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IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 

 

 

 
 ONE OF THE HEADS FROM THE CASA DEL GOBERNADOR, UXMAL. 
 
 [See p. 246 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN 
 LAND 
 
 By 
 
 THOMAS GANN 
 
 J.P., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 
 Member of the Maya Society 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 1924 
 
Be 
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 E AND PRINTED IN 
 
 ‘MAD 
 
 
 
 
 1924 
 GREAT BR 
 
 SOUTHAMPTON TIMES LTD., SOU 
 
 
 
 § 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER I.—Arrival in Belize—Population of the Colony—Belize 
 
 Market—Belize founded by Buccaneers—Efforts made by 
 Spaniards to eject them unavailing—Battle of St. George’s 
 Cay—The “‘ Poke and Go Boys ’’—Celebrations of the An- 
 niversary of the Battle in Belize—Mahogany Cutters— 
 Their hard Lives—Case of Piracy on the High Seas occurring 
 recently inthe Caribbean . . : ; ; ° Micka 
 
 CHAPTER II].—Leave Belize—Members of the Expedition—Arrival 
 in Payo Obispo—Ashore on the Rocks—A dangerous Coast— 
 Xcalac—Espiritu Santo Bay—Landing through the Mud— 
 A deserted Fishing Settlement—Our first Maya Ruin—The 
 East Coast Civilisation—Culebra Cays—A contented Colony— 
 Ascension—Wreck of Mexican Gunboat—Vigia Chica—Arrival 
 at Central—An Uncomfortable Night—-Chicleros—Santa 
 Cruz Indians—They refuse to carry the Letter to their Chief— 
 The Chicle Bleeder’s Life—Arrival in Santa Cruz de Bravo— 
 History of the Town—lIts Abandonment by the Mexicans—Old 
 Spanish Church at Santa Cruz—The Worship of the Talking 
 Cross—Victims sacrificed to it—Lunch with the only Indian 
 Family in the Town . : g - 4 19 
 
 CHAPTER III.—Leave Santa Cruz—A lazy Mule—A Maya Shrine—Its 
 Origin—Beliefs of the modern Indians regarding these Shrines— 
 A Dance Platform—A Sunken Stone Cistern—Traces of the three 
 Civilisations of Yucatan—Start for the Coast—We meet the 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Santa Cruz Army—We entertain 
 him and the General’s Nephew—Useful Maya Phrases—Fatal 
 Complaint amongst the Indians—Description of Maya— 
 Origin of the Maya—Appearance—The Women—Costume 
 —The Women’s Work—Their Indifference to Money—Food— 
 Traps for Game—Dangerous Hammocks—Marriage—Armlets 
 worn by the Children—Drunkenness—Effects of Alcohol— 
 Method of appointing Chiefs—Methods of Punishment— 
 Executions—Flogging—Witchcraft—Feeble hold on Life— 
 Small-pox—-Bleeding —Remedies—The Cha Chac Ceremony 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV.—A Mad Mule—Arrival in Vigia-Boca Paila—A Sports- 
 man’s Paradise—Arrival in Cozumel—Carnival Celebrations— 
 The Administration—The Island of Cozumel—An Ideal Life— 
 Mexican Officialsk—A Native Dance—Vino del Pais—Island 
 Ladies—Savage Dogs—An ancient Church—Cortez’ Visit to 
 
 5 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 PAGE 
 Cozumel—Vaults and Graves opened by Treasure Seekers— 
 Grijalva’s Visit to Cozumel—The Buildings found there by 
 Him—He takes Possession in the Name of the King of Spain— 
 Sitting on a Jerisco—The Pests of Yucatan—Salubrity of the 
 Island—We engage a Pilot—He knows of a hitherto unvisited 
 Ruined City—Arrival off Ascension Bay—We Land to Sleep— 
 Tracks in the Sand—Good Fishing and Sport—Wonderful 
 Flotsam on the Beach—Discovery of the Ruined City . » 59 
 
 CHAPTER V.—Soldier Crabs and Bats—Clearing the Bush round the 
 Ruins—Hubert lives up to his Reputation—-Maya never dis- 
 covered the Principle of the Arch—Description of the Temples— 
 
 A Chacmool’s Offerings found buried beside it—Market-place 
 —Curious Stucco Ornaments—Ceremonies Performed at these 
 Temples—The Builders of this and other East Coast Cities . 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI.—Maya History—lIts Sources—Methods of Reckoning 
 the Passage of Time—History of the Old Empire—History of 
 the New Empire—Foundation of the Various Cities in the 
 Maya Area—Reasons for Maya deserting their Old Cities for 
 Yucatan—Settlement of New Empire—Founding of New Cities 
 —Itzamna, the Hero God—Migration from Chichen Itza to 
 Champoton—Return to Chichen Itza—Entry of the Tutul Xiu 
 to Yucatan—The Hero God Cuculcan—The Maya Renaissance 
 —The Breaking-up of the Maya Triple Alliance—Its Cause— 
 Mexican Mercenaries called into Yucatan—The Cocomes Rule in 
 Yucatan for 250 Years—They are overcome by the Tutul Xiu 
 —The Country is divided up into a Number of Small States 
 constantly at War till the Coming of the Spaniards—Naming 
 the new City Chacmool—The Period to which these Ruins 
 belong—Uncomfortable Quarters—We take leave of Chacmool 89 
 
 CHAPTER VII.—Camp out at Nohku—Arrival at Tuluum—The Town 
 first sighted by Grijalva in 1518—Revisited by Stephens in 1841 
 —Subsequent Visits—Reading the Date on the Stele—The 
 Castillo from the Sea—Difficulties in Landing—We find no 
 Trace of the Stele—Landing the Camping Outfit—We Camp 
 in the Castillo—Description of the Castillo—An Uncomfortable 
 Night—We Find the Stele—Description of the Sculpture on 
 the Stele—Maya Chronology . : ; : , « tog 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.—Possible Explanations of the Initial Series Date on 
 the Stele—The Mystery Solved—The Wall encircling the City 
 Watch-towers—Use of Walled Cities—Impossibility of Starv- 
 ing the Garrison of the City—Discovery of New Buildings 
 within the Walls—Types of Buildings Found—Stucco Figures— 
 Mexican, Maya, and Christian Religions—Mural Paintings— 
 The Only Calendar Hieroglyph found at Tuluum—Resemblance 
 of the Figures of the Gods on the Stucco to those of the 
 
CONTENTS 4 
 
 PAGE 
 Dresden Codex—Destruction by the Spaniards of the Maya 
 
 Books—Origin of the Dresden Codex—Gods worshipped at 
 Tuluum—Tuluum and Chacmool Compared—Human Sacrifice 
 —Non-arrival of Desiderio Cochua—Silence of the Ruins— 
 Reflections on Tuluum : . : : ‘ ‘ » 120 
 
 CHAPTER IX.—Landing at Playa Carmen—Primitive People—Bar- 
 tering with the Indians—Uselessness of Money—Tobacco 
 Curing—Temples of the Tuluum Period—Visiting the Sick— 
 Aguilar, the first European to visit Yucatan—Treatment of the 
 First Spanish Visitors by the Natives—Aguilar’s Ransom by 
 Cortez—His Opportunities of Learning the Manners and 
 Customs of the Natives—Puerto Morelos—A once thriving 
 Settlement gone to Decay—lIsla de las Mujeres—Origin of the 
 Name—Monotonous Life of the Islanders—Fish Plentiful— 
 Drifting Sand—Reception by the Municipality—An Excellent 
 Dinner—Ruins on the South End of the Island—A Great 
 Kitchen Midden of the Ancients—Ill-luck Attending those who 
 Meddle with the Possessions of the Ancient Inhabitants—A 
 Miraculous Cross—Treasure Formerly Buried in the Islands of 
 the Caribbean—Island of Cancuen—Set out in Search of Ruins 
 Recently Brought to Light—The Ancient King of Cancuen and 
 his Palace—Other Buildings at Cancuen—Buildings neither 
 Fortified nor Centralised—No Mention of Cancuen by Early 
 Historians—Ruins of El Meco—Unusual Isolation—The 
 Original Temple added to at Later Dates—An Uncomfortable 
 Night : ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ : . ; » 53s 
 
 CHAPTER X.—Arrival at Boca Iglesias—Difficulty in Starting Up the 
 Boca—Stuck in.the Mud—An old Church—Curious Offerings 
 on the Altar—Reflections on the Deserted Church—Probable 
 Date of the Church—Reason for Its Isolated Situation—Cape 
 Catoche and the Island of Holbox—Arrival at Yalahau—-We 
 Sleep on Board—A Former Pirates’ Stronghold—An Old Stone 
 Fort built to Subdue Piracy—Arrival at Cerro Cuyo—Differ- 
 ence between the North and East of Yucatan—We reach Silan 
 —Set out on a Mule Special for the Interior—A Yucatecan 
 Ranch—Difficulty in Hiring a Tramvia—The Town of Silan 
 —Its Resemblance to an Irish Village, in the Suburbs— 
 Gigantic Mound in the Town—The Spaniards driven out of 
 Chichen Itza took refuge here in 1531—Ancient Stele from the 
 Mound now set up in the Cabildo Wall—Calendar Round Date 
 on the Stele—Stele Built into Church Wall—It had contained 
 an Initial Series Date—The Pirate Laffite buried at Silan— 
 A Maya Tombstone from the Old Church—Difficulty in getting 
 Refreshments—We meet Members of the Municipalidad—An 
 Expensive Meal . . ° ° ° . . - 156 
 
8 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XI.—Arrival at Progreso—English and Americans popular 
 
 in Yucatan—We are Relieved of our Arms—High Cost of 
 Living and Service—Inflated Wages—Resemblance of Merida to 
 Monte Carlo—Mass no Longer Celebrated in the Churches— 
 Palace of Francisco Montejo—Sculptured Fagade all the Work 
 of Native Artists—Damage Done in Cathedral by Mexican 
 Federal Troops—Flower Decorated Plaza Chief Rendezvous 
 —Boot Cleaning—Reason for Few Entertainments being Given 
 by Meridanos to Foreigners—Caste Barriers being Broken 
 Down—Mestizas Formerly Compelled to Wear Special Dress— 
 Native Dress of Men and Women—High Prices—No Alcohol on 
 Sale—An Unfortunate Incident—Meridanos All Speak Maya, 
 and many English—The Governor of Yucatan—A Successful 
 Administration—Sefior Don Juan Martinez, an Accomplished 
 Maya Scholar—Guardians of the Ruins—Land Barons of 
 Yucatan, their Recent Rapid Enrichment-—Molina Solis, the 
 Historian—Early Start of Trains from Merida—dArrival in 
 Dzibalché—Hiring a Fotingo—Ranch of San Luis—Decline of 
 Cattle Ranches in Yucatan—A Bad Road for Motoring— 
 Arrival at the Ruins of Dzibalche—Descriptions of the Temples 
 —Undecipherable Inscriptions—The Initial Series Inscription 
 —The Date Recorded by it is the Latest of all Long Count 
 Inscriptions—Historically not Improbable . . ° ; 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER XII.—Inconvenience of Sleeping in a Liquor Store even 
 
 when Closed—Natives Turn Night Into Day—Superiority of 
 Yucatan Women of the Bourgeois Class to the Men Exemplified 
 in our Hostess—Heavy Municipal Taxation—No Curas in the 
 Villages Now—An Officious Jefe—Arrival in Campeche—The 
 Hotel Guatemoc, Formerly the Governor’s Palace—Campeche, 
 Formerly a Prosperous City, now suffering from Dry Rot— 
 Great Wall Surrounding the City—Two Fine Old Churches— 
 Trouble in Clearing from and Entering Mexican Ports—Port of 
 Campeche Silting Up—We leave Campeche—An Unfortunate 
 Accident—Arrival at Champoton—Rumour of German Wire- 
 less—Archeological Interest of Champoton—Strangers in 
 Town—A Terrible Trek Across the Peninsula from East to West 
 —The Campo Santo—Champoton a Decaying Town—Dif- 
 ference between Yucatecan and Campechano—We Leave 
 Champoton—Seiba Playa—Return to Merida—Difficulty in Ob- 
 taining Old Books in Merida dealing with Yucatan—Set out 
 for Xcanchacan—A Light-hearted Crowd of Natives—A Vast 
 Ranch—Absolute Power of the Owner over his Servants— 
 Indian Girls at Xcanchacan—Henequen Cultivation and Pre- 
 paration of the Fibre—Stele with Important Katun Date at the 
 Rancho—Arrival .at the Ruined City of Mayapan—Primitive 
 
 PAGE 
 
 171 
 
CONTENTS : 9 
 
 PAGE 
 Means of Drawing Water—Destruction of Mayapan and 
 
 Slaughter of the Cocomes—Some of the Reigning a 
 Probably Escaped . , . . : : : 190 
 
 CHAPTER XIII.—Return to Merida—Set Out for Dzitas—Travelling 
 by Volan Coche and on Horseback—First View of the Ruins of 
 Chichen Itza—The Casa Principal and its Legend of Buried 
 Treasure—Attacked by Marching Army of Ants—The Monjas 
 said to have been used as a Nunnery by the Maya—The 
 Iglesia—Tradition that Maya came originally from India— 
 The Akatzib—The Caracol—The Chichanchob, or Red House 
 —The High Priest’s Grave—Inscription Giving the Date of 
 Its Erection—Burial Chambers found within it—Probably 
 a Royal Mausoleum—tThe Ball Court—Temples at each end of 
 it—Curious Acoustic Properties—Herrera’s Account of the 
 Aztec Game of Ball—Fragments of Incense Burners found 
 amongst Débris of Ball Court of Much Later Date—The Temple 
 of the Jaguars—The Serpent God—Painted Sculpture— 
 Paintings on Stucco—The Castillo—Description of the Temple 
 Wanton Damage to Wood Carving—Temples of Owl and 
 Phalli, Old Chichen Itza . : ‘ ; : ‘ si: 207 
 
 CHAPTER XIV.—The Cenote of Sacrifice—A Weird Pool—The Most 
 Sacred Spot in Yucatan—Sacrifice to the Rain God of Young 
 Girls—Wonderful Treasure Recovered from the Cenote, with 
 Skeletons of Girls—Objects Found—Wide Distribution Geo- 
 graphically of Art Treasures—Sacrificial ‘‘ Killing’”’ of Objects 
 before Throwing in the Cenote—First Historical Account of 
 the Ruins—Montejo’s Ill-fated Occupation of Chichen Itza— 
 The Spaniards Escape by a Ruse—The Temple of the Initial 
 Series—The Chacmool Temple—The Temple of the Atlantean 
 Figures—The Temple of Two Lintels and its Date—The Temple 
 of the Owl and its Date-—-Dated Buildings Found Covering the 
 Three Periodsofthe City . ‘ . ‘ ‘ * x 222 
 
 CHAPTER XV.—We return to Dzitas—Unsuccessful Effort to Stop 
 Réveillé by Indian Performers—An Accommodating Judge— 
 Similarity of the Yucatecans to the Irish—Arrival at Ticul— 
 An Uncomfortable Night—The Cave of Loltun—Petroglyphs— 
 Water Receptacles—The Only Date found in the Cave—Tra- 
 dition Amongst the Indians in Connection with the Cave—The 
 Ranch of Tabi—Hospitably Entertained—A Luxurious Ranch— 
 An Equine Battle Royal—A Curious Stele showing traces of 
 Spanish Influence—The Inscription Undecipherable—A Bad 
 Road—Santa Ana—Great Pyramid at Kabah—Great Numbers 
 of Ruined Buildings throughout Yucatan—Other Buildings at 
 Kabah—Glyphs which we Could Not Read—A Triumphal Arch 
 —A Stone-faced Terrace; Buildings on It—Removal of 
 
Io 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Sapodilla Beams Leads to the Fall of the Buildings—Removal of 
 Sculptured Lintel to New York and Its Destruction— 
 Sculptured Door Jambs—Disappointed In Not Finding a Date 
 in the City—Pleasant City to Visit—Scarcity of Water—Source 
 of Water Supply of Ancient Inhabitants . ‘ ‘ . 
 
 CHAPTER XVI.—Visit to Uxmal, the City of the Tutul Xiu—The Casa 
 
 del Gobernador—We Take Up our Abode on the Uppermost 
 Terrace—A Romantic Spot—Mausoleum of the former Kings 
 of Uxmal—Graffiti on one of the Walls—Removal of the 
 Sapodilla Lintels from the Casa del Gobernador—The House 
 of the Dwarf—Uxmal Visited by Padre Cogolludo—The Ruins 
 Still Venerated by Modern Indians—Casa de las Monjas— 
 Description of the Building—Inscription in One of the Rooms 
 —Painted and Dated Capstone—Other Capstones on which 
 We Could Not Read the Dates—Stele with Time Count 
 Engraved upon It—The Ball Court—Inscribed Rings—Pro- 
 bably Record the Shifting of the Month Coefficient by One 
 Day—Accounts of the Unhealthiness of the Ruins Not Justified 
 —Held’s Unpleasant Job of Copying the Capstones—Visit from 
 Indian Pilgrims—Two Pretty Girls—An Aboriginal American 
 Royal Family—End of our Work in Yucatan—What We had 
 Accomplished During the Trip . : . . : . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 231 
 
 244 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ONE OF THE HEADS FROM THE CASA DEL GOBERNADOR, 
 
 UXMAL ; : ‘ : ? : : . Frontispiece 
 Facinc PAGE 
 SKETCH Map oF YUCATAN i 4 A : » : “warts 
 MARKET PLACE, BELIZE . ° . : . . . . 14 
 HUBERT’S PASSPORT . : : : ; : “ . ; 14 
 INDIAN CHIEF WITH GENERAL SOLIS . 2 ‘ ‘ : - 20 
 VARIOUS AVATERS OF GEORGE . ; : ; ‘ . j 20 
 SANTA CRUZ DE BRAvo: OLp CHURCH. : : : ‘ ». 32 
 BACALAR : CHURCH WHERE MASSACRES TOOK PLACE ‘ : SJ at ee 
 BACALAR CHURCH INTERIOR . : : . : : pais. | 
 INCENSE BURNER  . é p é H . ir ° o 4d 
 MaAyA INDIAN CHILDREN . : d ° ; . ° - 84 
 PRIEST BEFORE ALTAR IN CHA CHAC CEREMONY . : : Bua ee 
 SAN MIGUEL COZUMEL, FROM THE SEA . . : . . a) oo 
 CHACMOOL: PLAN OF MAIN GRouP OF RUINS . ° ; ey ees 
 CHACMOOL : FACADE OF TEMPLE “‘ C,’’ AND PARTOF TEMPLE’ D” . 80 
 THE CHACMOOL ‘ é : : : < : A oe 
 THE CHACMOOL IN SITU WITHIN A LITTLE TEMPLE IN LINE OF 
 APPROACH TO CHIEF TEMPLE . 3 : ‘ » : ‘ 82 
 PLAN OF PRINCIPAL GROUP AT TULUUM . - ; ‘ ° =. Fie 
 TuLuuM : TEMPLE WITH RoOFCoMB  . : - “ ; » 220 
 MONTHS OF THE MAYA YEAR ‘ ‘ “ ; dj ; TC Teae 
 DAyYs OF THE MAYA YEAR . ri : : A ; : a) 4X2 
 TULUUM . ‘ , , ‘ é 5 ; > s i - 330) 
 TuLUUM : TW0-STORIED BUILDING ; : , ; «| £26 
 TULUUM : SEATED FIGURE OF GOD . : F P A ~ 396 
 Au PuCcH, THE GOD OF DEATH . : ; P ‘ $ » x28 
 THE Gops CUCULCAN AND ITZAMNA , ; < : > ee 
 PLAYA CARMEN : BARTERING WITH INHABITANTS . : ‘ - 144 
 IsLA DE MUJERES: REMAINS OF TEMPLE ., : . : - 144 
 SILAN, BROKEN STELE P ‘ ° ° ° . ‘ » 166 
 
 II 
 
IZ 
 
 MESTIZA, 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 GIRL OF MERIDA . < ‘ ‘ ‘ 
 
 TEMPLE OF INITIAL SERIES, HOLACTUN : ; 
 
 HoLactun : LOWER PART OF SERIES WITH CARVED LINTEL 
 
 HoOLACTUN : FIGURE ON DOORWAY i . : 
 
 INITIAL SERIES AT HOLACTUN i s - ; 
 
 PLAN OF RUINS OF CHICHEN ITZA A > be 
 
 MAYAPAN : 
 
 OR 1438 A.D. » : ; . ‘ . 
 
 CHICHEN ITzA: LINTEL IN WATER TROUGH ~ 
 
 THE Monjas, ORHOUSEOFTHENUNS . 4 : 
 
 CHICHANCHOB, OR RED HOUSE . : ' * 
 
 SERPENT COLUMNS BY RUINED STAIRWAY . ss 
 
 XCANCHACAN STELA SHOWING DATE KATUN I0 
 
 HicH Priest’s GRAVE, COLUMN SHOWING INSCRIPTION . 
 
 SERPENT COLUMN ON HIGH PRIEST’S GRAVE . 
 
 INDIAN STANDING IN RUINED SANCTUARY . 
 
 THE BALL CourRT, CHICHEN ITZA ‘ ; . 
 
 CASA DEL TIGRE, OR TRIANGLE OF THE JAGUARS . 
 
 CHICHEN ITzA : CASTILLO FROM THE WEST . - 
 
 INSCRIPTION ON INITIAL SERIES LINTEL ‘ ‘ 
 CHACMOOL STATUE, CHICHEN ITZA m : ; 
 
 UXMAL: 
 
 HOUSE OF THE ADIVINO i a . 
 
 CHICHEN ITzA : TEXT FROM PRIEST’S GRAVE “ 
 
 CHICHEN ITzA: TRIANGLE OF THE Two LINTELS . 
 
 STONE ALTARS ON ATLANTEAN COLUMNS ' ‘ 
 
 STELE REPRESENTING NATIVES CARRYING DEER . 
 
 KABAH : 
 KABAH : 
 KABAH: 
 UXMAL: 
 UXMAL: 
 UXMAL: 
 
 ENTRANCE TO OUR SITTING-ROOM . . 
 FACADE WITH FACES OF THE LONG-NOSED 
 FACADE OF ONE OF THE MAIN TEMPLES . 
 WEsT RANGE OF MONJAS . ‘ ¢ 
 Monjas ; . : ‘ , 
 INSCRIPTION, DATES, GRAFFITI : F 
 
 Facinc PaGE 
 
 166 
 184 
 184 
 186 
 186 
 202 
 
 202 
 208 
 208 
 212 
 214 
 214 
 216 
 216 
 218 
 218 
 220 
 220 
 226 
 226 
 228 
 228 
 230 
 230 
 240 
 240 
 244 
 244 
 244 
 248 
 

 
 SKETCH MAP OF YUCATAN, SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL 
 TOWNS AND RUINED SITES VISITED. 
 
 ft.) (BELIZE 15. ISLA DE LAS MUJERES 
 2. .COROZAL I6. BOCA DE IGLESIAS 
 3. BACALAR 17,, \MOLEBOXMISEAND. 
 4. PAYO OBISPO 18. YALAHAU 
 
 SK CALAG TO.) SILAN 
 
 6. PUNTA HERRERA 20. PROGRESO 
 
 7, ESPIRITU SANTO BAY 21. CAMPECHE 
 
 8. CHACMOOL 22. CHAMPOTON 
 
 9. CAYO CULEBRA 23. MAYAPAN 
 
 IO. ASCENSION BAY  (24e. CHICHEN (IZA 
 II. CENTRAL 25. UXMAL 
 
 A, IDET 26. KABAH 
 
 I3. SAN MIGUEL COZUMEL 27. CAVE. OF LOLTUN 
 I4. CANCUEN ISLAND 28. MERIDA 
 
 29. HOLACTUN 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Arrival in Belize—Population of the Colony—Belize Market—Belize 
 founded by Buccaneers—Efforts made by Spaniards to eject them 
 unavailing—Battle of St. George’s Cay—The ‘‘ Poke and Go Boys ’”’ 
 —Celebrations of the Anniversary of the Battle in Belize—Mahogany 
 Cutters—Their hard Lives—Case of Piracy on the High Seas occurring 
 recently in the Caribbean. 
 
 For several years Dr. Sylvanus G. Morley, of the Carnegie 
 Institution, and myself had contemplated an expedition to the 
 East Coast of Yucatan, one of the least known and most in- 
 accessible parts of Central America, and the last place on the 
 American continent where the poor remnant of the great 
 Maya race, whose civilisation was the most ancient and highly 
 developed in the New World 1,500 years before the coming of 
 Europeans, still holds its own, unconquered and unsubdued, 
 in the dense, impenetrable forests of the interior. 
 
 Belize, the capital of British Honduras ever since the 
 early forties, when John L. Stephens set forth from here on 
 his celebrated search for a Central American Government, 
 has been the jumping-off place of nearly all archeological 
 and exploratory expeditions into Central America, being a 
 good place to outfit in, and conveniently situated for all the 
 Central American republics, as filibusters, gun-runners, and 
 refugees, from their interminable revolutions are well aware. 
 Here, then, we found ourselves early in January, with at 
 least four months of assured dry weather in front of us before 
 the rainy season set in which renders travelling through the 
 bush practically impossible. 
 
 The population of Belize is an extraordinarily mixed one. 
 English, Spanish, French, German, and representatives of 
 nearly every nation in Europe rub shoulders with Chinese, 
 East Indians, and other Asiatics, while the indigenous 
 
 13 
 
14 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 population is represented by negroes, Caribs, Maya, 
 and Quiché Indians from the far interior, and the extra- 
 ordinarily mongrel races which inhabit Southern Mexico and 
 the five republics of Central America. The scene at the 
 market each morning is an extremely lively and animated 
 one. Everyone comes down about six to buy the day’s 
 provisions. Burly negresses, in spotless white, their heads 
 wrapped in gay cotton handkerchiefs, their vast feet thrust 
 into still vaster unlaced boots belonging to their husbands, 
 clump happily along, screaming, laughing, and chattering 
 like a flock of parroquets, and chaffering over the price 
 of their fresh fish and plantains. Saturnine Spaniards 
 and Mexicans, thin, yellow, and cigarette-pickled, laying 
 in supplies of frijoles, chili pepper, garlic, and corn cake ; 
 coolies, shining and odoriferous from their morning rub- 
 down with coco-nut oil, purchase rice, oil, and fish; coal- 
 black Caribs, their faces and hands covered with white, 
 leprous-looking patches, who, notwithstanding constant 
 sea baths, always retain an unpleasant mousey smell, seek 
 their daily rations of fish and cassava bread, and even an 
 occasional pale-faced, starchily-clad English housewife may 
 be encountered, cool, business-like, and unhurried amidst 
 all the excitement. They form a shouting, gesticulating, 
 chaffering, laughing, quarrelling, noisy throng, their skins 
 varying from lightest olive through snuff and butter and 
 café-au-lait to coal-black, their bright-coloured clothes 
 making a constantly changing kaleidoscope around the 
 market square. 
 
 Belize was founded in the early part of the seventeenth 
 century by English and Scotch Buccaneers, who for many 
 years had driven a thriving trade along the coast in robbing 
 Spanish vessels laden with logwood. Finding at length that 
 the supply of victims was beginning to run short, and that 
 it was really easier to cut logwood for themselves in the 
 neighbourhood of Belize, where it grew in practically in- 
 exhaustible quantities along the river banks, they formed a 
 settlement for this purpose, and imported a number of 
 
61 ‘d] 
 
 14 
 
 ‘LNOdassvd §$,1NadOH 
 
 [p 
 
 ELIZE. 
 
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 S 
 
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 By H 
 
 THE, MARKET’ PLACE 
 
 
 

 
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IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 15 
 
 African slaves, who worked for them. Repeated efforts 
 were made by the Spaniards to eject these hardy settlers 
 from their territory, but without avail, till early in the last 
 century a large Armada was collected by the Spanish 
 Governor of Yucatan at Bacalar and despatched south to St. 
 George’s Cay, a sandy island about nine miles from the 
 mainland, and at that time the capital of the colony. The 
 inhabitants got wind of this invasion, and, collecting their 
 slaves and servants and every crazy old canoe, dug-out, and 
 sailing vessel they could muster, gave battle valiantly to 
 the much superior force of the invaders. 
 
 The slaves were armed for the most part only with palm- 
 stick lances hardened in the fire and sharpened, but they 
 rendered such a good account of themselves with their 
 primitive weapons, that after several hours fighting the 
 Spaniards had had enough of it, and, getting on board such 
 vessels as were still left them, turned tail, and retreated 
 north again, never to return. The natives were christened, 
 from their method of fighting at this battle, the ‘‘ Poke and 
 Go Boys’’—a term which has clung to them ever since, 
 though some etymologists have recently promulgated the 
 ~ theory that the name was derived from the rations supplied 
 to the slaves, and should be “ Pork and Dough Boys.” 
 
 Every year, on the anniversary of the battle of St. George’s 
 Cay, the event is celebrated with music, dancing, fireworks, 
 and processions of mahogany and logwood cutters through 
 the streets, dressed in their ancient costume of red flannel 
 cap, blue jersey, white trousers, moccasins, and machete, or 
 cutlass, and carrying axe, lance, or paddle, symbols of their 
 occupation, during the procession. An endless ditty, 
 composed by some local poet, of which a single verse is here 
 given, is chanted to the tune of ‘ Villikins and his Dinah.”’ 
 
 We jooked them and we poked them and we drove them like fleas, 
 Right into salt water right up to their knees, 
 
 And each greasy Spaniard to the other did say: 
 
 O vamonos compadres de St. George’s Cay. 
 
 (O campadres, let us get out of St. George’s Cay.) 
 
16 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 The descendants of these same black slaves, who fought 
 side by side with their owners at St. George’s Cay, form 
 to-day the backbone of British Honduras, and probably 
 one of the finest coloured citizenry in the world, black and 
 white respecting each other, and working amicably hand in 
 hand for the advancement of their country. 
 
 The lot of the negro labourer is not altogether a happy 
 one. In January of each year he sets forth to his mahogany, 
 logwood, or chicle camp at the head waters of one of the 
 numerous rivers, or buried in the recesses of the thick jungle 
 which covers most of the country. Here he constructs little 
 palm-leaf shacks for himself and family, and spends from 
 nine to ten months in strenuous labour with axe and 
 machete, felling mahogany and logwood, or bleeding chicle 
 (chewing-gum, the sap of the sapote tree), living on a diet 
 of straight flour dough and salt pork, supplemented only 
 by such game as his gun can obtain in the neighbouring 
 bush, or coarse fish from the streams. No wonder that 
 during the month or six weeks he spends at Belize at Christ- 
 mas he endeavours to make up for lost time by a too 
 strenuous devotion to pleasure, chiefly represented by the 
 flowing bowl, and that when the time comes for him to start 
 off into the bush again he is as often as not without 
 sufficient cash from his advance to buy even the cooking- 
 pots and clothes absolutely essential for a nine months’ 
 sojourn in the woods, perhaps one hundred miles from 
 civilisation. 
 
 The matrimonial bond is worn lightly by the mahogany 
 cutter. Marriage is not infrequent, but perhaps more as an 
 excuse for the spree which the wedding entails than with 
 any idea of forming a permanent bond, and the lady, if 
 she finds her partner unsatisfactory, thinks nothing of 
 accompanying some other man into the bush on the follow- 
 ing season, so that it is not infrequent to find women with 
 families each member of which is by a different husband. 
 
 The small settler in the colony has an easy time of it ; he 
 is troubled neither by the housing problem nor by the 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 17 
 
 H.C.L., as he can put up quite a comfortable thatched 
 shack in a couple of days on a five-acre tract purchased 
 from the Government at two dollars per acre. He will find 
 his building materials—palm leaf for roof, pimento for walls, 
 and sapodilla for posts—within a hundred yards of his 
 future front door, and on this fertile soil he will have no 
 difficulty in raising as many plantains, bananas, yams, and 
 as much corn as he wants, while chickens, eggs, and pigs 
 provide means of obtaining what luxuries he may desire in 
 the form of clothes, rum, and tobacco. 
 
 That piracy as a profession is not quite dead along the 
 shores of the Caribbean Sea, even in the twentieth century 
 is shown by the following incident. A short time ago a 
 small sailing vessel set out from Belize for La Ceiba, a port 
 in Spanish Honduras, with a coloured captain and crew 
 and several passengers, amongst whom were two Belize 
 negroes. The captain had very imprudently let it be known 
 that he was carrying a considerable sum in silver dollars, 
 of which the two negroes determined to possess themselves. 
 When well out at sea they coolly took possession of the 
 vessel, after shooting the captain and several of the other 
 men and throwing their corpses overboard. Amongst the 
 passengers was a Carib woman, whom they neglected to 
 shoot and threw overboard alive, either because they felt 
 some compunction at shooting a woman, or more probably 
 because, being several miles from land in the midst of 
 shark-infested waters at the time, they felt that such an 
 act would be merely a waste of ammunition. This, however, 
 proved to be a fatal oversight on their part, as the Caribs 
 are wonderful swimmers, and as much at home in the 
 water as on land, and with the aid of a piece of floating 
 wood, which she fortunately encountered, the woman 
 made her way safely ashore, landing on the coast of British 
 Honduras, and, proceeding promptly to Belize, reported 
 the matter to the authorities. 
 
 In the meantime the vessel had reached her port in 
 
 Spanish Honduras safely, and the two negroes not only got 
 BL 
 
18 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 away safely with the silver dollars, but actually succeeded 
 in selling the vessel herself and her cargo. Considering 
 themselves now quite safe, and never dreaming that the 
 Carib woman could have escaped, they coolly made their 
 way back to Belize, where they were greatly surprised at 
 being arrested on a charge of “‘ piracy on the high seas ’”— 
 probably the first occasion upon which such a charge had 
 been preferred in the colony. The case aroused a great 
 deal of interest amongst all classes, and the police were 
 indefatigable in collecting evidence for the prosecution, 
 with the result that, after a long and careful trial, the two 
 men were found guilty, as charged, by a jury of their country- 
 men, and were sentenced to death, which sentence was 
 promptly carried out in the Belize gaol. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Leave Belize—Members of the Expedition—Arrival in Payo Obispo— 
 Ashore on the Rocks—A dangerous Coast—Xcalac—Espiritu Santo 
 Bay—Landing through the Mud—A deserted Fishing Settlement— 
 Our first Maya Ruin—The East Coast Civilisation—Culebra Cays— 
 A contented Colony—Ascension—Wreck of Mexican Gunboat— 
 Vigia Chica—Arrival at Central—An Uncomfortable Night—Chicleros 
 —Santa Cruz Indians—They refuse to carry the Letter to their Chief 
 —The Chicle Bleeder’s Life—Arrival in Santa Cruz de Bravo— 
 History of the Town—Its Abandonment by the Mexicans—Old 
 Spanish Church at Santa Cruz—The Worship of the Talking Cross— 
 Victims sacrificed to it—Lunch with the only Indian family in the 
 Town. 
 
 WE left Belize on February 2nd in the Government yacht 
 Patricia, which had been kindly lent us by H. E. the 
 Governor for our trip to Corozal, where we were to pick up 
 our own boat, the Lilian Y, a 22-ton sloop with 36 h.p. 
 auxiliary engine, which had been despatched with pro- 
 visions for our trip, instruments, photographic material, 
 etc., the previous day, in charge of my factotum, Amado 
 Esquivel, generally known as “‘ Muddy.” At the last moment 
 on the somwehat negative recommendation of Muddy that 
 he had “ never been in gaol in Belize,”” we engaged as cook a 
 youth named Hubert, a procedure which we never ceased to 
 regret during the whole trip. As no photograph of him 
 was available, Held sketched him in profile on the blank 
 space left on the passport for the photograph, which satisfied 
 everyone but Hubert himself, who said there was “ too 
 much lip about it to please him.” 
 
 The trip to Corozal was devoid of incident. Morley 
 endeavoured to improve the occasion—and his Spanish— 
 by translating English proverbs into his own language for 
 a Spanish gentleman to whom we had given passage. “* El 
 gusano tempano coje el pajaro”’—‘ The early maggot 
 
 19 
 
20 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 catches the bird ’’—one I happened to overhear, seemed a 
 doubtful recommendation for early rising. 
 
 We spent the night at Corozal, the northernmost town of 
 British Honduras, and next morning it was “‘all aboard the 
 Iilian Y.” The party consisted of Sylvanus G. Morley, 
 of the Carnegie Institution; John Held, artist ; myself; 
 Captain Usher ; ‘‘ Muddy ” ; Hubert ; George—an immense 
 negro from the Bay Islands, always cheerful, grinning, and 
 ready for work ; a colourless old negro supposed to be cook 
 for the crew, but whose only function appeared to be keeping 
 the stove from falling overboard in heavy weather ; Alfredo, 
 our Honduranian engineer; and “‘ Boy ’’—a negro youth 
 from Belize, making his first voyage, ostensibly as oiler to 
 Alfredo, though, as far as we could observe, he never did 
 a stroke of work during the entire voyage, but lay about 
 on deck, getting dirtier and dirtier—for we had no rain— 
 and fatter and fatter, till his only pair of pants, splitting 
 from stem to stern under the strain, became so indecent a 
 spectacle that whenever we touched at any port he had to 
 be segregated in the engine-room. 
 
 We arrived at Payo Obispo, capital of the Mexican 
 territory of Quintana Roo, next morning, and were very 
 hospitably received by General Octaviano Solis, Governor 
 of the territory, a veteran of thirty-three or thereabouts, 
 who had risen in and through the revolution. Morley and 
 Held were persuaded to stop over a couple of days, giving 
 and receiving dinners, dances, and suppers, punctuated at 
 frequent intervals by liquid refreshments. I, however, 
 having experienced twenty years of the lavish hospitality 
 of Spanish America, fled in the Lilian Y the same evening, 
 arranging to join them at Xcalac, which they could reach 
 in a few hours by crossing the peninsula separating Payo 
 Obispo from the east coast of Yucatan. 
 
 I spread my mattress on deck that night to get the most 
 of what little air was stirring, as the cabin was hot and stuffy, 
 and, anyway, a 5ft. roin. bunk offers no real hope of comfort 
 to a 6ft. individual. About midnight I was roused by 
 

 
 Sel Ger ey a) 
 
 SUHLVAV SNOTYVA 
 
 oz ‘d} 
 
 ‘XHW ‘OOM VNVLNING JO NONUAAOD 
 ‘STTOS IVUANAD HLIM AIH NVIGNI ZOO VINVS 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND aI 
 
 George singing. Standing—or rather crouching—on top 
 of the wheel, the spokes of which he grasped with his pre- 
 hensible toes, and leaning up against the after house, he 
 reminded one of a great black ape. His voice was a squeaky 
 tenor, and sounded curious coming from such a gigantic 
 individual, but every now and then the bottom seemed to 
 drop out of it, and it became a hoarse bass. I listened for 
 nearly an hour to an apparently inexhaustible repertoire, 
 catching such fragments as, ‘‘ Oh, where shall ah be when de 
 las psalm is sung?” ‘“ Lard, ef yo doan hep me doan hep 
 de grizzlen bar,’”’ and ‘“‘ Kiss me, kiss me.””’ Anyone glimps- 
 ing George’s kissing apparatus will notice that he should be 
 an adept in the art. 
 
 I was aroused about 3 a.m. by a grinding shock, and 
 found that we had run aground on the rocks off Blacadores 
 Cay. A stiff breeze was blowing, and the Lilian Y was 
 endeavouring to rip her bottom out on the reef. Ridge 
 after ridge the staunch old tub scraped over, till at last we 
 arrived in deep water, and anchored till daylight. The 
 accident had been caused by George’s taking us several 
 miles out of our course, and it was unanimously decided 
 that in future steering should be done in the usual manner, 
 and without musical accompaniment. 
 
 About Io a.m. we ran in through the opening in the reef 
 and anchored off San Pedro, the chief settlement of 
 Yucatecans and Indians on Ambergris Cay. The people 
 here are all fishermen, coco-nut growers, and chicle, or chew- 
 ing gum, bleeders. 
 
 We landed for a bath, breakfast, and arun ashore. Dur- 
 ing the latter, however, a strong north-east wind set in, 
 and we found ourselves in the same position as two small 
 sugar freighters, bound to Progreso with sugar from Guate- 
 mala, who had been held up here unable to pass the opening 
 in the reef for four days. The entire east coast of Yucatan — 
 is a nightmare to the small sailing craft which trade along 
 it, as in a strong east or north-east wind they have to run 
 behind the reef for safety, where they may be bottled up 
 
22 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 for a week, or even longer, waiting for the weather to 
 moderate. 
 
 Next morning, the wind having died down somewhat, 
 we set sail, and with the assistance of our 36 h.p. engine 
 negotiated the opening in the reef safely, and found our- 
 selves in the open sea again. Holding a course due north 
 along a low, barren, sandy coast, about midday we sighted 
 Xcalac. A brisk north-eastern was blowing, piling up a 
 ribbon of white surf on the reef, which here and along the 
 whole east coast of Yucatan runs parallel with the shore, 
 hugging it closely in some places, in others retiring a mile or 
 more out tosea. We made for a break in the surf line which 
 looked like a passage through the reef, only to discover, 
 just in time to sheer off, that it was one of those deceptive 
 false openings where, the water being a little deeper than 
 on other parts of the reef, the surf does not show up so con- 
 spicuously. This nearly proved the end of our trip before it 
 had well begun, as we missed the jaws of the reef by feet, 
 and had the Lilian Y grounded she would very soon have 
 had the bottom torn out of her on the sharp coral fangs, with 
 the heavy sea then running. 
 
 Morley and Held turned up in Xcalac within an hour of 
 my arrival. They were accompanied by two members of 
 the Governor’s staff to speed the parting guests, and showed 
 distinct signs of wear and tear, bringing with them 
 tales of a truly gorgeous time and most flattering letters 
 of recommendation to all officials in the territory, 
 advising them to give the expedition every assistance in 
 their power. 
 
 Xcalac is a miserable little isolated place, perched in the 
 centre of an inaccessible stretch of barren sandy shore. Its 
 population consists exclusively of Mexican soldiers, sailors 
 and officials, the dull monotony of whose life is only broken 
 by the arrival of a gunboat from Vera Cruz, bringing fresh 
 troops for the territory. Like all settlements on the east 
 coast, it has never recovered from the hurricane and tidal 
 wave of the previous year, which simply wiped out the houses 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 23 
 
 and shipping, and tore great barrancas through the site 
 occupied by the town. 
 
 From Xcalac we ran north all night, arriving at five next 
 morning in front of the opening to Espiritu Santo Bay. At 
 Punta Herrera is a small lighthouse, where we put ashore, 
 and secured one of the light keepers as a pilot for the bay. 
 It is a desolate waste of grey water, running some twenty 
 miles inland, whose western limits have never been thorough- 
 ly explored. The shores, flat, barren, swampy, are entirely 
 uninhabited, and covered with mangrove, salt water 
 pimento, and low wiry scrub, while the water shoals off to 
 aft. or less a mile from the beach. By means of the pram— 
 an invaluable little boat, which without her Evinrude engine 
 did not draw over 6in., and was absolutely impossible to 
 upset in any sea—we reached the eastern shore, where we 
 found ourselves separated from the land by 100 yds. of evil 
 looking grey ooze. Muddy, stripped to his shirt, waded 
 laboriously ashore through this, which reached well above 
 his knees. Morley—always to the fore in adventures, great 
 and small—next essayed the trip. He had forgotten, however 
 that the soles of Muddy’s feet were calloused by many years 
 of shoelessness, and on planting his own tender sole full on a 
 sharp point of rock, with which the bottom of the mud was 
 liberally supplied, he endeavoured to shift the weight to the 
 - other foot, which, however, encountered an even sharper 
 tooth. It is not an easy matter to change one’s footing 
 rapidly when sunk in two feet of mud, and the performance 
 ended in a series of spasmodic jerks, a shower of mud, 
 collapse, and a shirt much in need of washing. Held 
 and I from front seats in the pram enjoyed the show 
 immensely, and, profiting by the experience, waded 
 slowly ashore with the aid of a stick, never lifting one foot 
 till the other had found at least a tolerably smooth 
 resting-place. 
 
 We slept that night on the veranda of the lighthouse, and 
 early next morning set out in the pram with the lighthouse 
 keeper to find a ruin, said to exist somewhere on the south 
 
24 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 coast of the bay. We passed innumerable sandy and 
 swampy islands, on one of which we discovered an old 
 fishermen’s camp, consisting of a few primitive palm-leaf 
 huts—or, rather, conical hut roofs, for they were wall-less— 
 a well of brackish water dug in the sand, and a crawl, or 
 small enclosure of sticks, built in the sea a few yards from 
 the shore, in which the turtle captured may be kept alive 
 till enough have accumulated to make it worth while sending 
 them to Belize or the nearest market. 
 
