Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans/Chapter 3
III.
UXMAL, THE RUINED CITY.
BURIED in the wildernesses of Yucatan, ruined cities await in silence the coming of the traveller,—cities that had their birth so far back in the twilight of time that not a tradition even remains to tell who built them. Within a radius of one hundred miles from Merida are such magnificent ruins as Mayapan, Aké, Chichen-Itza, Kabah, and Labná, and scores of others. But none is more interesting than UXMAL, which is also very accessible, being within forty miles of the capital, in a straight line, and sixty miles by road. At four o'clock in the morning after the last ball of the carnival, the Consul woke me. He had just returned from the scene of revelry and yet wore his official uniform; but in half an hour he had exchanged this for a plainer garb, had packed a small valise with articles for a trip, and was ready for an excursion to Uxmal. The morning was very cold, the stars were still shining brightly, while the Great Bear was crouched away west of the north star, hanging above it with his tail in the air.
The volan came at five, the driver tied valises and gun-cases to the axle, and we crawled in and lay down on the mattress. Early as it was, there was some life astir,—men wrapped in their sarapes, and a cart with women from the country. We cleared the city limits before daybreak, passing through the gate of San Cristobal, meeting many teams, loaded with wood and hemp, with people perched on top under little shelter, all shivering with the cold.
Travelling in Yucatan is attended with some difficulties, owing to the heat of day and the bad state of the roads. To avoid the heat, all long journeys are performed by night. To 
mitigate the roughness of the road, a peculiar style of vehicle is employed, called a volan. This is a Yucatecan conveyance sui generis, and not found anywhere else; it might be called a modified volante,—in common use in Cuba,—only, instead of sitting up in it, you lie down. It has two large wheels, and the body of the concern is placed directly above the axle, suspended upon high, very elastic springs. The shafts are very long, and a framework projects behind, upon which trunks may be secured, and a bottom of interlaced ropes supports a mattress. It has a canvas top, and is always drawn by three mules,—one in the shafts and one on either side,—harnessed in by such a combination of leather and rope that no stranger could, by any possibility, disentangle them. These mules are generally very small, but make up for lack of size by the length of their ears, which they carry along their backs.
The sun came up; the western sky was reddened and the fine leaves of the mimosas were gilded by its first rays. The many birds that live in the scrub then came out: blackbirds, "chick-bulls" or Crotophaga, jays, orioles, and at one place we passed the fresh skeleton of an ox covered with vultures, the species common in the Southern United States and the West Indies,—Cathartes aura and atratus. At nine o'clock, having accomplished two fifths of the journey, we came in sight of the hacienda of Uayalké. We entered the great gate, and our driver stopped under a large tree in front of the house, and unhitched the mules, as though all belonged to us. This is one of the delights of travel in Yucatan: that any hacendado, or owner of a hacienda, makes you welcome to his hospitality; there being no hotels in the country, this has become a necessity, to which they gracefully submit. We ascended the steps and were greeted by the mayor-domo, who showed us all over the house and ordered breakfast at once,—a charming repast, of tortillas, frijoles, eggs, oranges, and chocolate, with a jar of water in common.
This hacienda is a very large one, having thousands of acres planted in hemp, with great engines busily at work crushing the leaves and rasping the pulp. Great stone corridors surround the house, and a broad alameda, or shaded walk, extends out to the gardens, passing above the stables. Here a score or more of women were drawing water from two deep wells, reaching a cenote by an endless chain of bark buckets running over a large wheel. They were going and coming in endless procession, with large cantaros, or jars, upon their hips. This water serves to irrigate the garden, full of orange trees, coffee, and coco palms. Without it, the plain about would be a waste; with it, it blossomed like an oasis, as it was. The lime-rock crops up everywhere, and about the orange trees brick walls have been built to retain the water. Everywhere are high stone and arched gateways, and away on every side stretch broad fields of hemp. Everybody seemed cheerful, busy, and modest. After we were made welcome the head servants came up and saluted each of us, "Buenos dias, señor!" and about twenty savage-looking fellows, who came in with huge bales of grass strapped to their heads, and with long machetes hanging at their sides, left their loads and bade us good morning, bowing to us gracefully. There was a clock-tower here, and a chapel with figures in stone over the door; a fountain stood in the centre of the yard, and orange trees in bloom, full of doves and warblers, shaded the corridor. Outside the hacienda walls lay scattered curious elliptical huts, with stone walls and thatched roofs, the homes of the laborers.
