continued his voyage in the steamer to Tenosique.

At Monte Cristo we fell into good hands: Don Carlos Majares, who kept the largest of the two or three village stores, gave us a big shed in which to house our baggage and hang up our hammocks, and he and Don Adolfo Erezuma did their best to help us on our way, but the difficulties could not be overcome in a hurry. The ruins of Palenque lay buried in the forest forty miles away, and as pack-mules and carriers were equally scarce nearly a fortnight passed before we had succeeded in despatching the most necessary part of our stores to Santo Domingo, a village six miles distant from the ruins. Although we had much repacking and arrangement to occupy us, the time hung heavy on our hands. The climate was an improvement on that of Laguna, and although we could see the storm-clouds still hanging over the country inland, the rain seldom reached us. The river which rolled by us in magnificent volume of water stretching from bank to bank began to show slight signs of decrease, and the muddy channels joining it to the numerous lagoons which received its overflow in the rainy season were already drying up. The pleasantest time of the day was the hour before sunset, when I used often to stroll quietly along the bank of the river or edge of the lagoons and swamps, wherever the country was sufficiently open, carrying with me a strong field-glass, through which to watch the innumerable aquatic birds feeding or at play. White and slate-coloured egrets would perch in the branches of the trees near to the shore of the lagoon, beautiful little parras ran with their long toes spread out over the water-weeds, raising their wings as they moved just enough to show the brilliant yellow colour underneath against their cinnamon-coloured bodies; a few ducks, teal, and divers would be swimming in the open water, and great crane-like birds stalked about looking for their food; but most beautiful of all were the great flocks of rose-coloured “chocoloteras,” spoon-billed wading-birds as big as cranes and more brilliant than flamingos. They were not very quick to take fright, and now and then I could so manage that a flight would pass in long line close overhead, and I could watch them until they faded from sight in a sunset sky.

One day we hired a dug-out canoe from a man who was also the possessor of a casting-net, and set off at dawn on a fishing-expedition. After paddling and poling up the river for about a league, we came to the mouth of a small stream with muddy banks half hidden in giant reeds. A few hundred yards from its mouth the stream broadened out into a pool about eighty yards long and forty wide, and here I counted sixteen alligators, some sunning themselves on the bank, others basking on the top of the water. Our canoe-man kept straight on, as though alligators were of no account, and the great brutes on the bank slid down into the water as we approached, while those floating gradually and silently sank out of sight—first the bulk of their bodies disappeared, leaving above the water what looked like a long row of black spines along the back and tail, then one by one these went down, the last to go under being the nostrils and wicked-looking eyes. We were not so kind to the alligators as they had been to us, for as soon as we were across the pool we landed in the mud and forced our way through the reeds to get a shot at them as they rose; but after a few shots we gave it up, as those that were hit made a great splash and sank, and the water was so muddy there was little chance of recovering their bodies. Paddling up the stream a short distance, we came to a fence of logs and reeds, through which we made a hole large enough to push the canoe and then closed it up after us. These fences are intended to keep the fish which swarm up into the lagoons during the rains from passing back into the river. By the end of March both stream and lagoon would be dried up into a number of rapidly dwindling pools and the fish would be easily captured. Above the fish-fence the stream was only a few yards wide, and here our canoe-man began to cast his net: in a quarter of an hour we had about two hundred mountain mullet, weighing from a quarter to half a pound each, in the bottom of the canoe, well covered over with reeds to keep them from the sun. As we knew that the lagoon could not be far off, we made an effort to reach it, but the waterway was so narrow that it was not easy to work the canoe; the banks were high and muddy and overshadowed by trees, and at almost every turn in the stream a startled alligator rolled off the bank with a splash and dived down under us. At last the water shallowed and we stuck fast; so leaving the canoe we scrambled through a narrow belt of scrub and gained a view over the broad sheet of shallow water, whence great flocks of wading-birds disturbed at their morning meal rose with discordant cries into the air.