 After nearly two hours’ passage along tortuous channels 
 separating mangrove-covered mud swamps, disturbing in our 
 course thousands of water fowl of all kinds, including the 
 beautiful white egret—whose time, however, had not yet 
 arrived, for it is only during the breeding season that he is 
 shot for his plumes—we arrived at a small rocky island 
 covered with almost impenetrable low scrub, near the centre 
 of which we came upon our ruin. It was a small sanctuary, 
 or altar, built of stone and tough mortar, 8ft. square and 5ft. 
 high. The roof and upper part had fallenin. In front was 
 a small door, and in the back wall a square window. The 
 building was covered with eight layers of stucco super- 
 imposed one on the other, each of which had been decorated 
 in red, yellow, blue, and black. On the front, to the right 
 of the door, were the imprints of four red hands, so commonly 
 found on all the buildings of this region. They were made 
 by dipping the hands in red paint, and applying them to 
 the surface to be marked, and may have been the builders’ 
 sign manual. Indeed, so clear are they on some interior 
 walls that the maker might still be identified, if in the flesh, 
 by his finger-prints. 
 
 The ruin is known to the Indians as Canché Balaam, or 
 Tiger’s Seat, which is probably its original name, handed 
 down from the ancient Maya. It is an insignificant little 
 place, but of interest to us as the first building of this kind 
 we had seen on our trip. Later we were to become well 
 acquainted with the type, which we named the Tuluum style, 
 from the remarkable conformity of all the examples with 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 25 
 
 the architecture of Tuluum, presently to be described, 
 which was evidently the capital city of this east 
 coast civilisation. The solitary little shrine is apparently 
 the southern-most outpost of this civilisation, as to 
 the south and west of it quite a different type of 
 ruin is found, representing a much earlier period of the 
 Maya civilization. 
 
 These east coast buildings, whether single or in large 
 or small groups, exhibit certain characteristics in common 
 which distinguish them from both earlier and later Maya 
 architecture. The masonry is crude and rough, and covered 
 both internally and externally by layers of smooth, hard 
 stucco, which nearly always show traces of painted designs. 
 The main entrances of temples and palaces are usually 
 supported on one or more circular stone columns, above 
 which are lintels of sapodilla wood, often still 7m situ, hardly 
 altered by their five hundred years of weathering. The 
 fagades are frequently decorated by figures of gods and 
 geometrical devices moulded in exceedingly hard stucco. 
 Stone altars, or shrines, such as that just described, are of 
 frequent occurrence all over the area, and at the larger 
 sites ruins are found of extensive flat-roofed, arcade-like 
 buildings, standing on terraced, stone-faced mounds, and 
 supported by rows of great round stone columns, which were 
 probably used as market-places. 
 
 The east coast culture was the dying effort of the great 
 Maya civilisation, and was most probably the work of 
 refugees from Northern Yucatan after the conquest of 
 Mayapan about A.D. 1450, which finally destroyed all central 
 authority amongst the Maya. Thewhole country was divided 
 into a number of small provinces, each under its own 
 cacique, or ruler, allin a constant state of warfare with 
 each other, up to the arrival of the Spaniards a century 
 later, whose conquest of Yucatan, as of Mexico, was greatly 
 facilitated by the internecine strife of the natives. This 
 lonely, deserted-little shrine, looking out over a vast stretch 
 of grey sea and desolate, uninhabited country, last decadent 
 
26 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 effort of a once great civilisation, appealed somehow more 
 strongly to our imagination than any of the ruined cities 
 which we later discovered. 
 
 Leaving Espiritu Santo at 1.30 p.m., we arrived about 
 5.30 at Culebra Cays, a group of mangrove islands lying 
 right in the mouth of Ascension Bay. We landed at the 
 easternmost island, where, on a small spit of sand, the only 
 solid spot in the mangrove swamp, we found a curious bee- 
 hive-shaped hut built of palm leaves, occupied by five 
 ancient mariners, inhabitants of the island of San Pedro, 
 who came here every year for some months during the 
 turtle and barracouda fishing season. Wooden frameworks 
 covered with drying fish, and a crawl well filled with green 
 or edible turtle a few yards off shore, showed that their 
 efforts had not been unsuccessful. Hundreds of yards of 
 seine net were hung out to dry, while dozens of the little 
 cedar models of turtles, used as net-floats and decoys for 
 the precious “‘ Caray,’’ or tortoiseshell turtle, strewed the 
 beach. These old fellows, friends of many years’ standing, 
 were all married, but liked to get away from their families and 
 have a good time together, camping out here on the bay for 
 six months or so every year, fishing and hunting, and all 
 agreed that the procedure greatly enhanced the joys of 
 matrimony. Their life seemed an ideal one. All they 
 brought with them was corn, tobacco, and coffee, the sea 
 and the bush supplying every other need, even to the 
 material for their house, while the constant sea breeze kept 
 off mosquitoes and sand flies, which are at times such a 
 pest on the mainland. We offered them whisky and 
 cigars. The latter each accepted, but refused the former, 
 all being total abstainers, except the youngest of the party, 
 a youth of perhaps sixty, who said it was so long since he 
 had had a drink that it was hardly worth acquiring the taste 
 again as he would have no means of gratifying it after we had 
 gone. 
 
 Next morning we bade good-bye with real regret to our 
 venerable hosts, sorry that, driven by the exigencies of a 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 27 
 
 long route and limited time, we could not give their simple 
 life a longer trial. 
 
 A few hours later we reached Ascension, a little settlement 
 perched on a sandbank bounding the northern shore of 
 Ascension Bay. A few years ago it was the headquarters 
 of the Mexican troops sent to subdue the Santa Cruz Indians, 
 and a place of considerable importance, with a fine pier 
 and many large buildings. Like all other east coast settle- 
 ments, however, it was practically wiped out by the cyclone, 
 and all that remains of its former glory is the gaunt skeleton 
 of the pier and a few ruined buildings. A celador, or minor 
 Custom’s official, resides here, after reporting to whom 
 we set out for Vigia Chica, higher up the bay, our next port 
 of call, passing on the way the rusting wreck of the old 
 Mexican gunboat Independencia, once a participator in the 
 Mexican campaign against the Santa Cruz Indians, now— 
 fit symbol of that campaign—ending her days stuck in 
 the mud opposite the scene of her former activities, 
 like the soldiers she carried, slowly becoming an 
 integral part of the soil of the country she was sent to 
 conquer. 
 
 Vigia Chica, once the port of the flourishing city of Santa 
 Cruz de Bravo, and terminal of the National Railroad of 
 Quintana Roo, a 55-kilometre line joining the latter with 
 Santa Cruz, is now little more than a depressing dump of 
 ruined houses, wharf, and rolling-stock. Of all places on 
 the coast it suffered most severely from the cyclone, the 
 houses being flattened out, while the surface of the stone 
 wharf, with the iron rails and rolling-stock, was literally 
 skimmed off and dumped in the sea alongside. A Mexican 
 lieutenant and a dozen soldiers are all that remain of the 
 once large garrison, while the civil population is represented 
 by a few depressed chicle bleeders and contractors, whose 
 business it is to get out as much of the precious chewing gum 
 as they can from the hinterland, which is in the territory 
 of the Santa Cruz Indians. 
 
 Mule-drawn flat cars still run between Vigia Chica and 
 
28 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Santa Cruz, chiefly for the purpose of taking in chicle 
 bleeders and their supplies, and bringing out chewing gum. 
 Two of them, with the necessary mules, were kindly lent us 
 by the lieutenant and Messrs. Martin & Martinez, chicle 
 bleeders operating in the interior, and on these we set out 
 for Santa Cruz about 2 p.m. On reaching Kilometre 9 
 from Virgia everyone had to get off, and with the assistance 
 of the mules carry all the luggage over to Kilometre II, 
 where two fresh cars awaited us, as the rails had 
 been torn up across this interval to prevent the 
 Santa Cruz Indians making sudden incursions upon the town. 
 
 At dusk we arrived at Central, thirty-four kilometres from 
 Vigia Chica, formerly a considerable military depdt, the 
 only relic of which is a large tin-roofed house, the former 
 cuartel, or barracks, now used by Messrs. Martin & Martinez 
 as quarters for their chicleros. These chicleros, recruited 
 from the scum of the Mexican peonage, are probably the 
 dirtiest people on earth, and as the cwartel was crowded 
 with them and a large pack of their mangy dogs, I erected 
 my folding cot and mosquito curtain on one of the flat cars, 
 which I had pushed about half a mile up the line in order to 
 escape what might be termed the odoriferous zone which 
 surrounded the house. Unfortunately, in the early hours 
 of the morning it came on to pour with rain, and I had to 
 make a break for the house in a tangle of mosquito curtains 
 and blankets, arriving wet through. I found Muddy and 
 Held sitting sadly and wakefully in chairs. The former, 
 who had tried to woo sleep on a blanket in the hall, said he 
 had at last got tired of picking dog fleas off himself, while 
 Held every time he dozed off had been awakened by the 
 incursion into his room of some picturesque brigand 
 apparently in the last stages of consumption—a fairly apt 
 description, for chicleros in their immense wide-brimmed 
 conical hats, machetes, revolvers, bandoliers, cotton shirt 
 and trousers, red blankets and sandals, are certainly 
 picturesque, and all keep up a constant staccato coughing 
 and expectoration upon the floor, while wandering about 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 29 
 
 at intervals during the night smoking innumerable 
 cigarettes. 
 
 Next morning we found a small party of Santa Cruz 
 Indians had arrived during the night with a letter from their 
 chief, General Mai, for Mr. Martin. They are small brown 
 men, shy, uncommunicative, and rather anxious-looking, 
 dressed in short bell-shaped trousers, shirtlike coats of 
 cotton, palm-leaf hats and sandals, all of native manufacture. 
 We were exceedingly anxious to meet their chief, as we 
 wished to obtain from him guides and an escort to extensive 
 ruins in the interior of his territory, never before visited by 
 Europeans. The Indians, however, refused to carry a 
 letter to the chief. Neither money nor argument—the 
 latter perhaps not very lucid, as they could only understand 
 Maya—moved them, their contention being that the chief 
 had given them a letter to deliver, which they had accom- 
 plished, but had said nothing about bringing a letter back, 
 and if they exceeded their instructions by doing this they 
 might on their return be macheted—or chopped to death 
 by a machete—and would undoubtedly be flogged. We 
 pointed out, however, that if they refused our request we 
 should certainly inform the chief of their discourtesy when 
 we met him. This opened up an unpleasant probability 
 of punishment whatever course they took, and proved so 
 disconcerting that while we were at breakfast the whole 
 party decamped incontinently into the bush, and we saw 
 them no more. 
 
 The place was full of sullen, swarthy, unclean Mexican 
 chicleros, who, now that the season was over, and chicle 
 would no longer run from incisions in the bark, had several 
 months of enforced leisure to look forward to, though in 
 order to keep his working force together the employer is 
 obliged to feed them, and even advance them money on 
 account of next year’s work. 
 
 The chicle bleeder’s is a hard life, and only the toughest 
 element of a pretty tough population will sign on for it. 
 It necessitates living all through the rainy season in the 
 
30 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 heart of the virgin bush, soaked by day and crowded into 
 dirty palm-leaf shelters by night, with poor and insufficient 
 food. The work, which consists in climbing the sapodilla 
 trees and cutting spiral grooves in the bark, along which the 
 sap runs out, to be caught in receptacles at the base of the 
 tree, is not devoid of danger, and many accidents from falls, 
 cuts, and snake bites occur where the patients are separated 
 from the nearest doctor by one hundred miles or more of 
 virgin forest. 
 
 The easiest part of the work is boiling down the semi- 
 liquid sap in great iron kettles, to drive off the water, till 
 it becomes a tough, plastic solid, which is put up in oblong 
 blocks, which are carried on mule back to the nearest river 
 or port. In purchasing these blocks, “‘ Caveat emptor”’ is 
 the motto of the employer, for the ingenuous chiclero 
 frequently inserts a core of wood bark, or even dirt, and 
 sometimes the block consists of a mere skin of chicle, enclos- 
 ing a core of judiciously weighted alien material. 
 
 Later in the day we started on a mule-drawn plataforma, 
 or flat car, for Santa Cruz de Bravo. On reaching Kilometre 
 48 we found the line torn up, and walked on to 49, where we 
 expected to find another car ready to take us on to Santa 
 Cruz. This, however, owing to some misunderstanding, had 
 not been provided, and we were obliged to walk the seven 
 kilometres into Santa Cruz over a very bad and muddy 
 path. 
 
 The town of Santa Cruz has a curious history. Founded, 
 as indicated by the old church, towards the end of the 
 sixteenth century by the Spanish conquistadores of Yucatan, 
 it appears to have led the placid, uneventful life of a Spanish 
 provincial town up to the year 1848, when in the general 
 uprising of the Maya Indians, driven to desperation by the 
 cruelty and oppression of their Spanish masters, the inhabit- 
 ants were all either massacred or driven out. From 1848 
 to 1902 the town was occupied by the Maya, but in the 
 latter year was reconquered by General Bravo on behalf 
 of the Mexican Government. General Bravo renamed the 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 31 
 
 town Santa Cruz de Bravo, built the railroad over which 
 we had just come to the town from the port of Vigia Chica, 
 projected railroads to Payo Obispo in the south and Merida 
 in the north, imported large numbers of convicts for forced 
 work from Mexico, held out every inducement to merchants 
 and settlers, and actually succeeded in creating within a 
 few years a prosperous Mexican town of 4,000 or so 
 inhabitants in the heart of the mid-Yucatecan wilderness. 
 The Indians, however, though driven into the fastnesses 
 of the bush, never ceased a guerilla warfare against the 
 garrison and inhabitants. Whenever they encountered a 
 party of soldiers or civilians in the bush, not too formidable 
 to be dealt with, they promptly chopped them to pieces, 
 and on one occasion, on securing a corporal and three 
 soldiers, tied them securely in a little palm-leaf house, 
 saturated them with kerosene, and set fire to the house. 
 The Mexicans, on their side, whenever they came across an 
 Indian settlement in the bush promptly wiped out the 
 inhabitants and destroyed their corn plantations. Not- 
 withstanding the fact that the bush had been cleared for 
 two or three hundred metres on either side of the railroad, 
 the Indians constantly attacked the trains, massacring 
 soldiers and civilians and looting baggage. Finding at last 
 that the land in the vicinity was of little agricultural value, 
 that the town itself was cut off from communication with 
 other places on all sides by dense bush, and that the Indians 
 were a constant menace, the Mexicans determined to 
 abandon the town and hand it over again to the Santa Cruz 
 Indians, though its acquisition had cost them rivers of 
 blood and millions of dollars. 
 
 The following year this abandonment was effected ; 
 soldiers, convicts, and civilians were withdrawn, and, 
 scattering over various parts of the Republic, left the town 
 without a single inhabitant. 
 
 It was in this town, abandoned for over a year, that we now 
 arrived. The wooden houses, some of them really magnifi- 
 cent structures, were falling into decay, the streets and the 
 
32 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 beautiful little plaza (with its stone fountains, promenades, 
 and seats, surrounded by an orange grove) were choked with 
 bush and weeds, the fountains were dry and filled with 
 leaves, and the town was occupied by a single family of 
 Santa Cruz Indians, who had taken up their abode in a two 
 roomed mud-floored shack, though they might have occupied 
 the Governor’s palace, and were gradually pulling down the 
 wooden houses to use the lumber as firewood. The fine 
 old sixteenth century Spanish church was the only building 
 which stood forth unaltered among the ruins of the modern 
 gingerbread Mexican city ; it is 105 ft. by 36 ft., and 80 ft. 
 high, with massive walls 8 ft. thick. During the Maya occupa- 
 tion of the city it was the centre of that remarkable religious 
 cult, the worship of the Santa Cruz, or Holy Cross, from 
 which the Santa Cruz Indians derive their name. Between 
 the expulsion of the Spaniards by the Indians and the 
 conquest of the latter by the Mexicans in 1902 no priest 
 of any denomination was permitted to enter the Santa Cruz 
 country. The Indians, however, appointed priests from 
 among their own number, who carried out a sort of travesty 
 of the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, freely inter- 
 spersed with those of their ancient religion. The head- 
 quarters of the cult was at the capital, and centred round 
 what was known as the Santa Cruz, a plain wooden cross 
 some two to three feet high, probably removed from some 
 church after the expulsion of the Spaniards. It was gifted 
 with the power of speech—probably owing to the ventri- 
 loquial power of one of the priests—and acted as an oracle, 
 to whom all matters of importance, civil, military, or 
 religious, were referred. It need hardly be said that the 
 cross never failed to return an answer to any of these 
 questions in entire conformity with the wishes of the 
 chief, 
 
 In 1859 a mission was despatched by the Superintendent 
 of British Honduras to the chiefs of the Santa Cruz Indians, 
 with the object of endeavouring to rescue some Spanish 
 prisoners held by them. One of the members of the 
 

 
 SANTA CRUZ DE BRAVO: OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 - 
 LP. 32 
 
 
 
 BACALAR : RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH WHERE THE MASSACRES 
 OF SPANIARDS TOOK PLACE BY THE SANTA CRUZ INDIANS. 
 
 Ip. 34 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 33 
 
 expedition, in a manuscript account left of its failure, 
 says : 
 
 “ That night all the available Indians arrived in front 
 of the house where the Santa Cruz is kept. The boy 
 attendants, or sentries of the idol, called “ angels,’’ with 
 the subordinate chiefs and soldiers, knelt outside, and 
 did not rise till the service was over, when they crossed 
 themselves, and rubbed their foreheads in the dust. 
 About 11 o'clock the Indians were heard running back- 
 ward and forward, and an order was given to bring out 
 the prisoners, who were placed in a line before the Santa 
 Cruz, and a large body of soldiers was placed with them. 
 They all knelt down in the road. There were about 
 forty female prisoners with one arm tied to the side, and 
 twelve or fourteen men pinioned by both arms. All were 
 calm except the children, although it was known that 
 Santa Cruz was pronouncing their doom. A squeaking, 
 whistling noise was heard proceeding from the oracle, 
 and when it ceased it was known that the Santa Cruz 
 wanted a higher ransom for prisoners.”’ 
 
 This, apparently, was not forthcoming, for later the 
 chronicler says : 
 
 ‘““ Some of the women and children were separated from 
 the rest, amongst whom was a young Spanish girl well 
 known in high circles. A procession was then formed, 
 and marched off to the east gate; first came a strong 
 body of troops, and then alternately, in Indian file, a 
 male prisoner and his executioner, who drove him on 
 with his machete, holding him by arope. Next came the 
 women, thirty-five in number, driven and held in a similar 
 manner ; then another body of soldiers closed the rear. 
 The Englishmen were not allowed to follow. The pro- 
 
 cession halted under a clump of trees about 150 yds. off 
 CL 
 
34. IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Soon the butchery commenced and shrieks were heard, 
 but in ten minutes all was over. 
 
 “The Santa Cruz was mixed up with some Catholic 
 rites, but retains the leading characteristics of the god, 
 who was best propitiated by placing bleeding human 
 hearts within his lips.” 
 
 As we contemplated this solid, ugly old church, still 
 standing square and uncompromising amidst the surround- 
 ing ruin and desolation, we could not help thinking, if an 
 aura of the human emotions experienced within them clings 
 to buildings, what a black cloud of misery and despair must 
 environ and fill it ; first of victims of the Holy Office under 
 the Spanish occupation; later of unfortunate wretches 
 brought for the judgment upon them of the Santa Cruz, 
 which almost invariably in its squeaking whisper condemned 
 them to death by machetazos, or being chopped in pieces by 
 a machete ; and last, and perhaps worst, of the miserable 
 prisoners under the Mexican occupation, when the church 
 was used as a gaol, and hundreds of prisoners were crowded 
 promiscuously into the nave—men, women, and children— 
 with the offscourings of the criminal population from Mexico 
 City, locked in together at night. Free fights were common, 
 and often wound-covered corpses were removed in the 
 morning, while filth, vermin, and immorality were rampant 
 always. 
 
 With these thoughts running through our minds we 
 entered the lofty nave, silent, gloomy, acrid with the smell 
 of bats, dank and cold by contrast with the warm sun outside. 
 We did not remain long, however, but, chilled and depressed, 
 soon made for the open air again, and hunted up the single 
 Indian family left in charge of the deserted city. None of 
 them could understand a word of any language but Maya. 
 Our wants, however, were easily indicated—food, plenty of 
 it, and right away. We were soon provided with a sort of 
 omelette made from eggs and tiny round tomatoes fried 
 together, with plenty of tortillas, or corn cake, and sacha, 
 
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 "yYystu Aq 9JIT 0} BUIOD 07 PAL 94} AQ PoAOT[Oq oe saInsy oy "STTEM 94} UO 3[ISIA [[I}S ete pooyq Fo seyozoTds pue 
 
 ¢ 
 
 ACU 9} JO Opis 
 
 ‘ATQUNOD ZNID JUS VY} JNOYSNoIY} SioqumNuU siqeiapisuoos UT puno,; auo uo desy yeors & ur paid Aj}UsdeI []} etaM Souod ITey} ‘ grgI 
 “MANUNEA ASNAONI 
 
 ul Sprletueds ay} Jo sueIpuy oy} Aq atoesseut vy} VoeTd Yoo. a19FT 
 
 MOIMH EINE HOS AVIVoVa 
 
 
 

 
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IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 35 
 
 a very unattractive drink made from ground corn and water. 
 The tomatoes were delicious, and sweet as sugar, though it 
 was not till later that we discovered the plants from which 
 they came climbing luxuriantly over the graves in the 
 churchyard. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Leave Santa Cruz—A lazy Mule—A Maya Shrine—Its Origin—Beliefs 
 of the modern Indians regarding these Shrines—A Dance Platform— 
 A Sunken Stone Cistern—Traces of the three Civilisations of Yucatan— 
 Start for the Coast—We meet the Commander-in-Chief of the Santa 
 Cruz Army—wWe entertain him and the General’s Nephew—Useful 
 Maya Phrases—Fatal Complaint amongst the Indians—Description 
 of Maya—Origin of the Maya—Appearance—The Women—Costume 
 —The Women’s Work—Their Indifference to Money—Food—Traps for 
 Game—Dangerous Hammocks—Marriage—Armlets worn by the 
 Children—Drunkenness—Effects of Alcohol—Method of appointing 
 Chiefs—Methods of Punishment—Executions—Flogging—Witchcraft 
 —Feeble hold on Life—Smallpox—Bleeding—Remedies—The Cha 
 Chac Ceremony. 
 
 WE left Santa Cruz without regret, and were agreeably 
 surprised to find a flataforma awaiting us at the railhead. 
 Harnessed to it, however, was a gaunt mule ominously 
 named “‘ Floja’’ (lazy)—a name which her conduct did 
 not belie, for never at any stage of the journey could we get 
 more than three miles an hour out of her, though the driver 
 tried every device known to muleteers, pulling the car up 
 by the traces so that its front edge caught her hind legs, 
 which manceuvre she lazily met by trotting a few paces to 
 escape the car, and when she felt the-strain on the traces 
 aiming a murderous flying kick at the driver over the top 
 of the car during the manceuvre. We coaxed her with 
 sticks, stones, and even scraps of burning palm leaf, while 
 the driver, after cursing her by all the saints in the calendar 
 without avail, tried carivo, or soft sawder, calling her 
 “Chula Mula,’ ‘‘ Dulce corazon’’ (sweetheart), “Multa 
 bonita’’ (pretty little lady mule), till at last, hoarse and 
 tired, even he resigned himself to the inevitable. 
 
 While we plodded slowly along, Don Julio Martin told 
 
 us of a graveyard where were situated some old tombs, a 
 36 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 37 
 
 few miles outside Central, and next morning early we set 
 out to visit them. 
 
 After retracing our route of the previous day for a few 
 miles up the tram-line, we turned off into a milpa, or maize 
 plantation, where we found a number of small tumuli, built 
 of earth and large boulders, probably burial mounds of the 
 ancient Maya. Passing through this, we soon entered the 
 forest, and after a quarter of an hour’s walk came upon 
 the first “tomb,” which proved to be a little two-storied 
 Maya shrine, standing upon a stone platform 2oft. by 15ft. 
 It was constructed of roughly squared stones held together 
 by very tough mortar. The upper story was 3ft. 4in. 
 high, 4ft. long, and 3ft. Ioin. broad, and possessed a single 
 small doorway facing due west ; the lower was 6ft. gin. long 
 and 6ft. 4in. broad, and had doorways in all four walls, over 
 each of which were oblong recesses 5in. deep. 
 
 
 
 Small Maya Shrine. 
 
 The figure shows the ground plan of the building, with a 
 median core or column of masonry passing up through its 
 centre, and rounded interior angles, leaving a narrow oval 
 passage into which opened a small doorway on each side 
 of the building. The whole structure was covered through- 
 out with hard, smooth stucco, which at the bottom of the 
 recesses above the doorway, where it had been protected 
 from the weather, still showed traces of red, black, and white 
 pigments. 
 
 Don Julio informed us that some years ago this little 
 shrine was surmounted by a stone cross about 2ft. 6in. in 
 height, which had been thrown down and smashed in pieces 
 by the Mexican soldiers stationed at Central, to whom the 
 sight of a cross is as ared rag toa bull. His story was pro- 
 bably true, as on the roof of the upper storey we found a 
 
38 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 depression surrounded by cement, evidently made to support 
 a square column. 
 
 This opens up a very interesting problem: was the 
 building erected by the Maya, after they had become 
 Christianised, as a shrine, such as one sees at the stations 
 of the cross which surround many modern Indian villages, 
 their old style of architecture remaining unaltered, except 
 by the addition of a cross ; was it erected in pre-Columbian 
 days, and later adapted to Christian uses; or was it (as 
 Don Julio supposed) a tomb built over one of their chiefs 
 who had embraced Christianity? Interesting but unfor- 
 tunately futile speculations, which can now probably never 
 be answered. 
 
 The Santa Cruz Indians, degenerate, traditionless descend- 
 ants of the ancient Maya, call these shrines “ Kahtal alux,” 
 “houses of the little people.”” All through this territory 
 are found in considerable numbers large pottery incense 
 burners, upon the outside of which are sculptured in high 
 relief human figures, two to three feet high, covered by a 
 wealth of ornament and decoration. The Indians firmly 
 believe that at night these figures come to life, leave the 
 vases to which they are attached, and visit these little houses, 
 the scene of their former life, returning by day to lifeless 
 pottery. There were four more of these shrines scattered 
 through the bush within a radius of half a mile, all replicas 
 of the one described, but none in quite such a perfect state 
 of preservation. 
 
 Returning to Central, we passed a dance platform built of 
 stone, with flat, cement-covered top, 274ft. long by 16ft. 
 broad, and 34ft. high. These platforms are found at even 
 the smallest ancient Maya sites, and were used by the people 
 for ceremonial dances and dramatic entertainments, of 
 which they were inordinately fond, for, according to the 
 ancient chroniclers, the Maya of Yucatan were at the time 
 of the conquest at once the gayest and most pleasure-loving 
 people, and the most fettered by religious observance, 
 possible to conceive 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 39 
 
 Close to the platform we came across a stone-faced pond, 
 or cistern, 30ft. in diameter, still containing good drinking 
 water, though much silted up with the mud and the vegetal 
 accumulation of several centuries. These sunken stone-lined 
 cisterns are fairly common in this part of Yucatan, and 
 probably form the solution of the problem of how the former 
 inhabitants obtained their water-supply in a country void 
 of rivers and springs, where for four months in the year it 
 hardly rains at all. 
 
 Within twenty-four hours we had been brought in 
 contact with relics of the three civilisations which during 
 the last thirteen centuries had dominated Yucatan—the 
 Maya represented, by the shrines, the dance platform, and 
 the cistern, lasting from the sixth to the sixteenth century ; 
 the Spanish represented by the old church at Santa Cruz, 
 from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth ; and the Mexican, 
 represented by the ruined city of Santa Cruz, from the end 
 of the Spanish occupation to the present day. While the 
 works of the Maya and Spanish architects stand to-day almost 
 untouched by the hand of time, practically in the same 
 condition as on the day when they were first completed, 
 the meretricious remains of the modern civilisation, though 
 only deserted for a few years, are rapidly falling into decay, 
 and in but a few more years will have disappeared com- 
 pletely—streets and plazas, private houses and _ public 
 buildings, stucco and woodwork—before the all-devouring 
 bush, leaving no smallest trace of their existence. 
 
 The same afternoon we started back from Central for 
 the coast in a single flat car, seven of us perched insecurely 
 and uncomfortably on top of our mountains of impedimenta. 
 Five kilometres from Central two Indians dodged out of a 
 little bush path on to the track, and on coming up with them 
 we were delighted to find that they were First Captain 
 Desiderio Cochua, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of 
 General Mai, the head chief of all the Santa Cruz Indians, 
 together with the General’s nephew, a precocious youth 
 whom I had encountered before, when he formed one of a 
 
40 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 deputation sent to interview the Governor of British 
 Honduras on behalf of the Santa Cruz Indians. Their 
 clothes gave no indication of their high rank, consisting 
 merely of sandals, straw hats, loose, shirt-like cotton coats 
 and bell-shaped trousers rolled up to the knee, while their 
 modest luggage, consisting of a hammock and roll of foto- 
 poste (large, hard, thin corn cakes, specially made to carry 
 on a journey) slung in a net over the shoulders by a strap 
 passing round the forehead, put our own vast carload of 
 bags, boxes, suit-cases, pots, pans, firearms, canned goods, 
 wraps, etc., completely to shame. We all got off the car, 
 and, sitting on the railroad embankment, formed ourselves 
 into an entertainment committee for the two Indians with 
 the help of Scotch whisky and cigars for the Captain, and 
 chocolate creams and cigarettes for the boy, to the accom- 
 paniment of American ragtime on the horrible, cheap little 
 gramophone, the delight of Morley’s heart, which ac- 
 companied us on all our travels by land or sea. 
 
 The Captain spoke only his native language, so our sobs 
 means of communication with him was through Muddy, 
 my knowledge of Maya being Ollendorfian, and confined to 
 such useful commercial phrases as: ‘‘ Yan tech ha, he, chicken 
 caax, wmixua’’—‘‘ Have you any water, eggs, chickens, 
 corn cake?” and “ Bahux takin hakatiola ?’’—“ How 
 much do you want for them?” with “‘ Tech hach kichpan 
 Xchupal’’—“ You are a very pretty girl’—‘ Tzaten, 
 tzetic, tzutz’’—‘‘ Will you give me a kiss? ’’—for social 
 small coin. 
 
 The Captain informed us that he was going to Central 
 to transact some business for the chief, who was laid up 
 with whooping cough in a village a couple of days’ journey 
 offin the bush. Whooping cough, like measles, mumps, and 
 scarlatina, is an extremely fatal complaint amongst the 
 Indians, to whom it is a comparatively new disease, against 
 which the immunity acquired after centuries by European 
 has not yet come as a protection. He was very friendly 
 and cordial, expressing unbounded admiration for the 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND AI 
 
 English—amongst whom Morley, notwithstanding his New 
 England accent, was included—and promised that if he 
 could possibly manage it he would meet us with a guard a 
 week from the following Sunday, and take us to a ruined 
 city behind Tuluum, far larger, finer, and in better preserva- 
 tion than the latter ; in any case, if he could not turn up, he 
 promised that the chief should send messages to the head 
 man at Acumal, the nearest village to Tuluum on the coast, 
 instructing him to have guides ready to take us to the ruins. 
 We were greatly elated at these promises, as no European 
 had ever been permitted by the Indians to approach these 
 ruins, rumours of whose good state of preservation and extent 
 had already reached us. Unfortunately, as it turned out, 
 we were not to visit them on this occasion, as, though we 
 waited three days at Tuluum for Desiderio, he did not turn 
 up, being detained at Central, and on reaching Acumal we 
 were unable to get the Lilian Y in through the opening in 
 the reef, which is here very narrow. Our visit, however, is 
 only postponed, not abandoned. 
 
 Before leaving them for good some description of the 
 Santa Cruz Indians, with whom we had probably come in 
 closer contact in this and former expeditions than any other 
 Europeans, may prove of interest. They are the last in- 
 dependent tribe of aboriginal Indians in Central America, 
 and are probably the purest representatives of that great 
 Maya race, written records of whose civilisation have been 
 found antedating the Christian era. The territory at pre- 
 sent occupied by them reaches from Acumal, in the north 
 of Yucatan, to the head of the Bacalar Lagoon in the south, 
 a distance of approximately 200 kilometres, extending 
 inland for about 70 kilometres. They are the direct de- 
 scendants of those Maya who, about the middle of the 
 fifteenth century, after the fall of Mayapan, emigrated to 
 the east coast of Yucatan, and founded what may be called 
 the east coast civilisation, whose ruins it was our object on 
 - this trip to explore. 
 
 Physically these Indians, though short, are robust and 
 
42 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 well-proportioned, the men averaging 5ft. 2in. to 5ft. 3in. 
 in height—the women perhaps a couple of inches less. The 
 hair in both sexes is long, coarse, black, and luxuriant on 
 the head, but absent on other parts of the body. The 
 complexion varies from nearly white to chocolate colour, 
 the skull is very broad, the features and extremities small 
 and finely modelled, and the eyes large, dark brown, and 
 (except in the younger girls, where they are sometimes 
 languishing, but more frequently mischievous) sad, or 
 merely bovine in expression. The teeth are beautiful, but 
 in middle life get worn down very much from constantly 
 eating corn cake impregnated with grit from the rubbing- 
 stone—indeed, they say themselves that every old man or 
 woman eats a rubbing-stone and three bvazos (the stone 
 with which the corn is ground) in the course of their lives. 
 Many of the younger women are extremely handsome, 
 measured even by the most exacting standard, though they 
 reach maturity at a very early age, and when a European 
 woman would hardly have begun to show the ravages of 
 time they are wrinkled hags. Bow-legs (xkulok) are usually 
 common amongst them, due probably to the fact that the 
 children from the time they can toddle are taught to carry 
 the macapal, a netted bag slung from the forehead, resting 
 on the shoulders, and not (as the early chroniclers supposed) 
 because they were carried as infants riding astride their 
 mother’s hip. The constant carrying of a macapal has 
 given them a curious and characteristic gait—the upper 
 part of the body bent forwards, eyes on the ground, toes 
 turned in—and so used have they become to it that often 
 on going a journey with no luggage to carry they put a few 
 stones in the macapal to act as a counterpoise. 
 
 Nearly all the Santa Cruz have a peculiar faint, not un- 
 pleasant odour, somewhat suggestive of peat smoke, and 
 not affected by washing. It rather reminds one of the peaty 
 smell of the West of Ireland peasant, and, like this, is no 
 doubt due to frequent exposure to wood smoke in the 
 chimneyless room. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 43 
 
 The women are much superior in looks and physique to 
 the men, and when got up in gala costume they present a 
 very attractive appearance, with exquisitely embroidered 
 white cotton Awipil (a loose, sleeveless garment cut very low 
 at the neck and back, closely resembling the feminine 
 evening dress of modern civilisation, but leaving more to 
 the imagination), gold chains, pendants, and earrings of 
 native workmanship, and often a small coronet of fire 
 beetles, resembling tiny electric lamps, in their magnificent 
 hair. 
 
 When quarrelling amongst themselves the women and 
 girls use the most disgusting and obscene language, im- 
 provising as they go along with remarkable quick-witted- 
 ness, not bound down, like more civilised people, by stereo- 
 typed forms in oath and invective, but pouring out a 
 ceaseless stream of vituperation and obscenity to meet each 
 case, which strikes with unerring fidelity the weak points 
 morally, physically, and ancestrally in their opponents’ 
 armour. They are very industrious, usually arising between 
 three and four every morning to prepare the day’s supply of 
 corn cake for their lord and master’s early breakfast. During 
 the day they have few idle moments, as they cure tobacco, 
 make cigarettes, gather cotton, which they spin and weave, 
 make palm-leaf mats and liana baskets, cotton and hempen 
 string, and rope hammocks, nets, and cooking and other 
 utensils of pottery—in fact, every conceivable household 
 article, for which her less adaptable civilised sister would 
 have to send to half a dozen different stores, the Maya woman 
 has to manufacture herself from such materials as the bush 
 provides. Nor is she imbued with any tincture of the 
 modern movement for emancipating women from the care 
 of the household, for, in addition to her other multifarious 
 duties, she does the family cooking and washing, and even 
 helps her husband with the livestock. 
 
 Most of these independent Indians are utterly lacking 
 in any ambition to accumulate wealth. It occasionally 
 happens, however, that one of them does acquire it, as in 
 
44 | IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the case of the Head Chief of the Icaiche Indians—neigh- 
 bours of the Santa Cruz, but much more pacificos than they 
 —who was paid a salary by the Mexican Government to 
 keep his people quiet, in addition to royalties on chicle cut 
 on his tribal lands by various contractors. He accumulated 
 no less than two demijohns full of gold coin, which, having 
 no wants requiring money for their satisfaction, he simply 
 buried in the bush, where presumably they still remain, as 
 before his death, which was sudden, and due to a growing 
 unpopularity amongst his people, he neglected to confide 
 the secret of their location to his family. 
 
 The Santa Cruz’s real god is his milpa, or corn plantation, 
 for he knows that if the corn crop fails from any cause actual 
 starvation menaces him and his family till the next crop 
 comes in. The plantation consists merely of a small clearing 
 in the virgin bush, made about December. The vegetation, 
 which is thoroughly dry about May, the end of the dry 
 season, is then burnt, and the corn planted by making holes 
 with a sharp stick in the soil at fairly regular intervals, 
 dropping in a few grains of corn, covering them over, and 
 leaving the rest to Providence. When the corn begins to 
 ripen, about the end of October, the owner constructs a 
 country residence of a couple of dozen or so large palm 
 leaves in his milpa, and practically takes up his abode there 
 till the crop is harvested, as deer and wild hog are ex- 
 tremely fond of corn, while the pigs of neighbouring landed 
 proprietors, and even the proprietors themselves, have to be 
 closely guarded against. 
 
 In the Indian menu ixim, as he calls maize, is the piéce 
 de résistance. Corn cakes are prepared from it in the fol- 
 lowing manner. The grain is soaked overnight in a lye of 
 wood ashes, which softens the kernel and removes the outer 
 husk. The softened kernel is next ground to a paste on 
 a slightly concave oblong stone by means of a stone rolling- 
 pin. This process takes considerable time and labour, and 
 one is always awakened between 3 and 4 a.m. in an Indian 
 hut by the clank, clank of the rubbing-stone, vigorously 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 45 
 
 wielded by a half-naked woman, who literally waters the 
 bread with the sweat of her brow. The mass of ground 
 corn, when finished, is flattened out by hand into little 
 round, thin cakes, which are baked on a pottery or iron 
 disc, and must be eaten very hot—a fact which precludes 
 the possibility of the whole family ever dining together, as 
 the women have to keep preparing the cakes one at a time 
 and handing them to the men as fast as they can prepare 
 and bake them. They sit, when eating, at little round 
 tables about 2ft. high on small blocks of wood. 
 
 In addition to these cakes, they make a great variety of 
 drinks from ground corn and water, flavoured with honey, 
 or cacao ; one of them, known as #znol, is made from parched 
 corn, and has almost exactly the colour and flavour of 
 coffee, from which it is practically indistinguishable. This 
 pinol, a true “ coffee substitute,’ was probably used by the 
 Maya centuries before the genuine coffee-bean was em- 
 ployed in the East. 
 
 They obtain fire by means of a flint and steel, or by swiftly 
 rotating a sharp-pointed shaft of hard wood—generally 
 dogwood—in a hole made in a small dry slab of some very 
 soft wood—usually gumbolimbo. 
 
 A great variety of game is found in the Santa Cruz country, 
 including deer, antelope, wild hog, armadillo, gibnut, wild 
 turkey, quam, corrasow, quail, pigeon, and partridge. 
 Besides these, iguana, woula—a large species of constrictor 
 snake—and other snakes are eaten, and turtles are often 
 captured along the coast and adjacent islands, while their 
 eggs in the breeding season form a great delicacy for the 
 Santa Cruz in the neighbourhood of Tuluum. The jaguar, 
 puma, picote, monkey, tapir, and squirrel are also hunted 
 from time to time for their skins or flesh. Traps of two kinds 
 are in common use. One is constructed by digging a deep 
 pit with outward sloping sides, the top of which is covered 
 with branches, into which the animal falls and is unable to 
 get out. Another, also used for catching large game, is 
 constructed in the following way. A path frequented by 
 
46 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 game in going to and from a watering-place is found. Along 
 this is dug a shallow trench opposite a good, springy young 
 sapling. Two stakes are driven in, one on each side of the 
 trench, the one farthest from the sapling being crooked at 
 the top. A piece of hempen cord provided with a noose at 
 one end, and with a stick long enough to extend from one 
 stake to the other, firmly tied by its middle above the noose, 
 is attached to the top of the sapling by its other end. The 
 sapling is then bent down and held in place by the stick 
 above the noose, which is fixed lightly between the crook 
 in one stake and the stake opposite to it, the loop hanging 
 suspended between the two. Lastly a number of sticks 
 and leaves are scattered lightly over the trench, and beside 
 the stakes and loop. An animal coming along the run is 
 very apt to thrust its neck through the loop, and by pulling 
 on this to release the cross stick, whereupon it is immediately 
 jerked into the air by the recoil of the sapling. Animals of 
 all sizes are caught in traps of this kind, the strength and 
 adaptability of which vary with the size of the bent tree and 
 the adjustment of the noose. 
 
 The houses are single-roomed affairs, the wells constructed 
 of tasistas, or small palm sticks, the roof of palm-leaf thatch, 
 and the floor of hard earth. They contain no furniture 
 beyond the family hammocks, as eating, cooking, and most 
 of the important business of life is carried on in the kitchen. 
 It is difficult to navigate the room without coming in contact 
 with the hammocks, but these should be touched with great 
 caution, as in many cases countless livestock leave the body 
 of the hammock during the day, and secrete themselves 
 in the knots at the junction of the body and arms, a strategic 
 position for night raids and for a transfer to the garments 
 of the unwary at any time. Privacy under these conditions 
 is naturally impossible, but they never seem to feel the need 
 of it, and in the presence of strangers, equally with their 
 own men, the women and girls are quite natural and un- 
 ashamed, though by no means shameless. 
 
 Indian girls married formerly at about fourteen or fifteen 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 47 
 
 boys at seventeen or eighteen years. After the conquest of 
 Bacalar and Santa Cruz, however, and the expulsion of the 
 Yucatecans from Indian territory, a law came into force 
 making marriage compulsory for all girls of twelve years 
 of age and upwards. This was probably done with a view 
 to increasing the population, which had been considerably 
 depleted by the long-continued war. One would have 
 imagined that, as it was the fighting male population which 
 had suffered chiefly by the war, polygamy would have been 
 ‘the natural remedy to suggest itself, but, curiously enough, 
 this practice seems always to have been repugnant to the 
 Maya, and at no time during their centuries-long history 
 do we find it prevalent. Even the chiefs, kings, and 
 caciques rarely indulged in more than one wife, official or 
 otherwise, while the priests were not permitted to marry 
 at all. 
 
 The Maya are by no means an amorous race, notwith- 
 standing the fact that at the coming of the Spaniards they 
 practised certain dithyrambic dances for which the Spanish 
 priests insisted on substituting the ungraceful shuffle known 
 as the “ Mestisada,’’ in which the men and women prance 
 solemnly and stiltedly about like marionettes in front of 
 each other, without even circling or touching. I have 
 frequently watched the course of young love in Maya lovers 
 from genesis to consummation, but never have I been able 
 to detect that longing for physical contact as experienced 
 in kissing, hand holding, and waist clasping, or for psychic 
 contact to the exclusion of the rest of the world, as 
 expressed in glances, smiles, and unintelligible mumbles, so 
 characteristic in more civilised lovers. On the contrary, 
 they seem to take it all as a purely business proposition ; 
 the man wants someone to help him in the house, the woman 
 wants someone to provide food—and that is all there is to 
 it. In one particular only do they conform to the code of 
 Venus ; the mating season is almost invariably in the spring. 
 Formerly amongst the Santa Cruz the first question of a 
 father to his daughter’s prospective suitor was, “‘ Hz tzak 
 
48 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 a kul, lt tzak Taman ?’’—“ How many macates of corn 
 and cotton have you?” At the present day, however, 
 there are not enough men to go round, and he is glad to 
 see anything in the way of a prospective son-in-law turn up. 
 
 The babies and small children are pretty, merry little 
 things, generally seen rolling or toddling about in the sun 
 and dust, unclothed save for a string of beads, dried seeds, 
 shells, and stone, clay or wood figures, worn round their 
 necks. Many of these are worn as charms or amulets to 
 protect the wearer from diseases, accidents, and evil spirits, 
 and to bring good luck. A charm worn by nearly all children 
 consists of a small cross of the bark of the tancasche, regarded 
 as a sovereign remedy for flatulence, a complaint from 
 which, owing to the nature of their diet, nearly all suffer. 
 A tiny gold key is worn by unbaptised children, with which, 
 should they die without baptism, they may themselves 
 open the gates of paradise. 
 