An hour after leaving this hacienda we reached that of Mucuyché, famous for its cenote, or water-cave. There are no rivers in Yucatan that flow above ground, and the people are wholly dependent upon the clouds for their supply of water, and upon the rivers that run beneath the surface. The whole province is one vast table of coral rock, beneath which flow large streams, and even rivers. These break out at intervals into caves and caverns, formed by earthquake and the pressure of the water, though sometimes the supply is due to the infiltration of surface water into natural grottos in the coral rock. The Indians, centuries ago, marked the courses of these subterranean streams by heaps of stones, and their cities were always built near or about the water-caves, as is now shown by their ruins. These caves, where the rivers appear to the light of day, are called cenotes. There are many in Yucatan, and in Merida are several, utilized as bathing-places,—most refreshing resorts in the heat of day. The cenote at Mucuyché is a cavern, perhaps forty feet deep, broken down at one side, forming an arch of limestone with every shape of stalagmite and stalactite, the roof full of holes, in which were the nests of hundreds of swallows and hornets, A flight of stone steps leads from the delightful garden above, and some avocado pears and coco palms growing at the bottom thrust their crowns above the general level of the ground. The water is clear and very deep at the east end of the cave, with many fish in it,—"cenote fish,"—which are said to be blind, like those in the Mammoth Cave. Roots of trees hang pendent in clusters, behind which lizards and iguanas dart along the ledges; swallows circle in dense masses about the arch, forming a complete ring, and making a deafening whirring noise with their wings. The way to the cave was past the great front corridor above the cattle-yard,—all cattle-yards of Yucatan are in front of, and immediately adjoining, the dwellings of the proprietors,—past the well, where pretty mestizas were drawing water, and through a garden full of orange and lemon trees.
Our delays made our driver impatient, and he plied the lash upon those unhappy mules more furiously, if possible, than before, urging them with his tongue, likewise, by shouting, "Mula! Mula!" and clucking so strongly with his lips that I thought some of the braces had cracked, and looked out. The cart was banged over rocks and into holes, the mules going at a full trot, and on level road at a gallop, and our half-reclining position was anything but pleasant.
The vegetation hitherto had been the same, low trees and bushes, but the mimosas grew taller as we went on. At one point on the road we stopped to examine an Indian mound, and found broken sculptures and blocks of limestone scattered about through the bushes, indicating that we were in the field of ruins to which appertained the great dead city. From its summit we looked over a wide extent of plain, flat as a table, with only now and then a large tree and with a single line of hills, blue in the distance, ten miles beyond which was our destination.
In descending, we found ourselves covered with garrapatas, or ticks, with which the entire territory of Yucatan abounds. These insects are very small, but also very annoying, for no one can venture into a wood without being covered with them, and they cause a dreadful itching, festering in the wounds. The only protection from them that I am aware of is petroleum, with which the entire body must be rubbed, and the clothes must be changed when coming from the fields. Emerging from the miles of woods, we saw a hemp-field, and soon the white gate of a hacienda,—a beautiful place,—which we reached at four in the afternoon. We intended to go on, but the mayor-domo pressed us to stay, and gave us a splendid supper of turtle-soup and steak, eggs, frijoles, and tortillas, with claret and honey. A garden, every way the equal of that we had visited in the morning, surrounded the house, and we walked in its delightful shades in the evening. The beehives attracted my attention, they were so primitive and so complete, for a tropical country, being merely round hollow logs, about two feet long, plastered up at each end with mud, and piled up in long rows. They are emptied every six weeks. The honey is so fragrant at some seasons as to scent the house; and there is an added charm to bee-keeping in this country from the fact that the bees are stingless. At sunset the chapel bell sounded for oracion, or evening prayer, and all the laborers gathered about with uncovered heads. When it was finished, they came to us and wished us "Buenas noches " (good night). This delightful custom is in vogue in every portion of the country; in Merida, the servants and children never failed to give us this salutation of peace, as the last stroke of the bell died on the air.