At last the day came that we were able to make a start for Palenque: Don Adolfo had lent us horses for ourselves, and four or five wretched pack-mules carried part of the baggage. Luckily for us some half-dozen Indians from the Sierra had just paid their yearly visit to Monte Cristo to sell their cargos of wild cacao and buy machetes and a supply of salt, and, as their return loads were not heavy, after much persuasion they agreed to carry some of our things, and it was to their care that we had to confide our surveying instruments and such articles as could not safely be put on a mule’s back. As the Indians had all been hopelessly drunk the night before, we did not get off very early, although our efforts to start commenced before dawn, and what with bad mules, sulky muleteers, and half-drunken Indians we had a hard day of it. The track was in a bad state from recent rains, and a long detour had to be made in order to avoid some deep mud-holes. Towards evening we found ourselves in a large savannah far away from Palenque, with the pack-mules dead-beat and the Indians stopping and putting down their loads whenever one’s back was turned. At last we could get them no further, and had to leave them to camp by themselves while we pushed on in the moonlight, trusting that the path we were following would lead us to the cattle-rancho which we believed to be on ahead of us. Cattle-tracks ran in all directions, and we never knew if we were on the right one. At about nine o’clock we saw the glimmer of a light and riding towards it were civilly received at the rancho by some wild-looking vaqueros, half negro, half Indian, who quieted their evil-looking dogs, and carried their hospitality so far as to offer us a share of the big log bench covered with bullock-skins, on which some of their companions were lying asleep; luckily we had our hammocks with us, and, after making some soup, turned in utterly tired out.

About noon the next day we arrived at Santo Domingo, and with some difficulty managed to hire an empty hut—it was hardly worthy of the name of house—as a lodging-place. This sleepy little village of twenty houses lies so far out of the world that it was strange to find the two inhabitants of most importance to be one the son of a Frenchman, the other the son of a Swiss doctor, and the latest addition to the society to be a Corsican, who, although his poverty forced him to live the life of the poorer class of native, had not yet lost all his energy and was wildly excited about some minerals which had been found in the sierra, on which he was building golden hopes of a return in riches to his own country. Alas! the specimens with which he loaded my boxes on my return home proved to be nothing but valueless pyrites, and I fear the sandalled feet of the cheery fellow still tread the grass-grown street of Santo Domingo.

As the track to the ruins was, we were told, entirely overgrown, our first business was to get it cleared, so I made play with a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mexico, which recommended me to the attention of all local officers; by this means I managed to secure a few labourers until arrangements could be made with the higher authorities for a regular supply of workmen. My letter to the Governor had already been despatched from Laguna, but as he lived at San CristÓbal, a week’s journey distant, it would be still a few days before his answer would reach me; meanwhile a messenger was despatched to the Jefe PolÍtico, who lived nearer and could be reached in three days.

As soon as this matter had been seen to, we made a prospecting journey to the ruins on foot; the distance was about six miles, and for the first half of it the track ran through woodland which from time to time had been cleared for plantations, then we crossed two small savannahs and entered on a heavier forest which envelops the ruins and clothes the sierras above. Half a mile before reaching the ruins we began the ascent of the broken limestone cliffs and slopes which form the scarp of the plateau, or rather the series of terraces, on which the buildings are raised, and we were soon scrambling over mounds of broken masonry, so thickly covered with vegetation that it was with difficulty they could be distinguished from the rocky ground around us. As yet, no buildings had been in sight, when all of a sudden we were brought to a standstill by the lofty basement of the so-called Palace. We spent the rest of the day in cutting our way through the tangled growth which surrounds the buildings, and returned to the village in the evening well satisfied with what we had seen. Before the end of a week the track to the ruins had been cleared, and Mr. Price had engineered log-bridges over the muddy-banked streamlets which crossed the path, so that pack-mules could pass in safety, and we prepared to leave the village and take up our quarters in the Palace. Just as we were ready to make a start M. Chambon turned up from MenchÉ, and we all set off for the ruins together. The road was in fairly good order, although somewhat muddy. On arriving at the ruins we tied up our mules at the foot of the Palace mound and set to work to carry up the baggage and arrange our beds and camp-furniture in the house on the west side of the Eastern Court, which was chosen as the driest place to be found.