 The ancient chroniclers frequently mention the fact that, 
 at the time of the Spanish conquest, drunkenness was the 
 curse of the Indians, and the cause of many crimes among 
 them, including murder, rape, and arson. These remarks 
 apply equally well to the present day ; indeed, drunkenness 
 is probably even more prevalent now than then, as the rum 
 made by the Indians of to-day is far more intoxicating than 
 the balché, a drink made from fermented honey, water, and 
 roots, used by their ancestors. Moreover, the people drink 
 rum practically whenever they can get it, whereas both the 
 preparation and consumption of balché were to some extent 
 ceremonial, as was the resulting intoxication. Drunkenness 
 is not regarded as in any sense a disgrace, but rather as a 
 beatific state, for which those who reach it are to be envied 
 rather than criticised. The women, especially the older 
 ones, drink a good deal, but they usually do so in the privacy 
 of their own houses. I have, however, seen a little girl of 
 fourteen or fifteen purchase a pint of rum in a village liquor 
 shop, go out on the plaza, swallow it in a few gulps, and then, 
 lying down deliberately in the hot sun, lapse into a state of 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 49 
 
 alcoholic coma. Alcohol effects an extraordinarily rapid 
 change for the worse in the Indian temperament. From 
 a quiet, polite, rather servile individual, he is metamorphosed 
 almost in an instant into a maudlin idiot, staggering about 
 singing foolish snatches of native songs, howling, shrieking, 
 and endeavouring to embrace everyone he comes in contact 
 with. When thwarted while in this condition his temper 
 is likely to flare up at the slightest provocation, whereupon 
 the thin veneer of civilisation and restraint is sloughed in 
 a moment, and he becomes savage, insolent, overbearing, 
 and contemptuous towards the stranger, and ready to draw 
 his machete and fight to kill, with friend or foe alike. 
 
 On the death of a head chief of the Santa Cruz Indians 
 the oldest of the sub-chiefs is supposed to succeed him ; as 
 a matter of fact, there are always rival claimants for the 
 chieftainship, and the sub-chief with the _ strongest 
 personality or greatest popularity amongst the soldiers 
 usually succeeds in grasping the office. There are nearly 
 always rival factions endeavouring to oust the chief in 
 power, and the latter rarely dies in his bed. The power 
 of the head chief is practically unlimited over the whole 
 tribe. Some time ago, when Roman Pec was head chief, 
 one of the sub-chiefs came to Corozal (the nearest settlement 
 to the Santa Cruz country in British Honduras) for the 
 purpose of purchasing powder, shot, and other supplies. 
 He remained some time, as he had many friends in the place, 
 and purchased, amongst other things, a bottle of laudanum 
 to relieve toothache. On returning to his village he was 
 met by three soldiers, who informed him that he was to go 
 at once with them to the head chief, as the latter was angry 
 with him on account of his long absence from the country. 
 Aware that this was equivalent to a sentence of death, he 
 asked permission to retire to his home for a few minutes to 
 prepare for the journey, and, taking advantage of the 
 opportunity, swallowed the entire contents of the bottle 
 of laudanum. This began to take effect very shortly, and, 
 notwithstanding the best efforts of the soldiers, who dragged 
 
 DL 
 
50 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 him along, prodding him vigorously with the points of their 
 machetes, long before reaching the capital and the presence 
 of the head chief he was dead. 
 
 The method of executing those sentenced to death is 
 curious. The accused does not undergo a formal trial, but 
 the evidence against him is placed before the head chief ; 
 if he is convicted he has an opportunity of defending himself, 
 and of producing witnesses in his behalf. Three or four 
 soldiers are chosen by the chief to carry out the sentence, 
 which they do by chopping the victim to death with their 
 machetes when they catch him asleep or off his guard. 
 Several men always “execute the orders of the court,” 
 all chopping the victim at the same time, so that no single 
 individual may be held responsible for his death. Imprison- 
 ment as a punishment for crime is unknown, fine, flogging, 
 and death being the only three methods employed in dealing 
 with criminals. The severity of the flogging is regulated 
 by the nature of the offence, and after it is over the recipient 
 is compelled publicly to express sorrow for his offence, and 
 go around humbly kissing the hands of all the spectators, 
 after which, by way of consolation, he is given a large 
 calabash of anisado (rum with an anise flavour) to drink. 
 The heaviest punishment is meted out for sorcery or witch- 
 craft, as the pulya, or sorceress, is greatly dreaded by the 
 Indians. She is literally chopped limb from limb, but 
 whereas the bodies of other victims executed in this way 
 are always buried, that of the pulya is left for the dogs and 
 vultures to dispose of. 
 
 Both men and women when attacked by any serious 
 malady, are found to be lacking in stamina and vitality ; 
 they relax their hold on life very easily, seeming to regard 
 it as hardly worth a fight to retain. An elderly man or 
 woman will sometimes take to their hammock without 
 apparent physical symptoms of disease beyond the anemia 
 from which nearly all suffer, and quietly announce to his 
 or her relatives: “‘ He im cimli’’—“I am going to die.” 
 They refuse to eat, drink, or talk, wrap themselves in a 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 51 
 
 sheet from head to foot, and finally, in a very short time, 
 do succumb, apparently from sheer distaste of life and 
 absence of desire to go on living. This point of view is well 
 recognised by the friends and relatives, and they rarely 
 worry the patient with food, drink, medicine, or cheering 
 or encouraging conversation, holding that when an indivi- 
 dual is tired of life, he is, if he feels so inclined, perfectly 
 at liberty to leave it. 
 
 Smallpox, known as “ kak,” or fire, invading an Indian 
 village is a terrible scourge, far worse than in a more civilised 
 community of the same size, where partial immunity has 
 been conferred by the presence of the disease for many 
 centuries. Sometimes the whole unaffected population 
 departs from the village en masse, leaving the dead unburied, 
 and the stricken lying in their hammocks with a supply of 
 food and water, to perish or recover unaided as best they can. 
 Their treatment for this disease is similar to that employed 
 by them in malaria, namely, the production of profuse 
 sweating, followed by sudden immersion in cold water— 
 the colder the better. It need hardly be said that the 
 patient, who might have overcome the disease unaided, not 
 unfrequently succumbs to the remedy. Bleeding is a very 
 favourite remedy, especially for headache and any febrile 
 disorder. Usually the temporal vein above and in front 
 of the ear is opened, but sometimes one of the veins of the 
 forearm, which has first been distended with blood by tying 
 a ligature round the arm higher up. A chip of obsidian, a 
 sharp splinter of bone, ora snake’s tooth serves as a lancet, 
 the last being the favourite, as, though more painful than 
 the other two, it is supposed to possess some esoteric virtue, 
 which helps out the cure of the disease. Decoctions from 
 the carcasses of dried and mummified animals form no 
 inconsiderable part of the Indian pharmacopceia, certain 
 animals being regarded as specifics for certain diseases, 
 During an epidemic of whooping cough which I witnessed 
 a decoction of the charred remains of the cane rat was 
 almost exclusively given to the children to relieve the cough. 
 
52 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 In this case it is very hard to trace any connection between 
 the remedy and the disease, but some remedies are 
 undoubtedly used on the assumption that “ Similia similibus 
 curantur,’’ as in the case of Xhudub pek, twin seeds closely 
 resembling enlarged glands, the milky juice from which is 
 regarded as specific for glandular swellings in all parts of 
 the body. 
 
 The Maya Indians are extremely superstitious, believing 
 that the air is full of pishan, or souls of the dead, who are at 
 liberty at all times to return to their old haunts on earth, 
 and at certain seasons are compelled to do so. The pishan 
 are capable of enjoying the spirit, though not the substance 
 of human food, especially for some time just after they have 
 left the body ; hence the provision by friends and relatives 
 of food and drink for the dead, sometimes in their houses, 
 sometimes on their graves. Some fishan are believed to 
 be friendly to mortals, others inimical. They believe also 
 in spirits known as Xtabai, who have never undergone 
 incarnation on earth. These are always harmful, or at 
 best mischievous, and often take the form of a beautiful 
 woman, whose chief desire is to lead men astray, often 
 luring the victim on into the bush with enchanting voice 
 and backward glances, half disclosing her supernatural 
 beauty, till he is irretrievably lost, and wanders about half 
 demented to die of hunger and thirst. At other times the 
 victim is allowed to overtake and grasp the beautiful Xtabai, 
 but the first touch is death, consequently the cause usually 
 assigned for the demise of anyone found dead on the trails, 
 or in the bush, without any external marks of violence, is 
 “touched by a Xtabai.”’ 
 
 Another belief commonly held bv the Indians is that the 
 images of Christian saints, like the clay images of their 
 ancient gods upon the incensarios already mentioned, are 
 at times endowed with life, and the powers of speech and 
 locomotion, and that on these occasions they are capable 
 of actively aiding their faithful devotees. A celebrated 
 wooden image supposed to represent San Bernardo, was 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 53 
 
 credited with considerable powers in this respect, and when 
 an Indian wanted rain for his milpa, the return of an errant 
 wife, good hunting, or any similar blessing, he would come 
 and pray to the image to obtain it for him. 
 
 On one occasion a devotee arrived from a distant village 
 imploring the saint to aid him in the recovery of his pigs, 
 which had been lost, and on returning to his village found 
 to his joy that the pigs had arrived home before him. Next 
 day he returned, with the intention of making an offering 
 to the saint for his good offices, and incidentally, a present 
 to the owner of the house where the saint dwelt. He found 
 the poor santo much dishevelled, with torn clothes, and burrs 
 and thorns sticking all over him. On enquiring how this 
 had come about he was informed that the saint had been 
 out in the bush hunting for pigs, a quest which had given 
 him a great deal of trouble before he could find and drive 
 them home, and that when he got back he was tired out, 
 his face scratched, and his clothes torn by thorns and covered 
 with burrs—an explanation which completely satisfied the 
 Indian, and naturally called for a very handsome present 
 to the saint. 
 
 The image of San Isidro now reposing at Bacalar is even 
 more celebrated. Some years ago the Santa Cruz Indians 
 wished to remove the saint from his little shrine in Bacalar 
 to the great church in Santa Cruz, a resting-place more in 
 accord with his dignity. or this purpose he was laid in a 
 hammock, and carried by relays of Indians to a swamp 
 dividing the two places, where a halt was made for the night. 
 Next morning, to the consternation of the bearers, the image 
 of the saint was found to be missing. On returning to 
 Bacalar to report the disappearance, they were overjoyed 
 to find him standing as usual in his lowly shrine, crook in 
 hand, halo on head, looking benevolently down on them. 
 Three times in all they tried to remove him, but on each 
 occasion at the night halt the saint returned to his old 
 quarters at Bacalar, till they realised that he preferred his 
 own shrine to the great church at Santa Cruz, and, with 
 
54 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 reputation greatly enhanced, he was after that left in 
 peace. 
 
 Many curious superstitions are associated with the ruins 
 found throughout this country. Iwas assured by an Indian 
 that he had gone on one occasion to the ruins situated near 
 the village of Benque Viego, and, seeing a pigeon seated on 
 a tree, raised his gun to shoot it. Before he could do so, 
 however, the pigeon changed into a cock, and then almost 
 instantaneously into an eagle, which flew at him and drove 
 him away. 
 
 There is a further superstition connected with these 
 ruins to the effect that when the first settlers came to Benque 
 Viego, they wished to build the village near the ruins, where 
 plenty of cut stone is available, and land is excellent for 
 corn growing. They were, however, repeatedly driven off 
 by a little old man with a long grey beard, who appeared 
 when anyone tried to dig a post hole on the new site, and 
 whose appearance was so threatening and terrible that they 
 finally gave up the idea, and contented themselves with the 
 present site, which, it must be admitted, is in many ways 
 inferior. 
 
 Nominally they are Christians, but the more one sees of 
 them, and the better one gets to know them, the more one 
 realises that their Christianity is merely a thin veneer, and 
 that fundamentally their religious conceptions, and even 
 their ritual and ceremonies, are survivals—degenerate, 
 much altered, and with most of their significance lost, but 
 still survivals of those of their ancestors in pre-Columbian 
 days. To Christianity, not as a separate faith, but as a 
 welcome addition to their ancient religion, they took kindly 
 from the first. The innumerable saints of the Roman 
 Catholic Church were grafted on the not very extensive 
 Maya pantheon, and at the present day the Sun God, the 
 Wind God, the Rain God, Our Lady of Guadelupe, Saint 
 Lawrence, and Santa Clara, may all be invoked in the same 
 prayer, while the cross is substituted in most of the cere- 
 monies for the images of the old gods, though many of the 
 

 
 MAYA INDIAN CHILDREN. 
 
 PRIEST BEFORE ALTAR IN THE CHA CHAC CEREMONY. 
 
 Lp. 55 
 
 p. 48 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 55 
 
 latter are called on by name, and offerings are made to 
 them. 
 
 The Cha Chac ceremony, which we witnessed from 
 beginning to end, whose object is to procure sufficient rain 
 for the ripening of the corn, will be briefly described, as it 
 embraces most of the offerings and procedure of all the other 
 ceremonies. 
 
 The day previous to the ceremony the men of the village 
 dug the #7), or oven in which the food offerings were to be 
 baked. This consisted of an oblong hole in the ground 
 some 6ft. by 4ft. and 2ft. deep, filled with dry wood, on 
 which were placed a number of large stones. The women 
 worked hard all night at their rubbing-stones, grinding 
 great quantities of masa, a thick paste of ground corn, and 
 stkil, a thin paste of roast pumpkin seeds, from which their 
 offerings were to be made. Early in the morning of the 
 day of the ceremony the priest arrived with his assistant. 
 He was a thin, solemn, ascetic individual of pure Maya 
 type and evidently unmixed blood, clad in immaculate 
 white cotton shirt and trousers, with sandals on his feet. 
 A site was chosen in the midst of a grove of large trees, in 
 which a circular space 25ft. in diameter had been completely 
 cleared of trees and undergrowth. In this were erected 
 two rude huts, one 12ft. the other 6ft. square, of freshly-cut 
 sticks, thatched with huano leaf. In the centre of the 
 larger hut was erected an altar of sticks, bound together with 
 liana, and arched over with branches of the sacred shrub 
 known as jabin. On the altar were placed a number of small 
 calabashes for drinking from, and a cross. Beneath it in 
 large gourds, were placed the corn and pumpkin seed paste 
 made the night before, with a large jar of balché, the sacred 
 drink of the Maya, made from fermented honey, in which 
 has been steeped the bark of certain trees. The gourds of 
 corn and pumpkin seed paste were next removed to the 
 smaller hut, where they were dumped out on the floor, 
 which had been covered with wild plantain leaves. The 
 priest and his assistant soon converted the paste into cakes, 
 
56 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 each of which was wrapped in an outer coat of palm leaf 
 and an inner jacket of wild plantain leaf, and tied up securely 
 with liana. The firewood in the #70, or oven, had been 
 meanwhile set light to, and the hole was now half filled 
 with glowing ashes and red-hot stones, in which the leaf- 
 wrapped cakes were half buried, the earth taken from the 
 pib when it was dug out being raked on top of them, while 
 the priest sprinkled a little balché to the four cardinal points 
 with a branch of sacred jabin, repeating four times the 
 prayer: “‘In kubic ti at epalob, ti noh yum kab yetel nahmetan”’ 
 —‘I offer to the majestic ones, to the great Lord, cakes 
 of corn.”’ 
 
 Meanwhile a turkey and four fowls had been placed in 
 front of the altar. The priest and his assistant seized the 
 turkey, placed a wreath of sacred jabin leaves round its 
 neck, and poured a little balché down its throat, murmuring 
 meanwhile : “ In kubic t1 hahnal kichpan kolel tt San Pedro, 
 San Pablo, San Franctsco.’”’—‘I1 offer a repast to the 
 beautiful Virgin, to San Pedro, San Pablo, San Francisco.” 
 
 The turkey and fowls then had their necks wrung, and 
 were sent away to be cooked by the women, after which all 
 returned to the #7b, which was opened up, and the red hot, 
 leaf-wrapped bundles of corn bread removed to the small 
 shed, where their wrappings were removed, and they were 
 placed upon the altar. The fowls and turkey, roasted and 
 dismembered, were also placed on the altar, together with 
 a large calabash of balché, and some freshly made corn husk 
 cigarettes. All the offerings to the gods were now in place— 
 bread, meat, tobacco, and wine. 
 
 The priest, standing directly in front of the altar facing 
 the people sitting round in a semicircle, took some burning 
 incense in a piece of plantain bark, and, waving it towards 
 the four cardinal points, placed it upon the altar; next he 
 took a little of the balché, and scattered some of it towards 
 the north, east, and west, repeating at the same time in a 
 low, solemn, droning undertone this dedicatory prayer to 
 the gods to whom the offerings were made: 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 57 
 
 “Now my beautiful lady of the yellow-leafed breadnut, 
 as well as you, my handsome father, San Isidro, tiller 
 of the earth ; as well as you, Lord Sun, who art seated 
 in the middle of the Heavens, in the east ; as well as you, 
 Yumceanchaacoob (Lord of all the Chacs) ; I deliver (these 
 things) to you with the majestic servants in the middle 
 of the Heavens. As well as to you, my handsome father 
 Cakaal Uxmaal ; as well as you, my beautiful Lady Santa 
 Clara, as well as you, my handsome father Xualakinck 
 (a male wind god), as well as you, my beautiful Lady 
 Xhekik (a female wind god), as well as you, my handsome 
 father San Lorenzo ; as well as you, my beautiful lady 
 of Guadelupe, as well as you, Lord Mosonicoob, that 
 blows within the milpa when it is burnt, I deliver to you 
 this holy grace that you may taste it, and because you 
 are the greatest santos on earth. That is all, my masters. 
 Pardon my sins. You have not to follow the holy souls, 
 because I have made this holy offering.” 
 
 After this the balché was passed round in calabashes and 
 drunk by the participants, while the corn bread and fowls 
 were divided up amongst them, a very insignificant portion 
 of bread, meat, and balché being reserved for the women 
 who were, of course, not permitted to participate in the 
 ceremony, but on whom by far the most arduous part of 
 the labour of preparing for it had fallen. After this the 
 priest distributed the new-made corn husk cigarettes from 
 the altar, and finally everything used in the ceremony 
 including sheds, altar, and vessels, was burnt, and very 
 carefully reduced to ashes. It is absolutely essential in 
 performing the ceremony that everything employed in it 
 be fresh and unused. The huts and oven are made specially 
 for the occasion; the gourd cups and bowls have never 
 been used before ; the pottery is new, and even the incense, 
 corn husk cigarettes, and black native wax candles are 
 specially prepared for the ceremony. 
 
 After the ceremony it is equally important that everything 
 
58 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 employed in it be completely destroyed, generally by fire. 
 The Cha Chac would appear to be primarily an offering of 
 food, drink, incense, and tobacco, made to the Christian, 
 santos and to their own ancient gods by the Indians, which 
 after they have been presented to the gods, may be con- 
 sumed by the participants in the ceremony. 
 
 Its chief function, no doubt, was to secure the goodwill 
 of the saints and gods, and so ensure a satisfactory rainfall 
 during the ripening of the maize crop, but this was not its 
 sole function, for by the side of the hut containing the 
 principal altar was placed a small wooden table, or subsidiary 
 altar, with a string of gourds, in which were placed small 
 portions of food, drink, and tobacco, at the same time that 
 these were placed on the large altar. The priest also made 
 offerings from this small altar to the gods, which he explained 
 were on behalf of the ¢twyun pishan—literally “ solitary 
 souls,”’ meaning souls of the dead—who had not as yet 
 reached paradise, but were wandering about the earth 
 disconsolate and alone—a state obviously suggested by 
 the Christian idea of purgatory. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A Mad Mule—Arrival in Vigia—Boca Paila—A Sportsman’s Paradise— 
 Arrival in Cozumel—Carnival Celebrations—The Administration— 
 The Island of Cozumel—An Ideal Life—Mexican Officials—A Native 
 Dance—Vino del Pais—Island Ladies—Savage Dogs—An ancient 
 Church—Cortez’ visit to Cozumel—Vaults and Graves opened by 
 Treasure Seekers—Grijalva’s visit to Cozumel—The Buildings found 
 there by Him—He takes Possession in the Name of the King of Spain— 
 Sitting on a Jerisco—The Pests of Yucatan—Salubrity of the Island— 
 We engage a Pilot—He knows of a hitherto unvisited Ruined City— 
 Arrival off Ascension Bay—We Land to Sleep—Tracks in the Sand— 
 Good Fishing and Sport—Wonderful Flotsam on the Beach— 
 Discovery of the Ruined City. 
 
 ON leaving Desiderio Cochua we made an uneventful passage 
 
 as far as the break in the railroad nearest to Vigia, and on 
 
 portaging our luggage over this found a flat car and fresh 
 mule awaiting us, the latter an evil-tempered, irritable 
 animal, known as ‘“ Lunatico.’ Curiously enough, all 
 the mules on this line appear to possess names descriptive 
 of their most prominent characteristics. All, without 
 exception, are evil, and, so far as our experience went, well 
 merited. Lunatico did not take kindly to the harness, 
 emphasising his disapproval directly anyone approached 
 him to put it on by well-directed kicks. At last, however, 
 by tying him up short and blindfolding him, we succeeded 
 in getting it on, only, however, to encounter a fresh obstacle, 
 as our old muleteer, known to us only as hombre—.e. ““ man ”’ 
 
 —who was obviously suffering from a bad attack of cold 
 
 feet, refused point blank to fasten the traces to the flat 
 
 car, saying he felt sure the blank, blank son of ten million 
 
 blank, blank diablos would run away, overturn the car, 
 
 and prove his finish. A compromise was reached by his 
 
 agreeing to give the traces one turn round a central hook 
 
 at the front of the car, holding the end in his hand, so that 
 59 
 
60 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 any moment he might, so to speak, slip his cable, the reins 
 meanwhile being handed over to a compadre. 
 
 We galloped along in fine style for a mile or two, for 
 Lunatico, whatever his other faults, had not a lazy hair 
 on his carcass. Suddenly, however, for no apparent reason 
 beyond justifying his name, he took it into his head to bolt, 
 on which poor old hombre completely lost his head, loosed 
 the traces, while compadre let go the reins, and we were left 
 gazing at the gradually diminishing back view of Lunatico 
 disappearing down the line, a tangle of ropes trailing behind 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile our flat car, its momentum exhausted, soon 
 came to a stop, and we found ourselves marooned in the 
 middle of a swamp, eight kilometres from anywhere, night 
 coming on rapidly, and battalions of mosquitoes concentrat- 
 ing for the assault. Disgustedly we drove hombre and his 
 compadre off down the line, in the faint hope that the mule 
 might have got hitched up by the traces or reins, failing 
 which they were to make their way to Vigia and bring back 
 first aid in the form of a fresh mule. In half an hour or so 
 we were rejoiced to see them returning, leading Lunatico, 
 and accompanied by a third man, who had encountered the 
 beast pelting down the line, and, guessing what had 
 happened, promptly stopped him. 
 
 This time we fastened the traces firmly on each side of 
 the flat car, handing over the reins to the old muleteer with 
 the warning that if anything further happened he and 
 compadre should act as mules, and drag the car into Vigia, 
 with a liberal ration of whip. Lunatico set off at a magnifi- 
 cent gallop, the light car swaying, bumping, and lurching 
 over the uneven road bed, and threatening every moment 
 to upset us into the vile smelling swamp on either side. 
 Poor old hombre’s time was divided about equally between 
 petitioning the saints for a safe deliverance, cursing the 
 gringos—Americans—holding the reins, and endeavouring 
 to retain his seat on the car. Indeed, the latter feat gave 
 us all as much to do as we could accomplish, for the great 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 6I 
 
 pile of baggage, to the top of which we were clinging, 
 endeavouring to keep its component parts from being 
 jerked off into the swamp, everyone grasping his own most 
 valued possessions, swayed about like a ship in a heavy 
 swell, shedding along our track here a pot, there a calabash, 
 and anon a string of dry corn cake, whose loss the darkness 
 temporarily hid from their owners. 
 
 With no worse losses than these we reached Vigia between 
 8 and 9 p.m., where we were treated by Messrs. Martin & 
 Martinez to a real dinner, no single item of which had ever 
 dwelt in a tin. 
 
 Next morning early we boarded the Lilian Y, and, passing 
 the wreck of the Independencia, and the lighthouse at 
 Ascension, arrived at Boca Paila about 4 p.m. This is a 
 narrow inlet through which runs a five-knot current, against 
 which we had great difficulty in taking the pram in. It 
 opens up into a vast shallow lagoon studded with mangrove 
 cays, connected to the south with the Chetumal Bay, and 
 to the north, it is said, by devious waterways, even with 
 Yalahau Lagoon, in the extreme north of the peninsula. 
 This vast shallow lagoon is a sportsman’s paradise, as the 
 water is literally swarming with fish—snapper, stone bass, 
 mullet, and many other varieties, which in turn attract 
 sharks, barracouda, and larger fish, with myriads of aquatic 
 birds. We saw great numbers of cranes, spoonbills, curlew, 
 and plover, flocks of the beautiful scarlet ibis, and even 
 considerable numbers of egrets, now becoming year by year 
 shyer and rarer in most places, by reason of the constant 
 war waged against them for their plumes, but in this 
 remote spot, where the foot—or rather the keel—of man 
 hardly ever passes, still common, and comparatively 
 tame. 
 
 Opening into this lagoon is a little creek navigable only 
 for small canoes. It leads to the fresh water lagoon of 
 Chunyancha, by the side of which dwell the last few 
 representatives of the Chunyancha tribe of Indians, a 
 branch of the Maya, their miserable hovels of sticks and 
 
62 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 palm-leaf thatch being placed within a stone’s throw 
 of the stone-walled ruins of their more noble ancestors’ 
 dwellings. 
 
 We left Boca Paila with regret, and, indeed, one might 
 pass an ideal holiday here, camping out on the fine white 
 sandy beach, under the glorious tropical sun, the heat 
 tempered by the almost constant cool breezes from the 
 Caribbean ; fish and fowl in great variety to be had for the 
 taking, driftwood in abundance for the camp-fire, and no 
 troublesome human to break the peace of nature from year’s 
 end to year’s end. 
 
 About I a.m. next morning we made San Migue, the 
 capital of the island of Cozumel. Pandemonium seemed to 
 have broken loose on the island, singing, howling, shouting, 
 drums beating, bands braying, guns exploding, dogs barking, 
 all tortured the quiet night, and proclaimed the strenuous 
 observance of the last day of carnival. The noise was so 
 terrific that we could not go to sleep, and so lay on and off 
 some distance from the shore till about 7 a.m., when we 
 landed for an interview with the Administrador del Aduana, 
 or Chief of Customs, an educated Mexican, dressed in nicely- 
 pressed grey silk suit, tight, highly-polished grey kid boots, 
 with silk stockings to match, a grey figured shirt, and—no 
 collar or tie. 
 
 The little plaza, or public square, facing the sea contains 
 a pretentious statue of President Juares, and a fine stone 
 clock tower, but is neglected and overgrown with weeds 
 and rank vegetation. These two—the Administrador and 
 the plaza—epitomise in themselves what may be termed the 
 Neo Mexican culture, the keynote of which is meretricious- 
 ness—a constant striving after the grandiose and 
 impressive in architecture, institutions, and culture, a 
 lamentable falling short, and attainment only of the 
 ridiculous. 
 
 The island, which is about 50 kilometres long by 20 broad, 
 when Stephens visited it in 1841 was absolutely uninhabited ; 
 now, however, it supports a population of probably 1,500 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 63 
 
 souls, mostly Yucatan and Indian fishermen, some of whom 
 also cultivate patches of henequen and coco-nuts. The life 
 is an easy one. Dinner can be caught off the end of the 
 wharf at any time in ten minutes ; corn cake is cheap ; and 
 the coco-nuts, which require practically no tending on this 
 wonderful sandy soil, provide the rum, tobacco, and cotton 
 for a pair of trousers and shirt, which are all most of the 
 inhabitants demand of existence. 
 
 The one fly in the ointment is the swarm of Mexican 
 federal officials—the Judges, the Captain of the Port, the 
 Paymaster, the Administrador, with their numerous staffs— 
 who have to be supported—and handsomely supported at 
 that. It must, however, be admitted that, except in very 
 lean times, these prey rather off the stranger within their 
 gates than off the native—a custom prevalent in most small 
 Mexican ports, where high titled officials with expensive 
 tastes but very meagre salaries have to supplement the 
 latter to the best of their ability in order to gratify the 
 former. We realised this when we had to pay over 200 
 dollars in port dues of various sorts in our progress from 
 Payo Obispo to Progreso, though we had cleared directly 
 from the former to the latter place, with permission to call 
 wherever we wished en route. 
 
 Next day, with true Mexican hospitality, our new friends 
 refused to let us go till we had attended a dance they were 
 getting up in our honour that night. We pointed out that 
 the night of Ash Wednesday was no time for good Catolicos 
 to get up a dance; they replied that, having had a hot time 
 during the carnival, they felt like keeping it up a little while 
 longer, for which our presence offered an excellent excuse. 
 Messengers were sent round to warn the sefioritas of the 
 pueblo, and about 8 p.m. a considerable crowd had collected 
 in the dance house on the plaza, open on all sides to the 
 winds of heaven, and to various mirones, or onlookers, 
 without whom no Yucatecan dance is complete. These 
 consist of dogs, children, loafers, the aged female relatives 
 of the performers, and, indeed, of all the inhabitants of the 
 
64 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 pueblo with nothing particular to do. Most of the guests, 
 in deference to the day, had a smear of ashes on their heads 
 or foreheads; later on, however, as in response to the 
 stimulus of the vino del pais, things became more lively, 
 Held (whose abilities at quick-fire portraiture and carica- 
 ture proved of inestimable assistance to us throughout 
 the trip), with the aid of a little charcoal, red ochre, 
 and grease, transformed them into a company of 
 demons. 
 
 This vino del pais—wine of the country—new native 
 white rum, is an insidious liquor, producing, when taken in 
 moderation, merely a gentle exhilaration and sense of 
 bien étre, but leaving, even with the strictest moderation, 
 a most evil head and stomach on the “ morning after ’”’ to 
 those not broken in to it. 
 
 Like all Spaniards both men and women were excellent 
 dancers, and performed danza, danzon, and Spanish 
 quadrilles as if their hearts were in the business. 
 
 The island ladies are fine, sltummocky, upstanding young 
 women, perhaps not so slim, graceful, and alluring as the 
 mestizas of the mainland. 
 
 The few hours’ sleep we had that night were taken on the 
 beach, to avoid the noise of the dogs, which are the curse of 
 all Yucatecan villages, where they take complete charge at 
 night, wandering about in bands, rendering sleep impossible 
 for the stranger and a stroll in the streets after dark not 
 unattended with danger, as, though great cowards, they 
 will, when reinforced by numbers, and under cover of dark- 
 ness, attack anyone they do not know. 
 
 Next morning, after a bathe and tea, we started for the 
 ruins of the ancient church situated about a mile from the 
 village, and now buried in the bush. We were particularly 
 anxious to see this venerable building, which is generally 
 regarded as the first Christian church erected upon the 
 American continent, as it stands upon the traditional site 
 of the chapel erected by Cortez on his way to the conquest 
 of Mexico in 1519. The incident as related by Bernal Diaz, 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 65 
 
 who accompanied the conqueror, and was an eye-witness 
 of the occurrence, is as follows: 
 
 “ The Island of Cozumel, it seems, was a place to which 
 the Indians made pilgrimages, for the neighbouring 
 tribes of the promontory of Cotoche, and other districts 
 of Yucatan, came hither in great numbers to sacrifice to 
 some abominable idols which stood in a temple there. 
 One morning we perceived that the place where these 
 horrible images stood was crowded with Indians and 
 their wives. They burnt a species of resin, which very 
 much resembled our incense, and as such a sight was so 
 novel to us, we paid particular attention to all that went 
 forward. Upon this an old man, who had on a wide 
 cloak, and was a priest, mounted on the very top of the 
 temple, and began preaching something to the Indians. 
 We were all very curious to know what the purport of 
 this sermon was, and Cortez desired Mechorego to inter- 
 pret it to him. Finding that all he had been saying 
 tended to ungodliness, Cortez ordered the caziques and 
 the principal men among them, with the priest, into his 
 presence, giving them to understand as well as he could, 
 by means of our interpreter, that if they were desirous of 
 becoming our brethren they must give up sacrificing to 
 these idols, which were no gods, but evil beings by which 
 they were led into error and their souls sent to hell. He 
 then presented them with the image of the Virgin Mary 
 and a cross, which he desired them to put up instead. 
 These would prove a blessing to them at all times, make 
 their seeds grow, and preserve their souls from eternal 
 perdition. This and many other things respecting our 
 holy religion Cortez explained to them in a very excellent 
 manner. The caziques and priests answered that their 
 forefathers had prayed to their idols before them, because 
 they were good gods, and that they were determined to 
 follow their example, adding that we should experience 
 
 what power they possessed ; as soon as we had left them 
 EL 
 
66 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 we should certainly all of us go to the bottom of the sea. 
 Cortez, however, took very little heed of their threats, 
 but commanded the idols to be pulled down and broken 
 to pieces, which was accordingly done without any further 
 ceremony. He then ordered a quantity of lime to be 
 collected, which is here in abundance, and with the 
 assistance of the Indian masons a very pretty altar was 
 constructed, on which we placed the image of the Holy 
 Virgin. At the same time two of the carpenters, Alonzo 
 Yanez and Alvaro Lopez, made a cross of new wood 
 which lay at hand ; this was set up in a kind of chapel, 
 which we built behind the altar. After all this was 
 completed, Father Juan Diaz said Mass in front of the 
 new altar, the caziques and priests looking on with the 
 greatest attention.” 
 
 The ruins of the church, measuring 98ft. in length and 
 36ft. 2in. in breadth, face east and west. The roof has 
 entirely fallen in, while the west 
 
 wall has completely disappeared. 
 i Gd | Stucco-covered remains of the other 
 - walls still stand, varying in height 
 IL ty from two to ten feet. Inside we 
 
 discovered six large and one small 
 
 | overground vaults, built of stone 
 
 I and mortar, shaped something like 
 AY eae rates Gh an inverted iron bath-tub. These 
 Ancient Olirch oa tes had all been opened, probably by 
 
 Island of Cozumel. treasure seekers. Inside one we 
 A. Altar. 
 
 B'S BOvopreund Veen found the complete skeleton of a 
 
 C.C.C. windows. young Mestisa woman, which had 
 
 been buried for from sixty to eighty 
 years. This secondary use of the church as a burial- 
 place had taken place since Stephen’s visit in 1841, as 
 he makes no mention of these vaults, and states that 
 the island was at that time entirely uninhabited. The 
 altar—probably the identical one which Cortez erected 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 67 
 
 in 1519—is now in ruins; just to the west of it the 
 floor of the Church has been dug up, doubtless by 
 treasure-hunters, exposing a row of seven small, stone-lined 
 chambers, possibly the burial-place of successive heads of 
 the church in the island. Benito Perez, a priest who accom- 
 panied the expedition of Grijalva to Cozumel in the year 
 1518, the first occasion upon which Europeans had ever 
 touched there, applied to the King of Spain for the bishopric 
 of the island, but was put off with the bishopric of Culhua, 
 or Mexico, while the Bishopric of Cozumel was conferred 
 upon a churchman of far greater eminence, whose remains, 
 for all one knows, may have rested peacefully in one of 
 these stone cysts till disturbed by the sacrilegious hands of 
 greedy seekers after buried treasure, who throughout 
 Yucatan have left their mark alike on Christian church and 
 heathen temple. 
 
 The island was discovered accidentally by Grijalva while 
 endeavouring to follow the course taken by Cordova in the 
 previous year along the north coast of Yucatan towards 
 Mexico. An itinerary of the voyage was kept by Grijalva’s 
 chaplain, who records the landing at Cozumel in the following 
 words : 
 
 “On Friday, the sixth of May, the Commandant 
 ordered one hundred men to arm themselves. They 
 embarked in boats and landed. They were accompanied 
 by a priest and expected to be attacked by a great number 
 of Indians. Being prepared for defence, they arranged 
 themselves in good order, and came to a tower where they 
 found no one, and in all the environs did not see a single 
 man. The Commandant mounted upon the tower with 
 the standard bearer, the flag unfurled. He planted the 
 standard upon one of the facades of the tower, took 
 possession in the name of the King in the presence of 
 witnesses, and drew up a declaration of such taking 
 possession. The ascent to this tower was by eighteen 
 steps; the base was very massive, one hundred and 
 
68 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 eighty feet in circumference. At the top rose a small 
 tower of the height of two men placed one upon the other. 
 Within were figures, bones, and idols they adored. From 
 these marks we supposed they were idolaters. 
 
 “While the commandant was at the top of the tower 
 with many of our people, an Indian, followed by three 
 others who kept the doors, put in the interior a vase with 
 very odoriferous perfume, which seemed of storax. This 
 Indian was old ; he burnt many perfumes before the idols 
 which were in the tower, and sang in a loud voice a song, 
 which was always in the same tone. We supposed that 
 he was invoking his idols. . . . These Indians carried 
 our Commandant with ten or twelve Spaniards, and gave 
 them to eat in a hall constructed of stones very close 
 together, and covered with straw. Before the hall was 
 a large well from which everybody drank. ... They 
 then left us alone, and we entered the village, where all 
 the houses were built of stone. Among others we saw 
 five very well made, and commanded by small towers. 
 The base of these edifices is very large and massive ; the 
 building is very small at the top. They appeared to 
 have been built a long time, but there are also modern 
 ones.” 
 
 This temple, standing on a stone-faced pyramid, from 
 which Grijalva coolly took possession of the whole country 
 in the name of the King of Spain by the simple process of 
 proclamation, and from which the great Cortez himself 
 threw down the idols of the Indians, and erected close to its 
 base the first Christian Church in the New World, possesses 
 associations with the conquest and the conquistadores 
 unequalled possibly by any other spot on the American 
 continent. When Stephens visited the island in 1841 it was 
 still standing, and in a fair state of preservation, if one may 
 judge by Catherwood’s drawing. Now, however, the little 
 temple is a heap of ruins, and nothing remains but the great 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 69 
 
 ¢ 
 
 mound upon which it stood, the “ very massive base” of 
 Grijalva ; yet one can almost visualise the scene as it occurred 
 four hundred years ago—the little group of armour-clad 
 Spaniards, swordsmen, crossbowmen, and arquebusiers, 
 standing at the base of the pyramid; farther off great 
 crowds of half naked Maya, led by their priests, in long, 
 blood-soaked cotton robes, and their caciques, with immense 
 feather-decorated headdresses and elaborate ornaments 
 of gold and jade; Grijalva, mounting solemnly the stone 
 steps of the pyramid, and proclaiming through his herald 
 the sovereignty of the King of Spain over those lands, which 
 for three centuries were to prove the brightest jewel in the 
 diadem of Spain, without a thought to the claims of the 
 unfortunate aborigines, whose native land was _ being 
 torn from them, standing round listening to the proclama- 
 tion, entirely ignorant of what it portended. 
 
 On returning to the coast from our visit to the ruins of the 
 church, hot, tired, and irritated by prickly heat and 
 encounters with mosquitoes and coloradillos—a micro- 
 scopic abomination which bores under the skin and causes 
 intolerable itching, well named béfe rouge by the French— 
 we found ourselves on a flat, rock-bound coast, dotted with 
 deep, clear, sandy-bottomed pools, with edges upholstered 
 in soft yellow seaweed, suggesting simultaneously to Morley, 
 Held, and myself the same idea—a bathe. In two minutes 
 we were experiencing the delightfully soothing sensation of 
 cold salt water on our tortured skins. Before going in the 
 guide had told us to ‘‘ Cuzdadojerisos,” or ““ Beware of 7ertsos,” 
 but as jevisos was a new word to us in Spanish, of whose 
 meaning we had not the faintest conception, and as there 
 seemed nothing to be afraid of in a clear, rock-bound, 
 sandy-bottomed pool, where neither sharks nor barracouda 
 could enter, we plunged gaily in. 
 
 I was the first to discover the meaning of the word erzso, 
 for on sitting down on the rim of the pool I located one 
 at once, concealed in the seaweed. They are small 
 sea-urchins, or sea-porcupines, hemispherical in shape, and 
 
70 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 covered with long, sharp black spines, which when sat 
 upon penetrate for a considerable distance into one’s 
 anatomy. Almost every member of the fauna and flora of 
 Yucatan, and the sea surrounding its coast, is armed with 
 some weapon, offensive or defensive—tooth, claw, spine, 
 spike, sting, or poisonous juice. Nearly every bush and 
 tree in the low scrub is provided with its own variety of 
 Spine or thorn, one of the worst offenders being the Agave 
 Americana, which is cultivated in vast fields all over the 
 peninsula for the henequen fibre obtained from its leaves, 
 each of these leaves being tipped with a gigantic black 
 thorn, sometimes used as pins by the natives, capable of 
 putting one’s eye out with the greatest ease. An even 
 worse offender is a low bush covered with double curved 
 thorns, which not only holds back the traveller through the 
 bush, but vomits over him a stream of vicious stinging ants, 
 who have their homes in the hollow interiors of the thorns, 
 and sally out to the assault on the slightest provocation. 
 Insect pests include ticks, mosquitoes, sand-flies, wasps— 
 especially in the ruins, where they love to build their nests 
 from the roofs of still intact rooms, and settle in a cloud on 
 the invader—hornets, doctor-flies, various blood-sucking 
 tabanide, centipedes, chiggers or sand-fleas, tarantulas, 
 and beef and screw worm flies. Beef worm, so named from 
 its prevalence amongst cattle, is the larva of a fly, which, 
 deposited on the skin, soon burrows its way through, and 
 rapidly develops into a fat, hairy maggot, about one inch 
 in length, which in its uneasy wrigglings and protrusions 
 of its head through the blow-hole it has left in the skin is 
 a constant source of irritation. They seldom attain any 
 size in humans, except on the back, where they are not 
 visible, as the accepted treatment (a plug of wet tobacco 
 over their blow-hole for a few minutes, followed by a 
 vigorous squeeze) usually gets rid of them before they get — 
 very large, but to dogs, cattle, and other animals, who may 
 harbour hundreds of them, they occasionally prove fatal. 
 Screw worm is also the larva of a fly resembling a large grey 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 71 
 
 house fly, which crawls up the nose of sleepers and lays its 
 eggs in hundreds over the mucous membrane. The larve 
 burrow into this, and grow to about half an inch in length, 
 causing the membrane to slough off in great patches, and 
 usually bringing about the death of the sufferer. 
 
 Poisonous snakes are found in considerable numbers. 
 Fortunately, however, they usually get out of one’s way. 
 The commonest are the rattlesnake, tomagoff, coral snake, 
 and barber’s pole—a beautiful striped red and black snake, 
 whose bite is particularly venomous. Nearly every village 
 has its own snake-doctor, who, as he treats poisonous and 
 non-poisonous snake-bites alike, and the proportion is about 
 one of the former to ten of the latter, naturally soon acquires 
 a considerable reputation, and is able to raise his fees from 
 the eggs, chicken, and corn basis to that of real money. 
 
 Nor are the denizens of the sea far behind those of the 
 land in objectionable qualities. Shark and barracouda are 
 found all round the coast, awaiting the bather who ventures 
 into over two feet of water, while in the shallows numerous 
 stinging jelly-fish guard the surface, leaving the patrolling 
 of the bottom to innumerable sea-urchins, sea-scorpions, 
 and sea-centipedes. 
 
 If I have perhaps dwelt unduly on these pests by land 
 and sea, my excuse must be that I have suffered deeply, 
 while the experience of the sea-urchin was a particularly 
 harrowing one, treated, moreover, by Morley and Held, 
 not with the sympathy due it, but with gusts of ribald 
 mirth. 
 
 Cozumel possesses no medical practitioner, and, whether 
 despite or on account of this fact, is undoubtedly a most 
 remarkably salubrious place. Epidemics of yellow fever 
 and dysentery, such as ravage the mainland, are unknown 
 here, while malaria and hook-worm are rare indeed. To die 
 from any other cause than old age is looked upon by the 
 inhabitants as abnormal, and somehow not quite comme tl faut. 
 
 We encountered a large proportion of ancients, both men 
 and women, in our walks abroad, some of such hoary 
 
72 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 antiquity as to lead one to believe they must have been 
 contemporaneous with the last of the congquistadores. 
 
 We obtained in Cozumel a pilot for the north and north- 
 east coasts named Miguel Polanco—a silent, reserved, not 
 undignified individual, with greying hair and face criss- 
 crossed in all directions by a million little wrinkles, and 
 tanned to the colour of saddle-leather by constant exposure 
 to sun and wind. He was reported not only to be an excel- 
 lent pilot, but to have discovered by accident the ruins of 
 an ancient Maya city not very far inland from the coast. 
 On interviewing him, this rumour was confirmed. Four 
 years previously, when hunting a deer which he had wounded 
 near Punta Santa Rosa, between the Chetumal and Espiritu 
 Santo Bays, he followed it inland for about a mile, and there, 
 buried in the virgin bush, suddenly came upon extensive 
 ruined buildings, which even from his imperfect description 
 we had no difficulty in identifying as Tuluum style Maya 
 ruins. We were greatly elated over this find, and, though 
 all of us had been taken in many a time and oft by natives 
 whose swans had turned out to be geese—and poor geese 
 at that—there was something so circumstantial about 
 Polanco’s account, and the details varied so little on repeti- 
 tion, that we were convinced there must be a good backing 
 of truth behind it. 
 
 Next morning early we set sail from Cozumel, with nearly 
 100 miles of our route to retrace in order to reach Punta 
 Santa Rosa. Our pilot, as I have remarked, was reserved 
 and dignified both in manner and appearance. Indeed, 
 clad in steel morion and breastplate, he might well have 
 passed as a reincarnation of one of those intrepid pilots, 
 equally at home with an astrolobe or a sword, who accom- 
 panied the conquistadores to the New World. No sooner 
 were we under way than I could see Morley’s speculative 
 eye upon him, and I knew his hour had come, for Morley 
 has a perfect genius for extracting what he calls “info” 
 from everyone with whom he comes in contact who seems 
 to have any of that valuable commodity to give up. He 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 73 
 
 promptly seated himself beside Migail on the deck-house, 
 and with a bland and ingratiating smile, the New England 
 accent toned down to the gentleness of a sucking dove, 
 commenced the cross-examination. 
 