That evening, in March, 1881, was a glorious one, with a new moon, and Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn forming a triangle above her. We slept in hammocks in the corridor, and at four next morning were out in search of José, our driver; at six, after waiting a long time for chocolate, we left the hospitable mayor-domo, who was complaining of having been kept up after his usual hour of retiring, eight o'clock, by some of his people who had been off at a fiesta. The hacienda of San José is near the Sierra, the only line of hills in Yucatan, and here called mountains. These we climbed easily, sitting in the front of the volan, to avoid tipping up the mules, and descended the other slope before the sun got hot. The driver urged the mules down hill at a furious pace, lashing them all the way, over steep, slippery
rocks, and along the borders of high cliffs, but when we reached level going he pulled them up! We had been going about two hours, when we saw José pull out a long black cigar and light it. By this sign we knew we were near a town or hacienda, this being an invariable custom, as no high-bred driver will appear in any village or plantation without a lighted cigar in his mouth and driving like mad. Sure enough, the hemp-fields soon hove in sight, and then the hacienda, into the yard of which we rode wildly, took out the mules, and carried our traps to the corridor,—and then asked permission to stop there. The proprietor was there, by some good fortune, and gave us the best he had at once. Hammocks were assigned us in a large room, our mules were stabled, and we were invited to partake of the hospitality of the hacienda for the week that we intended to stay there. It was a mile to the ruins, portions of which we found imbedded in the walls of the buildings and the fences. At the right hand of the corridor was the veritable "two-headed tiger" discovered and unearthed by Stephens, forty years ago, at the palace of Uxmal, and brought here by the present proprietor for safe-keeping; and a heap of small idols lay at the foot of a palm tree growing near it.
So much did the proprietor of Uxmal facilitate our preparations, that at ten o'clock we had traversed the intervening space between the hacienda and the ruins, and were at the base of the great pyramid. I do not know whether a writer ought to describe his sensations, or merely what he sees, leaving it for the reader to imagine what he would have thought and felt had he been there; but it may not be out of place to say that I was elated at the prospect of looking for the first time upon these magnificent ruins, and that a variety of emotions kept me in a state of expectation and pleasurable excitement. We climbed up the steep sides of the pyramid, generally known as the Casa del Adivino,[1] or "House of the Prophet," and from its summit, from the roof of its topmost building,—difficult to reach and offering precarious foothold,—a glorious panorama was spread before us.
West, directly below, was the Casa de las Monjas, or "House of the Nuns," in its ruins beautiful beyond description; south, the principal building of the group, the "House of the Governor," or Casa del Gobernador, raised upon its immense terraces, one of which also supported the "House of the Turtles" (Casa de Las Tortugas), with the "Nameless Mound" beyond them all; east of south lay the ruins of Casa de la Vieja (the "Old Woman's House"), all tumbled about her head; from south to west circled mounds and clusters of ruins, such as the "House of the Pigeons " (Casa de las Palomas), and the remains of an extensive series of buildings; beyond this city could be seen other ruins, perhaps other cities, reaching out in a long line that could be traced miles away.
"The dense wild wood that hid the royal seat,
The lofty palms that choked the winding street,
Man's hand hath felled, and now, in day's fair light,
Uxmal's broad ruins burst upon the sight."
