Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/808

758 YUCATAN Climate. Vege table produc tions. Towns. Condi tion at Spanish con quest. seasons. Behind the lagoon a bed of coralline and porous limestone rocks, composing nearly the whole tableland of Yucatan, rises continuously southwards in the direction of the Sierra Madre, which, beyond the frontier, traverses the whole of Guatemala and Central America. Geologic ally, Yucatan thus presents the character of a compara tively recent formation, built up by polypi in shallow waters, and gradually covered with a layer of thin dry soil by the slow weathering of the coral rocks. But the sur face is not so uniformly level and monotonous as it appears on most maps ; for, although there are scarcely any running streams, it is diversified here and there by a few lacustrine basins, of which Lakes Bacalar and Chicankanah are the largest, as well as by some low isolated hills and ridges in the west, and on the east side by the Sierra Alta, a range of moderate elevation, traversing the whole peninsula from Catoche Point southwards to the neighbourhood of Lake Peten in Guatemala. There are thus no elevations sufficiently high to intercept the moisture-bearing clouds from the Atlantic, while those from the Pacific are cut off by the Sierra Madre. Hence the climate is necessarily dry, with a deficient and uncertain rainfall, especially in the central and northern districts. Here also the tropical heats are intensified by the neighbourhood of the Gulf Stream, which in its passage through the Yucatan Channel -flows much nearer to the coast of the peninsula than to that of Cuba. Still, the climate, although "hot of the hottest" (Ober), with a temperature ranging from 75 to 98 Fahr. in the shade, is comparatively healthy, owing to its great dryness and to the cool breezes which prevail night and day throughout a great part of the year. The atmosphere is also occasionally purified by the fierce tcmporales or "northers," which sweep across the Gulf freely over this open low-lying region. Yellow fever, however, periodically visits the Campeche coast, while ague is endemic in the undrained swampy districts towards the southern frontiers. Like most regions lying entirely within the tropics, Yucatan has two seasons only, which are determined by the alter nations not so much of temperature as of atmospheric moisture. The dry season lasts from October to May, the wet season for the rest of the year ; the hottest months appear to be March and April, when the heat is increased by the burning of the corn and henequen fields on the plateau. All the northern districts, as well as the greater part of the Sierra Alta, are destitute of large trees ; but the coast-lands on both sides towards Tabasco ami British Honduras enjoy a sufficient rainfall to support large forest growths, including the mahogany tree, several valuable cabinet woods, vanilla, logwood, and other dye- woods. Logwood forests fringe all the lagoons and many parts of the seaboard which are flooded during the rainy season. The chief cultivated plants are maize, the sugar-cane, tobacco, cotton, coffee, and especially heneqnen, the so-called Yucatan hemp or Sisal hemp, which, however, is not a hemp at all, but a true fibre. It is yielded by Agave sisalensis, which grows everywhere, and is used chiefly for the manufacture of coarse sackcloth, cordage, and hammocks. In 1880 as much as 40,000,000 lb of this article, valued at 350,000, was shipped at Progreso. The yearly maize crop is estimated to be worth over 1,000,000, and the whole of the agricultural produce about 2,000,000. But a comparatively small area is under tillage, owing largely to the prevailing system of vast haciendas (estates), which the owners have neither the necessary capital nor the energy to administer. Hence symptoms of decay are everywhere visible ; the whole country is "mainly a wilderness" (Ober) ; and there is probably much less land under cultivation than at the time of the Spanish conquest. Of the state of Yucatan the capital is Merida (40,000 inhabitants in 1882), which is connected with its port of Progreso, on the north west coast, by a railway 25 miles long, the only line in the country. The state of Campeche has for its capital the town and seaport of the same name (16,000), on the west coast. Other towns in the peninsula are Tikul, Ixmal, and Valladolid in Yucatan, and the port of El Carmen on an island in Lake Terminos in Campeche. According to the official returns, there are at present (1888) in Yucatan altogether 7 " cities," 13 towns, and 143 villages, besides 15 abandoned settlements and 333 haciendas. But scarcely any of these places have as many as 10,000 inhabitants, while the popu lation of the great majority falls below 1000. The contrast is most striking between the picture conveyed by these returns, which also include 62 " ruined cities," and the state of the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, as revealed by the innumerable remains of towns, cities, temples, palaces, and other public buildings dotted over the plateau, being especially numerous round the now desolate northern and north-eastern shores of the peninsula. The whole of the northern section of Yucatan, which is now destitute alike of running waters, of dense vegetation, and almost of inhabitants, was at that time thickly peopled an<l full of populous