 Miguel stood it pretty well for a time; then, taking advan- 
 tage of a lull in the barrage of questions, he bolted incon- 
 tinently forward, though the spindrift,and the smoke from 
 the galley fire combined to render this the least desirable 
 part of the ship. Morley returned to his deck chair and 
 pondered deeply, till in about half an hour I could see he 
 had formulated in his mind a fresh set of questions, when 
 Miguel was again summoned aft to be pumped ; and so it 
 went on all day, till Miguel, with a wild and harassed look, 
 lapsed gloomily into monosyllables. 
 
 Both wind and current being against us, we did not make 
 the southern point of Ascension Bay till nearly 7 p.m. 
 Though the night was dark, with a mere nail-paring of moon 
 showing, Morley and I determined at all costs to sleep ashore, 
 and escape for once the horrible rolling of the Lilian Y. 
 We bundled our cots, mosquito nets, bedding, and hurricane 
 lamps into the pita and, taking Alfredo and George, 
 rowed ashore. 
 
 A hundred yards Saath land the water shoaled off so 
 badly that even the pram could not 
 be shoved in any farther, and we had 
 to get out and wade to the low, 2S \ 
 sandy shore. We soon had our cots W 
 and mosquito curtains up, though 1 baton aa 
 the latter flapped and bellied so in — Tiger tracks following a 
 the brisk breeze that sleep appeared 7°” Psi OP Ne 
 doubtful under them. On returning 
 to the pram with a lighted lantern, Alfredo discovered 
 tracks on the soft sand, and, of course, had to call our 
 attention immediately to them. They had obviously been 
 made within a very few hours, as they-were sharply out- 
 lined, and situated well below ordinary high-water mark. 
 The little sketch will give the reader a better idea of their 
 
74 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 appearance than a page of description. The front tracks 
 are those of a gigantic racoon ; the back those of a good- 
 sized tiger, obviously trailing him. They had both emerged 
 from the bush, we found, about 100 yds. to the south of our 
 camp, and as there was a great inlet of the sea a mile or so 
 to the north of this, it appeared probable that the tiger, 
 with the racoon stowed inside, would sooner or later pass our 
 camp to regain the bush. We sent back to the Lian Y 
 for more hurricane lamps, and with a ring of these around 
 the cots, and the mosquito curtains flapping and cracking 
 in the wind, we lay down, I with a shotgun, and Morley 
 with a revolver handy. We found it difficult to get to sleep, 
 owing partly to the flapping of the mosquito curtains, but 
 chiefly, I imagine, to the proximity of the tiger. Nor was 
 our condition improved by Morley, who kept recalling 
 instances which he had read, or heard, or imagined, of the 
 Central American puma, or jaguar, when driven desperate by 
 hunger, attacking humans. I pointed out, however, that 
 our tiger was probably peacefully sleeping off the effects 
 of a large fat coon, and, in any case, an army of tigers would 
 not dare investigate two flapping mosquito curtains 
 encircled by a constellation of hurricane lamps. 
 
 We struck camp before six next morning, having seen no 
 signs of the tiger. Miguel thought the best place to land 
 for the ruins was about ten miles south of our present 
 location, so we kept on a course nearly due south close in 
 to the reef. Someone thought of fresh fish for breakfast, 
 and we remembered we had a couple of spinners on board, 
 one of which was immediately thrown overboard. In 
 twenty minutes we had caught two barracoudas, one of 
 3lbs., one of rolbs., and two rock fish, one of 12lbs. and one 
 of 30lbs. 
 
 This strip of coast is a sporting paradise, as the neighbour- . 
 hood of the reef swarms with fish, some of them affording 
 almost as good sport to the angler as the tarpon, while the 
 bush is full of deer, peccari, jaguar, puma, gibunt, wild 
 turkey, and curassow, and the swamps and lagoons abound 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 78 
 
 in duck, plover, snipe, and innumerable flocks of aquatic 
 birds. 
 
 We landed on a beautiful sandy beach, along which we 
 walked in a southerly direction, the pilot carefully scanning 
 the bush to try and locate the spot where he had entered in 
 pursuit of the wounded deer. We passed in the course of 
 a mile eight mahogany logs, worth at least 50 dollars each, 
 two oars, quantities of wreckage, and a lifebuoy with s.s. 
 ~ Iaqua upon it, in addition to strange seeds, fruit stones, and 
 beans of all sizes and shapes, corals, sponges, multi-coloured 
 seaweeds, gorgeous shells, and all the wonderful flotsam 
 and jetsam of the Caribbean, laid out before us on a counter 
 of sparkling sand. | 
 
 It would seem as if this strip of coast has never been 
 visited by a boat of any size, as there must be thousands 
 of dollars’ worth of mahogany logs along its whole extent, 
 driven in by the prevailing east winds, from wrecks, and 
 from rafts being towed to the embarking point which, 
 encountering heavy weather, have got broken up and 
 scattered. We seriously contemplated a beachcombing 
 expedition later on to exploit the find. 
 
 The pilot at last thought he had located the right spot, 
 and we turned into the bush, which here consisted of low 
 dense scrub, chiefly pimento, buttonwood, and logwood 
 trees, interspersed with the beds of shallow lagoons, now 
 dry, and patches of mangrove swamp. These latter, on 
 account of their arching aerial roots, rendered walking 
 through them a very tedious process. The beds of the dry 
 lagoons were criss-crossed in all directions with the tracks 
 of game, deer, peccari, gibunt, tiger, wild turkey, and many 
 others, some of them quite recent, but we were hunting 
 more important game than these, and had not even brought 
 our guns. 
 
 After over an hour’s walk in a generally $.S.W. direction 
 we determined to lie down for a rest, and let the pilot 
 continue the search with Muddy, as it was obvious he did 
 not know in the least where he was. In a little more than 
 
76 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 half an hour we heard shouts to the south of us, and found 
 they had discovered the ruins about a quarter of a mile 
 away. We all set out with great eagerness, and soon stood 
 face to face with the ruined temples, palaces, and public 
 buildings of what had evidently been a good-sized Maya 
 city, now buried in the midst of this dense, impenetrable 
 bush, all tradition of it perished, its very name forgotten, 
 and now being viewed probably for the first time by 
 European eyes. 
 

 
 SEA. 
 
 THE TOWN OF SAN MIGUEL COZUMEL, FROM THE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PLAN OF THE MAIN GROUP OF RUINS. 
 
 CHACMOOL 
 
 [p. 78 
 

 
 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Soldier Crabs and Bats—Clearing the Bush round the Ruins—Hubert lives 
 up to his Reputation—Maya never discovered the Principle of the 
 Arch—Description of the Temples—A Chacmool’s Offerings found 
 buried beside it—Market-place—Curious Stucco Ornaments—Cere- 
 monies Performed at these Temples—The Builders of this and other 
 East Coast Cities. 
 
 WE had noticed an unusual number of soldier crabs crawling 
 about in the bush as we came along, but at the ruins they 
 swarmed in countless thousands, from little fellows the 
 size of a periwinkle to giants nearing four inches in diameter. 
 They crawled over one if one kept quiet for a few minutes, 
 dropped on one from the roofs, and crept up the legs of 
 one’s trousers. Why such swarms of them should have 
 invaded the ruins where there was apparently absolutely 
 nothing edible is impossible to imagine, unless, as the pilot 
 suggested, they were the souls of ancient Maya citizens 
 come back in this incarnation to drive the first white invader 
 back from their ancient city, reinforced by bats, scores of 
 which fluttered past us and flew in our faces as we entered 
 the dark little temple rooms, where for centuries they and 
 their ancestors had remained undisturbed. 
 
 We at once started measuring and planning the ruins, 
 sending the pilot and Esquivel off to the Lilian Y to bring 
 back all hands with machetes and axes to clean as much of 
 the bush as possible round the ruined buildings, in order to 
 let the light in, and admit of their being photographed. 
 All hands were back in under two hours, having cut a track 
 from the beach to the ruins about a couple of miles below 
 our first landing-place, where the distance proved to be 
 under half a mile. They had improved the time during 
 our absence by catching a 4olbs. rock fish with the spinner, 
 
 77 
 
78 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 and harpooning an immense 8ft. June fish, which, however, 
 got away by breaking the harpoon. 
 
 For the first time during the trip we were rejoiced to see 
 Hubert with a kettle in which to boil water, as we were 
 parched with thirst after our morning’s work, having had 
 nothing since early tea. Hubert, however, lived nobly up 
 to his reputation as a food spoiler, though it seemed hard 
 to uphold with only tea to prepare, but he accomplished 
 it successfully by smoking the water so badly that, notwith- 
 standing our thirst, we could hardly swallow the tea. 
 
 Breakfast over, the men, setting briskly to work with axe 
 and machete, soon had a clearing made round the main 
 group of ruins large enough to admit of our taking photo- 
 graphs of them. A ground plan of this group, which com- 
 prises nine buildings, is shown in the figure. Temple A is 
 a little sanctuary almost exactly similar in size and con- 
 struction to that already described at Central, except that 
 in this case there is no trace of an upper story having 
 existed. The building is 6ft. gin. in length by 6ft. roin. 
 in breadth. The roof is supported by a square column in 
 the centre of the building, surrounded by a narrow gallery, 
 into which small doorways, 2ft. lin. high, open at each of 
 the four sides. Above each doorway is a recessed panel, 
 the bottoms of which still show traces of paint. 
 
 The whole structure was originally covered with smooth 
 stucco, and painted. A triangular stone cornice passes all 
 round the building just above the doors. The original height 
 cannot be ascertained, as the upper part of the building has 
 been broken down by the root of a good-sized tree growing 
 from the roof, but it was under 5ft. 
 
 Temple B, 23ft. 3in. long, by 17ft. 7in. broad, and oft. 
 high, is entered by a broad doorway, on its western side 
 divided into three entrances by two circular stone columns 
 surmounted by square capitals. Above these were originally 
 placed sapodilla lintels, traces of which, much decayed, 
 may still be seen in situ. The roof is flat. 
 
 The whole building is covered externally with smooth 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 79 
 
 stucco, upon which are still to be seen in several places 
 traces of the “red hand,” imprinted by the living member 
 dipped in fresh red paint. Round the entire building, 6ft. 
 from the ground, runs an ornamental stone cornice. The 
 interior of the building is supported on two oblong stone 
 columns. The roof, as in all Maya buildings, is supported 
 by a false, or corbal, arch formed by the overlapping of 
 successive courses of masonry till the interval between— 
 usually less than a foot—can be joined by capstones. 
 
 The walls are constructed of thick masses of cement, in 
 which stones are firmly embedded, the whole forming 
 practically a monolithic arch. 
 
 It would appear that the Maya never discovered the secret 
 of the keystone, which is a remarkable circumstance in 
 people who had made such strides in architecture, who 
 erected such vast stone palaces, temples, and monoliths, 
 and the beauty and finish of whose sculpture is unsurpassed 
 to this day. 
 
 Temples A and B stand on a stone-faced platform, or 
 truncated pyramid, 7ft. 4in. high, approached by two 
 terraces, each of which is 3ft. in breadth. On the west side, 
 immediately facing the entrance to Temple B, the summit 
 of the platform is reached by a flight of stone steps. 
 
 Temple C very closely resembles Temple B, except that 
 it is somewhat longer and narrower. The entrance, as in B, 
 faces the west, and is divided into three by two circular 
 columns capped by square capitals. The whole structure, 
 inside and out, is covered with hard stucco; the roof, 
 formed by the usual corbel arch, is supported on two oblong 
 columns. Against the centre of the back wall was a small 
 bench, or altar, of stone, ft. 3in. high, 6ft. 3in. long, and 
 aft. 3in. deep. One half of this was broken, showing that 
 the interior had been hollow. 
 
 We carefully raised the flat flag which covered the top 
 of the other half, and found beneath it a cavity of 
 considerable size, perfectly empty. 
 
 Temple D.—This temple was in ruins, the roof having 
 
80 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 fallen in, leaving only part of the walls and the columns 
 supporting the entrance standing. The outline could easily 
 be traced, and it was found that the building had originally 
 been 4oft. long by oft. broad, approached by two entrances, 
 one on the north supported by two stone columns, and a 
 small narrow one on the west side. The walls were thinner 
 and of more flimsy construction than those of the other 
 temples, while the building itself was evidently of much 
 later date than Temple C, against whose southern wall it had 
 been built, as between the two, where the north wall of D 
 had partly separated from it, the older wall of C, covered 
 with weathered stucco, was plainly in sight. A single 
 circular supporting column was found towards the west end 
 of this temple. 
 
 Round the outside wall, 6ft. 3in. from the ground level, 
 were the remains of a plain square stone cornice, upon which 
 were carved circular indentations, the only attempt at this 
 kind of ornament in the whole city. 
 
 Temple E was a small, roughly-constructed, one-roomed 
 structure, with a single entrance, 2ft. 8in. wide, on the north 
 side. The room into which this led was 5ft 4in. long, 4ft. 
 6in. broad, and 4ft. high, from the highest point of the 
 corbel arch to the floor, which was covered with hard cement. 
 In the east and west walls were small oblong slits for 
 windows. 
 
 Temple F, though only roft. 8in. by 8ft. gin. in external 
 measurement, was probably the most important sanctuary 
 in the group, as it contained the image of the god to whom 
 apparently the entire group was dedicated. This statue 
 represents a Chacmool, a human figure reclining on its 
 back and elbows, the knees drawn up to the buttocks, the 
 forearms and hands extended along the outer sides of the 
 thighs, the head raised and turned to the left. It is con- 
 structed of hard stucco, and represents a man of about 8ft. 
 in height, with chest, arms, and legs of heroic porportions. 
 At the navel is a saucer-shaped depression in which to burn 
 incense. The figure is clothed in a cotton breast-plate, with 
 

 
 CHACMOOL: FACADE OF TEMPLE “‘C’’:. ON THE RIGHT IS SEEN 
 PART OF THE RUINED TEMPLE “D.”’ 
 
 [p. 79 
 
 
 
 THE CHACMOOL, YUCATAN, 
 
 [p. 8r 
 

 
 pe 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 8I 
 
 elaborate collar or neck ornament, and a maxtli, or narrow 
 apron, falling between the legs in front. The arms are 
 ornamented with shoulder tabs and gauntlet-like objects 
 above the wrists. Just below the knees are scalloped bands, 
 while on the feet are elaborate sandals. The whole figure 
 was originally painted yellow, decorated in red and black 
 geometrical designs. The head, which was a good deal 
 mutilated, had been broken off at the neck, and was found 
 by the side of the statue. These Chacmool figures are of 
 Nahua, or Mexican origin, and are found at only one other 
 Maya site, namely Chichen Itza, where Mexican artistic 
 and religious influence is found strongly developed, having 
 been introduced about the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century by Aztec mercenaries employed by the King of 
 Mayapan in his wars against the ruler of Chichen Itza. 
 
 It was by the merest accident that we discovered this 
 Chacmool statue, as it had been completely buried by the 
 accumulated dirt and rubbish of centuries, leaving only 
 the tops of the knees projecting for a few inches. These 
 were discovered by George, who with racial curiosity com- 
 menced excavating with his machete around them, bringing 
 to light the brightly-painted stucco covering the legs. He 
 called our attention to these, and, setting all hands to work, 
 we soon had the whole statue uncovered down to the stucco 
 floor with which it was incorporated. In removing the 
 débris from around the figure we found buried in it at one 
 place a shell gorget, two greenstone beads, an ear-plug, 
 some fragments of the bones of a large animal (probably a 
 tapir) and a small pottery incense burner, with a human 
 head in high relief on its outer surface. Some devotee, 
 faithful even after the fall and destruction of his god and 
 its supersedure by the God of the Christians, must have 
 made this little offering, probably at some period after the 
 mutilation had taken place, but before dirt and débris had 
 begun to accumulate around the statue. The offering 
 itself, consisting of flesh, now represented by dry bones, 
 
 burning incense, now but a few charred fragments at 
 FL 
 
82 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the bottom of the incense burner, and personal jewellery, is 
 a typical Maya one of the period, such as are found by the 
 thousand in the great cenote, or sacred well, at Chichen 
 Itza, the Mecca of the Maya religion, to which pilgrimages 
 were made from the remotest parts of Yucatan. 
 
 We learn from the early Spanish Fathers that it was no 
 uncommon thing for the Indians baptised into the Catholic 
 Church to apostasize and revert to their ancient gods, 
 making offerings at their shrines, and carrying out the rites 
 and ceremonies of their ancient religion in the depths of 
 the forest, far from prying Christian eyes. Such practices 
 were naturally strongly discouraged by the padres, and the 
 images of the old gods were, where and whenever found, 
 destroyed and mutilated, while the manuscripts of the Maya, 
 handed down in the priesthood for hundreds of years, and 
 containing the history, religious ceremonies, system of 
 medicine, and calendar of the people, painted in their 
 glyphic system on paper made of the fibre of the American 
 aloe, were ruthlessly burnt, so that of the thousands of 
 them existing at the time of the conquest but three remain 
 to-day. 
 
 The western opening of Temple F towards which the 
 Chacmool faces is 7ft. 6in. wide, while the eastern opening is 
 only 4ft. wide. The feet of the image occupy nearly the 
 centre of the wider opening, but the head does not come 
 within a couple of feet of the narrower one, so that a pro- 
 cession coming through the temple would naturally divide 
 into two streams at the feet of the image, one passing on 
 either side, meeting again at its head, to emerge from the 
 eastern door. 
 
 Temple G, immediately to the south of Temple F, is 
 15ft. gin. long by 13ft. wide, and 5ft. high from the top of 
 the roof to the stucco floor. It possesses a single opening 
 on the western side, 5ft. 1oin. wide, divided into two by a 
 circular stone column. Like the other buildings, it is faced 
 inside and out with hard stucco. 
 
 Temple G has evidently (as shown in the plan) been built 
 

 
 tHe CHACMOOL IN SITU WITHIN A LITTLE TEMPLE IN MAIN 
 LINE OF APPROACH TO CHIEF TEMPLE, 
 
 [p. 80 
 

 
 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 83 
 
 around a much smaller building, which measured but 
 7fit. 5in. by 7ft. The junction between the walls of\the old 
 and the newer structures is very clearly indicated. No 
 attempt had been made to destroy the older building, and 
 it still stands entire, with its narrow doorway, 2ft. wide, 
 within the newer one. 
 
 Structure H is a dance platform, measuring 23ft. by 
 r8ft. 9in. It is approached by flights of stone steps, each 
 8ft. 5in. broad, on the east and west sides. The original 
 platform, the outline of which can still easily be traced, 
 measured 17ft. 6in. by 13ft. 3in. This, however, was 
 enlarged by the construction on all four sides of it of a wall 
 aft. 8in. in width. 
 
 The great colonnaded structure shown in the plan is much 
 ruined. The whole roof has caved in, and many of the 
 circular columns which supported it have given way. The 
 corner walls, aa, at the western extremity have fallen down, 
 while the terraces of the platform upon which it stood are so 
 covered with detritus and vegetal earth, upon which has 
 grown up a thick growth of bush, as to be hardly 
 distinguishable. 
 
 The building itself was ro2ft. long by 27ft. roin. broad. 
 It was bounded at each angle by rectangular walls, aa, 
 a@ a, measuring 12ft. 7in. on the east and west sides and 
 14ft. on the north and south. The walls were built of 
 squared stones filled in with rubble, and were 3ft. 3in. thick. 
 _ At the points 0d on the east and west sides are doorways 
 ait. 8in. wide, which leads one to suppose that the north 
 and south sides, now completely open, were at one time 
 either boarded up or walled with adobe, otherwise, two 
 sides of the building being quite open, doors would have 
 been unnecessary. 
 
 The roof was apparently flat, probably of thatch, sup- 
 ported on sapodilla beams, which rested on the twenty- 
 four stone columns, many of which are still intact. The 
 building is approached by three broad, stone-faced terraces, 
 and when complete must have been a very imposing 
 
84 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 structure. It was probably used as a market-place or 
 assembly hall, for either of which purposes it was eminently 
 fitted by its spaciousness, and the coolness which, owing 
 to its high situation, well exposed to the sea breeze, and its 
 palm-leaf roof, it must have possessed. 
 
 In the open space between Temples C and D was found 
 the sugarloaf-shaped object shown in the illustration. This 
 was 2ft. 6in. high, made of cement 
 and stone, and covered with a 
 layer of hard stucco. Traces of red 
 paint still remained upon it. It 
 had originally formed the head- 
 Oh dress of a human figure, as the 
 
 acmool—Stucco incense ; ; 
 
 holder and headdress. typical Maya ear-plugs can still be 
 
 plainly seen on either side of the 
 
 blank space (shaded in the figure) from which the face has 
 
 been broken away. The upper part of the headdress is 
 
 ornamented with rows of spines about Iin. in length. A 
 
 similar object was found to the east of Temple F, but 
 no trace of the figures from which they had been broken. 
 
 The curious T-shaped object was discovered between 
 Temples C and F. It is 3ft. high, but has been detached 
 below from its base along the line cc. The arms have been 
 broken off at the points aa, but the two T-shaped prolonga- 
 tions bb were discovered close to the figure. These are 
 evidently meant to represent small double incense burners, 
 as the pellets of incense, as used by the Maya, may be seen 
 moulded in the stucco on either side of them at dd. 
 
 Five yards west of Temple G were found six remarkable 
 objects, all constructed of extremely hard concrete, covered 
 with a layer of smooth stucco, and all firmly rooted in the 
 ground on concrete bases. They consist of : 
 
 1. A concrete stool, with supports of the same material 
 at each angle. 
 
 2. A cube of concrete resting on a larger concrete base, 
 and supporting a circular column, the top of which has 
 been broken off. 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 85 
 
 3. A pyramidal column surmounted by a cup-shaped 
 cap, the total height being rft. gin. 
 
 4. A square concrete pedestal, 6in. high by rft. gin. in 
 diameter. 
 
 5. A square column 8in. high, on two sides of which are 
 still visible traces of human heads moulded in stucco, which 
 had been attached to it. 
 
 6. A low square pedestal 16in. in diameter. 
 
 These curious objects are unique, as they have been 
 found at no other Maya site either in Yucatan or the south, 
 and they probably belong to the very last phase of the 
 Maya culture before its final extinction by the Spaniards. 
 The actual use to which they were put is doubtful, though 
 they were almost certainly connected with the ritual 
 employed in the worship of the Chacmool, and while two of 
 them were probably used to contain the burning incense, 
 the others may have served as altars, or tables upon which 
 to place the vessels of balché and corn made drinks, the 
 cakes of ground corn, beans, and pumpkin seeds, the roast 
 meats, and other offerings such as we have seen the modern 
 Maya offer to their ancient gods. 
 
 The incense burners seen above, containing pellets of 
 artificial incense, have their counterparts in those candelabra 
 which one sometimes sees in churches, in which small electric 
 bulbs at the end of the counterfeit candles supply the 
 illumination. 
 
 The group of buildings A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H was 
 almost certainly religious in character, the earliest of them, 
 with the platform upon which they stand, being A and B; 
 F containing the Chacmool image, the small simple structure 
 within G, and the original dance platform now forming the 
 core of the enlarged platform H. 
 
 In the light of our knowledge of the religious ceremonies 
 of the ancient Maya, derived from their own records and 
 contemporary accounts of the Spanish conquerors, one can 
 easily visualise what took place along this via sacra from the 
 dance platform, through the Chacmool temple, up the 
 
86 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 flight of steps, to the main temple, at some special celebra- 
 tion some five hundred years ago. The procession of wild- 
 looking, half-crazy, unwashed priests, smelling horribly, 
 their gory hair matted, and their white cotton robes smeared 
 with the blood of countless previous sacrifices, marched up 
 the western steps of the dance platform, where certain 
 chants were sung and dithyrambic dances performed, 
 marching down to the eastern steps of the platform. At 
 the conclusion of the dances the procession would come to 
 the Chacmool temple, where at the feet of the god it would 
 split in two as it entered by the broad western gate, to unite 
 again at the head of the god before leaving by the narrow 
 eastern gate. Meanwhile incense was being burnt, food 
 offerings made, and prayers and petitions chanted to the 
 god outside Temple G, and in times of stress—as famine, 
 drought, pestilence, invasions by barbarous Caribs from 
 the south, and later by enemies from the north—the human 
 victim, or victims, the choicest youths of both sexes, were 
 added, bound and partly stupefied by drugs, to the proces- 
 sion of priests. Leaving the eastern gate of the Chacmool 
 temple, the procession, leading the victims, would slowly 
 mount the steps of the great main platform which lay 
 directly in front of it, and then, on the summit of the plat- 
 form, in front of the main temple, and in full sight of all the 
 people, assembled in their thousands at a respectful distance 
 from the sacred enclosure, and no doubt, after the manner 
 of their kind all the world over, using the great market- 
 place and its terraces as a grand stand from which to view 
 the proceedings, the victim would be sacrificed after the 
 cruel Mexican fashion—stretched on his back on an altar 
 of wood or stone, two priests holding each leg, while two 
 supported each arm high above his head, and a fifth plunged 
 a sharp triangular blade of flint or obsidian deep into his 
 chest well over the region of the heart, and, inserting one 
 hand into the opening, dragged that organ out of the chest 
 cavity and severed it from its attachment of blood vessels, 
 being deluged in the process with a stream of hot arterial 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 87 
 
 blood. The heart was taken, still palpitating, to B, the 
 main temple, where it was offered to the god, and the 
 ceremonies connected with sacrifice were concluded. 
 
 Meanwhile, in front of the temple the corpse was decapi- 
 tated by the priests, the head being their special perquisite, 
 while the body, rolled down the steps of the platform, was 
 eagerly hacked in pieces by the people, who scrambled each 
 for a fragment like starving dogs for a bone, for this quasi- 
 ceremonial religious cannibalism was one of the many evil 
 practices introduced among the Maya by the Mexicans. 
 How many times these ancient buildings have witnessed 
 such cruel and bloody rites it is impossible to tell yet, as 
 we have seen, after the fall of the deity one poor worshipper 
 at least retained faith enough to return and make his 
 offering at the deserted shrine—a faith not always inspired 
 by more beneficent gods. 
 
 Structures D and E, with the enclosing walls of G, and 
 the enlargement of the dance platform H, are all of more 
 recent construction than the main group, though what 
 period elapsed between the building of the two it is impos- 
 sible to say. Cis almost certainly a temple, possibly dedicat- 
 ed to one of the two principal gods of the Maya proper, 
 Itzamna, or Cuculcan, while D may well have been the 
 dwelling-place of some of the priests. A was obviously one 
 of those little shrines peculiar to this east coast civilisation, 
 which we have met with before at Espiritu Santo Bay and 
 Central, and will meet with again farther north. We dis- 
 covered two more of them at Chacmool before we left— 
 one between the ruins and the sea, the other at some distance 
 to the west of the main group. 
 
 In order to obtain some clue as to the identity of the 
 builders of these ruins, and of other similar groups along 
 the east coast of Yucatan, all conforming closely to the 
 Tuluum style, it is necessary to give a brief account of the 
 history of the Maya who occupied Yucatan. This we obtain 
 from the early Spanish historians, from their own records— 
 known as the books of Chilam Balaam, which were kept 
 
88 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 originally by several cities in their own hieroglyphic writings 
 and later transcribed into Maya, written in Latin characters 
 by natives who acquired a knowledge of the Spanish 
 language—and lastly, to a small extent, from their 
 hieroglyphic records on stone still extant at many of the 
 ruins. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Maya History—Its Sources—Methods of Reckoning the Passage of Time— 
 
 History of the Old Empire—History of the New Empire—Foundation 
 of the Various Cities in the Maya Area—Reasons for Maya deserting 
 their Old Cities for Yucatan—Settlement of New Empire—Founding 
 of New Cities—Itzamna, the Hero God—Migration from Chichen Itza 
 to Champoton—Return to Chichen Itza—Entry of the Tutul Xiu to 
 Yucatan—The Hero God Cuculcan—The Maya Renaissance—The 
 Breaking-up of the Maya Triple Alliance—Its Cause—Mexican Mer- 
 cenaries called into Yucatan—The Cocomes Rule in Yucatan for 250 
 Years—They are overcome by the Tutul Xiu—The Country is divided 
 up into a Number of Small States constantly at War till the Coming 
 of the Spaniards—Naming the new City Chacmool—The Period to 
 which these Ruins belong—Uncomfortable Quarters—We take leave 
 of Chacmool. 
 
 DurinG the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era the 
 Maya developed what was undoubtedly the highest abori- 
 ginal civilisation of the New World. Maya history has been 
 divided by Sylvanus G. Morley, of the Carnegie Institution, 
 into two main epochs, the Old Empire, or Empire of the 
 South, and the New Empire, or Empire of Yucatan. Each 
 of these is again sub-divided into several periods. 
 
 i, 
 
 vi. 
 vii. 
 
 Vili. 
 
 PERIODS OF MAYA HISTORY 
 OLD EMPIRE 
 Archaic Period Earliest Times Down To 9.10.0.0.0.! 1 Ahau 
 8 Kayab. 360 A.D. (circa) 
 Middle Period g.10.0.0.0. I Ahau To 9.15.0.0.0. 4 Ahau 
 
 8 Kayab. 360 A.D. 13 Yax. 460 A.D. (circa) 
 Great Period g.15.0.0.0. 1 Ahau To 10.2.0.0.0. 3 Ahau 
 13 Yax. 460 A.D. 3 Ceh. 600 A.D. (circa) 
 NEw EMPIRE 
 Colonisation Period Katun 6 Ahau To Katun 1 Ahau 
 420 A.D. 620 A.D. (circa) 
 Transitional Period Katun 12 Ahau To Katun 4 Ahau 
 620 A.D. 980 A.D. (circa) 
 Renaissance Period Katun 2 Ahau To Katun 8 Ahau 
 980 A.D. II90 A D.. (circa) 
 Toltec Period Katun 8 Ahau To Katun 8 Ahau 
 II9O A.D. 1450 A.D. (circa) 
 Final Period Katun 8 Ahau To Katun 13 Ahau 
 1450 A.D, 1537 A.D. (ctrca) 
 
 19 Cycles ro Katuns o Tuns o Uinals o Kins after the starting-point of Maya 
 Chronology, which occurred on a certain 4 Ahau the ninth day of the month 
 Cumhu, approximately in the year 3400 B.c. of our era. 
 
 89 
 
90 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 It will be observed that in the Old Empire the passage of 
 time was recorded by the lapse of so many cycles (400-year 
 periods), katuns (20-year periods), tuns (360-day periods), 
 uinals (months; eighteen of 20 days, one of 5 days), and 
 kins (days), from the starting-point of Maya chronology, 
 while during the New Empire it was reckoned by the pas- 
 sage of so many katuns, or 20-year periods, numbered, in 
 order to distinguish them from each other, from I to 13. 
 The Old Empire flourished during the first six centuries of 
 the Christian era in Southern Mexico, Guatemala, and the 
 western part of Honduras; the New Empire, which was 
 gradually evolved from the old, flourished in the peninsula 
 of Yucatan from the early years of the sixth century to the 
 Spanish conquest. 
 
 The history of the Old Empire is derived exclusively from 
 the hieroglyphic inscriptions found chiefly on monoliths still 
 standing among its ruined cities. 
 
 The history of the New Empire is derived chiefly from 
 native chronicles, which give brief synopses of the chief 
 events occurring during every katun, or 20-year period. 
 
 Of the origin of the Maya civilisation nothing is known. 
 The accurate calendar system, the complicated hierogly- 
 phics, and the wonderful astronomical knowledge, postulat- 
 ing centuries of effort, emerge from the womb of time, and 
 greet us fully developed about the first century before our 
 era. Where and when their civilisation originated, and 
 how developed, are probably among the many mysteries 
 surrounding this remarkable people which will never be 
 solved. 
 
 The earliest dated Maya object was found, curiously 
 enough, outside the region where the Maya civilisation as 
 known to us flourished, namely, at San Andres Tuxtla, in 
 the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico. It is a small nephrite 
 statue, and bears a date in the early part of cycle 8 in Maya 
 chronology, or about 100 B.c. If this statuette were made 
 where it was found, it would indicate that we must look for 
 the birthplace of the Maya civilisation in this region 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND gl 
 
 rather than 200 miles to the south, where it attained its 
 highest development. We have ample proof, in ruined 
 cities still extant, that during the first century of the 
 Christian era the Maya were firmly established in Northern 
 Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Western Honduras. The 
 earliest dated object from this region is a small jadeite 
 plate from the department of Yzabal, in Guatemala, close 
 to the Rio Graciosa. It bears a date towards the end of 
 cycle 8 of Maya chronology, or about 50 A.D., while of the 
 larger remains the earliest dated monument, or stele, was 
 discovered by Morley at Uaxactun, and is nearly contem- 
 poraneous with the Yzabel plate. 
 
 The next earliest is not found till 170 years later. It was 
 erected at the city of Tikal, in Guatemala, in the third 
 katun, or 20-year period, of cycle 9, or about 210 A.D. 
 
 After this, in rapid succession, we find at Copan stele, 
 250 A.D., Piedras Negras, 350 A.D., and finally Naranjo, 
 360 A.D., the last city erected during the archaic 
 period. 
 
 Numbers of cities were founded during the middle period 
 of the First Empire, of which the two most important are 
 Palenque and Yaxchilan. The former, founded at the end 
 of the 11th katun of the gth cycle (about 370 A.D.), is, 
 owing to the magnificence of its temples and palaces, the 
 beauty of its stucco moulding, and perhaps more than all 
 to the presence of the cross as an emblem of worship on 
 several of the tablets, probably the best known of all the 
 Maya ruins. 
 
 Towards the end of this period, in the 15th katun of the 
 oth cycle (about 450 A.D.), was founded the city of Quirigua, 
 an offshoot or colony from Copan. Here was discovered the 
 largest monument in the Maya area—a gigantic monolith 
 weighing fifty tons, covered with elaborate carving, and 
 projecting above ground to a height of twenty-six feet. 
 This stele, ever since its discovery, has leaned twelve feet 
 from the perpendicular, but a few months before the destruc- 
 tion of the city of Guatemala by the earthquake shocks of 
 
92 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 1917, as if to give warning of the impending catastrophe, it 
 fell flat upon its face, though no slightest seismic tremor 
 had as yet been apparent in the vicinity. 
 
 During the third or great period of the Old Empire large 
 numbers of cities were founded, including the important 
 centres of Nakum, Seibal, and Ixkun, while all the older 
 cities continued to flourish. This was the golden age of the 
 Maya—the flood-tide of their artistic development and 
 commercial greatness. The country was covered with 
 great cities, and, judging by their architectural output, the 
 population must have been a very large one, to support 
 whom the land (now a sea of virgin forest, buried beneath 
 which from time to time are found the ruined temples and 
 palaces of its former rulers) must have then been intensively 
 cultivated. 
 
 Hundreds of great monoliths were erected during this 
 era throughout the country to mark the passage of 5-year 
 periods, or hotuns, and to record the principal events 
 occurring in them—a fortunate thing for posterity, as it is 
 on these tables of stone that our knowledge of this period 
 of Maya history now exclusively rests. 
 
 Early in the Great Period an important event occurred— 
 the colonisation by emigrants from the Old Empire of the 
 province of Bakhalal, in Southern Yucatan, which they 
 occupied from about 460 to 580 A.D., when moving farther 
 north. They founded the city of Chichen Itza, later to 
 become the capital city of the New Empire. 
 
 From the stele and monuments we are able to form a 
 fairly accurate idea of the customs, religious observances, 
 dress, and appearance of the people of the Old Empire. 
 The cities have been dated with great accuracy, their system 
 of numeration, calendar system, and astronomical know- 
 ledge have been worked out, while some idea of the ancient 
 population is to be obtained from the number and extent 
 of the ruined cities scattered throughout the region, and the 
 elaborate sculptural decorations which they contain. Here, 
 however, our knowledge ceases, for the names of their rulers 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 93 
 
 and priests, of the gods they worshipped, of the cities they 
 dwelt in and the events which occurred in them—pestilence, 
 famine, war, dynastic changes—of the origin and growth of 
 their civilisation, in fact, of practically every particular 
 which lends human interest to the history of a people, we 
 are densely ignorant, the reason being that up to the present 
 only about one-third of the hieroglyphic characters inscribed 
 upon the stele and monoliths have been deciphered, and 
 these deal almost exclusively with time counts, and the 
 fixation of the date recorded on the stone in its proper place 
 in the solar and lunar calendar. 
 
 The same eager workers, however, who after years of 
 patient research succeeded in elucidating the glyphs already 
 known to us, are patiently at work on the undeciphered 
 glyphs, of which many more have been discovered, and 
 accurately photographed and drawn, in recent years, and 
 it is almost certain that within the next few years we shall 
 be able to obtain from these a pretty accurate idea, not only 
 of the main events which occurred during the 700 to 800 
 years which the Old Empire, as known to us, existed, but 
 also of the history of the Maya previous to the opening of 
 the Old Empire, when—as previously stated—we find their 
 civilisation already fully developed. 
 
 Early in cycle 10 the Maya had entirely deserted their 
 
 southern cities, and the first katun, or 20-year period, of 
 this cycle is recorded only at three cities—Tikal, Seibal, and 
 Flores—after which complete silence and darkness close 
 down on these once magnificent cities for a period of over a 
 thousand years, and, indeed, in many cases to the present 
 century. 
 The city of Uaxactum, discovered by Dr. Morley as 
 recently as 1915, contains a stele recording as a contem- 
 poraneous date the 14th katun of the 8th cycle, or about 
 60 A.D., indicating that its ruins have been buried in the 
 virgin forest, unvisited by man, the haunt of the monkey, 
 the jaguar, and the snake, for a period of nearly nineteen 
 centuries. 
 
94 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Why the Maya should suddenly have deserted their cities 
 practically within one katun, or 20-year period, representing, 
 as they must have done, such an immense capital expendi- 
 ture in labour alone, in the construction of palaces and 
 public buildings, and the erection and sculpture of stele, 
 steeped, as they were, in the history and traditions of their 
 ancestors for nearly a thousand years, hallowed by the 
 temples of their gods and outward symbols of their religion, 
 is one of those inexplicable mysteries which one constantly 
 encounters in the history of this remarkable people. Imagine 
 the inhabitants of England south of Yorkshire migrating 
 en masse to the north of Scotland within a period of twenty 
 years or so, leaving their old homes deserted, and settling 
 down permanently in their new environment, and one has 
 a fair picture of what occurred on a smaller scale in Central 
 America in the sixth century of our era. 
 
 Various explanations have been put forward to account 
 for this sudden exodus, one being that the primitive agri- 
 cultural methods of the Maya reduced the land to such a 
 condition that ultimately it became untillable under their 
 system of cultivation, which consisted simply in felling 
 and burning the forest during the dry season, and planting, 
 at the beginning of the rains, a process which in time allows 
 perennial grasses to take the place of the woody growths 
 and renders cultivation impossible. 
 
 A second theory is that during the closing years of the 
 Old Empire profound climatic changes took place in this 
 part of Central America, resulting in a great increase in the 
 rainfall, which not only rendered the climate unhealthy, 
 but increased the growth of bush to such an extent as to 
 interfere with agriculture. 
 
 The third theory advanced by Spinden is that the deca- 
 dence in art which became manifest towards the close of 
 the Old Empire was accompanied by moral and physical 
 degenerative changes, which led to its disruption. 
 
 My own opinion is that this exodus took place at the 
 command of the gods as voiced by the priests, for we shall 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 95 
 
 see the same mysterious desertion of their cities, and emigra- 
 tion to new localities, without apparent reason, taking 
 place, not once, but many times, amongst the Maya of the 
 New Empire. 
 
 Whatever the cause, we find about the year 600 A.D. the 
 southern cities entirely deserted, and the New Empire well 
 under way. The first settlement was made at Bakalal, 
 in Spanish colonial times known as Bacalar, now a deserted 
 city, with the ruins of stately churches, convents, monasteries 
 forts, and palaces, extending on all sides through the all- 
 conquering bush, having been overthrown in the 1848 war 
 of the castes by the descendants of those very Maya whose 
 ancestors the Spaniards had subdued. The blood of the 
 Spaniards who in this rising paid the penalty for their 
 cruelty and oppression of their ancestors, is still to be seen 
 staining the walls of the church, in the nave of which their 
 bones were till recently piled in a gigantic mound. 
 
 Bakalal was occupied from about 520 to 580 A.D., and 
 towards the close of its occupancy the city of Chichen Itza 
 was founded by the Chanes, a branch of the Maya, destined 
 later, under the name of Itzas, to become the most prominent 
 nation in the New Empire. In their march northward along 
 the east coast of Yucatan from Bacalar to Chichen Itza, 
 the Itzas no doubt founded the first city of Tuluum, where, 
 nearly a thousand years later, their descendants founded 
 the later city, whose ruins, shrouded in bush, now overlook 
 the Caribbean Sea from this desolate coast. 
 
 This migration was led by Lakin Chan, a priest 
 and leader, deified under the name of Itzamna after 
 his death, and later to become perhaps the most widely 
 worshipped hero god throughout Yucatan. It is from him 
 that the Chanes, whom he led in person, derived their later 
 name of Itzas. Meanwhile other tribes of the Chanes related 
 to the Itzas, wandering up from the south, founded the 
 great cities of Motul and Izamal. 
 
 Towards the end of the seventh century A.D. the Itzas, 
 for some reason unknown to us, suddenly left their capital 
 
96 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 city of Chichen Itza, migrated in a south-westerly direction 
 across the peninsula to Champoton, on the west coast, 
 where, having conquered the inhabitants, they settled 
 down in the land, completely abandoning the magnificent 
 palaces and temples, on the erection of which they must have 
 expended a vast amount of time and labour, as their ruined 
 remains prove to-day. 
 
 The Itzas remained in Champoton for nearly three hundred 
 years, when, towards the close of the tenth century A.D.— 
 again apparently without rhyme or reason—they returned 
 to their old city of Chichen Itza, which they rebuilt and 
 reoccupied, many of them remaining behind at Mayapan, 
 where they founded a new city of that name, later to become 
 the capital city of the New Empire. 
 
 During the passage of the Itzas back to Chichen, a second 
 immigration was taking place into Yucatan from the 
 westward of a tribe called the Tutul Xiu, under the leader- 
 ship of the chief, Ahmekat Tutul Xiu. They came from 
 Chiapas and Tabasco in Mexico, and spread over the southern 
 and western parts of Yucatan, founding the cities of 
 Xkabukin, Kaba, Labna, Uxmal, and many others, and 
 finally, at Chichen Itza, coming in contact with the Itzas. 
 
 Towards the end of the tenth century A.D. the colonisa- 
 tion and transitional periods of the New Empire were 
 over. 
 
 For five centuries a stream of Maya immigrants had been 
 pouring into Yucatan from the south and west, till practically 
 the entire peninsula was now occupied. The people had 
 become accustomed to their new environment ; the constant 
 shifting and changing from one locality to another had 
 ceased. They were settling down to build themselves 
 permanent cities, which provided an outlet for the expression 
 of their artistic and architectural ideals so long denied by a 
 nomadic life in a new and sterile environment—in fact 
 the Great, or Renaissance Period, of the New Empire had 
 commenced. 
 
 About 1000 A.D. the three great cities of Uxmal, Chichen 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 97 
 
 Itza, and Mayapan, each ruled by its independent governor, 
 formed a triple alliance, by the terms of which each was 
 to participate equally in the government of the country. 
 This alliance lasted for nearly two hundred years, until the 
 last decade of the twelfth century, A.D. It marks the high 
 tide in the prosperity and artistic development of the 
 Maya of Yucatan, and constitutes their golden age, during 
 which most of the innumerable cities—now mere masses 
 of ruins buried in the bush—were built and flourished ; 
 a period of unparalleled artistic development in both the 
 painters’ and the sculptors’ art, and under wise, beneficent 
 rulers a period of peace and prosperity, free alike from 
 internecine wars and dissensions, and from invasion from 
 without. 
 
 During this period there entered Yucatan from the west 
 a great priest and leader known as Cuculcan (or feathered 
 serpent). He is described as a venerable old man with a 
 long white beard, dressed in a loose robe and sandals. After 
 a residence in Yucatan of some years, preaching peace, 
 concord, and well-doing, he left it by way of Champoton, 
 promising, however, that in after years he and his followers 
 would return. 3 
 
 The coming of the Spaniards (teules, or gods, as they were 
 termed by the Mexicans) was—unfortunately for them- 
 selves—regarded by the natives as the fulfilment of this 
 prophecy. 
 
 Cuculcan soon after his departure underwent an 
 apotheosis, and with the other great priest and leader, 
 Itzamna, already referred to, divided divine honours about 
 equally throughout the land. The disruption of the triple 
 alliance, the plunging of the whole country into war, and 
 the end of the golden age, was brought about by an event 
 which is to a certain extent wrapped in mystery, as no 
 two accounts of it exactly coincide. The quarrel—a 
 matter of cherchez la femme—arose between Chac-Xib-Chac, 
 King of Chichen Itza, and Hunnac Ceel, King of Mayapan. 
 