A great plain surrounded us, smooth and level as the sea, with a range of hills circling from northwest to southeast. This mound, or pyramid, lying due east from the city, was probably used as a place of sacrifice. The rooms of the building that forms the apex of the structure are small, and with the peculiar arch without the keystone, the entire building being about seventy feet long and only twelve feet deep. It is rich in sculpture; the hieroglyphics on the western part are in a good state of preservation, and a certain archaeologist claims to have the key to their meaning. The entire pyramid[2] is one hundred and five feet high, "not exactly pyramidal," but with rounded sides. A staircase, seventy feet wide, one hundred and two feet high, and containing ninety steps, climbs the eastern face of the structure from the base to the platform. The steps are narrow and steep, and we can well believe that when, as the old historians relate, the high priest kicked the body of the victim of sacrifice from the house of the altar, it fell the whole distance of a hundred feet to the ground,—that "it never stopped till it came to the bottom." We had much difficulty in getting up, and a great deal more in getting down, where a single false step would have precipitated us headlong. Waldeck[3] considers this a place originally devoted to sacrifices, and says the "Asiatic style" is easily recognized in the architecture of this monument.
By far the finest building of the city, conspicuous alike from its position and the completeness of its preservation, is the "Royal Palace," the Casa del Gobernador. After the Conjurer's Pyramid, this was the next pile visited by us, and made the point of departure for subsequent excursions during the five days we remained there. It stands upon the topmost of three terraces of earth,—once perhaps faced with stone, but now crumbled and broken. The lowermost and largest is 575 feet long; the second, 545 feet long, 250 wide, and 25 feet high; while the third and last is 360 feet in length, 30 in breadth, and 19 in height, and supports the building, which has a front of 322 feet, with a depth of only 39 and a height of but 25 feet. It is entirely of stone without ornament to a height of about ten feet, where there is a wide cornice, above which the wall is a bewildering maze of beautiful sculpture. The roof was flat and once covered with cement, in the opinion of certain travellers, but is now a miniature forest of the indigenous shrubs and small trees of Yucatan,—a hanging-garden of Nature's own formation, such as she covers every object with, in a few years, in this tropical portion of her domain. There are three large doorways through the eastern wall, about eight feet square, giving entrance into a series of apartments, the largest of which is sixty feet long and twenty-seven deep, divided into two rooms by a thick wall. The ceiling of each room is a triangular arch (such as is figured a little farther on), capped by flat blocks at a height of twenty-three feet above the floor. The latter, like the walls and the jambs of the doorways, is of smooth, faced stones, that may once have been covered with cement.
It is impossible to convey in mere words a picture, either in general or in detail, of this beautiful building; and hence I supplement my meagre description with engravings which I have procured, knowing that they will speak more eloquently than 
NORTH FAÇADE OF THE CASA DE LAS MONJAS. the pen. In them, the intricate details of the sculpture, that baffled even the pencil of the accomplished Catherwood, are presented clearly at a glance.
Within a stone's throw of the "Governor's Palace" is a small building far gone in ruins, displaying workmanship of great skill, and sculpture chaste in design, called the "House of the Turtles,"—Casa de las Tortugas. It derives its name from a row of turtles used as ornaments to the upper cornice. It may have served as the kitchen to the royal residence,—accepting Indian tradition in regard to the names,—but was once beautiful enough for a temple.
If the "Governor's House" claims attention from its conspicuous position and size, the Casa de las Monjas, the so-called "House of the Nuns," presents the greatest variety of sculptured forms and richest ornaments. It is composed of four buildings, the longest of which is 279 feet and about equal in height to the palace, enclosing a court 258 feet long and 214 wide. The entrance is on the southern side, through a high arched gateway ten feet wide. There are no doors or windows opening on the outside, though there are in all eighty-eight apartments opening upon the court.
