Identifier: ancientcitiesofn00char (find matches)
Title: The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Charnay, Désiré, 1828-1915
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indians of Central America
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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he Cocomes and Tutulxius, so mild in disposition, becamefierce and quarrelsome soon after the settlement of the latterin the district, both struggling for supremacy. In this conflict,Mayapan was successively occupied by the victorious party,while both succumbed to the caciques, who, taking advantageof these inter-tribal contentions, consolidated their power, whenthe peninsula was divided into eighteen independent provinces,continually at war with each other, which finally worked thedestruction of the Maya-Toltec civilisation. Aware of the treasures the cenote might contain, I had pro-vided myself with two automatic Toselli sounding-machines, oneof which is capable of bringing up half a cubic metre deposit ;but unfortunately I could not get it to work, owing to theheight of the walls, the depth of the water, and the enormousdetritus of several centuries. The Tennis-court is at once the largest and the best pre-served of any structure of this description ; it consists of two * 6? supra.
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Ciiiciien-Itza. 361 perpendicular parallel walls from north to south, 34 ))y 325 feet,32 feet high, and 113 feet apart. Both ends are occupied bytwo small temples always seen in structures of this kind. Thesouthern edifice has no ornamentation of any interest; thenorthern, which is shown in our cut, contains a single apartment,with a portico to the south supported by columns, forming abalcony whence the grandees witnessed the game shelteredfrom the fierce rays of the sun. The ruinous condition of this building will not allow usto judge of its external decoration ; but the columns andthe walls in the interior are covered with rows of humanfigures in bas-relief, so damaged, however, that the subjectsrepresented cannot be recognised. The inner walls facingeach other, have in the centre of each, some 15 feet from theground, two stone rings with a hole through the centre,similar to the one we dug up at Tula. The vast propor-tions of this tlachtli indicate that the national Nahua gamewas as

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