 It would appear that the latter was deeply enamoured of 
 GL 
 
98 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the Princess who was betrothed to the former. Notwith- 
 standing this, however, he attended the wedding ceremony 
 with a number of his followers. At the conclusion of the 
 feast, while the retainers of the King of Chichen Itza were 
 lying about on the mat-strewn floor sleeping off the effect 
 of their potations of balché (the Maya wine, on which it was 
 considered good form to get intoxicated after a feast), 
 according to the usual custom, the King of Mayapan, 
 with a party of armed men, invaded the bridal chamber 
 and bore off the bride. Chac-Xib-Chac, on recovering 
 from his debauch, was naturally incensed at such a base 
 betrayal of hospitality by a friend and ally, and at once 
 began to collect his people with a view to making war on 
 the King of Mayapan. He was joined by the rulers of 
 Izamal and Ulmil, two smaller cities, but the King of Uxmal 
 wisely kept out of the quarrel between his allies. 
 
 The war at first went strongly in favour of Chac-Xib- 
 Chan, till at length Hunnac Ceel, finding himself on the verge 
 of defeat, called in to his assistance Toltec mercenaries 
 from the Mexican provinces of Chiapas and Tabasco, 
 adjoining Yucatan on the west. With their assistance he 
 rapidly overcame the King of Chichen Itza, and drove him 
 from his city, killing and enslaving many of his subjects, 
 and driving the rest out to the sparsely-populated eastern 
 coast of the peninsula, where for years they led a miserable 
 and hunted existence. 
 
 On the fall of Chichen Itza and the dissolution of the triple 
 alliance the supreme command of the country fell into the 
 hands of the Cocomes, the ruling family of Mayapan. The 
 city of Chichen Itza was handed over by them to their 
 Toltec mercenaries, in consequence of which we find here 
 in the more recent buildings, the strongest Toltec architec- 
 tural influence of any city in Yucatan. For nearly two 
 and a half centuries the Cocomes succeeded, chiefly by the 
 aid of their warlike Toltec allies, in holding the overlordship 
 of the peninsula. The ruling families and nobility of each 
 district were compelled to have some of their members in 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 99 
 
 : 
 
 residence as hostages at Mayapan all the year round, 
 where, within a great walled enclosure, ground was allotted 
 to each for the construction of their temples and palaces, 
 while outside the walls the vast number of their stewards, 
 personal retainers, and attendants, with their families, 
 formed a respectable sized city in itself. 
 
 About the year 1450 A.D. the Maya nobles, disgusted with 
 the arrogance of the Cocomes, humiliated at being compelled 
 to reside within the precincts of Mayapan, and oppressed 
 by the heavy taxes, payment of which was enforced by the 
 Toltec invaders, at last entered into an offensive alliance 
 against their enemies, and under the leadership of the 
 reigning Tutul Xiu, King of Uxmal, declared war against 
 the Cocomes. Hostilities were carried on with varying 
 fortunes for a number of years, till in Katun 8 Ahau, or 
 1468 A.D., the army of the Tutul Xiu besieged and captured 
 the city of Mayapan, completely razing it to the ground, and 
 putting to death every member of the Cocom family, with 
 the exception of one son, who was absent in Honduras, 
 and a distant relative, Cocom Cat. 
 
 After the conquest of Mayapan the whole country became 
 divided up into a number of small cacicazgos, or states, 
 each governed by a separate cacique, or ruler, over whom 
 the King of Uxmal exercised a merely nominal suzerainty. 
 Even the last surviving Cocom, returning from Honduras, 
 was permitted to set up a cacicazgo at Sotuta, his principal 
 town being Tbuloon. Ah Moo Chel, a priest of Mayapan, 
 who had married his high priest’s daughter, fled to the east 
 after the sacking of the city, with a considerable number of 
 retainers, where round Izamal he founded the cacicazgo of 
 Ah Kinchel. Nine brothers of the Canules, a Toltec tribe, 
 retired to Acanul, where they founded the cacicazgo of that 
 name, though, being regarded as outlanders and barbarians, 
 they were not permitted to intermarry with their Maya 
 neighbours. Noh Capal Peck, a lord of Mayapan, fled to 
 the north, where he founded the cacicazgo of Ceh Peck. 
 
 The Cupules, a Maya tribe, returned and ruled in Chichen 
 
100 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Itza, while the Itza themselves retired en masse to Peten, 
 in Guatemala, the former home of their ancestors, and there, 
 under the name of Peten Itzas, formed the last important 
 stronghold of the Maya Indians against the Spanish invaders, 
 by whom they were not conquered till the last decade of 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 The Tutul Xiu returned to their strongholds in the 
 Sierra, but for some inexplicable reason deserted their 
 capital of Uxmal, perhaps the largest and most beautiful 
 city, and certainly that containing the most exquisitely 
 sculptured buildings throughout Yucatan, as its wonderful 
 remains still evidence to-day. They retired to the insignifi- 
 cant town of Mani, leaving the vast temples, palaces, and 
 public buildings of their capital completely deserted, as 
 they were found nearly a century later, to be the wonder 
 and admiration of the first conquistadores. 
 
 Yucatan was now divided into a great number of caci- 
 cazgos, all engaged in almost constant strife one with 
 another. The Cocomes of Sotuta, the Tutul Xius of Mani, 
 and the Cheles of Ticoh, were mortal enemies ; the Peches 
 of Motul were at war with the Cheles and Cupules, as were 
 the Cochuas of Tehomeo with the Chanes of Bacalar. 
 These internecine wars continued till the coming of the 
 Spaniards. Nevertheless, so rapidly did the population 
 increase that at the time of the conquest, in the words of 
 one of the congustadores, “the whole country appeared 
 like a single pueblo,” while ‘throughout the whole of 
 it there is not a palm of land which has not been 
 cultivated.” 
 
 It must be remembered that though split up into so 
 many small states at the time of the conquest, the people 
 of Yucatan were in reality all of one race, speaking one 
 language, and descendants of the two tribes who, as we 
 have seen, originally entered the peninsula, the one from 
 the south-east, the other from the south-west. The Chanes 
 (the tribe from the south-west), at the coming of Itzamna, 
 changed their name to Itzas, and ultimately overran the 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND IOI 
 
 eastern part of Yucatan. The Tutul Xiu from the south- 
 west settled in the Sierra and western part of the peninsula, 
 forming later, with the Itza, the confederation of Mayapan, 
 and it is from this last name that people, country, and 
 language derived their title of Maya. 
 
 We claimed by right of discovery the honour of rechristen- 
 ing this ancient Maya city, and opinions were divided 
 between “ The City of the Wounded Deer” and “ The 
 Stronghold of Soldier Crabs”? as suitable names. On 
 discovery, however, that the former, when rendered into 
 Maya, is “ U kahal tsonan ceh,”’ while the latter is still more 
 impossible as a place name, we compromised by naming it 
 “ Chacmool ”’ in honour of the tutelary deity of the place. 
 
 These ruins almost certainly date back to the period 
 between the fall of Mayapan, in the middle of the fifteenth 
 century, and the coming of the Spaniards about a century 
 later. They are of the same type as all the other ruins 
 along the east coast and on the islands, and were evidently 
 the work of Maya, strongly imbued, as the Chacmool 
 indicates, with Toltec culture. The masonry is coarser, 
 and lacks the finish noticeable in the earlier Maya building. 
 Sculpture is absent, and stucco takes the place of cut stone. 
 They are, in fact, evidently the work of a considerable 
 body of people suddenly thrown into a new environment, 
 who endeavoured to construct as quickly as possible temples 
 and other buildings as closely resembling those they had 
 left behind them as might be compassed with the materials 
 at hand. Whether they would ever again have reached 
 the architectural or sculptural perfection of the Great Period 
 is doubtful, as a subtle degenerative change, moral and 
 artistic, seems to have eaten into the life of the Maya, 
 beginning nearly three and a half centuries before the 
 arrival of the Spaniards, manifesting itself in architectural 
 and artistic decadence, in the development of cruelty, 
 treachery, and pugnacity, and the introduction of human 
 sacrifices, amongst this once peaceful, happy, joyous, 
 religious people. 
 
102 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 The fall of the Maya civilisation, though possibly has- 
 tened by, was not due to, the coming of strangers, but to 
 something inherent in itself—possibly the fact that for 
 nearly fifteen centuries it had come in contact with no 
 outside influence, and of its own initiative had apparently 
 neither advanced nor retrograded, a stationary condition 
 in human affairs as repugnant to the high gods as a vacuum 
 in nature, for no civilisation can mark time for ever. 
 
 We spent two strenuous days clearing bush, measuring 
 and photographing buildings, Morley and I sleeping ashore, 
 while the others returned at night to the Lian Y. We 
 were supposed to be at the height of the dry season, yet 
 on both the nights we slept at the edge of the beach it 
 rained briskly, saturating our beds, bedding and mosquito 
 curtains. We both felt, however, that anything was 
 preferable to the oily roll of the Lilian Y, the nearest she 
 ever attained to stability even anchored inside the reef. 
 
 Interesting and exciting as the work had been, we were 
 not sorry when it was finished, for between sleepless nights, 
 hard-driven days, and Hubert’s unspeakable cookery (his 
 omelettes were like greasy leather, and his beans things to 
 dream of—in a nightmare !), we were nearly allin. More- 
 over, the heat in the low-lying, bush-encircled ruins was 
 terrific, while the aborigines—mosquitoes, bats, and soldier 
 crabs—united in their efforts to eject us from the rooms and 
 temples, till even the Lilian Y seemed a haven of rest as, 
 on the morning of the 16th February, we weighed anchor 
 and bade a long farewell to the city of Chacmool. 
 
 The tops of the ruins could easily be distinguished from 
 the mast-head as we steamed out, standing sentinel-like 
 above the bush, and gradually diminishing in size as we 
 left them further and further behind, and so, after the 
 first visit from strangers in nearly five centuries, the silence 
 of the bush closed down once more over this once flourishing 
 town, to be broken only by the scream of a parrot and the 
 howl of a monkey. 
 
 It seemed incredible that thousands of people had once 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 103 
 
 lived here, loving and hating, marrying and giving in 
 marriage, fighting their enemies, worshipping their gods, 
 bartering with their neighbours, sowing and reaping their 
 crops, holding their feasts and fasts, rejoicing and mourning, 
 and at last dying, and leaving no trace beyond the ruins of 
 _ their city, the very name of which is now forgotten. It 
 brought home to us the impermanence of all human institu- 
 tions and the insignificance and futility of human effort. 
 
 From this melancholy reverie of the past Morley and I 
 were aroused by the strains of ‘‘ Oh, Johnnie! Oh, Johnnie ! ” 
 started by Held in the unspeakable gramophone, and the 
 smell of burning beans resulting from Hubert’s efforts to 
 prepare breakfast. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Camp out at Nohku—Arrival at Tuluum—The Town first sighted by 
 Grijalva in 1518—Revisited by Stephens in 1841—Subsequent Visits— 
 Reading the Date on the Stele—The Castillo from the Sea—Difficulties 
 in Landing—We find no Trace of the Stele—Landing the Camping 
 Outfit—We Camp in the Castillo—Description of the Castillo—An 
 Uncomfortable Night—We Find the Stele—Description of the 
 Sculpture on the Stele—Maya Chronology. 
 
 ON resuming our journey north we put in at Point Nohku, 
 the southern lip of Ascension Bay, as we had heard that 
 the ruins of an old Spanish church were to be found there. 
 Disappointment, however, awaited us, as the ruin proved 
 to be that of a small Maya temple, or shrine, such as have 
 already been described. It was in a very bad state of 
 preservation, and in this lonely and desolate situation had 
 probably been used by fishermen, hunters, or travellers 
 as an altar upon which to sacrifice to their tutelary deities. 
 
 The name Nohku in Maya means “ ancient temple,’ and 
 might, of course, refer equally well to a heathen temple 
 or a Christian church. 
 
 We camped out that night on the sandy beach under the 
 stars, about three miles north of Ascension Bay, and with a 
 tiny breeze gently swaying our mosquito nets, the aromatic 
 smells of the bush coming faintly to our nostrils, and the 
 lapping of the little wavelets on the shore forming a gentle 
 lullaby, we realised what a paradise Yucatan may be under 
 favourable conditions. 
 
 Next morning we were under way early, and about 10.30 
 a.m., passing in through an opening in the reef, we anchored 
 under the ruins of Tuluum. 
 
 These ruins are by far the largest and best preserved of all 
 the groups known to us up to the present along the east 
 coast of Yucatan and amongst the adjacent islands. A 
 certain air of mystery—partly, no doubt, due to their 
 
 104 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 105 
 
 inaccessible position—has always clung to them, investing 
 them with a special interest in the eyes of students of Maya 
 archeology. The first European notice we have of Tuluum 
 is found in the itinerary of Juan de Grijalva’s voyage along © 
 this coast in 1518, kept by Padre Juan Diaz, chaplain to 
 the expedition. He writes: 
 
 “ After leaving Cozumel we ran along the coast a day 
 and a night, and the next day towards sunset we saw 
 a bourg, or village, so large that Seville would not have 
 seemed larger or better. We saw there a very high 
 tower. There was upon the bank a crowd of Indians, 
 who carried two standards, which they raised and lowered 
 to us as signs to come and join them, but the Commander 
 did not wish it.” 
 
 The distance from Cozumel, the high tower, and the size, 
 point unmistakably to Tuluum as the “ bourg, or village, 
 so large that Seville would not have seemed larger or better ”’ 
 of Grijalva. 
 
 For the next 324 years the history of Tuluum is a blank, 
 till in 1841 it was revisited by the American explorer, 
 John L. Stephens, who discovered on the floor of one of the 
 temples the fragments of a stele, or monolith, covered with 
 Maya hieroglyphs. <A few years after Stephens’ visit com- 
 menced the so-called “‘ War of the Castes.”” The Maya 
 Indians, driven to desperation by three centuries of oppres- 
 sion and slavery, rose against their Spanish masters through- 
 out the whole peninsula, and drove them into Merida, the . 
 capital. When, with great cruelty and loss of life, the 
 revolt had been quelled, the Indians still held a large 
 territory along the east coast, where they have retained 
 their independence to this day. 
 
 Tuluum is near the centre of this region, and, as the 
 Indians allowed no white persons within their territories, 
 was not visited during the seventy years between 1841 
 and 1911, which fact has no doubt added greatly to the 
 mystery and romance surrounding the ruins. 
 
106 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 The next visitors were Dr. Howe, of the Peabody Museum, 
 and his companion, Mr. Parmalee, who in 1911 reached 
 Tuluum in a small sailing vessel from Cozumel. They 
 spent parts of two days at the ruins, obtaining a few rather 
 inadequate photographs, and then, seeing fire signals at 
 night, and observing Indians creeping about the bush 
 during the day, they became convinced that an Indian 
 attack was imminent, and, having no means of resisting it 
 with their small party, they beat a hasty retreat. 
 
 Two years later the ruins were visited by Messrs. Morley 
 and Nusbaum, who made the journey from Cozumel in a 
 sailing dorey, and arrived nearly dead from sea-sickness. 
 Their dorey was swamped in the tremendous surf, which 
 always pounds the shores of Tuluum, and all their equipment, 
 photographic and otherwise, was ruined ; but, worst of all, 
 on visiting the temple where Stephens had found the sculp- 
 tured stele in 1841, which Howe had seen in 1911, they 
 found it missing, and left the ruins disgusted, after a stay 
 of only five hours. 
 
 A short time subsequent to this I met Parmalee in London, 
 and Morley met Howe in Washington, and both learnt 
 almost simultaneously that shortly before leaving the 
 ruins they had conveyed the fragments of the stele from the 
 temple where Stephens found them to the beach, with a 
 view to their transportation to New York, but, being 
 surprised by the Indians before they could get them on 
 board, were compelled to abandon them, first burying — 
 them in the sand near high-water mark in a little bay to 
 the north of the Castillo. 
 
 Morley and I, each provided with a plan of the location 
 of the fragments, met on a fruit steamer on our way to 
 Belize—the nearest port of embarkation for Tuluum and 
 arranged a joint expedition, which took place in March, 
 1916, and was so far successful that we discovered and 
 disinterred the fragments, and, placing them in position, 
 got an excellent photograph of the monolith as it now is, 
 which enabled us to make out with reasonable certainty 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 107 
 
 the Initial Series date recorded upon it—g9.6.10.0.0. 8 
 Ahau 13 Pax, or approximately 304 A.D. 
 
 We found five fragments on the beach, where Parmalee 
 and Howe had buried them, while two smaller fragments 
 still remained in the temple where Stephens had found them. 
 
 On leaving Tuluum in 1916 we buried the fragments in 
 the sand of the same little bay, near a pyramidal outcrop 
 of the limestone, easily recognised. 
 
 Later in the year I commissioned the captain of a turtle- 
 fishing schooner to put in at Tuluum on his trip down the 
 coast and bring out the fragments. As far as we knew 
 he had done so, but the schooner was unfortunately lost 
 with all hands somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tuluum 
 in the great hurricane which swept the coast in 1916, and 
 sent her, with many another vessel, to the bottom, so our 
 only hope of seeing the stele again lay in the vessel having 
 foundered before she had an opportunity of taking it on board. 
 
 Tuluum from the sea presents a forbidding and inhospit- 
 able aspect. Upon the summit of a gaunt, naked, limestone 
 bluff, honeycombed into all sorts of fantastic designs by 
 the ceaseless action of the sea, stands the Castillo—a high 
 rectangular tower, with lower wings on each side, all pre- 
 senting blank, windowless, doorless, grey limestone walls 
 to the sea, and buried in a dense growth of the scrubby 
 bush which covers this part of Yucatan. Landing at the 
 ruins is always difficult, and in anything like a strong 
 breeze absolutely impossible, as the opening in the reef is 
 narrow, and in rough weather impassable, while even on 
 the calmest day the surf pounds on this ironbound shore 
 with incredible force, upsetting one’s boat into a maelstrom 
 of swirling, eddying water, with a sandy bottom from which 
 project sharp fangs of limestone rock at frequent intervals. 
 
 Warned by previous experiences, we anchored the pram 
 about twenty yards from shore, opposite the southern of 
 the two small sandy bays which indent the high bluff above 
 and below the Castillo, and, stripping to our drawers and 
 undershirts, jumped overboard and waded ashore, being 
 
108 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 ultimately spewed gently up on all fours by a great breaker 
 on the sandy beach. 
 
 The southern bay, though it looks more dangerous, is in 
 reality far safer than the northern, which for fifty yards 
 out is protected by a chevaux de frise of jagged rocks. 
 Morley and I at once climbed the tortuous, rocky path to 
 the top of the bluff, made familiar during our former visit, 
 and made a beeline through the ruins at the land side of the 
 Castillo to the small northern bay, where we had hidden the 
 precious fragments of the stele, only to find them gone— 
 evidently removed by the captain of the turtle-schooner, 
 and now presumably lying with him somewhere at the 
 bottom of the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 Greatly depressed, we returned to the southern bay to 
 superintend the landing of our camping outfit—a ticklish 
 business, as everything had to be carried ashore on the 
 men’s heads from the pram, which was dancing about on 
 the breakers like a cork, while a slip or toe stubbed on a 
 hidden rock by the porter meant a wetting for some part of 
 our precious outfit. 
 
 At length everything was safely landed, and the question 
 arose as to whether we should make our camp on the sandy 
 beach or within the Castillo. I was in favour of the former 
 site, as being handy for a sea bath at all times, and saving 
 the back-aching job of transporting our huge impedimenta 
 up the steep bluff, and then up the still steeper steps leading 
 to the Castillo. Morley, however, from the purely senti- 
 mental motive of wishing to camp in the building where the 
 great American explorer Stephens had camped seventy-five 
 years previously (very uncomfortably, it must be admitted, 
 if his account is to be credited), was in favour of the 
 Castillo, as wasalso Held. Thither, therefore, followed by all 
 hands carrying bedding, food, cooking utensils, photo- 
 graphic outfits, arms, etc., we betook ourselves. 
 
 The Castillo was probably the principal temple of the 
 city. It stands upon the crest of the bluff, its back to the 
 sea, its front facing the land and the city. It is an elaborate 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 109 
 
 structure on three different levels, the two-roomed building 
 on top, approached by a broad flight of steep stone steps, 
 probably representing the chief sanctuary of the entire 
 group. The great stairway is thirty feet wide, with twenty- 
 four extremely steep steps, and remains of stone balustrades, 
 now much broken up by the roots of trees, which have 
 grown over the entire stairway. The sanctuary has an 
 entrance divided into three by two stone columns. Above 
 each are square recesses, each of which at one time contained 
 a painted stucco figure in high relief, though only that in 
 the central one now remains. The interior is divided into 
 two rooms, each 26 ft. long, the front one 6ft. 6ins. broad, 
 the back one oft. On each side of the doorway leading 
 from one to the other are inset stone rings, probably for the 
 support of the rod for the curtain which screened the entrance 
 to this Holy of Holies. The roofs of both chambers are 
 formed by the same corbel arch already seen at Chacmool. 
 
 The columns at the main entrance are specially note- 
 worthy, as they are in the form of serpents, the rattles 
 of the tail held upwards along the side of the building, the 
 heads projecting forward at right angles from the bases 
 of the column, which are formed by the bodies of the snakes. 
 These serpent columns are of great importance in dating 
 the city, as they are purely Toltec, or Mexican, and were 
 not introduced into Yucatan till the thirteenth century, 
 while at Chichen Itza, the Toltec stronghold, they are found 
 in great number and perfection. 
 
 The wing ranges are much lower than the central building, 
 from each side of which they project symmetrically. Their 
 upper stories, now much ruined, were, unlike most Maya 
 buildings, flat roofed, the sapodilla wood roof beams being 
 upheld on circular stone columns, which still remain, 
 surrounded by fragments of the fallen-in concrete roof, 
 which, when the sapodilla rotted, soon collapsed, owing to 
 its great weight. 
 
 These wings are approached on each side by flights of 
 short stone steps on each side of the main stairway, which 
 
IIo IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 lead to the platforms upon which they stand. The plat- 
 form in front of the temple at the top of the main stairway 
 was covered with a thick growth of small bushes armed with 
 long, sharp thorns, in each of which dwelt a particularly 
 vicious and pugnacious ant, who at the least disturbance 
 sallied forth to attack the invader. 
 
 We set George to cut down these bushes, and he 
 remarked of the ants, that “‘ they were putting fire into his 
 meat.’’ The bush cut down and burnt, I erected my cot 
 on the platform, while Morley and Held set theirs up in 
 the front room of the temple. 
 
 At our last visit we had thoroughly cleared the great 
 stairway of bush, for photographic purposes, but it was 
 now covered with a vigorous secondary growth of young 
 trees ten to fifteen feet high, in which a small colony of pretty 
 little blue birds had settled, and were fighting furiously over 
 the fruit of a gigantic wild papaw rooted at the base of the 
 stairway, whose top just reached the level of my cot, giving 
 me an excellent view of the proceedings. 
 
 Morley and Held were justified in their choice of a 
 sleeping-place, as during the night it came on to pour with 
 rain, and, before I could get them into the temple, blankets, 
 cot, and mosquito curtains were saturated, while a horrible 
 mix-up took place in the dark front chamber between the steel 
 frame of my net and Held’s curtains, which blocked the entry, 
 resulting in much torn muslin and mutual recriminations. 
 
 Next morning, after tea, Morley set off with the pilot to 
 explore the ruins. I went to renew my acquaintance with 
 the painted stucco, while Held, with youthful optimism, 
 took Muddy and a couple of shovels down to the little 
 sandy bay where we had hidden the fragments of stele, 
 with the belated hope that they might after all be there. 
 On returning to lunch at midday we were greatly rejoiced 
 to hear that Held’s “‘ hunch ”’ had been justified, and that 
 he had actually found two fragments buried beneath a 
 mountain of sand well above ordinary high-water mark, 
 as poor Peter Vasquez, the turtle-fisher whom I had 
 

 
 PLAN SHOWING PRINCIPAL TEMPLE GROUP AT TULUUM, 
 PAR IIALLY (RESTORED: 
 
 [p. 109 
 
 
 
 TULUUM : TEMPLE WITH ROOF COMB. 
 
 [p. 125 
 
| -— ) tio % 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND III 
 
 commissioned to bring them away, had considered Tuluum too 
 dangerous an anchorage to be visited even for a considera- 
 tion of 100 dollars ; yet had he only put in for the stone the 
 delay would probably have saved him and the whole Ship S 
 company from destruction by the hurricane. 
 
 After a frugal lunch on tomato omelette prepared by 
 Muddy—Hubert had been, by general consensus of opinion, 
 disrated as cook, and, being useless as a sailor, had reverted 
 to his normal status as loafer—we all set off to the bay, and 
 before night succeeded in recovering all the lost fragments, 
 with the exception of the smallest, to search for which in 
 that vast accumulation of sand would have been like 
 looking for a needle in a straw stack. 
 
 These great masses of stone, some several hundred pounds 
 in weight, had been rooted up from the place where we had 
 buried them, cast like corks well above high-water mark, 
 and then buried beneath a mountain of sand. All this had 
 evidently been accomplished by the hurricane and tidal 
 wave, and it gave us a more realistic idea of their gigantic 
 force than all the wrecked buildings, piers, and ships which 
 we had seen along its course. 
 
 We searched very carefully within the temple where 
 Stephens had first found the fragments, but without success. 
 On the platform surrounding it, however, amongst a lot of 
 ordinary stones we found two considerable-sized pieces which 
 had probably been left behind by Parmalee and Howe in 
 Igi1, one of which, as will be seen, proved to be possibly 
 the greatest treasure-trove of the entire expedition. The 
 fragments, when assembled, form a monolith 3ft. wide, 
 8ins. thick, and at present 8ft. long, but as it has been broken 
 off from its base—which is lost—the exact original length 
 is impossible to determine. It was, however, probably in 
 the neighbourhood of roft. The stone is cut from the 
 native limestone of the Tuluum cliffs, and piercing it are 
 two large circular natural holes, which had probably 
 originally been filled in with cement, over which the carving 
 was continuous. Upon both faces of the monument are 
 
112 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 sculptured human figures, slightly larger than life-size, 
 very elaborately dressed. The one on the Initial Series 
 side holds in both hands a two-headed ceremonial bar, or 
 sceptre, the commonest emblem of authority found in 
 Maya sculpture. He wears an enormous and elaborate 
 feather headdress, with highly ornamental breastplate 
 and maxtli, or apron, a network with lozenge-shaped spaces, 
 probably of beads, over the legs, and flame-shaped objects 
 projecting on either side from the waist. Both figure and 
 glyphs on the reverse side are in very low relief—in fact, 
 hardly more than deep scratches on the surface of the stone. 
 On both sides the glyphs are presented in two vertical 
 panels, one on each side of the central figure, connected 
 by a single horizontal panel across the top. 
 
 The stone is very much weathered and defaced by its 
 centuries of exposure, but fortunately the Initial Series 
 date inscription—the most important part from our point 
 of view—is perfectly plain and legible. 
 
 A short explanation is necessary of the Maya calendar in 
 order to understand this and the other inscriptions which 
 we found later. 
 
 The Maya of the Old Empire measured time by the passage 
 of so many cycles, katuns, tuns, uinals, and kins from a 
 certain fixed date. The kin, or lowest unit, was a day, and 
 
 is represented by the sign @. 
 
 This uinal, or month, containing 20 days, by the sign C.J. 
 
 The tun, or year of 360 days or 18 uinals, by the 
 
 sn 
 
 The katun, or 20-tun periods, by the sign panty 
 
 while the cycle, 20 katuns, or 144,000-day period, slightly 
 more than five years under four centuries of our time, is 
 represented by the sign "9. 
 
 wes 
 All these signs may be, and frequently are, in the inscrip- 
 tions replaced by grotesque heads, differing for each period, 
 
(ATION 
 
 to 
 
 MONTHS OF THE MAYA YEAR, 
 
 G8 OE 
 
 t go Tent 
 éImix ik Akbal & ehichan | CGim 
 
 Chuen 
 
 Caban @) Cauac 6) 
 sesh 
 
 DAYS "OF THE MAYA YEAR, 
 
 
 
 
 
 ip. rr 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 113 
 
 known as head variants, while the signs themselves are 
 known as the normal forms. 
 
 The Maya numerals from I to I9 were represented by 
 varying combinations of two elements, the dot . represent- 
 ing I, and the bar representing 5; thus .. . stood for 3; 
 = — for 12, and === for 19, while 0 is expressed by the 
 sign CG ; 
 
 These are known as the normal forms, and may be 
 compared to our Roman numerals. In addition, however, 
 each number from 1 to Ig is frequently represented 
 by a grotesque head, which may be considered as the Maya 
 equivalent of our Arabic notation. 
 
 The Maya also divided time into years of 365 days, made 
 up of 18 months of 20 days each and one month of 5 days. 
 
 The months were named as follows (Maya symbol) : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pop Zac 
 Uo Ceh 
 Zip Mac 
 Zotz Kankin 
 
 — Tzec Muan 
 Xul Pax 
 Yaxkin Kayab 
 Mol Cumhu 
 Chen Uayeb (5 days) 
 Yax 
 
 The days were named 
 
 Imix Chuen 
 Ik Eb 
 Akbal Ben 
 Kan Ix 
 Chicchan Men 
 Cimi Cib 
 Manik Caban 
 Lamat Eznab 
 Muluc Cauac 
 Oc Ahau 
 
II4 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 To each day sign was prefixed a number from I to 73, 
 these numbers following each other in endless succession. 
 The position occupied by the day in the month was also 
 given, and as there were 20 days to each month it is obvious 
 that the day could occupy one of 20 positions. These 
 were not expressed, however, as by us, in terms of current 
 time, for we say first, second, third, etc., January before 
 the first, second, and third days of that month have actually 
 elapsed; the Maya spoke only in terms of time elapsed, 
 as we do in reading the clock, consequently the first day 
 was 0, the twentieth was 19. 
 
 The starting-point of the Maya chronology was a certain 
 day 4 Ahau, occupying position 8, in the month Cumhu, 
 written thus: 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu. To illustrate the sequence 
 of the dates let us follow the days for a month from this 
 date : 
 
 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu 
 5 Imix g Cumhu 
 6 Ik to Cumhu 
 7 Akbal tr Cumhu 
 8 Kan 12 Cumhu 
 g Chicchan 13 Cumhu 
 to Cimi 14 Cumhu 
 rr Manik 15 Cumhu 
 12 Lamat 16 Cumhu 
 13 Muluc 17 Cumhu 
 t Oc 18 Cumhu 
 2 Chuen 19 Cumhu 
 3 Eb o Uayeb 
 4 Ben 1 Uayeb 
 5 Ix 2 Uayeb 
 6 Men 3 Uayeb 
 7 Cib 4 Uayeb 
 8 Caban o Pop 
 
 g Eznab 1 Pop 
 
 Io Cauac 2 Pop 
 
 tz Ahau 3 Pop 
 
 12 Imix 4 Pop. 
 
 13 Ik 5 Pop 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND II5 
 
 It will be seen that. the thirteen numerical coefficients 
 of the days, the days themselves, their positions in the 
 months, and the months, follow an endless succession. 
 Every 18,980 days, or 52 years, the day 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, 
 or, in fact, any date came round again ; consequently this 
 period was named a “‘ calendar round.” It may be likened 
 to a gigantic cogwheel, with 18,980 named cogs revolving 
 throughout all time. The number of cogs between any 
 two given ones is always the same, and at each complete 
 revolution of the wheel, whatever cog one started from 
 must recur again. 
 
 The Maya started their chronology from a cog named 
 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu. 
 
 After every Initial Series date the day in the calendar 
 round upon which it fell is almost invariably given as a 
 check on the correctness of the Initial Series ; for example : 
 
 
 
 The above Initial Series is taken from a stele at the ruins 
 of Quirigua, in Guatemala. It reads: ‘‘g Cycles, 18 
 Katuns, 10 Tuns, o Uinals, o Kins; ro Ahau, 8 Zac’’— 
 which, being interpreted, means that this stele was set up 
 9 cycles, 18 Katuns, 10 Tuns, no months, and no days, after 
 the date 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, and that this date fell upon a 
 certain day 10 Ahau 8 Zac in the calendar round. Now 
 if we reduce 9.18.10.0.0. (generally written thus for 
 brevity) to days we find that it contains 1,429,200, and if we 
 divide this by 18,980—the number of days in a calendar 
 round, we find that it goes 75 times, leaving a remainder of 
 5,700 ; in other words, 75 calendar rounds and 5,700 days 
 have elapsed from the date 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu to the date 
 recorded by the Initial Series 9.18.10.0.0., and if we count 
 forward 5,700 cogs on the great wheel from the cog 4 Ahau 
 
116 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 8 Cumhu we shall find that we come to the cog named 
 ro Ahau 8 Zac, proving that the entire date is correct. 
 When several dates were recorded on one monument the 
 Maya frequently made use of what is termed a Secondary 
 Series. Let us suppose that the Initial Series ended on a 
 day 5 Imix g Cumhu, and after this we find recorded 
 
 “ke °@ NE) 0. 
 
 On referring to the glyphs it will be seen that these represent 
 1 Uinal r Kin 13 Ik 5 Pop; the meaning being that 1 Uinal 
 and 1 Kin (i.e. 21 days) after 5 Imix 9 Cumhu occurred the 
 date now recorded—i.e. 13 Ik 5 Pop, and if 2r days be 
 counted forward from 5 Imix g Cumhu, it will be found to 
 fall on 13 Ik 5 Pop. This saved the repetition of the 
 Initial Series for each date, and often a number of dates 
 are recorded on a monument in this way ; they are known as 
 secondary dates, and the periods which indicate their 
 distances from the Initial Series date, as I uinal r kin above, 
 are known as distance numbers. 
 
 The Initial Series and Secondary Series were the only 
 methods of dating used by the Maya of the Old Empire. 
 They were perfectly simple and perfectly accurate, but, it 
 must be admitted, somewhat clumsy and cumbersome. 
 In the New Empire, throughout Yucatan, they soon fell 
 into desuetude, and only three Initial Series dates have 
 been found in the peninsula, as against many hundreds on 
 monoliths throughout the southern cities. Of these three, 
 one is at Tuluum, one at Chichen Itza, and one at Xcan- 
 chacan. | 
 
 In the New Empire three distinct methods of recording 
 time were employed : 
 
 1. The Calendar Round.—This merely gave the position 
 of the day in the calendar round, as 4 Ik ro Pop, which 
 fixed the date accurately amongst the 18,980 days of the 
 calendar round, or within a period of 52 years; but as one 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND I17 
 
 rarely knows to which calendar round it refers, such a form 
 of dating is practically useless to us, unless other dates are 
 found upon the same stele, or in the same temple, which 
 accurately fix the calendar round referred to. 
 
 2. Period Ending Dating.—This consisted in recording 
 the occurrence of an event as taking place at the end of 
 some particular period in the long count ; that is, in time as 
 measured by the Initial Series. This method involves 
 two, and usually three, factors: 
 
 (a) The name of the period at whose end the event occurs, 
 i.e. cycle, katun, or tun. 
 
 (6) The calendar round date on which it fell; as 6 Ahau 
 13 Cumhu. 
 
 (c) A sign or element meaning ending, or it is ended, 
 signifying that the period had come to a close. 
 
 Three signs are used in this last connection. 
 
 1 & 3 
 G38) 
 
 The first and third of these are never used by themselves, 
 but invariably to modify some other sign; the hand, on 
 the contrary, is rarely used to modify period glyphs, but, 
 connoting ending in general, is used in various connections, 
 one of which is to indicate the completion of a building, 
 when printed in red paint on its walls. 
 
 Simple examples of these period ending dates are: 
 Qs Cc, Cc. 
 
 £ as ¢., 
 ° of) lls EEG) 2 ° 
 ise te tee 
 Is ve 
 In Inscription 1, glyph (a) shows first the ending sign, 
 and following this the cycle sign with the coefficient 9, the 
 whole indicating the end of Cycle 9, (0) is the day Ahau, 
 with the coefficient 8, and (c) the month Ceh, with the 
 coefficient 13 ; the whole inscription reading 8 Ahau 13 Ceh, 
 the end of the Cycle 9, and as this date can occur 
 
118 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 practically but once in all time, it is fixed with absolute 
 accuracy. 
 
 Inscription 2 reads (a) the end of Katun 14 (note the 
 small ending sign above the numerical coefficient) falling on 
 (0) 6 Ahau (c) 13 Muan, and as this date can occur but once 
 in Maya historic times, there can be no ambiguity about it. 
 
 But this period ending system was variously employed, 
 and the accuracy of the dates depends largely on the 
 number and nature of the factors present. Sometimes a 
 
 day is given as falling within a certain tun, as 3 Chicchan in 
 Tun 7. Now every Tun 7 contained a day 3 Chicchan, and 
 every Tun 7 recurred every 19.71 years, consequently such 
 a date was useful only in indicating a certain day within 
 a period of 19.71 years. The most usual method, as we 
 found in Yucatan, was the recording of a certain tun with 
 the day upon which it ended; as, for example, Tun 13 
 ending in the day 2 Ahau. Such a date occurred only 
 once in 256.26 years, and as most of the New Empire sites 
 were occupied for less than 500 years from their foundation 
 to their destruction, it is never necessary to distinguish 
 between more than two possible readings, while almost 
 invariably only one is historically probable. 
 
 By adding the day of the month in the above method, as, 
 for example, Tun 11 ending on the day 2 Ahau 18 Xul (a 
 date found by us at Chichen Itza), accuracy within a period 
 of no less than 1,870 years was secured. 
 
 Another method even more accurate than the preceding 
 is practised on the rings of the ball court at Uxmal, where 
 the calendar round date is given as 10 Ix 17 Pop, falling 
 within a Tun 17 which ended in the day 12 Ahau, a date 
 which could only recur once in 243,193 years. 
 
 The U Kalay Katunob, or procession of the katuns, was 
 much less accurate than any of the preceding. It is the 
 method employed in the books of Chilam Balam, or Maya 
 historical records handed down after the Conquest, and 
 consists merely in numbering the katuns, or 20-years 
 periods, from 1 to 13 in the following sequence: 12, Io, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 119 
 
 8, 4, 2, 13, II, 9, 7, 5, 3, I. It is obvious that an event so 
 recorded, unless the tun, or year, be given also, may occur 
 anywhere within a period of one katun, or approximately 
 20 years, and further that, as 30 x 20 =260, every 260 years 
 each katun will recur. As a matter of fact, however, the 
 tun or year of the katun on which the event occurred is often 
 given, an event being described as occurring on the second 
 tun of Katun 13, just as we might describe the commence- 
 ment of the Great War as taking place in the fourth year of 
 the second decade of thenineteenth century, and on historical 
 grounds it is usually easy to select the particular round of 
 13 katuns, or 260 years, on which any recorded event 
 occurred. 
 
 It may be accepted that the year 1537 A.D. corresponded 
 to the end of Katun 13 in the procession of the katuns, for 
 it is recorded in the book of Chilam Balam that the death 
 of a certain chief, Napot Xiu, occurred in a Katun 13 Ahau, 
 while yet 6 tuns were lacking before the end of the katun, on 
 the day 9 Imix, and the chronicler further states that the 
 event took place in the year of our Lord 1537. 
 
 Now the date 13 Ahau of the new notation corresponded 
 to the Initial Series date 12.9.0.0.0., i.e. 12 cycles, 9 katuns, 
 o tuns, 0 uinals, and o kuns after 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, the 
 starting-point of Maya chronology. Therefore 12.9.0.0.0. 
 of the Old Empire=Katun 13 Ahau of the New Empire = 
 1537 A.D. of the Christian era. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Possible Explanations of the Initial Series Date on the Stele—The Mystery 
 Solved—The Wall encircling the City Watch-towers—Use of Walled 
 Cities—Impossibility of Starving the Garrison of the City—Discovery 
 of New Buildings within the Walls—Types of Buildings Found— 
 Stucco Figures—Mexican, Maya, and Christian Religions—Mural - 
 Paintings—The Only Calendar Hieroglyph found at Tuluum— 
 Resemblance of the Figures of the Gods on the Stucco to those of 
 the Dresden Codex—Destruction by the Spaniards of the Maya 
 Books—Origin of the Dresden Codex—Gods worshipped at Tuluum— 
 Tuluum and Chacmool Compared—Human Sacrifice—Non-arrival of 
 Desiderio Cochua—Silence of the Ruins—Reflections on Tuluum. 
 
 THE photograph shows all the pieces of the stele found by 
 us, placed together, and upon it the Initial Series is clearly 
 recognisable, though somewhat defaced by time and weather. 
 In glyph 1 is seen the coefficient $f] or nine in front of 
 the grotesque head variant for the cycle; in glyph 2 the 
 coefficient } in front of the grotesque head variant for 
 the katun; in glyph 3 the coefficient {] in front of the 
 head variant for the tun; in glyph 4 the coefficient 
 
 or 0, in front of the head variant for the uinal; and in glyph 6 
 the upper part of the same zero coefficient in front of the 
 day sign, which has been broken away. The whole inscrip- 
 tion then reads 9.6.10.0.0.0. or 9 cycles, 6 katuns, Io tuns, 
 O uinals, o kins, after 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, and if this be worked 
 out it will be found to coincide with a date 8 Ahau 13 Pax 
 of the calendar round. Now the calendar round day always 
 follows immediately at the end of the Initial Series, and 
 should occupy the vacant position shown for glyph 6, 
 which has been broken away, but in glyph II we recognise 
 very clearly the month Pax, with the coefficient 13, the 
 whole date then reaching 9.6.10.0.0.0., 8 Ahau 13 Pax. 
 
 Nothing could be clearer than this date, which corresponds 
 I20 
 
10 
 
 i Gee 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 TULUUM. 
 
 Front of Stele, showing in glyph 1 the coefficient 9 (one bar and four dots which are 
 partially obliterated), with the head variant of the cycle sign (immediately above glyph 
 1 is the Initial Series introducing glyph, very much weathered), glyph 2 the coefficient 6 
 with the katun head variant, glyph 3 the coefficient 10 with the tun head variant, 
 glyph 4 the zero coefficient with the uinal head variant, glyph 5 the upper part of the 
 same zero coefficient, the lower being broken away. Glyph 6, which should be the day 
 sign, is gone, but in glyph 10 the month sign, 13 Pax, is very plain. The whole reads: 
 9.6.10.0.0 (8 Ahau) 13 Pax. The last two glyphs, 13 and 14, were, as may be 
 seen, found and joined on later. 13 is the sign for the Lahuntun or ro Tun period, 
 14 is the day Ahau preceded by the coefficient 7, i.e., 7 Ahau the end of a Lahuntun, 
 which carries the contemporary date of the Stele from 9.6.10.0.0. exactly one cycle 
 forward to 10.6.10.0.0., or in Christian chronology from 305 A.D. to 699 A.D. 
 
 [p. 120 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 121 
 
 approximately to 305 A.D. of our era. But we know from 
 a number of historical sources that Tuluum and Chichen 
 Itza were not founded till towards the end of the sixth 
 century of our era by Maya from. Bakalal, led by their 
 Priest-Chief Itzamna. How, then, reconcile the discre- 
 pancies in these dates? Three explanations were possible, 
 all equally unsatisfactory : 
 
 (1) The stone might have been carried by the Maya from 
 one of their older cities, but as the limestone was obviously 
 exactly similar to that of the Tuluum cliffs, and the stone 
 weighed many hundreds of pounds, this did not sound 
 convincing. 
 
 (2) The date of the Initial Series may have referred to 
 some former event in the history of the Maya, and so not 
 have been contemporaneous, but in that case, judging from 
 the analogy of all other Initial Series dates, a Secondary 
 Series contemporary date would have been given. 
 
 (3) The whole explanation of the Initial Series system of 
 dating is wrong; but this is untenable, as all the dozens 
 of inscriptions which have been deciphered by means of 
 it work out to a day with absolute precision. 
 
 This problem had occupied Morley’s and my own mind 
 ever since our first visit to Tuluum. We had talked it over, 
 and evolved endless hypotheses, each more unsatisfactory 
 then the last, in explanation of it, yet in five minutes after 
 the discovery of the extra fragments of the stele outside 
 the temple where it had rested the whole thing was made 
 perfectly clear to us. This fragment, it will be seen, fits 
 on immediately below the Initial Series inscription, and on it 
 are sculptured the two glyphs shown below. 
 
 
 
122 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 The upper one is the glyph for the lahuntun, or period of 
 Io tuns, the lower the coefficient ‘qf or 7, prefixed to a not 
 uncommon face-variant for the day Ahau, the whole 
 reading 7 Ahau, the end of a lahuntun. Now this date 
 occurs exactly one cycle or 20 katuns after 9.6.10.0.0., the 
 date recorded by the Initial Series, so that the contem- 
 poraneous date of the stone is 10.6.10.0.0., or 699 A.D., 
 which fits in perfectly with the record of the books of Chilam 
 Balam. The question next arises, 699 A.D. being the con- 
 temporaneous date of the stele, what does the date 305 A.D. 
 so carefully recorded by the Initial Series refer to? And 
 to this I think there can be but one answer. It records some 
 important event in the previous history of the Maya, 
 possibly some great victory or battle, or possibly the date 
 of their setting out on their wanderings north from the 
 southern city of their origin. The stele, in fact, corresponds 
 very closely in idea to a statue of Columbus erected to com- 
 memorate the fourth centenary (or cycle, as in Tuluum) of 
 the discovery of America, upon which are inscribed the date 
 of the event commemorated, 1492, and the current date, 1892. 
 