The façades of this immense quadrangle are ornamented, says Stephens,[4] with the richest and most intricate carving known in the art of the builders of Uxmal. That portion forming the western boundary, at the left as one enters the court, is the most wonderful of all; for its entire length of 173 feet is covered by two colossal serpents, whose intertwined bodies enclose a puzzling variety of sculptured hieroglyphs. Theory and speculation do not enter into the plan of this work, or I should venture a few remarks upon the personage or deity this great serpent is intended to represent. We shall see later on, in Mexico, the same feathered or plumed serpent, and cannot help recalling the Aztec tradition regarding it. In another decade of years it is possible that this grand conception embodied in stone by the Indian sculptors will be mutilated beyond repair, as a great portion of the wall has already been torn away for building purposes. Yuccas and other semi-tropical plants adorn the roof of this building, and also the ground in front, rendering approach to it somewhat difficult. At the southern end of the court the folds of the serpents surround a standing human figure, now much mutilated, a subject rarely used in the ornamentation of these buildings. If the drawing by Catherwood, made forty years ago, is correct, all the faced stone below the figure has been torn away since he was there. The northern and eastern façades have been greatly injured since Stephens's visit, and most of the grotesque ornaments, the rosettes and heads, broken or wrenched entirely away. The hand of man proves more ruthless than the hand of time; and, since the exportation of antiquities has been forbidden by the Mexican government, it is evident that these stones have been removed by the proprietors of Uxmal, or the laborers, for use in their dwellings.
These three structures comprise the principal buildings at present in a state of preservation that makes them of interest to the general traveller. There are others, even in this group, as mentioned in the view from the high mound, but they are in such a state of ruin that their original form is obliterated.
South from Uxmal are the extensive ruins of Kabah, where are buildings with fronts of one hundred and fifty feet, and lavishly ornamented. Unlike the façades of the buildings of Uxmal, which were only decorated above the doorways, those of Kabah were "ornamented from their very foundation." Stephens also adds: "The cornice running over the doorways, tried by the severest rules of art recognized among us, would embellish the art of any known era; and, amid a mass of barbarism, of rude and uncouth conceptions, it stands as an offering by American builders worthy of the acceptance of a polished people." At Labná the sculpture is profuse, grotesque, and 
florid. Of the sixty or seventy ruined cities scattered throughout Yucatan, none offers points of greater interest than Uxmal. The ruins of Copan, in Honduras, are distinguished for the number of idols and altars richly sculptured; those of Palenque, in the State of Chiapas, for the profusion of stucco adornment, tablets, bas-reliefs, and statuary; Uxmal, for the richness of its sculptured façades, the magnitude of its buildings, and the chasteness and beauty of its statuary, judging from the few specimens found there. There was recently discovered at Uxmal, by the archæologist. Dr. Le Plongeon, in the summer of 1881, a beautiful statue, surpassing anything ever found among the ruins of Central America. Fearing that, if made known to the government, it would share the fate of his other discovery at Chichen, that of Chaacmol, he closed the aperture leading to it; and this fair conception of Indian art was again consigned to the darkness in which it has rested for centuries.
Who are the people who built these structures, who lavished the work of a lifetime upon their adornment, and who have passed away without leaving a memorial (except in undeciphered hieroglyphs) of their existence? Various are the theories propounded, and presumptuous would he be who would now offer one differing from those of the learned men,—who all differ among themselves! Writers seeking to find in the Bible the root of the tree of the human family have ascribed these buildings to the Jews, to the Phoenicians, and to the Egyptians. Some assign to them a great antiquity, others claim that they are of comparatively recent construction. Among the latter is Stephens, who says, "They were not the work of people who have passed away and whose history is lost, but of the same race who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or of some not very distant progenitors." Yet he admits that there are no traditions, (as there should be if his supposition were correct,) as in the case of Egypt, Greece, and Rome; and this, with many other facts, is in support of the theories of Dr. Le Plongeon and other hardy thinkers of later date than Stephens, who do not fear to deliver their unshackled opinions. The above-quoted writer also thought that perhaps the Toltecs, when they left Anahuac, came here, some of them, and built these cities; yet again he says, "They claim no affinity with the works of any known people, but a distinct, independent, and separate existence." (!)
It will not be permitted for men chained to any particular creed, who would fain be the Champollions of the New World, to decipher the inscriptions on the walls of these cities. We have seen enough of this kind in the work of the Spanish ecclesiastics, who perverted history that Indian traditions might conform to the views of priests and monks squinting through Papal spectacles. They do not take into account the cumulative evidence in favor of an original American civilization, but crawl about, groping for some clue that shall lead up to Shem, Ham, and Japhet!