The mozos had already done something towards clearing the house of rubbish and cutting away with their knives the rank vegetation immediately around it. When I used the word ‘driest’ it was only as a term of comparison, for the house was anything but dry. The great forest around us hung heavy with wet, the roof above us was dripping water like a slow and heavy rainfall, and the walls were glistening and running with moisture, so that it took us some time to select places for our beds, where the drip was lightest, and then to protect them with waterproof coverings. An hour before sunset the mozos set out on their return to the village, taking the mules with them, and we three were left to make the best shift we could in our damp abode.

Day by day, as the vegetation was cleared away and the sunlight let in on it, our house became drier and some of the discomfort disappeared; then there came the repetition of the old old trouble, which has haunted me since my expeditions began—a message was sent from the village that no mozos could come to work for some days on account of a fiesta. There was no help for it, so I determined to use the time in a journey to Monte Cristo, to arrange for the transport of the rest of my baggage which was still stored there, and I started off with M. Chambon, who was continuing his travels through Mexico. We slept the first night at Santo Domingo, where we engaged a muleteer and some pack-mules, and set out the next morning very lightly loaded and hoped to arrive early at Monte Cristo; but before many hours were passed we had completely lost patience with the continual stoppages and delays on the part of the surliest and most ill-mannered arriero it has ever been my fate to encounter, and a friend whom he had picked up on the way. At last we could stand them no longer and rode on by ourselves, preferring our somewhat doubtful chance of finding the shorter road to Monte Cristo, along which we intended to travel; however, it turned out all right, and a little after dark we rode into the village, where Don Carlos gave us a most kindly welcome and offered us the use of our old quarters.

In front of Don Carlos’s house an awning had been stretched across the grass-grown street, and a wooden floor laid down to form a ball-room for the villagers, for the morrow was Shrove Tuesday, and we learnt that in Monte Cristo the Carnival is a matter of no small importance. All was quiet when we arrived, but we were told that dancing had been kept up the night before from dusk to dawn, and we had hardly finished our supper when the company began to flock in to resume the revels. The wooden steps of the house formed seats on one side of the floor, chairs and benches were set round on the others, and every seat was soon occupied, whilst a happy crowd—smoking, chatting, and laughing—filled up the street. Then the band of six musicians, three of them performers on the most strident of brass instruments, struck up a Zapateado, and dancing began. Zapateado followed Zapateado with scarcely an attempt at any other dance, and I seem in writing of it to hear the monotonous rhythmic clatter of the dancers’ feet still in my ears. How can a Zapateado be described? It is something like a prolonged Scotch reel with all the flings left out, but, indeed, any part of a Scotch reel is too cheerful to compare it with. However, if the dancing was dull the scene in itself was bright enough, for all were dressed in their best, and the women had decked themselves freely with streamers of bright-coloured ribbons; but, alas! they had spoilt costumes which were otherwise picturesque by the addition of hats covered with tawdry artificial flowers imported from abroad, and disfigured the one beauty which a half-caste woman can always boast—her abundant and glossy hair.

The “Capitana,” a handsome woman who had been elected to lead the revels, soon spied us out and came with her attendants to ask for a contribution to the expenses. By eleven o’clock both Chambon and I had seen enough of the dancing, and our forty-mile ride, made doubly tedious by our futile efforts to drive the pack-mules, and our squabbles with the arriero, had so tired us out that not even the brazen strains of the band or the constant patter of the dancers’ feet twenty yards from our door could keep us from a sound night’s sleep.

I woke up at dawn just as the ball was breaking up, and turned over in my hammock for another nap, confident that no business arrangements would be attended to on that day. Indeed all day long the streets were deserted and the village hushed in a more than Sabbath calm. For two nights the dance had been kept up all night through, and one more night would finish it. It is the one great excitement of the year, and I was told that the women would pledge their labour as servants for months ahead in order to raise a few dollars with which to buy ribbons and artificial flowers—so as to enjoy three days of butterfly-life, to be inevitably followed by month after month of the monotonous labour of grinding corn and toasting tortillas, until the three happy days came round again. Towards evening the village began to wake up again, but the weather was threatening and a shower delayed the arrival of the company until about eight o’clock; then the same monotonous dance and the same terribly strident music began again. Escape was impossible, for there was absolutely nowhere to go to, so we strolled about, smoked cigarettes, and chatted with our acquaintances on the steps of Don Carlos’s house until midnight, when we turned into our hammocks; but the braying of the brass, the ceaseless repetition of the same tunes over and over again, and the interminable patter of heel and toe on the hollow board floor made sleep impossible. A little after four o’clock I fell into a doze only to be aroused again by the arriero hammering at the door and asking for the loads for his mules. He was as impudent and surly as ever, and had evidently joined in the festivities as far as the drink was concerned; but I gave him his cargoes and told him to load up and go on ahead, as I had still some matters to arrange before I could start for the ruins. The dance was still going on although the dawn was breaking and the music of the band was getting woefully unsteady.