 This stone has a curious history. Erected in 699 A.D., it 
 represents with one exception so far as is known the very 
 last Initial Series date throughout the whole Maya area. 
 When exactly the city of old Tuluum was deserted by its 
 inhabitants we have no means of knowing, but the next we 
 hear of the stone is its discovery in fragments by John L. 
 Stephens in 1841, on the floor of one of the temples of the 
 new city, which with other east coast towns was probably 
 founded about the middle of the fifteenth century. Whether 
 the later Maya retained any tradition or written record of 
 the city founded by their ancestors 800 years previously, 
 which influenced them in returning there; whether they 
 knew of the existence of the stele, or came upon it by 
 accident ; how it got broken ; where the missing fragments 
 have disappeared to; why it was placed in a temple of its 
 own, are points which will probably never be cleared up. 
 
 The principal buildings at Tuluum are surrounded by a 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 123 
 
 wall on the north, south, and west sides, the east side being 
 guarded by the precipitous cliff overlooking the sea. The 
 wall encloses a space 1,500ft. long north and south, 
 and 6o0o0ft. east and west. The area included, measuring 
 about 22 acres, is now covered with dense tropical bush, 
 which renders one building invisible from the next. It is 
 built of rough blocks of stone, the height varying, owing 
 to the rolling contour of the ground, from Ioft. to 15ft. 
 The top is level, and sufficiently wide to admit of four men 
 walking abreast upon it. The sides are pierced by five 
 narrow passages to admit of exit and entry. At the north- 
 western and south-western corners are watch-towers built 
 upon the summit of the wall, r2ft. square, each containing 
 a small altar. When the country was clear of forest they 
 must have commanded a magnificent view for many miles 
 over its flat expanse, but now they look out to the west, 
 far as the eye can reach, over an unbroken sea of almost 
 impenetrable virgin bush, and to the east over the deserted 
 city, shrouded in a veil of bush almost as dense. No more 
 will the guard be changed in these watch-towers, no more 
 the password be given to enter the city by the passages, no 
 more will the alarm be sounded of an enemy in sight, and 
 the women and children collected from the surrounding 
 villages within the fort, while the men arm themselves for 
 the fray, and prepare to repulse the invader from the north, 
 or the cannibal black Carib from the sea. Citizen and 
 enemy alike lie silently side by side without the deserted 
 city walls, awaiting their last summons, unless, indeed, 
 their spirits may return to re-enact the episodes of their 
 former life on its now desolate stage ; to live and strive, to 
 love and hate, and perhaps with ghostly hosts to refight in 
 bloodless battles the sanguinary conflicts of their earthly life. 
 
 Mayapan is the only other city in the Maya area, so far 
 as is known, surrounded by a wall, but the Tuluum wall, 
 though shorter, is more carefully constructed, and higher 
 than that of Mayapan. The object of these walls was prob- 
 ably twofold—to surround and isolate from the common 
 
124 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 people sacred buildings, temples, pyramids, dance platforms, 
 and priests’ dwellings, and in time of war to act as a fort, 
 in which the inhabitants from the surrounding districts 
 could take refuge. At Mayapan the first was probably the 
 predominating reason, as we read in contemporary accounts 
 that the vassal nobles to the rulers of Mayapan, with their 
 families, lived within the walls with the higher priests, 
 while their retainers formed a city of their own without. 
 
 At Tuluum the wall was mainly defensive, as is shown 
 by the watch-towers standing upon it, and by the presence 
 of narrow passages, with off-sets, passing through it, for in 
 the unsettled state of the country immediately following the 
 fall of Mayapan every man’s hand was against his neighbour, 
 and the city was subject to attack on the landward side 
 from neighbouring petty states, and from the sea by Carib 
 pirates. It would probably have been easy of defence 
 against enemies armed only with bows, arrows, and javelins, 
 while starving the garrison out would have been practically 
 impossible, for the only food the fighting man of that day 
 required was a small ration of maize to make into corn 
 cakes, vast stores of which were no doubt always kept in 
 the fort, while unlimited water, somewhat bitter in taste, 
 but quite fresh and drinkable, was to be obtained from a 
 cenote, or natural well, close to the north wall. 
 
 During our first expedition to Tuluum we located eighteen 
 buildings within the enclosure, to which on this occasion 
 we added two good-sized temples to the north of the Castillo. 
 It is quite possible, however, that a complete clearing of the 
 bush from the space within the walls would disclose further 
 edifices, as it is at present so dense in places that one may 
 stand within a few yards of a building without perceiving it. 
 
 Outside the walls we came across ten buildings, chiefly 
 small temples, distributed irregularly round the walls, 
 and for all one can tell there may be many more, as the 
 bush is even heavier and more impenetrable outside than 
 inside the walls. The buildings fall naturally into three 
 
 groups : 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 125 
 
 (r1) The single story structure with a flat roof, corbel 
 vaulted ceiling, one or more cornices ornamenting the 
 outside, covered internally and externally with hard stucco, 
 similar to those we have already seen at Chacmool and 
 Espiritu Santo, but in Tuluum very much larger and more 
 carefully constructed. The photograph shows one of these 
 structures from which the outside coat of stucco has all 
 been peeled off, as it stands unprotected on the very edge 
 of the cliff, where for five centuries it has encountered the 
 full force and violence of the prevailing easterly wind hurtling 
 in from the Caribbean Sea. This building is the only one 
 at Tuluum, or, indeed, amongst the whole of the east coast 
 ruins, which possesses a roof comb, or ornamental projection 
 from the flat roof—a feature extremely common, and some- 
 times, in the form of a flying facade, greatly elaborated 
 amongst the older ruins in the north of the peninsula. 
 
 (2) The second class of building consisted of flat-roofed, 
 concrete-ceiled chambers, such as are seen in the buildings 
 forming the wings of the Castillo. These were roofed in 
 with beams of sapodilla wood resting on circular stone 
 pillars, and covered with a layer of hard concrete. All of 
 these have collapsed owing to the decay of the wooden 
 beams, and consequent falling in of the concrete roofs, 
 all that now remains being masses of great flat pieces of 
 concrete, showing casts of the beams which upheld them 
 scattered about between rows of pillars. This type of roof 
 is very uncommon in the Maya area, the most usual form 
 for stone houses being the corbel vault already described, 
 and in structures too large to admit of this beams covered 
 with palm-leaf thatch, supported on rows of stone columns, 
 
 (3) An example of the third type of building found in 
 Tuluum is shown in the photograph. It consisted merely 
 of a low, rectangular structure, with columned entrance, 
 supporting on its roof a similar but smaller building, with 
 a single door in front. Both buildings are ornamented 
 with a double cornice, and both are covered inside and out 
 with extremely hard resistant stucco, Over the entrance 
 
126 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND | 
 
 of the lower story are two niches which held stucco figures 
 of warriors. These had been very carefully executed, the 
 limbs and bust being first roughly modelled in pottery, over 
 which the stucco was applied, and afterwards painted in 
 red, black, blue, and green. Over the entrance to the upper 
 story is a panel containing a similar figure ; all are, however, 
 unfortunately greatly mutilated. These figures, remains of 
 which are found in niches above the entrances of several 
 other buildings at Tuluum, are probably intended as 
 representations of the gods to whom the temples were 
 dedicated. Whether they were destroyed by the Maya to 
 prevent their desecration by the Spaniards when they 
 saw that their conquest by the latter was inevitable, or 
 by zealous but bigoted priests, who saw in every endeavour 
 of the Maya to return to their ancient arts of painting, 
 sculpture, and hieroglyphic writing evidence of the handi- 
 work of el diabolo, to be sternly and incontinently repressed, 
 it is now impossible to tell. 
 
 Into the bright and joyous religion of the early Maya, 
 whose beneficent gods asked only offerings of fruit, flowers, 
 prayers, and incense in return for those gifts which all 
 mortals seek of their gods, was infused the black, cruel, 
 gloomy religion of Mexico, with its bloodthirsty priests and 
 its savage, obscene deities demanding hecatombs of human 
 sacrifices. On this was grafted, three centuries later, 
 the brand of Christianity introduced by the Spanish monks— 
 hard, fierce, zealous men, most of them without real sym- 
 pathy or kindliness, always at handgrips with the devil 
 for the souls of their unfortunate converts, whose bodies 
 they were ready to sacrifice, and often did sacrifice, with 
 torture, flogging, and fire, to ensure the eternal salvation of 
 their souls. Unhappy Maya! Joyous, peaceful, care-free, 
 art-loving children of nature, fate indeed dealt hardly with 
 them. Nor is it to be wondered at that the poor remnant 
 left to-day, gloomy, taciturn, secretive, with a religion 
 combining the worst superstitions of three irreconcilable 
 
Lo ‘d] QcI *d] 
 ‘ovonys pojuted YIM pozelooep JOLIE} UT ‘SUIPTINd PeL10}s-OMT, 
 ‘WOANTAL 
 
 ‘ssuryured [ye A, wory freq Teruouet1a9g Surpfoy poy jo ain8y pe}eIs 
 
 WOOTOL 
 
 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 127 
 
 faiths, should hide themselves from their conquerors in the 
 fastnesses of the virgin bush of Yucatan—last stronghold 
 left them in the land which once was theirs. 
 
 At Tuluum are found perhaps the finest, and certainly 
 the most extensive, mural paintings now in existence through- 
 out the Maya area. They are executed in red, black, blue, 
 violet, green, and claret colour on the rock-like stucco which 
 covers both the interior and exterior of the buildings. This 
 stucco, though thin, is extraordinarily hard and smooth ; 
 in fact, it was as much as we could do to chip it with a 
 pickaxe. In several places, notably throughout a narrow 
 passage which runs beneath the great stairway which leads 
 to the Castillo, two, and in some places three, layers of 
 stucco have been applied, one over the other, each showing 
 traces of the paintings which originally covered it. On the 
 outer wall of a building just north of the Castillo, facing 
 towards the sea, is depicted a human figure, nearly life- 
 size, outlined in black on the white stucco, with elaborate 
 feather-decorated headdress, maxtli, or apron, plaited cotton 
 breast-plate, and sandals ornamented with bows and tags. 
 This figure, notwithstanding the fact that it has weathered 
 the storms of over four hundred years, is almost as clear in 
 detail as upon the day when it was first painted. In another 
 temple within the sacred enclosure are depicted the gods 
 Itzamna and Cuculcan. Itzamna, as we have seen, was 
 the priest and leader who conducted the Chanes in their 
 migration northward from Bakalal, and soon after his 
 death underwent apotheosis, and became one of the most 
 universally worshipped gods throughout Yucatan. He is 
 known as the “Roman-nosed god” from the fact that he 
 is usually represented with a prominent Roman nose, and 
 is very frequently associated with the symbol of the 
 serpent. 
 
 Cuculcan, sometimes known as the “ Long-nosed god,”’ 
 was the hero chieftain who led the Tutul Xiu into Yucatan 
 from the west, and who, after his death, was also deified. 
 His name signifies “‘ feathered serpent,’ and he is also 
 
128 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 frequently associated with the symbol of a plumed or a 
 feather-covered crotalus. 
 
 The whole interior surface of the walls of the chambers 
 within the lower story of the two-storied temple is covered 
 with paintings of gods, and offerings being made to them, 
 with conventional representations of fruit, flowers, jars, 
 vases, bows, knots, and geometrical devices. These are 
 outlined in blue on a claret-coloured background, and are 
 all, unfortunately, in an exceedingly bad state of preserva- 
 tion, owing to the damp and mildew which between them 
 have effected what the sea storms were unable to do, and 
 partly destroyed the iron stucco which covers the walls. 
 From the lower story of this temple are shown two panels 
 of a frieze, probably the best preserved portion of the whole 
 mural decoration. 
 
 The first exhibits the Roman-nosed god, whose head- 
 dress is seen to be decorated by two highly conventionalised 
 serpents’ heads, while in front of his face is a vase from 
 which projects another similar head. He holds in his left 
 hand a rope-like object, and is apparently receiving an 
 offering of a “‘ceremonial bar’’ decorated with flowers 
 from a worshipper who faces him. 
 
 The second shows Ah Puch, the god of death, holding 
 in his right hand a “ ceremonial bar,’ the upper part of 
 which consists of a plumed serpent’s head. Above this 
 is the symbol (§) which, as we have seen, stands for 
 Imix, the first day of the Maya month, but it is also 
 used to denote maize, the Maya word for which is Ixim. 
 This is the only calendar hieroglyph which we were able to 
 discover on the mural paintings at Tuluum, and here it is 
 used probably, not in its calendaric significance, but merely 
 to represent an offering of maize to the deity. 
 
 These ‘‘ ceremonial bars,” or batons, are held in the hands 
 of nearly all the figures of gods at Tuluum as symbols of 
 their divinity. 
 
 The head of the god of death is, as will be observed, 
 double, and was originally covered by an elaborately 
 
 3) 
 

 
 an 2 UGH, OR THE GOD OF DEATH, FROM TULUUM ; 
 
 BELOW: THE SAME GOD, FROM THE DRESDEN CODEX. 
 THE GOD CUCULCAN, FROM TULUUM. 
 
 [p. 128 
 
 
 
 I AND 2. THE GODS, CUCULCAN AND ITZAMNA, FROM THE WALL 
 PAINTING AT: TULUUM ; BELOW:.3 AND 4. THE SAME GODS 
 
 FROM THE DRESDEN CODEX. 
 [p. 130 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 129 
 
 decorated feather headdress, the greater part of which has 
 now become obliterated, while all down his back plumes of 
 conventionalised feathers are seen projecting. Beneath the 
 figures of Itzamna, Cuculcan, and Ah Puch are shown the 
 heads of the same gods, as depicted in the Dresden Codex, 
 and it will be observed that not only are the representations 
 of the gods alike in each case, but that they are practically 
 identical ; so much so, indeed, that the conviction is forced 
 on one that if not actually the work of the same artist, they 
 were at least executed at about the same period, in the 
 same locality, and possibly from a common model. 
 
 Now the Dresden Codex (so called because it at present 
 reposes in the Landes Bibliothek, formerly known as 
 the Royal Library at Dresden) is one of the three priceless 
 aboriginal Maya paintings of hieroglyphs which have 
 been preserved to us. It is painted in red and black on 
 paper made by the natives from the fibre of the Agave 
 Americana, or America aloe, and is folded like a map. Its 
 hieroglyphic inscriptions and pictures deal with the gods, 
 the tonalamtl, or sacred year of 260 days, which of the 
 divisions of these are dedicated to the service of each god, 
 and the ceremonies appropriate to each of them, together 
 with certain obscure astronomical calculations. How or 
 when it was originally brought to Europe from the New 
 World is not known, but it must have come at a very early 
 date, for we know that very shortly after the conquest all 
 the books of the Maya were destroyed by the Spanish priests 
 as works of el diablo, irrespective of their subject-matter, 
 so that at the present day only three examples are left to 
 us of the many thousands which originally existed amongst 
 the priests, dealing with medicine, the art of prophecy or 
 divination, the calendar system, the worship of the gods, 
 and the history of the Maya from the earliest times. 
 
 The exact date and place of origin of the Dresden Codex 
 are unknown, and have always given rise to a considerable 
 amount of controversy amongst students of Central American 
 
 archeology. That it comes from Yucatan and belongs to 
 IL 
 
130 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the New Empire are the only two facts which all admit, but 
 in the extraordinary resemblance, indeed the almost exact 
 identity between the heads of the gods as shown in the 
 Codex and in the mural paintings of Tuluum, I think we have 
 a very useful pointer as to both the time when, and place 
 where, the Codex was painted. It seems, indeed, fairly 
 certain that it was a product of the east coast civilisation, 
 and so belongs to the closing years of the Second Empire, 
 probably within half a century of the arrival of the Spaniards 
 in Yucatan, and, Tuluum being the chief city of this civilisa- 
 tion, it is quite likely that the Dresden Codex originated 
 here, and may even have been the work of the same artist 
 who produced the mural decorations now before us. 
 
 The discovery of the city of Chacmool, and the exact 
 dating of the Tuluum stele, would well have repaid us for 
 our entire expedition, but when to them was added the 
 light thrown on that obscure manuscript, the Dresden Codex, 
 we felt that if fortune favoured us with no further discoveries, 
 we could not in justice complain. 
 
 The principal gods worshipped at Tuluum were, in order 
 of their most frequent appearance on the mural paintings, 
 and probably of their popularity amongst the people, 
 Itzamna, Cuculcan, Ah Puch (the so-called diving god), a 
 curious figure modelled in stucco over several of the temples 
 of a god with legs in the air and palms together, pointed 
 downwards in a diving position ; Ek Ahau, the black captain, 
 a war deity ; and the maize god, or god of fertility. 
 
 The two first of these were by far the most popular, and 
 their common symbol, the serpent, in the form of serpent 
 columns on the main temple, and ceremonial bars, head- 
 dresses, and ornaments on the walls, is to be encountered 
 everywhere. 
 
 Curiously enough, the first thing I came across on entering 
 the back room of the main temple was a good-sized rattler’s 
 discarded skin lying on top of the small altar, which pro- 
 jected from the back wall—possibly an offering left by the 
 former wearer to his name god. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 131 
 
 Alfredo, our engineer, however, in endeavouring to climb 
 to the flat roof of the same temple, had a much more 
 unpleasant experience, for in the act of grasping the edge 
 of the roof to pull himself up he actually touched a snake, 
 which must have been enjoying a sun-bath in this elevated 
 situation. The reptile disappeared amongst the weeds 
 and low bush covering the flat roof, and, search as we might, 
 we were unable to find him, which was rather remarkable, 
 as unless he committed suicide on the rocks beneath it is 
 difficult to see how he managed to elude us. This inexplic- 
 able disappearance of a large snake on the open roof of a 
 temple obviously dedicated to a serpent god of course set 
 the men’s tongues wagging, for, though a polyglot crew, 
 they were all intensely superstitious, and to the believer— 
 and even half-believer—in the mystic rights of Obeah, 
 practised more or less sub rosa by the negro population of 
 all over Central America, the serpent has a peculiar and 
 sinister significance. I noticed, moreover, that they gave 
 the temple a wide berth after this. 
 
 On comparing the main temple group of buildings at 
 Tuluum with that at Chacmool, it will be seen that the 
 general arrangement is very similar in each. 
 
 Temple B at Chacmool corresponds to the Castillo at 
 Tuluum. Both are divided into a front and back compart- 
 ment, on the latter of which a low stone altar is placed 
 against the back wall. Both stand on platforms, and are 
 approached by flights of stone steps, those of Tuluum being 
 far higher and more elaborate, as the platform itself contains 
 two ranges of minor temples, or priests’ houses. In front 
 of this staircase at Chacmool is the image of the god to 
 whom the whole group is evidently dedicated—the Chacmool, 
 reclining in his own little temple. 
 
 At Tuluum, however, the temple was dedicated either to 
 Itzamna, Cuculcan, or possibly both these deities, and the 
 serpent columns of the temple take the place of the image 
 of the god. Farther on, and still immediately facing the 
 stairway, both at Tuluum and Chacmool, is a dance platform 
 
132 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 approached by a flight of steps on two sides, where the 
 procession of priests halted to perform their religious dances 
 on the way to sacrifice in the main temple. Beyond this 
 dance platform at Tuluum is an arched opening in the wall 
 which surrounds the main temple group, through which 
 the procession of priests no doubt filed on its way to the 
 sacrifice, just as they filed through the arched doorways of 
 the idol’s little temple of Chacmool. 
 
 The sacrifice to the serpent god at Tuluum, carried out 
 on the platform in front of the temple, at the top of the 
 high, steep flight of stairs, in front of the twin serpent 
 images, and in full view of the whole city, right back to the 
 walls, must have been a far more imposing ceremony than 
 at Chacmool ; indeed, the setting would bear comparison 
 with those great holocausts which the Spaniards not infre- 
 quently witnessed when fighting hand to hand with the 
 soldiers of Montezuma for the possession of the city of 
 Mexico, where on the summits of great stone-faced pyramids, 
 or teocalli, victims were sacrificed by the hundred to secure 
 the favour of the god of war, the hearts torn out of the living 
 victims, and the corpses rolled down the steep incline, where 
 at the base the onlookers were waiting to tear them in 
 pieces, and perform the act of ceremonial cannibalism which 
 would endow them with courage from the god to fight the 
 hated invader, the whole accompanied by the ceaseless 
 booming on the great snakeskin drum sacred to the god, 
 which was audible for miles. 
 
 Many a time the conguistadores of Cortez witnessed such 
 a scene, and not infrequently saw some of their own com- 
 panions, who had been captured by the Mexicans, sacrificed 
 to the god, while looking on powerless to assist them. The 
 same scenes were enacted at Tuluum, but on a smaller 
 scale, though probably long after the Spaniards had become 
 firmly established in Mexico human sacrifice was carried on 
 in Yucatan, and in this remote region of the east coast, 
 which was not at any time very securely under the 
 Spanish dominion, it is possible that the ancient rites may 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 133 
 
 have been celebrated up to the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 At our former visit to Tuluum we rather dreaded a visit 
 from the Santa Cruz Indians, whose nearest town is believed 
 to be about nine miles back in the bush, though no white 
 man has ever been there to tell, but though we found evidence 
 that they were watching us, in the form of discarded palm- 
 leaf slings, such as they use to carry small game, upon the 
 floor of a building which we had carefully swept clean the 
 previous day for the purpose of copying some of the mural 
 paintings, we never actually set eyes on a living Indian. 
 Now, however, we looked out eagerly for signs of Indians 
 every day, as our friend Desiderio Cochua, had promised to 
 meet us at Tuluum with carriers for the packs, and to guide 
 us back into the bush to a ruined city which he assured us 
 was far finer and larger, and with more perfect wall paintings 
 than Tuluum. We waited three days for him, but, greatly 
 to our disappointment, he did not turn up, being, as we 
 afterwards heard, unavoidably detained at Central. 
 
 As the time at our disposal was limited, we reluctantly 
 made up our minds to move on from Tuluum. We were 
 sorry to leave, for the place fascinated while it repelled us— 
 the absolute silence which pervaded the ruins, broken only 
 by the beat of the surf on the rocky shore, was remarkable, 
 as, with the exception of the little blue birds, attracted by 
 a wild papaw, a few snakes, and an occasional screaming 
 hawk planing overhead, quartering the bush for game, we 
 saw no trace of animal life throughout our stay in the ruins. 
 
 The mystery which enveloped these grotesque buildings, 
 with their bizarre paintings, the close airlessness of the bush 
 and its denseness, which made every step an adventure, 
 when one might encounter they knew not what—a few of the 
 descendants of the ancient inhabitants, still surviving in 
 this unexplored region, their ancient religion and customs 
 unaltered, or a band of modern Maya, machete armed, 
 dodging silently from tree to tree, to close in gradually on 
 their victim, and with sharp cutlasses administer the coup 
 
134 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 
 
 de grace Then thoughts filled our minds of the terrible 
 things which had been done here in ancient days, till the 
 human sacrifices, the obscene rights, the torturing of cap- 
 tives rose before us as we trod the very spots upon which 
 they had been enacted. 
 
 The buildings at Tuluum are, with one or two exceptions, 
 connected with the religion of the inhabitants—temples, 
 shrines, altars, and dance platforms—though a few of the 
 large, flat-ceilinged structures may have served as palaces 
 of the kings, or dwellings for the chief priests. Such an 
 ageregation of sacred buildings must connote a very con- 
 siderable population, and the question at once arises, where 
 did they live? The answer is, I think, that, like the 
 retainers of the nobles of Mayapan, they lived without the 
 walls, in houses of pimento daubed with mud and thatched 
 with palm, such as are built by the Maya of to-day, and 
 such as leave no trace of their existence after a dozen years. 
 A bird’s-eye view of the city must have been a wonderful 
 sight at the time of the first coming of the Spaniards—the 
 buildings covered with gorgeously painted and polished 
 stucco, standing out on the dazzling white background of 
 the limestone pavement, and surrounded by the great white 
 wall, around which clustered thousands upon thousands of 
 the brown bush hovels of the workers, while beyond these, 
 far as the eye could reach, spread the fields of tall green 
 maize waving in the sea breeze. No wonder Grijalva’s 
 chaplain—the first European to see it—describes the city 
 as “a bourg so large that Seville would not have seemed 
 larger or better.”’ 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Landing at Playa Carmen—Primitive People—Bartering with the Indians 
 —Uselessness of Money—Tobacco Curing—Temples of the Tuluum 
 Period—Visiting the Sick—Aguilar, the first European to visit Yucatan 
 —Treatment of the First Spanish Visitors by the Natives—Aguilar’s 
 Ransom by Cortez—His Opportunities of Learning the Manners and 
 Customs of the Natives—Puerto Morelos—A once thriving Settlement 
 gone to Decay—lIsla de las Mujeres—Origin of the Name—Monotonous 
 Life of the Islanders—Fish Plentiful—Drifting Sand—Reception by 
 the Municipality—An Excellent Dinner—Ruins on the South End 
 of the Island—A Great Kitchen Midden of the Ancients—lIll-luck 
 Attending those who Meddle with the Possessions of the Ancient 
 Inhabitants—A Miraculous Cross—Treasure Formerly Buried in the 
 Islands of the Caribbean—Island of Cancuen—Set Out in Search of 
 Ruins Recently Brought to Light—The Ancient King of Cancuen and 
 his Palace—Other Buildings at Cancuen—Buildings neither Fortified 
 nor Centralised—No Mention of Cancuen by Early Historians—Ruins 
 of El Meco—Unusual Isolation—The Original Temple added to at 
 Later Dates—An Uncomfortable Night. 
 
 WE left Tuluum at 10.30 a.m. on the roth, and, after a 
 smooth passage through the reef, sailed due north at the 
 Lilian Y’s usual rate of about six knots. At noon we passed 
 a narrow, tortuous opening in the reef which leads to the 
 only landing for Acumal, the village of the northern Santa 
 Cruz Indians, and the last settlement to the north of the 
 Indios Sublevados, or revolted Indians, as the Mexicans 
 call them. We had intended to put in here, weather per- 
 mitting, but a strong easterly breeze was blowing, the passage 
 looked very narrow and crooked, and the reef on each side, 
 with huge waves breaking over it, and churning into a 
 maelstrom of foam, very formidable, so reluctantly we 
 passed it by for future reference. 
 
 Ten miles north of Acumal we arrived at Playa Carmen, 
 a small Maya village said to have been settled by Indians 
 from Cozumel. We anchored about a quarter of a mile out, 
 
 135 . 
 
136 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 while Morley, Held, Muddy, and myself went ashore in the 
 pram in the hope of purchasing fresh provisions, as the 
 unvarying menu of canned goods and biscuits was beginning 
 to pall upon all of us. 
 
 The whole settlement, consisting of about fifty Indians, 
 came down to the beach to meet us, and was rewarded by 
 the spectacle of the pram being twisted round and dashed 
 broadside on upon the sandy beach, while her passengers 
 emerged like drowned rats from their immersion under the 
 wave which carried herin. This little contretemps procured 
 us quite a cordial reception, somewhat similar to that 
 accorded the payazo, or itinerant clown, so dear to the heart 
 of all Yucatecans, Morley, with his small person, blue eyes, 
 long yellow hair, enormous round _tortoiseshell-rimmed 
 glasses, expansive smile, and glibly inaccurate Spanish— 
 a type so totally different from anything they had ever seen 
 before—being regarded as a particularly amusing specimen. 
 
 The houses, a dozen or so in number, stood in groups of 
 two and three on a slight ridge a few hundred yards back 
 from the sea. They were of the usual Maya type—walls 
 of pimento sticks and roof of palm leaves, with a hard- 
 beaten earthen floor on which children, pigs, dogs, and fowls 
 mixed indiscriminately. At sight of these last our mouths 
 watered, but, though we offered gold, silver, and notes, 
 we could not purchase a single fowl or egg, nor, though they 
 were obviously well stocked, would the owners sell beans, 
 tomatoes, or corn cake. As a matter of fact, money is of 
 very little use to these villagers, as they have practically 
 no opportunity of spending it, being cut off on the landward 
 side by a dense belt of impenetrable bush from the nearest 
 settlements, while by sea their only communication with 
 the outside world is by means of a dorey which sails across 
 from the island of Cozumel at very long intervals. Fortun- 
 ately for us this dorey had not turned up for several months 
 and the people had been for a long time without sugar, 
 which they prize highly, as the coffee made of ground parched 
 corn which they drink is a particularly noxious compound 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 137 
 
 when unsweetened. This fact inspired Muddy with the 
 heaven-sent idea of bartering some of our sugar (of which 
 we had a large supply on board intended as a present for 
 the Santa Cruz Indians) with them for the fowls, eggs, and 
 vegetables we so badly needed. The pram was promptly 
 despatched to the ship, and returned with roo lbs. of sugar 
 and a box of soap, her beaching being very carefully guarded 
 on this occasion. Soon a brisk business was being carried 
 on between Muddy and the Indians, as he was the only one 
 of the party who could speak Maya at all fluently, and they, 
 of course, had no other language. A small calabash of sugar 
 and an inch from a bar of soap were accepted in exchange for 
 one good chicken or eighteen fresh eggs, and on this basis 
 we soon had all the poultry in sight corralled, with the 
 exception of one old rooster, who was rejected by reason of 
 his obvious age and infirmities. 
 
 We also secured a good supply of tomatoes, beans, and 
 tortillas on the same exchange basis, and found that if we 
 had only brought a demijohn of rum we might have acquired 
 the village, lock, stock, and barrel. 
 
 At each end of this village are small groups of ancient 
 temples, a few of which are still in a fairly good state of 
 preservation, two of them being used by the Indians as 
 drying houses for their tobacco, the leaves of which are hung 
 out on liana cords stretched across the stone walls and left 
 there to dry in the cool, well-ventilated chamber, which the 
 Indians have found by experience to be an ideal curing-house 
 forthe weed. All the small temples are typically “ Tuluum 
 period ” in style, and practically identical with the temples 
 found at Chacmool. The best preserved is oft. high and 
 24ft. long, covered both inside and out with smooth, hard 
 stucco, ornamented by two projecting cornices, and 
 approached by a single entrance, divided into three by 
 two circular stone columns. The roof is flat, and the ceiling 
 formed by the usual Maya corbel vault. This must have 
 been a considerable settlement at one time, as we found 
 remains of at least seven temples in the cleared space 
 
138 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 occupied by the village, and the Indians told us that about 
 a day’s march inland there were the ruins of a large town, 
 which from their description of the buildings was of Maya, 
 not Spanish, origin. 
 
 Much as we should have liked to visit these ruins, we 
 decided to leave them till a later visit, as our time was 
 limited, the greater part of our work of exploration still to 
 do, and, no animals being available, we should have had to 
 make use of shanks his mare to reach them. Before leaving 
 I was asked to see two sick people, Muddy having informed 
 the Indians that I was a doctorah, as the Maya call a medico. 
 This ‘‘ ah ’’ was used by the ancient Maya as a masculine 
 prefix to signify lord, or ruler, as “ Ah Kin,” “ Lord Sun,” 
 * Ah Puch,” “ Lord of Death, “ Ahau,” “ Lord or Chief.” 
 It is now, however, almost obsolete, and the only name with 
 which I have ever heard it used is as a postfix with the 
 Spanish ‘ doctor,’’ which the Maya have adopted into their 
 language, doctorah, signifying “‘ Lord Medicine Man ’”’— 
 remarkable perspicacity on the part of a decadent people, 
 who concede a peerage alone to that profession from which 
 in England it is alone withheld. The X, pronounced Sh, 
 which is the feminine Maya prefix, is still frequently used as 
 a diminutive or endearment prefix to proper names, 
 “Petrona,’ for instance, being altered to “ Xpet,” 
 ‘* Lauriana ”’ to‘ Xlau,’’ and “‘ Maximiliana to!” Amashe- 
 
 I found the sick people were two youths in the last stage 
 of chronic malaria—poor skeletons with a covering of yellow, 
 shiny skin tightly stretched over their bones, and immense 
 wood-hard spleens filling their whole abdomen. Each was 
 stretched in a small string hammock, from which he had 
 become too weak ever to arise, and both were sadly neglected, 
 for, as they had been sick for many weeks, their welcome was 
 wearing thin in a community where it is a case of “ Root, 
 hog, or die.”” I gave each a good supply of quinine capsules, 
 and instructions as to diet and cleanliness, which was all 
 I could do, but I left them with no very strong hope of their 
 ultimate recovery. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 139 
 
 With calabashes of tomatoes, beans, and eggs, strings of 
 tota poste, hard, dry, crisp corn cakes, which will keep 
 indefinitely, and bunches of fowls, we made a triumphal 
 procession to the shore, again escorted by the entire popula- 
 tion, and with expressions of goodwill on both sides pulled 
 off to the Lilian Y. 
 
 The Playa Carmen ruins, though comparatively insigni- 
 ficant in themselves, possess a decided historical interest 
 as they almost certainly represent all that remains of the 
 Indian town from which Geromino de Aguilar set out to 
 join Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, at the island of Cozumel 
 in March, 1519. One of Cortez’ main objects in landing at 
 the island was to obtain tidings of the Spanish crew and 
 passengers of a caraval which eight years previously had 
 been wrecked off this part of the coast, and who were 
 reported to be still held in captivity by the natives some- 
 where in the interior. For this purpose he despatched two 
 brigantines to the mainland carrying Cozumel Indians, who 
 agreed to act as intermediaries between the Spaniards and 
 the cacique, who was reported to hold the Christians captive, 
 together with a great treasure in glass beads, copper hawk 
 bells, and similar jewels valued by the Indians. One of the 
 Indians also carried a letter from Cortez to Aguilar hidden in 
 his long hair, as all were naked. The brigantine waited 
 eight days, and then, seeing nothing of either Indians or 
 Christian captives, returned to Cozumel and reported their 
 failure to Cortez, who, though much chagrined, determined 
 to set out without taking any further steps towards their 
 rescue. The squadron, however, had not got very far 
 from Cozumel when one of the ships sprung a leak, and they 
 were compelled to return. Shortly after landing they 
 observed a large canoe, paddled by Indians approaching 
 from the mainland, one of whom, on landing, asked in 
 broken Spanish if he were amongst Christians, and, on being 
 answered in the affirmative, promptly fell on his knees and, 
 weeping, thanked God for his deliverance. This was 
 Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spanish ecclesiastic, who, while on 
 
I40 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 a voyage from Darien eight years previously, had been 
 wrecked on this part of the coast of Yucatan with twenty 
 other passengers, and, escaping from the wreck, had 
 succeeded in landing on the mainland in the ship’s boat. 
 Of the eight, five were at once sacrificed by the cacique of 
 the country to his gods—very possibly in the Tuluum 
 temple—and eaten, while the rest, being in poor condition, 
 were penned up in cages to fatten for a similar fate. They 
 succeeded, however, in escaping, and fell into the hands of 
 a cacique who was more kindly disposed, in that he only 
 enslaved them. At the time of Cortez’ arrival only two of 
 these unfortunates survived—Aguilar and a sailor named 
 Gonzalo Guerrero, who, having apostatised, took to himself 
 Indian wives, wore nose-and ear-rings, had his body 
 tattooed all over according to the Indian custom, and 
 became a man of some importance in the province of 
 Chetumal. He had heard of the arrival of the Spaniards, 
 but, being ashamed of his apostasy, his harem, and his 
 tattooed face, had declined to make any effort to join them. 
 Aguilar, on the contrary, had refused to worship the gods of 
 his captors, and had kept his vow of continency as an 
 ecclesiastic, though put to tests, according to his own 
 account, which might well have tried the fortitude of St. 
 Anthony. This trait at length won the grudging admira- 
 tion of the Indians, and Aguilar was placed in charge of the 
 household of the cacique to whom he belonged—a position 
 of some trust and authority. 
 
 When the Indian messengers arrived from Cortez at 
 the court of the cacique he was very loth to part with Aguilar, 
 and it was only the sight of the rich treasure of glass beads 
 and copper ornaments offered as ransom which at length 
 induced him to give the latter his liberty. Aguilar at once 
 departed with the messengers to the nearest town to Cozumel, 
 on the mainland (which can only have been the one now 
 known as Playa Carmen), but on arriving there found to his 
 great grief and disappointment that the Spanish flotilla 
 had sailed the previous day. He determined to wait a 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND I4I 
 
 little while on the coast in case one of the ships put back 
 for him, and next day was rejoiced to see the whole fleet 
 returning, as related, to Cozumel, owing to one of the 
 caravals, which was loaded with cassava bread, having 
 sprung a leak. He set out with the Indians at once in 
 a canoe for Cozumel, where he found Cortez, to whom in 
 his after career he proved of invaluable service as an inter- 
 preter between the Spaniards and the Maya. 
 
 Aguilar was a man of some education, and, had he wished, 
 could have given us an accurate account of the social life 
 and religious customs of the Maya, together with a key to 
 their hieroglyphic writing, which would have been of 
 inestimable value to antiquarians. The two contemporary 
 accounts handed down to us, written by Bishop Landa and 
 the Abbé Cogolludo, were compiled some time after the 
 conquest, and are records, not of personal experiences, but 
 of second-hand information obtained from priests and 
 leading men among the natives. Aguilar after eight 
 continuous years of life amongst them, must have obtained 
 a first-hand knowledge of their habits and customs such as 
 no other European ever had an opportunity of acquiring, 
 for their whole social and religious system was overthrown 
 on the coming of the Spaniards, yet all he cared to record 
 was a meticulous account of the numerous and ingenious 
 assaults upon his chastity, and the ease with which he 
 overcame them all, till one is inclined to think either that 
 he is not adhering strictly to the truth, or that he was 
 physically incapacitated in some way from indulging in 
 those sins which he takes to himself such credit for resisting. 
 
 We arrived about dusk at Punta Maroma, twelve miles 
 north of Playa Carmen, and found good anchorage in three 
 fathoms, close to the shore, well sheltered by a dry reef. 
 Morley and I landed on the sandy beach, where we found 
 the ruins of a fisherman’s hut built of palm leaf, which we 
 thought of occupying for the night, but on examining the 
 interior found it looked so “‘snaky”’ that we put up our 
 cots on the beach as usual. 
 
142 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Next morning, after a somewhat nervous dip in the 
 shallowest water we could find (for sharks abound along 
 this part of the coast), we rowed on board and set sail for 
 Puerto Morelos, where we arrived in a little over an hour, 
 having caught 60 lbs. of rock fish on the spinner en route. 
 We might as easily have caught 600 Ibs., but it was useless 
 to go on destroying fish after we had got as many as we 
 required, and the amount of sport in catching rock fish on 
 a spinner is practically negligible, for they allow themselves 
 to be landed with no more fight than a piece of dead meat. 
 
 Puerto Morelos some years ago was a thriving settlement, 
 as the remains of a fine wooden wharf, 300 ft. long, attest. 
 The Banco de Londres y Mexico employed 600 chicleros 
 here in bleeding chicle, or chewing gum, from the sapodilla 
 trees in the hinterland, which was tapped by a light railroad 
 running back for over 20 kilometres. They were, however, 
 ousted by the Mexican Government, and now the population 
 would probably not reach 50 souls in the surrounding 500 
 square miles. The rails are slowly rusting away, while the 
 pier, which had a great breach made in its centre by the 
 hurricane, is slowly falling to pieces. 
 
 On leaving Puerto Morelos we sailed almost due north 
 past the island of Cancuen, a long, flat bank of sand covered 
 with stunted bush. The mainland to the north of Puerto 
 Morelos is even more desolate than that to the south, as the 
 scrub which covers the hinterland behind the sandy zone 
 gives place to sour grass and swamp. This part of the 
 peninsula is entirely uninhabited, and probably forms one 
 of the most desolate wastes on the American continent. 
 
 About an hour after passing Cancuen we arrived off 
 “Isla de las Mujeres,” or the “Isle of Women,” a long, 
 narrow island six to seven kilometres in length by less 
 than half a kilometre across at its narrowest. It is rocky 
 and precipitous at the southern end, low and sandy at 
 the northern. The origin of the name “ Isle of Women ” 
 seems somewhat uncertain, and many explanations are 
 given of it. On my first outward passage from New Orleans 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 143 
 
 to Belize the captain of the fruit steamer, in pointing out 
 the ruins as we steamed close in to the island, informed me 
 confidentially that it derived its name from the fact that 
 Cortez gathered here a number of native Maya ladies with 
 a view to the formation of a harem ; he even supplied harrow- 
 ing details. Later the mate (also a storehouse of inaccurate 
 information) explained that Alvorado held on the island an 
 auto da fé, at which he burnt a number of heretical women 
 for the good of their souls. He also was primed with 
 information even more harrowing, while an _ intelligent 
 passenger vouchsafed the information that Grijalva, who 
 passed the island in 1517, found there a colony of 
 Amazons who had so little use for men that they never 
 permitted them to land. 
 
 In the account given by Bernal Diaz of the expedition 
 of Cortez, which he accompanied, he relates that, after 
 leaving Cozumel, the fleet was scattered by a storm, but next 
 day all reunited, with the exception of one caraval, which 
 was discovered windbound in a bay on the coast. Several 
 of the soldiers had gone ashore here, and found four temples 
 with large idols resembling women in them, which they had 
 cast into the sea, “‘ for which reason,”’ says Diaz, “‘ we named 
 the place Punta de las Mujeres.” No mention is made by 
 any of the contemporary writers of an “ Isla de Mujeres,” 
 but, considering the ignorance of geography then prevalent 
 amongst the conquerors, there can be little doubt but 
 that the point on which these temples stand is the one 
 alluded to. 
 
 The principal village is situated near the north end of the 
 west side of the island, and formerly possessed a population 
 of over 400, now reduced to under 250, owing to the frequent 
 migration of the younger people to the mainland settlements 
 in search of a more exciting existence. They are—like all 
 the islanders and coast people with whom we came in 
 contact—a simple, kindly, hospitable, unambitious folk, 
 “the world forgetting, by the world forgot,” interested 
 solely in their own affairs, vaguely aware that a great war 
 
144 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 had taken place somewhere in the outside world, but con- 
 cerned about it solely in that it had depressed the price of 
 turtle-shell, their principal export. Theirs is the simple 
 ife reduced to the mth power, and we often envied them 
 their care and work-free existence, though, infected by 
 the wanderlust microbe, we should probably have been 
 bored to tears with the life in a month. 
 
 Fish is extraordinarily plentiful. A net off the wharf 
 will take enough for all the family in ten minutes, and we 
 actually saw one man shoot a cast net into the sea, standing 
 in the back door of his cottage, and haul in a fine catch of 
 mullet. 
 
 The streets are covered with fine, loose, white sand, 
 which, till one gets accustomed to it, is very tiring to walk 
 in. It drifts like snow, and, though the side-walks are 
 built of stone, and are very high, it frequently covers them, 
 and blocks up the doors, nor would there be any use in 
 clearing it away, for millions of tons more remain outside 
 to take its place. 
 
 A stranger in “ Mujeres,” as the natives call it, is a rare 
 bird, and we were met on landing by the Corregidor, or 
 Mayor, with the whole Municipal Council dragging behind 
 him, who took us on a personally conducted tour of the 
 village. 
 
 The plaza is a concreted square, with an ornate stucco 
 basin and fountain in its centre, elaborate enough for a 
 place ten times the size. A very well-preserved Spanish 
 ship’s cannon of the sixteenth century is exhibited here, 
 said to have been left behind by Grijalva in 1517, though 
 why he should have abandoned such an essential part of 
 his equipment is difficult to imagine. 
 
 Having finished the grand round, we were taken to the 
 house of a Spanish lady who made a speciality of catering 
 to the few belated strangers who arrived on the island— 
 and right nobly she did it, for we looked back with longing 
 to this dinner when partaking of the food at many a more 
 pretentious hostelry on our trip. It started with luscious 
 

 
 PLAYA CARMEN : MUDDY BARTERING WITH THE INHABITANTS. 
 
 [p. 136 
 
 
 
 ISLASDE MUJERES : ALL THAT REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE ON THE 
 EDGE OF THE CLIFF, 
 
 [p. 146 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 145 
 
 thick soup made of conchs and ochras, after which came 
 eggs and tomatoes, fried Spanish fashion, with a liberal 
 allowance of garlic and chili habanero, and eaten uncon- 
 taminated by metal by being scooped up with a dog’s- 
 eared tortilla, or corn cake—thin, hot, and just off the fire. 
 This was followed by an escabeche of fish freshly pickled 
 with sliced onions and chili perpers. Next the fiéce de 
 résistance, a roast fowl, follo relleno or “ fowl refilled,”’ 
 as the Spanish call it. This was in more senses than one 
 the préce de résistance, for the coast seems to produce a 
 breed of reinforced rubber fowls which are at no period 
 of their career tender. Lastly came pumpkin stewed in 
 sugar and cinnamon, topped by a cup of excellent coffee. 
 We were not allowed, however, to devote our undivided 
 attention to this noble repast, for while we ate the Mayor 
 and all the Municipal Council sat round the room gravely 
 watching us, discussing ourselves, our appearance, and 
 probable business in audible undertones, and asking in- 
 numerable questions, a sport in which even our hostess 
 joined at her periodical entries with fresh courses. 
 