Many blunders have been committed by writers reasoning from false premises; but the most amusing, perhaps, is one by Prescott, who, unfortunately, obliged to avail himself solely of the researches of others, was led frequently into blind alleys and byways. In writing of the ruins of Uxmal he says, "Another evidence of their age is afforded by the circumstance that in one of the courts of Uxmal the granite (?) pavement, on which the figures of tortoises were raised in relief, is worn nearly smooth by the feet of the crowds who have passed over it; a curious fact, suggesting inferences both in regard to the age and population of the place." Now this "granite pavement," with its carven tortoises, has never been seen by mortal man, although described by the unreliable and wonder-seeking Waldeck. The native historian of Yucatan, Señor Ancona, calls attention to this fact, and declares that we are wholly indebted to the imagination of Waldeck for this statement: "Estas tortugas, expuestas a las piedras de la muchedumbre, solo han existido en la imaginacion de Waldeck." It is true that there are many sculptures of this kind in Uxmal, but only on the doors and on the cornices.
The Consul and myself fixed our residence in the Casa del Gobernador, in the inner room of the great apartment. Some beams had once crossed the room, at ten feet or so above the stone floor, but they had fallen out centuries ago, leaving only the sockets. Into two of these we fitted the ends of a small sapling, which our Indian cut, and crossed the space twenty
feet beyond with another, and in this manner secured a hanging place for our hammocks. The generous proprietor of the hacienda had furnished us with an Indian, a pure Maya, descended, perhaps, from the very builders of this palace, who spoke only his native tongue. By signs, and with a few Maya sentences the Consul understood, we managed him very well. He cleared away the trees and bushes about the walls, so that I could photograph them, made our fires night and morning, carried our apparatus, and made himself much beloved.
Though we passed several days here, we had few adventures, and one will suffice to illustrate how we passed the time in the palace of the departed kings. In the morning we went out to the aguada, or watering-place, of the ancient city, a small pond that may originally have been artificial, but which bears no evidence of it now, being surrounded with sedges and water plants, and with little islets in it, harbors of refuge for numerous coots and gallinules. I shot one of these latter birds, with long, slender toes, and strong spurs on its wings, and also some beautiful yellow-breasted specimens of tyrannus and crimson flycatchers. From the aguada, toward which the surrounding plain sloped naturally, covered with a thick growth of low trees, a perfect view was spread out of the entire city, its rear portion showing what a stupendous monument the giants of those dead and gone days had erected. More ponds were scattered about here, some shaded by trees, and all welcome as rare sights to greet the eyes of one travelling in Eastern Yucatan.
In crossing a grassy pasture lying in the great quadrangle between the buildings, I astonished our Indian guide beyond measure by shooting a king vulture, as it flew overhead. I was attempting to creep upon it, when it flew; the Indian, who thought then that I had lost all chance of shooting it, was rooted to the spot when he saw it fall hurtling through the air, and strike the earth at the base of a prostrate pillar of sculptured stone. He recovered himself in season to bring me the bird, but examined us both attentively; and when he later explained, in his guttural language, the whole thing to a group of friends, they all regarded me with increased respect.
The heat of noon was very oppressive, and we passed that period in the corridor of our house, admiring the prospect 
spread before us from the open door. There is one feature about the Yucatan architecture that has caused almost as much wrangling among archaeologists as the celebrated "calendar stone," and that is the "Maya arch," made without a keystone. By producing a photographic reproduction of that in the southern end of the eastern façade, my readers will see at once its shape, its symmetry, and the method of formation. Arches exist in all the ruins, notably one figured by Stephens at Kabah, which, standing solitary in its massiveness, reminded him of the Arch of Titus. Another peculiarity of the sculptor's art, also, is the so-called "elephant trunk," shown in the photograph of the northwest corner of the palace. Waldeck gives it this name, and Stephens, commenting on this, wonders where the early architects obtained their pattern, since the elephant is not indigenous to America. But the mastodon was; though this item in support of the theory of great antiquity is not relished by the seekers after a connecting link with the Old World.