Chambon and I turned out of our hammocks about six o’clock, and were only half-dressed when the music ceased, and there came a thundering knock at the door. As soon as I opened it three or four of the dancers pushed their way in, and their spokesman told me, in a most polite and measured tone, that they had been appointed as a deputation to wait on me and inform me that a resolution had been unanimously carried to the effect that the Carnival could not be finished until Don Alfredo had danced a Zapateado.

Meanwhile laughing faces were thrust through the crack of the door, which almost before we knew it was pushed open and the dancers and their friends flocked in and ranged themselves round the walls of our great barn-like chamber. The band took up its position at the far end and with much gravity and a low bow the spokesman led out the “Capitana” in front of me where I was standing with a sponge in one hand and a towel in the other; another damsel was led up to Chambon, who had his night garments hanging over his arm; the band struck up and we had to dance our first Zapateado amidst a chorus of hand-clapping and ‘bravos.’ It was all as orderly and good-tempered a frolic as possible, and when the dance was over we were overwhelmed with kindly and pretty speeches; then the whole company formed up in couples, with the band leading, and marched round the village, each man leaving his partner at her own door.

An hour or so later I strolled up the village street, and much to my disgust found the loaded pack-mules wandering about in different directions, and the arriero, who should have been well on his way to Palenque, quietly sitting on a doorstep smoking a cigarette. In spite of his grumbles and growls I soon had his mules together again and hustled him off; but just as he was passing the Comandante’s house, at the edge of the village, he fired a parting speech over his shoulder at me, the exact words of which I did not catch, but it was certainly not complimentary. However, I took no notice of it and was congratulating myself that the mules were well under weigh, and that I should see nothing of them or the surly muleteer until I should overtake them in the evening; but I reckoned without the Comandante, who had overheard the speech from his house, and before I could understand what was up, had darted out, caught the arriero by his collar, pulled him off his mule, and called to two of his men to carry him off to prison. As soon as the torrent of words with which he overwhelmed his prisoner was at an end, he turned to me and offered a thousand apologies for the insult I had received from a savage, a bushman, who did not know how to treat a gentleman, or how to conduct himself with decency when he left his native wilds and entered into a civilized town, but the lesson must be learnt and an example should be made of him. Of course I expressed my profound thanks and then dashed off to catch one of the pack-mules who was attempting to scrape off his pack against the overhanging bough of a tree, whilst the Comandante, having vindicated the civilization of Monte Cristo, returned to his hammock to finish his broken sleep. All hope of making a start for Palenque was at an end, so I collected the straying mules together and drove them back along the silent street. Luckily Don Adolfo, the only man in the village who had not been to the Carnival ball, was up and about, and he kindly helped me to unload the mules, and then asked me to stay and share his breakfast. In the afternoon the villagers began to wake up again, and there was a preliminary interchange of courteous messages between myself and the Comandante; later on I ventured to call on him, and after many polite speeches, in which we deplored the wanton ways of ignorant and savage men who were not “gente de razon,” at last in deference to my urgent request (which I was assured showed the goodness of my heart even when dealing with an unworthy subject), and in order that I should personally suffer no inconvenience, the Comandante said that he would on this one occasion overlook the arriero’s offence and order his immediate release. As soon as the fellow was free I made him load up his mules and bundled him out of the village, as I knew that there was a wayside rancho a few miles distant which he could reach before nightfall.

PLAN OF PRINCIPAL GROUP OF RUINS AT PALENQUE.