 After dinner we discovered the reason of our remarkable 
 popularity. Though it was well on in Lent, the village 
 _ badly wanted to give a fiesta and dance. Now, without a 
 decent pretext of some sort this was practically impossible 
 to good Catholics. We, however, three distinguished 
 strangers, with letters from the Governor requesting that 
 we be well entertained, furnished quite an unimpeachable 
 excuse. [I am sorry to say we refused to fall in with their 
 hospitable plans, as bed appealed to us far more strongly 
 than any dance. 
 
 On first arriving at the island we had visited the south 
 end, going half the way in the pram and walking the other 
 half along a rocky road to the extreme southern point, 
 where a precipitous limestone bluff on which the waves 
 of the Caribbean dash endlessly, to be hurled back as great 
 masses of seething foam and spindrift, forms one of the 
 
 wildest and most picturesque spots along the whole coast. 
 KL 
 
146 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 On this point we found two Maya ruins, both distinctively of 
 Tuluum style architecture. One, now almost gone, as 
 many of the square stones have been removed to con- 
 struct a small lighthouse near by, was a little square 
 sanctuary, or adoratorio, of the type already made familiar 
 to us at Espiritu Santo Bay and Chacmool. It had a door 
 at each side, was supported by a circular column in the 
 centre, and differed only from others of the same type in 
 that it stood upon a circular, stone-faced, truncated base, 
 with short flights of stone steps leading from the ground 
 level to each door. | 
 
 The second building, also of typical Tuluum style, is 
 built of squared blocks of stone, and covered internally and 
 externally with hard stucco. It is decorated by two cornices, 
 the upper single, the lower double. The roof is flat, and 
 the interior supported by the Maya corbel arch roof. The 
 interior is approached by a flight of steps leading to a pillared 
 doorway, and is divided into an outer room and a smaller 
 inner sanctuary. It stands upon the extreme edge of the 
 high limestone bluff, down which half of it has already fallen, 
 for the sea is constantly encroaching, and in another century 
 or so the building will have been completely swallowed up. 
 This is probably the best known Maya temple in Yucatan, 
 or at any rate has been seen by the greatest number of 
 persons, for the Central and South American fruit boats 
 from New Orleans and Mobile pass within a few miles, and, 
 perched upon the summit of this high cliff, it forms one of 
 the most conspicuous landmarks along the whole coast, and 
 it may have been from this very temple that the soldiers of 
 Cortez, 400 years ago, threw down the stone female idols 
 over the precipice into the sea. Indeed, were one to go to 
 the expense and trouble, they could no doubt find these 
 same idols buried in the débris of centuries at the foot of 
 the cliff, when a norther is blowing and the tide is low. 
 
 On returning to the little village along the shore we came 
 upon a gigantic kitchen midden composed almost entirely 
 of conchs and other shells, amongst which were quantities 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 147 
 
 of potsherd of all shapes and sizes, some belonging to 
 artistically painted vessels of fine thin ware, others to rough 
 clay cooking-vessels. Amongst them I picked up a clay 
 bead and a small net-sinker. It would almost seem as if 
 this had been a communal rubbish-heap for the whole 
 settlement in ancient days, as we found no other in our 
 wanderings, and on its east side stood a tiny stone sanctuary 
 similar to, but even smaller than, the one at Espiritu Santo, 
 which led us to suppose that even such a prosaic operation 
 as the disposal of rubbish was not carried out by the Maya 
 without some sort of religious ceremonial. 
 
 On returning to the village I went my usual round of 
 the houses, hunting for cosas de los antiguos—trelics of the 
 ancient inhabitants, such as I make at every newly-visited 
 remote place in the Maya area. The people said that they 
 came across great numbers of these on the mainland—idols, 
 pots, flint and obsidian weapons and implements, etc., 
 when making their corn plantations, but never brought them 
 home, as it was extremely unlucky to meddle with the 
 belongings of the old gods, who always revenged themselves 
 on those who did. 
 
 I was shown an empty house outside the village, which 
 had belonged to a man who had brought home several 
 “idols,’”’ or large incense burners, with the figure of the god 
 to whom they were dedicated sculptured on them. This 
 man and his whole family had died of some unknown disease 
 within a few weeks of each other, and their deaths were, of 
 course, attributed to the idols. The latter were thrown out 
 into the yard, where Muddy and I, after diligent search 
 amongst the sour grass and rank vegetation which had grown 
 up since the owners’ death, succeeded in finding them, but, 
 alas! so broken up and scattered that it was impossible to 
 piece them together again. 
 
 In one of the houses belonging to an old lady I espied 
 upon the domestic altar a plain unadorned cross, which, 
 amongst the other objects—gaily decorated with coloured 
 ribbons, artificial flowers, religious medallions, and pictures 
 
148 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 —seemed somewhat incongruous. It was about r6in. high, 
 and rather crudely cut from light porous volcanic rock. 
 The explanation of its presence which the owner gave was 
 that some fifty years previously, when she was a young 
 girl, she dreamt for three nights in succession that a star 
 of dazzling light hovered over a certain part of her parents’ 
 yard, remained undimmed for a few moments, and then 
 faded gradually away. After the third recurrence of this 
 dream she told her parents of the matter, and they, greatly 
 excited at the prospect of discovering treasure of some sort, 
 at once started digging in the place indicated, where, at a 
 depth of a couple of feet, they came upon this stone cross, 
 which had been retained in the family ever since as a much 
 venerated heirloom, though the treasure-hunters must have 
 been considerably disappointed at finding neither gold nor 
 silver. 
 
 These islands from the early sixteenth to the early nine- 
 teenth century were the haunt, first of buccaneers, and later 
 of pirates, who made use of their shallow, dangerous, in- 
 tricate waters, full of reefs and shoals, as a sure place of refuge 
 from their enemies and pursuers. Untold treasure must 
 have been hidden on their cays and reefs in the old days, 
 which the owners, slain in a fight with some prospective 
 prize, wrecked at sea, or reaping the just reward of their 
 industry on the yardarm of a British frigate, never returned 
 to collect. Hardly an islet but is pointed out as the deposi- 
 tory of some pirate’s hoard, and not infrequently bullion, 
 in the form of doubloons and guineas, and even pieces of 
 plate and jewels, have been washed out by the encroaching 
 sea, or accidentally unearthed in the course of excavations. 
 Such treasure-trove, however, is, for obvious reasons, not 
 widely advertised by the lucky finders at the time. 
 
 We left Mujeres at 9.30 a.m., and, sailing south-west, 
 arrived at the Boca de Nisucte, the opening of the shallow 
 lagoon which separates the island of Cancuen from the 
 mainland. Cancuen is long, narrow, and flat, nearly ten 
 kilometres in length by less than one kilometre broad in 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 149 
 
 places. Its eastern part is merely a sandbank, while the 
 western and central portions are covered with scrub and 
 high forest growth interspersed with patches of swamp. 
 Till quite recently it had been entirely uninhabited, with 
 the exception of a few temporary fishermen’s huts along the 
 eastern shore, but a few years ago an enterprising Meridano 
 started cutting the bush and planting coco-nuts, and, 
 finding that they did well on the island soil, he has now 
 felled nearly the whole of the bush, leaving exposed a great 
 number of ruins, all belonging to the east coast or Tuluum 
 type, none of which were previously known to archeologists, 
 
 Anchoring the Lilian Y at the mouth of the narrow strait 
 which separates Cancuen from the mainland, we got out 
 the pram, and, after an hour of hard cranking, which 
 exhausted everyone before the day’s work began, we started 
 up the strait against a current so swift that the pram could 
 only just stem it. The strait was fortunately short, how- 
 ever, and soon debouched into a long, shallow lagoon. 
 Sailing along this for about five miles, keeping close to the 
 west coast of the island, we passed a number of Indian 
 mounds (probably temple and burial mounds) and a few 
 buildings completely in ruins. Near the south end of the 
 island we arrived at a rustic landing-stage, where amongst 
 the coco-nut trees we found the bush house of the manager 
 of the plantation, who kindly consented to accompany us 
 to the southern point of the island, where the most perfect 
 ruins were to be found. The walk was a very pleasant one 
 at first, leading through the shady coco-nut grove, passing 
 picturesque little groups of labourers’ huts built of sticks 
 and thatched with palm leaf, from whose doors wild-looking 
 half-clad Indians, with their still wilder-looking women- 
 kind, stared at probably the first really white people they 
 had ever seen. This rapidly gave place to a part of the 
 plantation where the trees were young and the grass and 
 bush high, and where we soon began to feel the intolerable 
 itching of red bug attacking our legs, and gradually advanc- 
 ing upwards. Finally we arrived at a section where clearing 
 
150 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 was still going on, and where progress of any kind over the 
 fallen bush and great tree-trunks became difficult. It was 
 here, however, that we came across the best preserved 
 building on the island, known grandiloquently to the 
 labourers—the only people who had seen it—as “‘ El Palacio 
 del Rey.”’ Itis an oblong structure, built of squared stones, 
 26ft. 5in. long by 7ft. 6in. high, covered inside and out 
 with hard cement, and entered by two doors, each 2ft. 4in. 
 broad. The interior is divided into two long, narrow rooms, 
 or corridors, one in front, one behind, by a partition wall 
 having three doorways in it. The exterior is surrounded 
 above the doors by an ornamental cornice, and in a recess 
 in this cornice, just between the doors, stood—or rather 
 squatted—the stucco figure of the King of Cancuen, “ El 
 Rey de Cancuen,”’ which gave the building its name. Till 
 quite recently this figure, the head and bust of which were 
 life-sized, the arms and legs comparatively dwarfed, had sat 
 enthroned over the doorway of his palace, undisturbed for 
 four centuries. Unfortunately a mischievous Mexican 
 peon had, with labour incomprehensible in one of his class 
 —except when engaged in some work of iconoclasm—pried 
 the “ King ”’ loose and tumbled him down on the ground, 
 smashing the limbs and lower part of the body beyond 
 hope of repair, but fortunately leaving the head and head- 
 dress very little injured. The face, which is very well 
 (though roughly) modelled, is cruel and malignant in 
 expression ; the nose is large and broad, the mouth wide, 
 and the forehead high—by no means typically Mayan in 
 cast. The headdress consists of broad flaps falling on each 
 side of the large circular ear-plugs, attached above to two 
 projecting bands which come down to the centre of the 
 forehead. Above these is seen the head and upper jaw, with 
 projecting teeth, and the large eyes of some mythological 
 animal, attached to the forehead of which by a tenon is an 
 ornament now so weathered as to be unrecognisable. The 
 whole figure had been painted in various colours, but these 
 are now almost entirely obliterated by time and exposure, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND I5I 
 
 The Mexican, we were informed, had died very painfully 
 within two weeks of his act of vandalism, his death being 
 looked upon by the other labourers as a direct visitation 
 of the wrath of the ancient god for desecration of his sanc- 
 tuary ; and who shall say that his death, however brought 
 about, was undeserved ? 
 
 Undeterred by the fate of the Mexican, I arranged with 
 the manager to have the head brought over to the landing- 
 place by some of the labourers, from whence, on my return, 
 I could carry it away on the Lilian Y, as I greatly feared 
 that it might be smashed by some of the Indians, or carried 
 off by a curio hunter. To this he was quite agreeable, and, 
 in fact, rather pleased at getting rid of a relic with such a 
 sinister reputation, not without some slight pecuniary 
 profit to himself. Unfortunately, I was unable to call at 
 the island on the return journey owing to contrary winds 
 and tides, so presumably £/ Rey still rules over his ancient 
 kingdom of Cancuen. 
 
 Just south of El Palacio were the ruins of two good-sized 
 buildings ; one of these 37ft. 2in. by 23ft., was entered by 
 a broad doorway divided into two by a square stone column. 
 The interior contained but a single room, and the roof, 
 formed of the usual Maya arch, was supported by three 
 circular stone pillars. The second building was very 
 similar to the first, except that its broad entrance was 
 divided into four by three square columns. 
 
 The largest building we discovered at Cancuen was 
 situated about half-way between El Palacio and the landing- 
 place. It was 77ft. 5in. in length by 25ft. broad, the sur- 
 rounding wall, decorated all round by a narrow stone 
 cornice, being 11ft. 2in. high. This structure stood on a 
 low stone mound, or pyramid, now a mere mass of ruins. 
 It was probably the market-place or assembly hall of the 
 town, corresponding very closely to the market-place 
 already described at Chacmool. Nearly the whole front 
 of the building is open, and was divided into nine entrances 
 by eight circular stone columns. Running down the centre 
 
152 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 of the interior, midway between the back wall and the 
 entrance, is a second row of ten stone columns, which, with 
 those in front, evidently served to support the roof, pro- 
 bably made of palm thatch laid over wooden beams. It 
 will be seen that the chief difference between this structure 
 and the corresponding one at Chacmool is that the latter 
 stands on a well-defined terraced stone platform, and is 
 open both front and back, while the former stands on an 
 insignificant low mound, and is completely closed in by a 
 wall behind. 
 
 We passed great numbers of ruined temples and build- 
 ings all along the coast of Cancuen, together with 
 innumerable mounds, probably the burial-places of caciques 
 and chief priests of the ancient inhabitants. There was, 
 however, no attempt at centralising the main buildings and 
 raising them on platforms for defensive purposes, as at 
 Chacmool, or of surrounding them by a wall, as at Tuluum. 
 On the contrary, they seem to have been dumped down 
 anyhow, and strung out over probably a couple of miles of 
 coast, which rather leads one to suppose that the inhabitants 
 depended rather on the isolated situation of their island 
 home than on any special fortification, for defence against 
 their enemies. Surrounded moreover by the sea, from 
 which a very large proportion of their food supply must 
 have been drawn, they were probably first-rate sailors, 
 and in a war with their quarrelsome neighbours of the main- 
 land would elect to fight by sea rather than by land. 
 
 Contemporary history is silent as to the dwellers in this 
 city of Cancuen. It was probably founded, however, by 
 the same Maya who were driven out of their own country 
 after the conquest of Mayapan, and settled along the east 
 coast of the peninsula, as the architectural style is without 
 doubt that of Tuluum. Both Cortez and Grijalva must 
 have sailed close to this island on their first voyages to 
 Mexico, and, if they passed by day, the white stucco-covered 
 buildings and temples must have been clearly visible to 
 them, and would undoubtedly, one would imagine, have 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 783 
 
 provoked a visit to the natives, whom they had found so 
 friendly at other points along this coast, if only for the sake 
 of proselytising, which, after treasure (though a long way 
 after, it must be admitted), was ever the chief aim of the 
 conquistadores. None of them, however, mentions Cancuen, 
 nor is any allusion made to it or its ruins by any later his- 
 torian, and it is possible that even at that early date the 
 city may have been deserted and the people scattered. 
 
 We should have liked very much to remain on the island 
 for a week or two, and by excavation in some of the burial 
 mounds obtained further information as to the cultural 
 status of the inhabitants, and the date at which the island 
 was occupied. This, however, was impossible, as time was 
 limited, and we were already considerably behindhand in 
 our schedule. 
 
 Next day we weighed anchor, and, sailing due north 
 from the Boca de Nisucte, arrived opposite the ruins of 
 El] Meco in less than an hour. The coastline here is formed 
 of the same monotonous, low sandy beach, over grown 
 with sour grass, the hinterland covered with scrubby bush, 
 interspersed with stretches of swamp. Just before landing 
 we observed a small tiger-cat tracking along the sandy 
 beach at a great rate, and hurried up our disembarkation in 
 the hope of getting a shot at him. By the time we got 
 ashore, however, he was out of sight, though we traced 
 his tracks for a long distance up the coast very clearly 
 defined on the hard sand, and evidently following a small 
 deer, or antelope, which had passed that way earlier in the 
 day. 
 
 The ruined temple of El] Meco is a really imposing structure, 
 and standing back, as it does, only a few hundred yards 
 from the shore, forms a landmark visible for many miles at 
 sea, as well known as their own faces (better, indeed, for 
 not many of them use a looking-glass) to all the fishermen 
 along the coast. It is built on a great stone terraced mound 
 4oft. high, from the top of which a magnificent view is 
 obtained of the island-dotted Caribbean to the east, and 
 
154 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the flat, swampy /interland to the west. It stands alone, 
 a solitary sentinel upon the barren coast, with no subsidiary 
 temples, palaces, or market-places near it betokening a 
 former town site, yet it is certainly the largest of all the 
 east coast temples which we saw throughout our trip, and, 
 though small isolated shrines to fishermen’s, hunters’, and 
 travellers’ gods are not uncommon, this appears to be the 
 only instance of a large Maya temple built away from the 
 habitations of men. It was approached by a steep flight 
 of stone steps leading up the east side of the terraced mound, 
 in front of the base of which was a great pillared colonnade 
 and surrounding the whole structure a stone-paved, walled 
 courtyard. Now, however, the temple is in ruins, its 
 débris covering a great part of the stairway. The pillars 
 of the colonnade have fallen, and the courtyard is overgrown 
 with dense low bush, not pleasant to traverse, as it is simply 
 swarming with snakes, who always seem to prefer the 
 neighbourhood of ruins, possibly because the irregular 
 surfaces of the large stone heaps facilitate the removal of 
 their old skins. One point of considerable interest we 
 noticed about this temple, namely, that the original building 
 had been comparatively small, consisting of a single long 
 chamber, round which at a later date a thick wall had 
 been erected on all four sides, in contact—except at the 
 back, where a considerable space existed between the two— 
 with the outer walls of the older structure. A wide entrance 
 was left in front facing the sea, divided into three doorways 
 by two large circular stone columns. Thus the original 
 temple was made to appear far larger and more imposing 
 without in any way adding to its spaciousness or convenience. 
 Such a sacrifice of convenience to appearance is, however, 
 by no means unknown in architecture outside the Maya 
 area. On examining the structure closely, it becomes 
 obvious that the stone terraces themselves have had wings 
 and extensions added to them from time to time, and the 
 probabilities are that the original temple was a structure 
 of quite modest proportions, standing possibly on a single 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 155 
 
 stone terrace, and that later, as it became for some unknown 
 reason more and more popular, and resorted to as a place 
 of pilgrimage from the surrounding towns, it was added 
 to till it reached its present imposing size. 
 
 Morley and I slept ashore on the beach in our cots, as 
 usual, lulled to sleep by the lapping of the little waves on 
 the sand, and the gentle slatting of our mosquito curtains 
 in the light sea breeze. We had had an excellent supper, 
 washed down with the last of the whisky, and followed by an 
 interesting chat on the luck we had had in our trip up to 
 the present, with anticipations of even more important 
 finds to come. In fact, at peace with all the world, we 
 lay smoking cigarettes, and watching the stars through 
 our mosquito curtains, commiserating with Held in the 
 stuffy, uneasy cabin of the Lilian Y, and looking forward 
 to a peaceful sleep. It was not to be, however, as about 
 II p.m. a perfect deluge of rain awoke us, and, though we 
 jumped out at once and spread the great tarpaulin over 
 nets and cots, it was too late, as everything was already 
 saturated, and when we got back under the nets we found 
 them so weighted down by the heavy tarp. that we were 
 enveloped in wet, clammy folds of gauze, with hardly room 
 to breathe. Each in turn, and at last both together, 
 driven to desperation by the discomfort, jumped out and 
 tried to remedy matters, though leaving the warm rugs to 
 face the cold, driving rain in wet pyjamas required a con- 
 siderable amount of resolution. Nothing, however, could 
 be done without stout stakes to support the tarp., and these 
 we had not got, so, after a half-hearted effort to hail the 
 Lilian Y, which we were sure would prove unavailing, even . 
 if anyone on board heard it, we returned to bed, and made 
 up our minds to a night of discomfort and semi-suffocation, 
 in which we were not disappointed. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Arrival at Boca Iglesias—Difficulty in Starting Up the Boca—Stuck in 
 the Mud—An Old Church—Curious Offerings on the Altar—Reflections 
 on the Deserted Church—Probable Date of the Church—Reason for 
 Its Isolated Situation—Cape Catoche and the Island of Holbox— 
 Arrival at Yalahau—We Sleep on Board—A Former Pirates’ Strong- 
 hold—An Old Stone Fort built to Subdue Piracy—Arrival at Cerro 
 Cuyo—Difference between the North and East of Yucatan—We reach 
 Silan—Set out on a Mule Special for the Interior—A Yucatecan 
 Ranch—Difficulty in Hiring a Tramvia—The Town of Silan—lIts 
 Resemblance to an Irish Village, in the Suburbs—Gigantic Mound in 
 the Town—The Spaniards driven out of Chichen Itza took refuge 
 here in 1531—-Ancient Stele from the Mound now set up in the Cabildo 
 Wall—Calendar Round Date on the Stele—Stele Built into Church 
 Wall—It had contained an Initial Series Date—The Pirate Laffite 
 buried at Silan—A Maya Tombstone from the Old Church—Difficulty 
 in getting Refreshments—We meet Members of the Municipalidad— 
 An Expensive Meal. 
 
 WE made an early start next morning, and, passing Cape 
 
 Catoche—‘ Cabo Catoche Historico,’ as the Spaniards call 
 
 it (to distinguish it from the present cape of that name, 
 
 which is situated on an island a few miles north, and was 
 the first point of land ever seen by Europeans on the North 
 
 American Continent)—arrived about 2 p.m. at Boca Iglesias. 
 
 Here a square church tower stands out prominently from 
 
 the surrounding bush, some miles inland, and it was this 
 
 church which we were anxious to visit by way of a shallow 
 arm of the sea, which ran almost directly up to it. The 
 pilot evidently did not want to set out on the trip that day, 
 and began to make excuses—first that we could not cross 
 the bar into the lagoon, next that we should not arrive 
 before dark, and lastly that the bush we had to traverse 
 was alive with ticks and snakes. Finally, after we had 
 embarked in the pram, determined to start in spite of all 
 opposition, the Evinrude settled the matter by refusing 
 156 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 157 
 
 to work, so a postponement till next day became necessary. 
 Hardly, however, had we re-embarked on the Lilian Y 
 than the engine started off gaily to take the men ashore to 
 gather green coco-nuts, of which they drink the milk by 
 the gallon, apparently with perfect impunity, though on us 
 it had most disastrous effects, comparable only to a stiff 
 dose of Epsom salts. 
 
 Next morning we made an early start in the pram, and, 
 passing up the narrow Boca (or mouth) against a pretty 
 stiff current, found ourselves in a large, shallow, muddy- 
 bottomed lagoon, studded with mangrove-covered islands, 
 and literally swarming with duck, teal, plover, spur wing, 
 spoonbill, and innumerable waders, while the warm, shallow 
 waters were full of small sharks or cazones, all attracted 
 by the countless myriads of small fry for which the tepid, 
 tranquil waters evidently acted as a sort of incubator. 
 We had hardly got half a mile along the lagoon when the 
 pram stuck firmly in the mud, and could not be moved. 
 Morley, Held, and myself, accompanied by George, promptly 
 took to a small dorey which we were towing, and left the 
 pram to Muddy and Alfredo to get off. George proved a 
 noble poler, and for perhaps a quarter of an hour we made 
 fine progress, then we also stuck fast on a weed-covered 
 mudbank. 
 
 For two weary hours in the broiling sun we kept trying 
 passage after passage through the cays and mudbanks, 
 but, though we could see the church hardly a mile away, there 
 seemed to be no channel leading to it, for every passage 
 ended in a cul de sac. Just as we were contemplating 
 a return to the Lilian Y we were hailed from the pram with 
 the joyful news that they had found the passage, but we 
 were separated by over a quarter of a mile of soft, weed- 
 grown mud, covered by only a few inches of water, and the 
 problem of how to cross this at once presented itself. The 
 mud gave no hold for the pole, and it was obvious that only 
 by main force (and a good deal of it at that) could the gulf 
 be crossed. The crew, resolving itself into a committee of 
 
158 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the whole crew, elected George (with one dissentient) for 
 the job, partly on account of his giant physique, partly 
 because even small sharks are reputed to entertain a dis- 
 taste to the Ethiop as an article of diet. George answered 
 heroically to the call, and went overboard like a shot, to 
 disappear at once nearly up to his armpits in the soft 
 mud, into which he sank deeper every moment. For- 
 tunately he had a hold on the stern of the dorey, and, 
 while we steadied her, he was able, by kicking and flounder- 
 ing, to bring himself into a more or less horizontal position 
 on the mud, where, lying mostly on his tummy, and using 
 his gigantic feet, driven by piston-like legs, as a propelling 
 force, he managed to shove us over all obstructions along- 
 side the pram. It was a great performance, and George’s 
 thunderous laugh every time he got a mouthful of mud and 
 salt water, and blew it out through that vast ivory-lined 
 chasm with a loud “ Hi-yah!’’ was well worth the trip 
 in itself. 
 
 Having once struck the channel, we soon arrived at the 
 shore of the lagoon nearest the church, where we found 
 a stone-paved causeway leading up through the swamp to 
 the higher ground upon which it stood. The structure 
 itself, built on a slight rising ground, was, like all the old 
 Spanish churches in this part of Yucatan, architecturally 
 very plain, and singularly lacking in adornment. It was 
 shaped like a tau, the head formed by the chancel, the stem 
 by the nave. The chancel is 25ft. high, 58ft. long, and 
 24ft. 6in. broad. The central part, which contains the 
 altar, opens into the nave by a great round arch. On 
 either side are square doors opening into rooms now occupied 
 by hundreds of bats, which give to the whole place a sour, 
 unpleasant odour. The roof is flat and machicolated, 
 leading us to suppose that the building served the double 
 purpose of church and fort. The nave, 72ft. 8in. long, is 
 approached by three entrances, one on the north, one on 
 the south, and one on the west side. The walls are oft. 
 high, and either the building was never roofed in, or—what 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 159 
 
 is more probable—was roofed with wooden rafters and 
 thatch, which have completely disappeared, as no trace 
 of a roof is now visible. Immediately behind the altar 
 a large hole has been torn in the wall, apparently with the 
 object of removing the image of a saint which had been 
 fixed there. 
 
 The altar itself, a solid block of masonry, approached by 
 two low steps, had upon it a curious collection of objects, 
 some of which appeared to have been there for years, while 
 others had evidently been placed there quite recently. 
 These consisted of several lumps of native incense made of 
 the gum of the white acacia, and used by the Maya in their 
 religious ceremonies for the last 2,000 years; a number 
 of loose “ lucky beans”’ ; a few conch shells ; some flowers 
 made from coloured shells; a glass full of lucky beans ; 
 a roughly made wooden cross, 2ft. high, draped in ribbons ; 
 three crosses—the central one large, the side ones small— 
 on a wooden stand; and lastly a tablet, upon which was 
 painted a crude picture of the Virgin, pinned to which were 
 several gorgeously coloured butterflies. The pilot told us 
 that the scattered Indians come for miles round to make 
 these offerings, and to perform their novenas at this old 
 deserted church. 
 
 It is nearly a hundred years since priests of the Roman 
 Catholic Church have gone amongst these Indians, yet the 
 faith dies hard, and devotees still exist who endeavour to 
 carry out something at least of the outward observances 
 of the ritual. We could not help thinking of the few poor 
 offerings which some faithful worshipper had left beside 
 the mutilated Chacmool statue, and which we had found 
 in excavating it. Here was the altar of the god who sup- 
 planted the Chacmool, now itself deserted, and honoured 
 only by a few tawdry offerings from the descendants of 
 those same Indians, whose religion is now a barbarous 
 combination of the various creeds held by their ancestors, 
 modified by their own ignorance, superstition, and hatred 
 of the dominant race. 
 
160 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 The church is known to the Indians as Xon Hom (pro- 
 nounced Shon Hom), but when and by whom it was erected, 
 and when and wherefore deserted, no man knows. The 
 probabilities were, however, that it was built some time in 
 the seventeenth century for the use of a poor Indian 
 congregation who lived exclusively in thatched huts, 
 which would account for the absence of any trace of ruined 
 stone houses in the vicinity. Why the whole of the inhabi- 
 tants should have cleared out incontinently, however, is 
 one of those insoluble mysteries which confronts one on 
 every hand in Yucatan. The isolated situation of the 
 settlement, inaccessible by land, and only to be arrived 
 at from the sea by the passage of a narrow and tortuous 
 passage through the lagoon, was obviously deliberately 
 chosen, probably with a view to defence against the 
 English and French buccaneers and pirates, who harried 
 this coast in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 The long passage of the lagoon, which would have to be 
 made slowly and in boats of light draft, would give the 
 inhabitants ample time to make up their minds either to 
 flee with their possessions into the impenetrable bush 
 of the /interland, or to put up a good fight from the 
 fortified roof of their church, whence, without artillery, 
 it would have been practically impossible to dislodge 
 them. 
 
 We left Boca Iglesia the next day, and, sailing north, 
 passed the headland now known as Cape Catoche about 
 2 p.m. The cape forms part of a long, narrow, sickle- 
 shaped island named Holbox, really a vast sandbank capping 
 the north-eastern extremity of the peninsula. From here 
 our course, which had hitherto been almost due north, 
 changed to west, and about 4.30 we put in at Holbox, the 
 principal village of the island—a picturesque little settle- 
 ment of about 150 people, all engaged in fishing and turtling, 
 who live in bush huts thatched with palm leaf. Even here 
 we found a Celador, or Customs official, and a Juez, or 
 judge, sent by the Federal Mexican Government, and, of 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 161 
 
 course, a Municipalidad, or Town Council, and an elabor- 
 ately laid-out plaza, without both of which the smallest 
 village in Yucatan seems unable to exist. 
 
 The people appeared uncommonly happy and contented, 
 as they did at all these coast settlements, and they were 
 certainly well supplied with corn, vegetables, fowls, eggs, 
 and fish, of which we laid in a supply. As at Mujeres, so 
 at Holbox, we were told that people rarely died of anything 
 but old age, and to pass out under ninety was rather a 
 reflection upon the salubrity of the island. 
 
 We anchored that night off Yalahau, on the mainland, 
 and all slept on board, as even Morley and I, much as we 
 loathed the Lilian Y at anchor as a bedchamber, were 
 loth to tackle the mist-enshrouded, swampy shore, with 
 mangrove growing to the water’s edge, the rotten piles of 
 an ancient wharf sticking up like broken fangs, and the 
 song of the mosquito and the bull-frog, with the melancholy 
 hooting of an owl, the only sounds to break the silence 
 of the fast-falling night. 
 
 Next morning early we boarded the pram to go ashore, 
 but could not get within ten yards of the beach owing to a 
 bank of sticky mud, over which it required the united 
 efforts of George, Muddy, and Hubert finally to shove 
 us. 
 
 Yalahau is one of the most melancholy and forsaken- 
 looking places it is possible to imagine, as if an aura of the 
 crimes which had been committed there formerly hung like 
 a pall over the place. It is a waste of mangrove swamp and 
 scrubby bush—the home of land crabs and snakes, and the 
 haunt of myriads of mosquitoes. A hundred years ago 
 it was the last stronghold of the pirates who infested this 
 part of the Spanish Main, being excellently well fitted for 
 this purpose, for it commanded a clear view of all shipping 
 passing between the island of Cuba and the mainland, and, 
 being surrounded by many leagues of swampy flats, traversed 
 by narrow, tortuous channels through which only boats of 
 light draft could pass, permitted the pirates, on the approach 
 
 LL 
 
162 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 of an enemy vessel too powerful for them to tackle, to retire 
 to their stronghold, and from thence, if pursued by boats, 
 to scatter through the bush, where it would be impossible 
 to hunt them out. These pirates, bloodthirsty and inhuman 
 scoundrels as their acts proclaim them to have been, were 
 popular enough amongst their neighbours along the coast, 
 who enjoyed no inconsiderable share in the flood of gold and 
 prosperity following in the wake of their robberies, without 
 any of the risk—indeed, at Stephens’ visit to the place, 
 seventy-six years ago, several of the old pirates were still 
 alive, and regarded by their neighbours as unfortunates 
 whose legitimate means of livelihood had been taken from 
 them by an over-scrupulous Government. 
 
 We saw the stone fort, with twelve embrasures, which 
 was originally built with a view to subduing the pirates, 
 but the officers and garrison of which, joining with them, 
 rendered them a worse pest than ever. It was constructed 
 of square stones taken from an ancient Indian ruin a couple 
 of leagues distant. Part of it had been pulled down to 
 erect a private residence, but even this latter is now in 
 ruins. 
 
 We left Yalahau at 7.40, arriving a couple of hours later 
 at Cerro Cuyo, a small town of 250 inhabitants, so called 
 because of a large ancient mound or “ cue”’ standing close 
 to the waterside, the top of which has now been truncated 
 to accommodate a small lighthouse. The town is situated 
 on the narrow sandbank which runs parallel with the whole 
 north coast of Yucatan, from which it is separated by a 
 long, narrow, shallow lagoon, known as the “ Rio Lagarto,” 
 or “ Alligator River,’ though it does not appear to harbour 
 many alligators, and is certainly not a river, being in the 
 dry season a swamp which may be crossed in many places 
 on foot, and, in the wet season a shallow lagoon closely 
 packed with mangrove cays. | 
 
 We noticed a great difference between Cerro Cuyo and the 
 settlements which we had hitherto visited. In the former 
 every man was his own master, doing a little fishing, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 163 
 
 turtling, hunting, or agriculture, as the spirit moved him, 
 but for the most part taking things easy with a cigarette, 
 a hammock, and—when times were good—a pint of rum. 
 
 In Cerro Cuyo, however, small though it is, a new air 
 of briskness and movement was noticeable ; bales of hene- 
 quen fibre and cedar logs were being taken out from the 
 hinterland on light railroads, which ran for many miles 
 back to the south and west, and nearly all the inhabitants 
 were employees of the “ Compania Commercial de Fincas 
 Rusticas,” or Commercial Company of Rural Estates, 
 which had large sugar, rum, and henequen estates in the 
 interior, took out woods and gums, and manufactured salt 
 on a large scale along the Rio Lagarto. It was, in fact, the 
 first town of the “ New Yucatan,” the busy, stirring, get- 
 rich-quick, northern part of the peninsula, as different from 
 the medizval east, which has changed little since the 
 conquest, as the city of New York from a New England 
 village. 
 
 At midnight we arrived at the port of Silan, anchoring 
 till the Celandor boarded us at six next morning. This is a 
 clean little town of 350 inhabitants, with the usual vast 
 plaza, one side of which is occupied by a church, now— 
 like nearly all churches throughout Yucatan—either closed 
 or employed for secular purposes. It is the port of the 
 town of Silan, three leagues in the interior, with which it is 
 connected by a Decauville light railroad, having covered-in 
 passenger coaches and a small gasolene engine. 
 
 The principal export of the place is henequen, or sisal fibre, 
 used by the International Harvester Company for binding 
 sheaves of corn, and without which it would be impossible 
 to harvest the vast American corn crop. Trainloads of 
 great shining oblong yellow bales of this kept coming out 
 on the little flat cars, while we looked on, for shipment to 
 Progreso in shallow draft bungays, from whence they 
 would be transhipped to the waiting steamers. Early as 
 we were, the only passenger train of the day had already 
 gone, drawn by the only available engine ; we were therefore 
 
164 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 compelled to hire a “ special,’ consisting of a mule-drawn 
 flat car, which could only take us about two-thirds of our 
 journey, to a farm where we were told we would have to 
 hire another mule special, as our own animal was urgently 
 needed at the terminus for shunting purposes. 
 
 We arrived safely at the farm—a huge adobe structure, 
 thatched with palm leaf, and surrounded by an immense 
 corral, in the centre of which stood the usual windmill and 
 water trough, ubiquitous throughout Yucatan, where 
 practically all the water is pumped up from deep wells and 
 cenotes. The place was really more a cattle ranch than a 
 farm, and in the corral were a few depressed-looking bony 
 steers and horses, while through the great plain outside, 
 covered with short grass burnt to the colour of hay, and 
 plentifully interspersed with patches of wiry bush, many 
 more half-starved animals wandered disconsolately about 
 in search of something to eat. 
 
 The farmer’s wife would at first on no account hire a 
 tramvia and mule to four suspicious-looking strangers, 
 and it required fully half an hour of Morley’s persuasive 
 eloquence, with a deposit in gold, to persuade her that we 
 were not such desperadoes as we looked, and might safely 
 be entrusted with a mule and tramvia, difficult objects in 
 any case to make away with. 
 
 We arrived about mid-day at a level crossing, which we 
 found was the junction for Silan, and, tying the mule up, 
 and leaving the car on a siding, had to trudge over nearly 
 two miles of shadeless limestone road, under the scorching 
 midday sun, before reaching the suburbs of the town. 
 These were for all the world like the suburbs of a large 
 village in the west of Ireland—mud-built, small-windowed, 
 earth-floored, thatched cottages, whitewashed outside, 
 with yards surrounded by crazy low walls, built of stones 
 placed on top of each other anyhow, and ready to fall if a 
 cat jumped over them, ducks, pigs, and goats wandering in 
 and out of the living-rooms at will, while the sole sanitary 
 arrangement consisted of a kitchen midden within convenient 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 165 
 
 distance of the window, from which most of the refuse was 
 thrown out. 
 
 From the suburbs we suddenly debouched into an im- 
 mense plaza, with the cabildo, or municipal buildings, on 
 one side, and opposite this the fine old church, now closed. 
 Just beyond the churchyard wall is one of the most gigantic 
 mounds in all Yucatan ; it is 50ft. high by 4ooft. long, and 
 is closely connected with another of almost equal size. 
 All the stone to build the church, the municipal buildings, 
 and most of the stone houses and walls in the town has been 
 taken out ot this vast mound without apparently reducing 
 its size very materially. Stephens, who visited the place in 
 1841, was told by the then curé that he could remember 
 the time when there stood on one side of the mounds great 
 terraced buildings and pillared porticos, which had since 
 fallen down, and we know that Silan was at the time of the 
 conquest an important city of the Maya, for it was here in 
 I531I A.D. that Montejo’s Spaniards retired after they had 
 been driven out of Chichen Itza, and, disgusted with the 
 hard life, the lack of gold, and the incessant fighting, deter- 
 mined to leave Yucatan for good. They were well received 
 by the young cacique, Anamix Chel, Lord of the Cheles, 
 and entertained by him very hospitably for several months, 
 during which their wounds healed, and they completely 
 recovered from the effects of their terrible experiences at 
 Chichen Itza. 
 
 After this, accounts of the further progress of the Spaniards 
 differ somewhat. Herrera says that, accompanied by some 
 of the Silan nobles, they marched across to Campeche by 
 land, whereas Cogolludo, following other contemporary 
 writers, thinks they marched over the route by which we 
 had just arrived to the port of Silan, and from there took 
 ship for Campeche. This latter is far the more probable, 
 as a march through a long stretch of country densely popu- 
 lated by hostile Indians, all of them hating the Spaniards, 
 and many of them at war with the Cheles themselves, 
 seems practically impossible. 
 
166 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Both mounds had evidently formed gigantic substruc- 
 tures for the support of great ranges of stone buildings, as 
 is indicated by the presence of stone-faced subterranean 
 chambers and arches, which are brought to light even now 
 when excavations are being made for fresh stone, and into 
 one of which (a good-sized arched room, recently discovered) 
 we descended. 
 
 The fact that these great palaces and temples, actually 
 in use about the middle of the sixteenth century, had 
 practically disappeared, leaving only mounds of ruins, a 
 century and a half later, a most unusual occurrence with 
 Maya buildings, many of which are but little altered after 
 I,000 years, can only be explained on the hypothesis that 
 they had been removed piecemeal, the fine squared stones 
 of the temples and palaces themselves first, for the construc- 
 tion of the church, public buildings, houses, and walls of 
 the modern town. We were shown a large flat slab of 
 stone, which some years previously had been removed 
 from the mound. It was now plastered into the back wall 
 of the cabildo, and exhibited in fairly high relief the legs, 
 with anklets and sandals, of a human figure somewhat larger 
 than life, standing upon a row of five glyphs, which rested 
 in turn upon the heads and shoulders of two smaller figures 
 of slaves, bent nearly double under the burden, and wearing 
 over their foreheads long, dependent feather ornaments. 
 
 Of the glyphs, reading from left to right, the first is 7 
 Muluc (the bar for 5 is very plain, but the two ovals 
 separated by a longer oval, standing for 2, have not come 
 out well in the photograph). The one next this is clearly 2 
 Kayab, the date recorded being 7 Muluc, the third day of 
 the month Kayab, but this is a calendar round date only, 
 and recurs every 18,980 days, or approximately 52 years, 
 and, as no period ending is given which would fix the date 
 more accurately, it is practically useless to us, and is, in 
 fact, equivalent to fixing a date in the Christian era as 
 occurring on a certain oth July in the 18th year of an 
 unknown century; thus, 9.7.18. To contemporaneous 
 
"NVLVOOA ‘VCIMNAW AO TXID VZILSAW 
 
 “GVAVIVdIOINAW VI Ad 
 VSVO NI MON GNNOW WOU ATALS NAMOUT “NVTIS 
 
 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 167 
 
 people the century was easily supplied, just as to the Maya 
 who wrote this 2 Muluc 7 Kayab the cycle did not need to 
 be expressed, but to archeologists finding it a few centuries 
 later it is the most essential part of the whole inscription. 
 
 The individual who fixed this stone in the wall of the 
 cabildo must have been something of a humorist in his way, 
 as he has executed in plaster, standing on the legs of the 
 ancient Maya chief or king, the very crude figure of a Spanish 
 soldier, with musket, fixed bayonet, belt, and shoulder strap. 
 
 On visiting the church we were greatly excited at finding, 
 built into the wall which surrounds it, a small stele, having 
 sculptured upon its exposed side the figure of a warrior in 
 low relief, surrounded by rows of glyphs. The top glyph in 
 the left-hand corner was obviously the introducing glyph 
 to an Initial Series, and the other glyphs in the column had 
 evidently had numerical coefficients in front of them, which 
 left no doubt in our minds that this had originally contained 
 an Initial Series date, from which we could have worked 
 out the exact date of the inscription in Christian chronology. 
 Unfortunately the stone, which was a not very tough 
 limestone, was so worn that it was not possible to decipher 
 either numbers or glyphs. We all tried it in every light 
 and from every position. We wet it, and then we scrubbed 
 it, we sat round it for hours like vultures round a dying 
 mule, and at length even photographed it, but all to no 
 purpose ; it completely eluded us. 
 
 The pirate Laffite, probably one of the most famous 
 (or rather infamous) buccaneers of the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century, had at one time pursued his calling along 
 this part of the coast of Yucatan, and been buried in the 
 church at Silan, and we were anxious to see his grave, but 
 not only was this not known, but his very name had been 
 forgotten. Such is fame! 
 
 The church had apparently been built upon the foundation 
 of a much more ancient structure, part of which, in the 
 form of arches and low walls, was still standing. 
 
 Built into the wall of the present church we found a 
 
 Neb te 
 
168 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 tablet which had evidently been removed from the older 
 building, and of which we could make nothing. On taking 
 a photograph we found that it had been plastered in upside 
 down, but even right side up it is nearly as incomprehensible. 
 The only easily distinguishable part of the inscription is the 
 date, 1739, with which the second line commences. It is 
 probably the gravestone of a Maya Indian who died and 
 was buried in the church in the year 1739, the curious 
 lettering consisting partly of those weird symbols used by 
 the Spaniards to express Maya letters and syllables not 
 capable of being written in Castillian, and partly of abbre- 
 viations. Like the calendar round date in the cabildo, 
 the inscription, though no doubt perfectly plain to a con- 
 temporary padre with a knowledge of Maya, is a sealed 
 book to the modern. 
 
 It was curious that of the three date inscriptions which 
 we found at Silan, the Initial Series probably going back to 
 about the seventh century of our era, the calendar round 
 date to the fifteenth or sixteenth, and the Christian to the 
 early eighteenth, only the last, which from an archeological 
 point of view is by far the least important, should be 
 decipherable. 
 
 After our labours in the church were finished we found 
 ourselves exceedingly hungry and thirsty, and promptly 
 went forth in search of something to eat. At the cabildo 
 we were given plenty of beautifully cool, clear, well water, 
 but discovered that, this being a purely Indian village, 
 nothing in the way of a restaurant existed, the only articles 
 of food obtainable being fowls, pork, tortillas, and beans, 
 and as everyone produced their own supply of these, it 
 would have been superfluous to offer them for sale cooked. 
 We sent Muddy out to forage, and he returned in about 
 half an hour with an ancient and very small Indian, who had 
 recently lost his wife, and, actuated presumably by the 
 same beneficent instinct which moves a dog to adopt a 
 family of orphan puppies, agreed to supply us—for a con- 
 sideration—with lunch, which would be ready in about 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 169 
 
 an hour. We passed the time sitting in the cool of the 
 cabildo veranda chatting to the Mayor and serveral mem- 
 bers of the Municipal Council, who strolled up one by one, 
 hearing that strangers had visited the town. These men 
 were undoubtedly descendants of those Indians who had 
 erected the mounds, sculptured the inscriptions, and later 
 assisted the Spaniards of Montejo in their dire necessity, 
 yet they took not the slightest interest in the history or 
 traditions of their great ancestors, who enjoyed a high 
 degree of civilisation at a period when our own forebears 
 were scratching impressionist sketches on a soup bone 
 chastely clad in a coat of blue paint. Their chief plaint 
 was against the Federal Government, and, indeed, Yucatan is 
 in this, as in many other ways, extremely like the Emerald 
 Isle, in that everyone is “‘ agin the Government.”’ It was 
 useless to point out to them that the peons had recently 
 been liberated from what was practically a state of slavery 
 by the Carranza Government, that wages were never so 
 high, and prosperity never so universal throughout Yucatan, 
 as at present; they contended that though the poor peon 
 might, and in fact did, now get up to five dollars gold per 
 day as a free labourer, yet was this more than counter- 
 balanced by the increase in price of necessities, forgetting 
 that where in former years the Indian was satisfied with 
 enough tortillas, frijoles, and chili for himself and family, 
 with an occasional egg or a piece of meat as a treat, and 
 sufficient brown cotton to make clothes, for himself, wife, 
 and children, he now wanted European clothes, canned 
 goods, and condensed milk—and, what is more, he gets 
 them, yet is apparently far less contented with his lot than 
 in the old days of peonage. 
 