As night came along, away went our faithful Maya, his love for us not proving strong enough to induce him to remain in the ruins after dark. He was perfectly right, for he could quote Indian tradition to the effect that the builders and former occupants return at night and seize upon any of their kind found within the castle walls. So the Consul and I were left alone, to brave the terrors of a night in the damp and lonely ruin. Just at sunset we climbed the immense pile known as the "Nameless Mound," and, scrambling over loose stones, amongst agave and prickly-pear, reached the top, a platform of rough rock, with many holes here and there, suggesting caverns of unknown depth. We found here shards of pottery, arched openings on the north side, and everywhere sculptured stones, in evidence that much labor had been expended here. From it one overlooks the entire city; and we saw the sun go down, gilding with his last rays the Diviner's House on the top of the great pyramid, and glancing over the walls of the "House of the Nuns." and the Pajaros, or "House of Birds." We had seen him in the morning, shining full upon the eastern face of this "hill of sacrifice"; and now we attempted to people anew its deserted halls with some of the vast multitude that are said to have assembled before it when a victim was offered to their idols. Remains of their idol worship lie scattered about the courts and over the forest-covered plains, showing that they had a good variety of gods; but whether all at once, or in successive ages, who can tell?
We descended to our quarters in the casa, and, sticking a candle up in a bottle and lighting it, prepared for the night. Darkness completely enveloped us; the cries of the various birds, such as jays and chachalakas, had ceased;— ". . . the night-eyed insect tribes
Waked to their portion of the circling hours";—
the stars came out and smiled down on us.
A flat stone, that had once formed a portion of the wall, served as a table, and stones for seats, that had been carved a thousand years ago with patient art. Soon the Consul left me to my enforced labor of skinning birds, and sought his hammock in the inner room, whither I did not follow him till well past midnight, sitting up purposely to tempt the ghosts and note the noises of the night. They have a charm for me, these nocturnal sounds, and many a tropic night I have lain awake, beneath rustling palms and waving plantain leaves, striving to analyze the myriad voices in the trees. But there were few here; man, beast, and bird seemed to have deserted the dead city, and to have left it to silence.
As I finally rose to retire, a noise like the distant roar of the sea came down to me, caused by the hundreds of bats and vampires swooping through the resounding arch above. Entering the inner doorway, with the flaring candle shaded by my hand, there stared me in the face the bloody imprint of the red hand, that mystery to antiquarians, and the yawning hole, dug by some vandal, to satisfy himself the walls were solid.
The rumors prevailing among the Indians that there were tigers lurking in these ruins, and that the sublevados sometimes extended their nocturnal raids as far as Uxmal, induced us to carry our fire-arms to bed with us, and each had a gun leaning against the wall within reach, and a revolver hanging at the head of the hammock.
It was not long after I had extinguished the candle, that I was dreaming of Indians, and their natural concomitants, murder and bloodshed. That red hand haunted me: an enormous savage stood by my hammock, with a hand dripping with blood which he was about to imprint on my face—when I awoke, and found it morning.
- ↑ Literally, "House of the Soothsayer," or "Diviner," but called "House of the Dwarf," from a fanciful legend, related by the natives, that it was built by a savage dwarf in a single night. The names of all the buildings are misnomers, their original ones (if they had any) having been forgotten, and replaced by comparatively modern appellations by the Spanish invaders.
- ↑ Norman, who visited Yucatan between the two visits of Stephens,—1840 and 1842,—varies slightly in his measurements from the latter author, whose descriptions I follow in the main; but his examination was a hasty one, and where there is a difference, it will be safer to accept the data furnished by Stephens.
- ↑ Voyage Pittoresque et Archéologique dans la Province de Yucatan, Paris, 1838.
- ↑ This traveller, accompanied by the talented Catherwood, visited and described the most important ruins of Honduras, Guatemala, Chiapas, and Yucatan, and his works, "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan," and "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," have been accepted as standard authorities upon them. We can hardly travel there without treading in his footsteps, and hence I have used his measurements of buildings, and can vouch for the accuracy of his descriptions.