cities remarkable for the great size, splendour, and artistic taste of their public monuments. For Maya, as the land was then called, 1 was the chief centre of the wide-spread Maya- Quiche power and culture, which rivalled, and in some respects excelled, those of the Peruvian Incas and of the Aztecs on tho Anahuac plateau. Although the Maya nation had at that timo already entered on a period of decadence, it was still strong and vigorous enough to resist the conquistadores for a period of fully twenty years (1527-47), the reduction of this barren region costing " the lives of more Spaniards than had been expended in wresting from the Incas and the Montezumas the wealthiest empires of the western world" (Bancroft). Wonder has been expressed that such a bleak, arid, and almost Maya streamless land could have ever become the seat of empire and the irriga home of a flourishing civilization. But the absence of rivers on the tion plateau appears to be due not so much to the deficient rainfall as work? to the extremely porous nature of the calcareous soil, which absorbs the waters like a sponge and prevents the development of surface streams. Beneath the surface, however, the waters accumulate in such abundance that a sufficient supply may always be had by sink ing wells in almost any part of the tableland. What the present inhabitants neglect to do was systematically practised by tho former populations, whose aguadas or artificial lakes and under ground reservoirs must be reckoned amongst the most remarkable monuments of Maya culture. " Intelligence, much skill in masonry, and much labour were required to construct them. They were paved with several courses of stone laid in cement, and in their bottoms wells or cavities Avere constructed. More than forty such wells were found in the bottom of one of these aguadas at Galal, which has been repaired and restored to use. In some places long subterranean passages lead down to pools of water, which are used in the dry season. One of these subterranean reservoirs is 450 feet below the surface of the ground, and the passage leading to it is about 1400 feet long" (Baldwin, p. 145). Thus the Mayan, like, the Peruvian, the Egyptian, and the Babylonian culture, was based on a well-planned and carefully executed system of waterworks, specially adapted to the peculiar physical conditions of the country. The monumental remains which must be assigned to the Maya- Rnine Quiche, as distinguished from other native civilizations, are spread cities. over a great part of Central America, but are mainly comprised within the triangular space formed by connecting Mitla in Oajaca, Copan in Honduras, and the north coast of Yucatan above Tizimin by three straight lines. But of the "sixty-two ruined cities" of Yucatan proper the most important, or at least the best known and most fully described, are Izamal, Maya pan, Ake, Acanceh, Uxmal, Tikul, and Kabah, all centred in the north-west corner of the pen insula round about Merida, which itself stands on the ruins of Tihu ; Chichen-Itza, about midway between Tikul and the east coast ; and Labna, Nohbecan, and Potonchan in the Campeche district. Most of these places were described and illustrated by Stephens and Catherwood over forty years ago, and have recently been re-visited and re-described by M. Desire Charnay. The structures especially of Uxmal, Ake, Kabah, and Chichen-Itza rival in magnitude and splendour those of Palenque in Chiapas, of Coban and Lorillard (the " Phantom City ") in Guatemala, and of Copan in Honduras. There is nothing comparable to them on the Mexican tableland, and in the New World they are surpassed in architectural skill and artistic taste only by the beautiful edifices at Mitla in Oajaca and some of the monuments of Peruvian culture. Mayapan (" El Pendon de los Mayas," or "Banner City of the Maya- Maya Nation ") was already in ruins at the time of the conquest, hav- pan. ing been overthrown during a general revolt of the feudatory states about a century before that period. 2 Yet its ruins, overgrown with vegetation, still cover a considerable space, and include a huge artificial mound which from a distance looks like a wooded hill. But Uxmal stands altogether unrivalled for the magnitude of its Uxma buildings, the richness of its sculptured fagades, and the almost classic beauty of its statuary. Conspicuous amongst its edifices are the so-called " nunnery " and the famous Casa del Gobernador or governor s palace, the latter with a wonderful frieze, 325 feet long, "having a row of colossal heads divided in panels, filled alternately with grecques in high relief" (Charnay). The nunnery, which con tained eighty-eight compartments of all sizes, forms a vast quad- 1 Yet the term Yucatan occurs in the very earliest Spanish records, although clearly originating in a misunderstanding, of which several versions are given by Bancroft (Hist. Pacific States, iv. p. 11). It appears even on the very oldest maps, on which, however, the country figures as an island, and is spoken of as such in conjunction with Cozumel ("the islands of Yucatan and Cozumel") in the commission (1526) granted to Francesco Moutejo the elder to occupy and settle those lands (op. cit., i. p. 154). 2 Or, according to other interpretations of the confused national traditions, by the people of Chichen-Itza some three centuries before

the arrival of the Spaniards.