 The discussion was hardly begun when Muddy announced 
 the joyful news that lunch was ready, and we retired to our 
 host’s little round hut, away off in the suburbs, to partake 
 of it. An ancient rooster, sacrificed for the occasion, 
 formed the piéce de résistance, helped out by corn cakes, 
 beans, and sauce of chili pepper and raw onions chopped 
 
170 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 together, the whole washed down by coffee made of ground 
 parched maize. We were too hungry to be critical, and 
 were really thankful to our host, who was apparently the 
 only person in the town willing to feed us at any price, 
 though his charge of ten silver dollars (just over five 
 dollars gold) seemed rather steep. We admired our table- 
 cloth and serviettes immensely. Though made of coarse 
 cotton, they were beautifully worked with figures of quaint 
 mythological monsters and cubist figures of birds and 
 animals done in bright-coloured thread, evidently relics 
 of the old gentleman’s deceased wife. 
 
 Immediately after lunch we set out on the return journey, 
 and when just at the confines of the town heard singing 
 in a house, where we were told that a santo, who had been 
 discovered a short time ago in the bush, was receiving a 
 novena. ‘Thinking that this santo might be one of the large 
 stucco temple figures of the Ancients, we quietly entered 
 the house, where we found a few of the devout seated on 
 forms in front of a very ordinary wooden figure of a Christian 
 saint, evidently taken from an old Spanish church, which, 
 like so many similar buildings put up after the conquest, 
 when labour was cheap and the population large, was soon 
 deserted and buried in the all-embracing bush, as the 
 Indian population became rapidly exterminated under the 
 exactions of their Spanish masters. 
 
 We found our mule and tramvia undisturbed, and 
 arrived without incident in the port at nightfall, boarded 
 the Lilian Y, weighed anchor, and, after a successful 
 night’s run, arrived soon after midnight in the port of 
 Progreso on the 6th February. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Arrival at Progreso—English and Americans popular in Yucatan—We 
 are Relieved of our Arms—High Cost of Living and Service—Inflated 
 Wages—Resemblance of Merida to Monte Carlo—Mass-no Longer 
 Celebrated in the Churches—Palace of Francisco Montejo—Sculptured 
 Facade all the Work of Native Artists—Damage Done in Cathedral 
 by Mexican Federal Troops—Flower Decorated Plaza Chief 
 Rendezvous—Boot Cleaning—Reason for Few Entertainments being 
 Given by Meridanos to Foreigners—Caste Barriers being Broken 
 Down—Mestizas Formerly Compelled to Wear Special Dress—Native 
 Dress of Men and Women—High Prices—No Alcohol on Sale—An 
 Unfortunate Incident—Meridanos All Speak Maya, and many English 
 —The Governor of Yucatan—A Successful Administration—Sefior 
 Don Juan Martinez, an Accomplished Maya Scholar—Guardians of 
 the Ruins—Land Barons of Yucatan, their Recent Rapid Enrichment 
 —Molina Solis, the Historian—Early Start of Trains from Merida— 
 Arrival in Dzibalché—Hiring a Fotingo—Ranch of San Luis—Decline 
 of Cattle Ranches in Yucatan—A Bad Road for Motoring—Arrival 
 at the Ruins of Dzibalché—Descriptions of the Temples—Unde- 
 cipherable Inscriptions—The Initial Series Inscription—The Date 
 Recorded by it is the Latest of all Long Count Inscriptions— 
 Historically not Improbable. 
 
 WE were boarded by the Customs and Health Authorities 
 at 8.30 next morning, and on learning that the party con- 
 sisted of two American citizens and a British subject the 
 progress of our baggage through the usual Customs for- 
 malities was greatly expedited, for the Yucatecans, unlike 
 most Mexicans, are extremely friendly both to Great 
 Britain and the U.S.A., one reason being that most of their 
 imports are derived from the latter country, while henequen 
 —practically their only export—finds a ready market 
 there. There is no harbour at Progreso, consequently 
 ships are compelled to anchor out in the open roadstead to 
 gigantic sunken chains provided by the Government for 
 that purpose, for which privilege they pay five dollars 
 gold daily. 
 
 At the Custom House we were relieved of the arsenal 
 
 171 
 
172 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 of automatics, revolvers, and belts and bandoliers of 
 cartridges carried by Morley and Held, as no one is permitted 
 to carry firearms in the State of Yucatan—a most excellent 
 and thoroughly sensible regulation, showing a compre- 
 hensive knowledge on the part of the authorities of the 
 psychology of their countrymen. If such a law were only 
 enforced throughout Latin America it would do more to 
 civilise the country and abolish the perennial revolutions 
 than all the talk of all the “ patriots.” 
 
 We had heard a good deal about the high wages and high 
 cost of living in Yucatan, but our first personal experience of 
 it consisted in having to pay ten dollars gold for a cart to 
 transfer our baggage from the Custom House to the railway- 
 station, a distance of about a quarter of a mile. We 
 simply reviled the cartman at first when he made this 
 apparently extortionate demand, but soon discovered to our 
 sorrow that the transfer of baggage is a sort of monopoly, 
 for which the fortunate monopolists charge practically 
 “all the traffic will bear ’’—in other words as much as they 
 think the victim’s pocket will stand. Fortunately for us, 
 our own appearance and that of our baggage, after a month 
 of the Lilian Y, were equally disreputable, so we. got off 
 comparatively lightly. 
 
 The pier master—well known to me, as he had formerly 
 been a clerk in the British Honduras Government Service— 
 told us that on the piers and wharves unskilled labourers 
 were being paid five dollars gold daily, while skilled steve- 
 dores, with overtime, sometimes made as much as twenty- 
 five dollars in twenty-four hours. I wonder what proportion 
 of professional men—lawyers, parsons, doctors—either in 
 England or the United States make such incomes as these ? 
 
 We caught the 10.30 train for Merida, arriving in little 
 over an hour, after an extremely unpleasant journey in a 
 crowded carriage—hot as an oven, and permeated by the 
 fine limestone dust of the peninsula, which induces in 
 new-comers, till they get used to it, an unpleasant state of 
 suffocation. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 173 
 
 Merida is one of the prettiest, cleanest, gayest little 
 capitals it has been my good fortune to visit. In many 
 ways it reminds one of Monte Carlo in the season. The 
 warm climate, the scrupulous cleanliness of the streets and 
 plazas, the flowers, music, and sunshine, the crowds of 
 pretty, well-dressed girls, the numbers of prosperous- 
 appearing idlers, the absence of poverty, squalor, and 
 ugliness, and the perpetual air of festa, are all common to 
 both. 
 
 The Plaza de Independencia is the main plaza or square, 
 and the chief place of rendezvous of the town. Its north 
 side is occupied by the State Executive Palace, its south 
 by the Montejo Palace, its west by the Municipal Palace, 
 while on its east side stands the fine old sixteenth century 
 cathedral, where, though the devout are allowed to enter 
 and pray in front of the altar, Mass is no longer celebrated, 
 as all the padres, with the exception of one or two in Merida 
 and Campeche (who, however, do not celebrate the Mass, 
 but confine themselves to the performance of baptisms and 
 weddings) have been expelled from Yucatan, amongst them 
 the Archbishop, who is at present in exile in Cuba, and 
 whose fine old palace adjoining the cathedral has now been 
 converted into Government offices. 
 
 Carrancista soldiers, under General Alvarado, did a great 
 deal of damage in the cathedral when they entered Merida, 
 burning the magnificent, priceless old seventeenth century 
 reredos and gilded carving of the altar, and practically 
 destroying the ecclesiastical library, which contained four 
 copies of the first edition of Cogolludo’s Historia de Yucathan, 
 a work indispensable to the student of Maya archeology. 
 In the somewhat remote hope that these might have been 
 preserved by some marauding soldier, we inserted an 
 advertisement several times in the Voz de la Revolucion, 
 the principal paper and official organ of the Government in 
 Yucatan, offering to purchase copies of Cogulludo, without 
 result, however; and, indeed, no Mexican soldier would 
 have looked upon four ancient volumes as worthy loot, and, 
 
174 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 like Bishop Landa, when dealing with MSS. of the aborigines 
 three centuries previously, would probably have cast them 
 into the fire, as in his opinion likely to perpetuate a pernicious 
 and worn-out religious system. 
 
 The facade of the Montejo Palace is a very fine one, 
 decorated with many statues of Spanish ladies in the dress 
 of the period, knights in armour, and scantily-clothed 
 Indians. All the carving is said to have been done by native 
 Indian sculptors, and this is probably the case, as we realise 
 from the remains they have left behind their remarkable 
 cleverness in stone work of all kinds. The decoration of the 
 hated conqueror’s palace with statues of the haughty 
 Spaniard in full armour triumphing over their own half- 
 clad chiefs, exhibited, moreover, on the facade of the 
 principal house in the principal square, for all who passed 
 to see, must have been a bitterly hateful task to the Indian 
 artists, whose pride of birth and the length and purity of 
 whose descent equalled the proudest Castillian of them 
 all. 
 
 The plaza is slightly raised and asphalted ; like the streets, 
 it is kept scrupulously clean, and is covered with beds of 
 beautiful sweet-smelling flowering shrubs and trees, amidst 
 which are walks supplied with free seats, while at night, 
 from eight to ten, the whole place is brilliantly illuminated. 
 An excellent band plays, and it is then that all Merida comes 
 forth to enjoy itself. Some ride slowly round and round the 
 outer zone in automobiles, looking at the crowd, listening to 
 the band, and exchanging smiles, nods, bows, and finger 
 twiddlings with their friends passing on foot, or in other 
 autos. Others promenade round the inner zone, or sit on 
 the seats, to see and be seen, while neat, polite little boys 
 flit silently amongst the crowd, selling dulce and cigarettes, 
 or carrying tiny boot-cleaning outfits ready to give one’s 
 shoes a shine for the modest sum of 50 cents, for no Meridano 
 seems to get his boots cleaned in the morning, or at his own 
 house, but waits till he goes abroad and engages a bootblack, 
 of whom there are swarms throughout the city. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 178 
 
 It is a curious fact that amongst a people so fond of inno- 
 cent pleasure private entertainments are conspicuous by 
 their absence. Dinners at their own houses are rare, and 
 dances of still less frequent occurrence. Even foreigners 
 bringing letters of introduction to native families are 
 rarely entertained at their private houses, but feasted—on 
 an elaborate scale, it is true—at clubs, hotels, or restaurants. 
 One reason for this, I believe, is that on more than one 
 occasion foreign travellers who have been entertained at the 
 private residences of the native aristocracy have, on writing 
 their experiences later, given most unflattering—and, it 
 must be admitted, unfair—descriptions of the home life 
 and morals of the Meridanos. 
 
 Everywhere the country is in a transitional state. The 
 old order is giving place to the new, and the Mestizo and 
 peon (the latter, till freed by Alvarado, a virtual slave) 
 are breaking down the barriers of caste which separated 
 them from the Spanish Yucatecan, and gradually becoming 
 free citizens of a free Republic. At one time the Indians 
 and Mestizas, or women of mixed Spanish and Indian blood, 
 were compelled to wear a distinguishing costume consisting 
 of the huipil (a long, loose, sleeveless cotton garment cut 
 square and rather low at the neck), anda #7k, or cotton petti- 
 coat reaching to the ankles. These huzfils were always 
 kept scrupulously clean, and often exquisitely embroidered 
 by the owners at the neck, armholes, and bottom of the 
 skirt with gaily coloured cotton in all sorts of fantastic 
 devices. Their magnificent black hair, ribbon adorned, 
 was worn braided, hanging down the back, sometimes 
 covered with a shawl, while the richer ones were often 
 loaded with jewellery—chains, rosaries, earrings, rings, and 
 brooches. This undemocratic regulation has now been 
 abolished, and Indians and Mestizas dress as they like. The 
 garments of their ancestors are, however, hard to cast off, 
 and many of the elder women, even in Merida, still cling to 
 them, with the result that one not infrequently sees an 
 old mother promenading about the plaza in bare head, 
 
176 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 moccasined feet, and loose huipil and pik, arm in arm with 
 her daughter in high-heeled shoes, elaborate coiffure, 
 surmounted by a still more elaborate hat, and clothed 
 in the latest importation in the way of gowns from 
 the U.S.A. It must, however, be admitted that the mother’s 
 costume is by far the more becoming, as well as comfortable, 
 for the female Yucatecan of all classes almost invariably 
 possesses a figure short and somewhat broad, with practically 
 no waistline marked by nature, eminently unfitted for 
 the clothes of modern civilisation. 
 
 Many Indian workmen may still be seen wearing a short 
 striped apron, the distinguishing badge of their class, 
 which formerly they were compelled to wear, and now 
 continue, apparently from sheer inability to break a centuries- 
 long custom, though the compulsion no longer exists. 
 
 At the best hotels, if one asks for the excellent corn cake 
 of the country he is regarded with mild contempt as an 
 unprogressive countryman, and, indeed, the toothsome 
 tortilla has in the city been largely superseded by atrocious 
 white bread. Even fosole, the native drink made from 
 ground corn and drunk all over the Maya area for the last 
 2,000 years, is now offered for sale at the little kiosks and 
 stalls round the plaza in the form of posole helada, or iced 
 posole } 
 
 The whole country was practically bone dry, no alcohol 
 except beer and light wine being on sale. The former is 
 so very mild that it would be impossible to drink sufficient 
 of it to induce intoxication, while the price of the latter is 
 so prohibitive that no one but a millionaire could afford 
 to buy sufficient of it to produce the same result. In 
 consequence of this strict prohibition an unfortunate contre- 
 temps occurred to us. Morley had six bottles of claret on 
 board the Lilian Y, which he insisted upon landing, and 
 which we brought safely through the Customs, quite ignorant 
 that any duty had to be paid on them. These wretched 
 bottles of claret proved a white elephant to us, as we lugged 
 them about all over the country, though no one thought of 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 177 
 
 drinking any. On returning from Chichen to Merida, 
 however, they were, as usual, bestowed in our grub box, 
 which an over-zealous Customs official, who had had some 
 misunderstanding with Muddy, insisted on _ searching. 
 He said nothing at the time, but telegraphed the authorities 
 in Merida, who arrested the unfortunate Muddy, who was in 
 charge of the luggage, on his arrival, and hauled him off to 
 the police station. Wemeanwhile had taken an auto for the 
 hotel, as Muddy had always proved himself capable of 
 clearing the baggage. 
 
 The next we heard of the matter was the arrival of a 
 small policeman an hour or so later to tell us of Muddy’s 
 plight, and the retention of most of our luggage in the 
 police station, whither we hurried at once. We found 
 Muddy sitting peacefully on a bench in the office, quite 
 undisturbed. Nothing, however, would induce the sergeant 
 to let him depart till the arrival of the Chief of Police, who, 
 we were told, was closeted in his office, and would appear 
 before long. We sent out for some food for Muddy, and, 
 not liking to desert him, Morley and I took it in turns to 
 sit up with him till about 2 a.m., when, as it became obvious 
 the chief was not on the premises at all, we retired to the 
 hotel to bed, which was just as well, for he did not arrive 
 till Ir a.m. next morning, when he very politely expressed 
 his sorrow for the inconvenience we had been put to, 
 and dismissed Muddy in triumphant possession of the 
 claret. 
 
 One is loth, however, to criticise the Yucatecans, for 
 their kindliness, cleanliness, hospitality, and cheerful 
 optimism far outweigh their minor faults ; and whereas the 
 latter are ephemeral, and rather the result of a rapidly 
 developing civilisation than temperamental, the latter are 
 permanent, and ingrained in the Yucatecan character. 
 Nearly everyone in Merida can speak Maya in addition to 
 Spanish, and an astonishingly large proportion of the 
 people have at least a working knowledge of English; so 
 much so that it behoves one to be remarkably careful not 
 
 Mi 
 
178 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 to make adverse criticisms aloud in that language of the 
 native manners and customs. Morley overheard an Indian 
 urchin shouting to one of his companions: “ Conex, conex, 
 jugar baseball, ten catcher, tech pitcher ’”—‘‘ Come along, 
 come along to play baseball, I catcher, you pitcher’’—Maya, 
 Spanish, and good Americanese, all mixed in one sentence. 
 On the 27th we were received in the State Executive 
 Palace by His Excellency Carlos Castro Morales, Governor 
 of Yucatan. What struck us most forcibly at first sight of 
 him was his immense and colossal size, for, though not very 
 tall, he was tremendously broad and thick, yet extra- 
 ordinarily active for a man of such vast bulk. He smoked 
 brown orozus—Mexican cigarettes—from morning to night, 
 the stub of one serving as a light for its successor. These 
 were covered with paper impregnated with liquorice, and 
 the tobacco they contained was so saturated in saltpetre that 
 it burnt like a time-fuse, which it strongly resembled in 
 flavour and smell. The Governor was at one time an 
 operative on the Yucatecan railroad, and, being a man of 
 considerable ability, was put in by the Socialists, as 
 Governor. He proved a success from the first, and never 
 has the country enjoyed such prosperity, and never were the 
 labouring classes so free, and never have they received such 
 wages as during his régime. He was very pleasant and 
 agreeable to us, asking many questions as to the object of 
 our visit, and showing no mean knowledge of the archeology 
 and former history of the country. Indeed, he put me right 
 in the spelling of the Maya word “ Chachac”’ in the title 
 of a little pamphlet of mine he had read, and which should 
 have been written “‘ Chachac,”’ to denote the Maya explosive 
 “Ch.”” We found that he spoke with equal facility Spanish 
 and Maya. On my expressing regret at seeing all the 
 churches closed and padres banished, and asking if he were a 
 Catholic, he struck his great chest with his fist, like a drum, 
 and shouted: “ No, Sevor, yo no estoy Catolico, yo no estoy 
 Protestante, ‘yo soy Pensador libre’’—‘‘ No, sir, I am not a 
 Catholic, I am not a Protestant, I am a Free Thinker ’’— 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 179 
 
 and as this matter of religion bid fair to lead to friction, 
 we quickly changed the subject. He gave us each an open 
 letter addressed to all Government officials and others 
 throughout Yucatan, advising them to give us every aid 
 and assistance in their power in the prosecution of our 
 archeological work, and, furthermore, put the railroad 
 automobiles at our disposal, to convey us to any ruins or 
 places of interest which we might wish to visit ; and so with 
 mutual expressions of goodwill we took leave of the most 
 genial, human, and successful Socialist it has ever been my 
 good fortune to meet. On numerous occasions we met 
 Sehor Don Juan Martinez, recently representative in the 
 U.S.A. of the ‘‘ Commission Reguladora de Henequen ”’ of 
 Yucatan, which practically controls the entire trade of the 
 State. He had previously been Government Inspector 
 of Ruins, and introduced us to his son who now occupied 
 that office. Mr. Juan Martinez is an extremely intelligent 
 man, with a thorough knowledge of English, very strong 
 American sympathies, and an acquaintance with the ancient 
 written Maya language probably unsurpassed in the 
 Peninsula. He has translated MS. records in old Maya 
 dating from just after the conquest, as well as portions of 
 the books of Chilam Balaam, the ancient Indian historical 
 records kept by each town at first in the glyphic system 
 employed by the Mayas before the conquest, but later 
 translated into Spanish by some educated Indian very soon 
 after the conquest. It is greatly to be hoped that, having 
 at least temporarily abandoned his labours as an ambassador 
 of commerce, Mr. Martinez may be willing to turn his 
 unique knowledge of ancient Maya to account, and publish 
 some of the MSS., translations which he has made, of old 
 Indian records and documents, which may otherwise be 
 lost to the student of Maya archeology for ever. Mr. 
 Martinez, junior, the present Government Inspector of 
 Ruins, was extremely kind to us ; giving us letters of intro- 
 duction to the local Guardianes of the ruins, who are 
 all under his supervision : for the Government realising at 
 
180 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 length the immense value and interest of these wonderful 
 memorials of the past, has placed one or more guardians or 
 caretakers in each of the principal ruins, who are paid by the 
 state, and whose business it is to keep the buildings clean 
 and free from bush, and to see that none of the statues, 
 inscriptions, stucco paintings, etc., are removed by visitors, 
 as they have been practically indiscriminately in the 
 past. It may be also that the Government were not 
 unwilling to demonstrate to outsiders that a Socialist 
 Administration can not only lead the State to a material 
 prosperity hitherto unknown, but alone of all the Govern- 
 ments which have ruled Yucatan since the time of the 
 conquest, is sufficiently enlightened to actually spend a 
 considerable amount of money in the preservation of her 
 artistic and archeological memorials. He also took us 
 round to the owners of ranches on which the ruins were 
 situated, or to their representatives in Merida, and from 
 them we obtained letters to their major-domos instructing 
 them to provide us with food, lodging, transport, or in fact 
 anything within their power which we might require. 
 Probably in no country in the world would hospitality have 
 been carried so far as the provision of free bed and board 
 for an indefinite period, for a number of practically unknown 
 strangers. But the land barons of Yucatan occupy in 
 many ways a unique position. Their vast estates, often 
 grants from the Spanish crown, dating back to the days of 
 the conquest, run to hundreds of thousands of acres, their 
 Indian and Mestizo peons are numbered by hundreds, 
 sometimes even by the thousand, while the country houses 
 where they spend the hot season are often so vast as to 
 resemble rather royal palaces than private dwellings. Their 
 revenues, which in former days were indeed meagre, being 
 derived from the few head of stock carried by their vast 
 stretches of stony arid land, have, since the introduction of 
 henequen, for the cultivation of which this land is peculiarly 
 well adapted, swollen in the most Aladdin-like manner, till 
 Merida is reported to contain more millionaires in proportion 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 181 
 
 to its population than any city in the world—not excluding 
 Pittsburg. 
 
 We had several very interesting interviews with Don 
 Francisco Juan Molina Solis, the historian of Yucatan, 
 whose works, the Historia de la Conquista de Yucatan 
 and Yucatan durante la dominacion Espatola, have a 
 wide circulation amongst archeologists outside the Penin- 
 sula. Notwithstanding his great age he is now engaged in 
 writing a history of Yucatan from the end of the Spanish 
 rule to the present day. His knowledge of the conquest of 
 the various tribes of Maya with whom the Spaniards came 
 in contact, the cities and territories occupied by them, and 
 of the early ecclesiastical history of Yucatan, is absolutely 
 unsurpassed and unique. Indeed, he and Don Juan 
 Martinez are almost the only survivals of a generation who 
 regarded a knowledge of the wonderful history and literature 
 of their own country as more important than a foremost 
 place in the mad rush for wealth, which now alone seems to 
 occupy the people of Yucatan. 
 
 At 6 a.m. on the morning of March 1st we left Merida 
 by the Campeche railroad, with the object of visiting the 
 ruins of Holactun, situated at a distance of about I00 
 kilometres from the capital, where we hoped to find, and 
 possibly decipher, one of the three Initial Series dates known 
 to exist in Yucatan ; after which we intended to go on to 
 Campeche by rail, and there meet Held, who had already 
 left by the Lilian Y from Progreso, with a view to calling 
 in at, and examining, the coast towns between the two 
 places. The trains from Merida to points throughout the 
 peninsula all seem to start in the very early hours of the 
 morning, an extremely awkward arrangement for travellers, 
 as life at the hotels does not commence till between 7 and 
 8 a.m. with the service of tea, coffee, chocolate, and pan 
 dulce, and to ask for anything of the sort before 6 a.m. would 
 be looked upon by the extremely independent servants of 
 the Socialist régime as nothing short of a British outrage. 
 As we expected to be away for several days we had to take 
 
182 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 cots, blankets, a change of clothes, and photographic and 
 drawing outfits, and by the aid of two of the clean, fast 
 little public automobiles, the most efficient and the only 
 really reasonably cheap service in Yucatan, just succeeded 
 in getting our luggage registered (a Herculean task in itself) 
 and catching the train. We managed to seize half a dozen 
 good-sized cakes of pan dulce, which resembled very stodgy 
 sponge cakes, at the station, upon which, without the aid 
 of any liquid to wash it down, we made shift for breakfast ; 
 but long, long before the train covered the 100 kilometres 
 between Merida and Dzibalché, the nearest station to the 
 ruins, we were consumed by an overwhelming thirst, in no 
 wise relieved by the heat and clouds of limestone dust in 
 the carriage. On arriving at Dzibalché, a parched-looking 
 Indian town of possibly 4,000 inhabitants, with most of the 
 adobe walled, leaf-thatched houses standing in large, dirty, 
 untidy bush-grown lots, surrounded by unmortared stone 
 walls, we hired the only cart at the station to take our 
 baggage to the plaza, as being the most likely place in the 
 town to hire horses, and trudged behind it ourselves in the 
 blistering heat of the sun’s rays reflected from the glaring 
 white limestone soil. 
 
 On arriving at the plaza, what was our delight to find a 
 little ‘‘ Ford,” known all over Yucatan as “ Fotingos,”’ 
 the Aztec diminutive ‘‘ 7mgo’’ having been first affixed to 
 the “ Ford ”’ in affectionate appreciation of the wonders the 
 little cars can do in this roadless land, and the resulting 
 combination being later rendered “ Fotingo’”’ by the 
 Indians. The owner, Sefior Candelario, agreed to take us 
 that day to the Rancho of San Luis, and from thence, if 
 car made by mortal hands could accomplish it, on to 
 Holactun, which had never been visited by motor. Parched 
 with thirst, we enquired whether it were possible to get some 
 light beer, but were informed that only through the President 
 of the Municipality could this be accomplished, as in the 
 state-wide prohibition Dzibalché had suffered even worse 
 than the capital, for the sale of both beer and light wines 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 183 
 
 was prohibited here. We made a bee-line for the house of 
 El Presidente, and found that he not only gave the per- 
 mission, but dispensed the beer himself, and even so far 
 honoured us as to join in the consumption. We reached 
 the ranch house of San Luis safely soon after midday, over 
 a very rough road, covered in places with great blocks of 
 limestone six inches high, in others presenting perpendicular 
 limestone ridges a foot high to be surmounted. San Luis 
 is the property of Sefior Sixto Garcia, at one time one of the 
 richest and most hospitable men in Yucatan, but now, 
 unfortunately, an exile in Cuba, where, we were informed, he 
 drove a taxi for a living in the city of Havana. It was 
 almost exclusively a cattle and horse ranch, and, though 
 running to thousands of acres of rough grazing, was one of 
 the smallest of his vast possessions. These great estates, 
 with immense tracts of land surrounding them, and their 
 hundreds of peons practically the property of the ranchero, 
 and actually transferred as assets with the ranch, have not 
 prospered under the new régime, except in the henequen 
 belt. The peons have been freed, and have either started 
 fincas, or small farms, of their own, or have gone off to other 
 employers, where they receive ten times their former wages. 
 A great deal of the land has gone out of cultivation, the 
 buildings are going to ruin, while the vancheros, formerly 
 little less than reigning princes, are now for the most part 
 eating the bitter bread of poverty in exile. San Luis 
 presented a melancholy picture of this type of ranch ; the 
 labourers’ houses are all empty and falling to pieces. Where 
 formerly one hundred peons were regularly employed, the 
 place is now in charge of an old man who acts as care- 
 taker of the owner’s house, with one mozo to assist him, 
 while the pasture is rapidly growing up in tough, wiry bush. 
 
 On our arrival the old caretaker at once produced oranges, 
 and promised eggs and tortillas as soon as his wife could get 
 the fire going. A curious anomaly with regard to the orange 
 supply in Yucatan is that whereas at almost any village the 
 owner will give one a dozen oranges off his trees just as 
 
184 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 freely as he would a glass of water, and with as little idea 
 of asking for payment, yet the selfsame orange, carried 
 perhaps a hundred yards to the railway station (and with 
 no change except that its green outer coat has been neatly 
 sliced off, leaving it in its white underclothes for more 
 convenient manipulation, ““ More Yucateco,”’ by slicing in 
 two and sucking), sells for anything from five cents to ten 
 cents gold to thirst-consumed passengers in this thirsty 
 land. We had hoped to find a guide at San Luis, to the 
 ruins of Holactun; but, all the peons having departed, we 
 were, of course, disappointed, so set out for Xcalumkin 
 Savanna, a vast extent of low bush and grass, hidden some- 
 where within which we knew the ruins lay, in the hope that 
 we might discover a guide there. The road was far worse 
 than the one from Dzibalché to San Luis ; indeed, in places 
 it was evidently the dry and very stony bed of a torrent 
 which passed through the close, scrubby bush of the country, 
 where we were compelled to lower the hood, which was 
 getting torn to pieces by the numberless thorns and spines 
 which every bush possesses. Our skins were protected 
 only at the cost of constant vigilance, and even then I 
 nearly had my left eyelid torn off. Soon the last vestige 
 of a road disappeared, and we found ourselves pushing 
 through sour grass and scrub, bumping over hidden rocks, 
 trees and holes, where never motor-car had gone before. 
 Many times we halted, and were on the verge of turning 
 back, though we doubted our ability to find the way again 
 to San Luis, but Morley’s enthusiasm where ruins were 
 concerned drove us ever forward. We passed several ruins 
 of small Maya temples of the usual type—quadrangular, 
 with flat roof, Maya arched ceiling and ornamental cornice 
 outside. All were in an advanced state of ruin, and none 
 showed signs of sculpture of any sort, much less of an 
 Initial Series inscription. 
 
 We encountered several Indians, both men and women, 
 struggling along under their loaded mecapals, or packs, 
 slung from the forehead, but they were half sullen, half shy, 
 

 
 TEMPLE OF THE INITIAL SERIES, HOLACTUN (XCALUMKIN). 
 The Initial Series is seen between the pair of columns. 
 
 [p. 185 
 
 
 
 HOLACTUN (XCALUMKIN). 
 
 SHOWING LOWER PART OF INITIAL SERIES, AND CARVED COLUMNS 
 WITH CARVED LINTEL ONCE PLACED OVER THEM. 
 
 [p. 185 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 185 
 
 refused to answer except in monosyllables, and all dis- 
 claimed any knowledge of the ruins for which we were 
 searching. At length, however, our persistence was 
 rewarded, as we came across a small cavalcade of Indian 
 and Mestizo cargadores taking out corn on their wiry little 
 ponies for sale in Dzibalché, amongst whom were several 
 who knew the ruins well, and volunteered to act as guides. 
 As it turned out, we were no great distance from them, and 
 soon had the “ Fotingo”’ at the base of the plateau upon 
 which they stood ; the first time in the world’s history, as 
 far as we know, that a motor-car has visited a Maya Initial 
 Series chez lu1. The temple, which stood on a small mound, 
 formed one of a group of very similar temples in this part 
 of the savanna, and, though by no means the largest or 
 most imposing of them, was the only one to contain any 
 kind of stone sculpture. It consisted of a single large room 
 entered by a triple doorway, to the left of which was a 
 much smaller room or sanctuary. The ceiling of both 
 rooms is formed by a Maya arch. The walls are covered 
 by a mosaic of small pyramidal stones, the smooth quad- 
 rangular bases of which project outwards, and fit nearly 
 together, while the pyramidal ends are buried in the sub- 
 stance of the walls, which are very thick, and composed of 
 a mass of mixed mortar and rubble. These stones, which 
 line the interior, act in no sense as a support to the building, 
 and in the figure it will be seen that many of them have 
 fallen away without impairing its stability, a peculiarity 
 of most Maya temples, where the walls are, as it were, 
 monolithic, for which the squared stones covering the 
 interior merely form a tessellated lining. The central and 
 right-hand door jambs are neatly sculptured on their outer 
 surfaces, each with a double row of six glyph blocks, making 
 twenty-four glyphs in all. While parts of these are decipher- 
 able, including several numerical coefficients, period ending 
 signs, and lunar counts, the meaning of the inscription as 
 a whole cannot, with our present knowledge of the glyphs, 
 be elucidated. The same may be said of the inscription on 
 
186 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 the stone lintels. The left-hand jamb has sculptured upon 
 that surface of it which faces the doorway a human figure, 
 probably a priest, in very elaborate costume, consisting of 
 enormous feather-decorated headdress, large round ear- 
 plugs with dependent plumes, gorget of jewelled mosaic 
 work, maxtli, or apron, decorated with bows, tags, and 
 fringes, and large sandals, very elaborate and ornate. In 
 his right hand he holds a ceremonial wand, and in his left 
 a plume-decorated shield. 
 
 By far the most interesting feature about the temple, 
 however, is the Initial Series inscription, which in several 
 respects is absolutely unique. As will be seen, it occupies 
 a raised band on separate square stones, stretching from 
 about half-way up the arch to the cornice which divides 
 the arch from the wall, immediately opposite the doorway, 
 where the light of the sun would fall most clearly upon it. 
 The inscription contains eight glyphs, the topmost being 
 the introducing glyph, which always precedes Initial Series 
 inscriptions, and consists essentially of the katun sign, with 
 three dots or scrolls as a superfix, and the same as a subfix. 
 (In the photograph only the katun sign and three dots are 
 visible.) This is the most important of all glyphs to recog- 
 nise when doing archeological work in the Maya area, and 
 every member of the expedition, from the humblest Indian 
 up, should be as familiar with it as with the ubiquitous 
 tortilla, if no Initial Series date is to be missed, as this sign 
 alone is sufficient to prove without doubt that the inscrip- 
 tion which follows is an Initial Series date. Immediately 
 beneath it is a glyph consisting of two grotesque heads, the 
 one on the right hand being undoubtedly the head variant 
 for a cycle, or period of 400 years of 360 days; the one on 
 the left is the head variant for the numeral denoting the 
 number of cycles elapsed, and is unfortunately unknown to 
 us, never having been encountered in any other Initial 
 Series inscription. The cycle coefficient, however, must be 
 either 9, 10, or I1, as these three cycles comprise all Maya 
 history in which the Initial Series might be used here, and 
 
Zg1 ‘d] ggi *d] 
 ‘UMOP 9AOGe UWIOIF pest aq 0} ST (UMOYS st ATUO YOY Fo Ted IOMOT 
 9y}) YdATD sutonpoIyUy ay} YIM SulousUTUIOD Sates [TeIPIUT oy y, “SHIMAS TVILINI AHI AO HIdNAL NI AVMYNOOAd 
 
 ‘(NIMNWATVOX) NOLOWIOH LV SAINAS 1VILINI do aNvf NO aun :(NIMWATVOX) NOLOWIOH 
 
 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 187 
 
 as the number is neither 9, nor 10, the head equivalents for 
 which are well recognised, it must, by a process of elimination, 
 be 11. The next glyph beneath the cycle glyph shows two 
 grotesque faces in front of a third grotesque face, which 
 represents typically the head variant of the katun, or 20- 
 year period sign. The two faces are the head variants 
 for the number of katuns elapsed. Unfortunately, these 
 are encountered as numerical coefficients for the first time. 
 As 2 is the least frequently encountered number in the 
 inscriptions, the fact that they are two in number may lead 
 us to accept them provisionally as indicating two katuns. 
 The glyph beneath the katun has unfortunately been a good 
 deal defaced owing to the scaling off from the edges of the 
 two stones upon which it is inscribed of a considerable 
 amount of the carving, owing to the tremendous super- 
 incumbent pressure of the roof falling chiefly on this point. 
 The lower jaw of the right-hand face marks it as that of a 
 head variant of the tun, or year sign, while the lower part 
 of the left-hand face most closely resembles that of the head 
 variant for eight, making 8 tuns. Below the tun sign the 
 head variant for the uinal, or month sign, preceded by the 
 head variant for four, is very clear, and below this the head 
 variant for the kin, or day sign, preceded by the numeral 
 
 nine written thus :] is clearer still. The whole inscription 
 
 then reads thus: I1.2.8.4.9, being. 11 cycles, 2 katuns, 
 8 tuns, 4 uinals, 8 kins, or 1,601,369 days after the date 
 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, the day upon which Maya chronology 
 commenced. 
 
 Beneath the cornice, as a continuation of the band con- 
 taining the Initial Series, is a further band containing eight 
 double glyph blocks, reaching from the floor of the temple. 
 The uppermost of these obviously records the day 7 Muluc, 
 the seven being written above the sign for the day 
 Muluc, denoting the day upon which the Initial Series 
 ended. The month, however, and the position of the day 
 in the month upon which it ended, are unfortunately 
 
188 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 omitted, though they can easily be worked out and arrive 
 at 17 Tzec—that is, the day 7 Muluc occupying the 18th 
 position in the month Tzec was the day upon which ended 
 the Initial Series 11.2.8.4.9. The eighth or lowest of these 
 glyph blocks contains a glyph which denotes an oxlahuntun, 
 or 13-tun period, ending in 2 Ahau. On the left-hand door- 
 jamb, not shown in the photograph, the same sign is again 
 seen, preceded by a torch-like glyph designating a period 
 ending. 
 
 We may then take it that the contemporary date of the 
 temple is the next oxlahuntun ending in 2 Ahau following 
 the date 11.2.8.4.9.7 Muluc 17 Tzec, which the temple is 
 erected to commemorate, or, in other words, it was erected 
 in II.2.13.0.0, to commemorate an event which occurred in 
 I1.2.8.4.9, or 1,711 days previously. Now the Initial Series 
 is 11.2.8.4.9, and corresponds to 1012 A.D., while I1.2.13.0.0 
 corresponds to I017 A.D., consequently the temple was 
 erected in 1017 A.D. to commemorate an event as to the 
 nature of which we have no indication, though such may well 
 be recorded in the numerous indecipherable glyphs on the 
 jambs, which occurred in 1012 A.D. This Initial Series is 
 in many ways remarkable. In the first place, its position 
 in a band along the arch of the ceiling and down the side 
 of the wall is unique, Initial Series being almost invariably 
 inscribed upon monoliths or panels. Next, it forms one of 
 the only three known Initial Series hitherto discovered in 
 Yucatan ; and lastly, its contemporary date is no less than 
 16 katuns and 3 tuns, or approximately 318 solar years 
 later than the next latest Initial Series, namely, that of 
 Tuluum, which, it will be remembered, is 10.6.10.0.0. As 
 we know, the cumbersome method of Initial Series dating 
 in Yucatan had rapidly given way to the more convenient, 
 if less accurate, method of period ending, calendar round, 
 and katun procession dating ; and it seems almost incredible 
 that in this one situation throughout the whole country the 
 ancient method should have been reverted to after a desuetude 
 of over three centuries. There can be little doubt but that 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 189 
 
 the priests, though using the more handy methods of dating, 
 still retained a knowledge of the “‘ long count,’ and could 
 give the position of any day in it, but that they should 
 employ this knowledge, so far as we know, but once in three 
 ‘centuries, is truly remarkable. 
 
 The date 1017 A.D. occurred soon after the commence- 
 ment of the Triple Alliance between the rulers of Uxmal, 
 Chichen Itza, and Mayapan, ushering in the golden period 
 of the Maya rule in Yucatan, which was to last for two 
 centuries. It probably marked also a renaissance in art, 
 architecture, and religion, and no doubt a wide extension of 
 the population, now all at peace, and still pouring in thou- 
 sands into the peninsula, especially in the neighbourhood of 
 the three main towns of the alliance. MHolactun is only 
 about sixteen miles to the west of Uxmal, and was no doubt 
 one of the settlements founded about this time, so that there 
 is nothing historically improbable in the date recorded by 
 the Initial Series—quite the contrary—in fact, its historical 
 probability is a further argument in favour of the reading 
 being a correct one. 
 
 We spent a couple of days at the ruins photographing, 
 sketching, and exploring other small ruins in the vicinity ; 
 and though we discovered quite a number of small temples, 
 that of the Initial Series was the only one containing any 
 sculpture whatever. The whole of the great Xcalumkin 
 savanna must have been at one time densely populated, as 
 ruined temples and buildings are to be found all over it, 
 and what is now a sea of coarse grass and low bush, broken 
 at long intervals by the small maize patch of some solitary 
 Indian settler, was, at the time of the conquest, a vast 
 cultivated plain, the bottom lands covered with fields of 
 waving corn, and the higher points occupied by the palm 
 and adobe houses of the people, which have completely 
 disappeared centuries ago, and by the stone temples of their 
 gods, now rapidly falling into ruins. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Inconvenience of Sleeping in a Liquor Store even when Closed—Natives 
 Turn Night Into Day—Superiority of Yucatecan Women of the 
 Bourgeois Class to the Men Exemplified in our Hostess—Heavy 
 Municipal Taxation—No Curas in the Villages Now—An Officious 
 Jefe—Arrival in Campeche—The Hotel Guatemoc, Formerly the 
 Governor’s Palace—Campeche, Formerly a Prosperous City, now 
 Suffering from Dry Rot—Great Wall Surrounding the City—Two Fine 
 Old Churches—Trouble in Clearing from and Entering Mexican 
 Ports—Port of Campeche Silting Up—We Leave Campeche—An 
 Unfortunate Accident—aArrival at Champoton—Rumour of German 
 Wireless—Archeological Interest of Champoton—Strangers in Town— 
 A Terrible Trek Across the Peninsula from East to West—The Campo 
 Santo—Champoton a Decaying Town—Difference between Yucatecan 
 and Campechano—We Leave Champoton—Seiba Playa—Return to 
 Merida—Difficulty in Obtaining Old Books in Merida, dealing with 
 Yucatan—Set Out for Xcanchacan—A Light-hearted Crowd of 
 Natives—A Vast Ranch—Absolute Power of the Owner over his 
 Servants—Indian Girls at Xcanchacan—Henequen Cultivation and 
 Preparation of the Fibre—Stele with Important Katun Date at the 
 Rancho—Arrival at the Ruined City of Mayapan—Primitive Means 
 of Drawing Water—Destruction of Mayapan and Slaughter of the 
 Cocomes—Some of the Reigning Family Probably Escaped. 
 
 WE returned to Dzibalché from the ruins every night, 
 having been lent the former liquor store of the town to sleep 
 in. This was an immensely lofty room, with doors opening 
 on to two streets, and would not have been uncomfortable 
 but for the fact that when the doors were left open pigs, 
 dogs, and children entered at all hours of the day and night 
 to investigate, whereas if they were closed the haunting smell 
 of new rum became too much for us who had not acquired a 
 taste for it early in life. We dared not keep a light burning 
 at night, as we found that old topers from the neighbour- 
 hood were attracted by it, under the impression that pro- 
 hibition had ceased, the drought was over, and the cantina 
 again dispensing their favourite liquor. They routed us 
 
 out at first at all hours of the night, and were never pleased 
 190 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND IOI 
 
 and not always civil at finding three sleeping gringoes instead 
 of the hoped-for drinks. The Maya of Yucatan, like the 
 people of India, have a curious disregard of the divisions 
 of the day and night. They can sleep almost anywhere and 
 at any time, while at no matter what hour of the night one 
 may sally forth into the village streets, quietly-gliding, cotton- 
 shrouded figures of men and women will be encountered 
 going about on mysterious errands, and, when camping in 
 the bush, they will sit half the night in interminable con- 
 versation and tale telling, the gentle clicks of their remark- 
 able language, insistent and monotonous, soon acting as a 
 peaceful lullaby to the listener. At 3 a.m. or even earlier 
 the subdued scrunch of mistamal being ground by the lady 
 of the house on her stone hand-mill for the breakfast corn 
 cakes becomes audible, to the accompaniment of the same 
 gentle but ceaseless click of conversation, punctuated in 
 this case by restrained gusts and gurgles of feminine laughter, 
 of which one may guess that they themselves, their out- 
 landish manners and customs and appearance, are the main 
 cause. 
 
 Candelario—or Candy, as we generally called him—very 
 kindly gave us early coffee in the morning at his home 
 before leaving for the ruins, and dinner—or, rather, supper— 
 on returning. These dinners form one of the pleasantest 
 memories connected with the whole trip, and it must be 
 admitted that we both fell violently in love with Mrs. Candy 
 the first day we met her. Pretty, gentle, tastefully dressed, 
 well educated, intelligent, and natural, she hardly appeared 
 a fitting mate for her husband, who, though a kindly and 
 excellent little man, was, after all, only an ordinary peon, 
 who by thrift and hard work had managed to purchase a 
 Ford, with which he was then making a very good living. 
 
 We had noticed time and again that the Yucatecan 
 woman of the bourgeois class is almost invariably more 
 refined and better educated than her husband, and Mrs. 
 Candy was but a more convincing proof of this fact. She 
 acted as hostess with the utmost tact and freedom from 
 
192 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 affectation, chatting to us about the European War, Mexican 
 and local politics, the position of women in Yucatan, and 
 even Maya folklore and archeology, on all of which subjects 
 she was evidently well informed, and capable of expressing an 
 intelligent opinion. She spoke Maya and Spanish fluently, 
 and English to some extent, and possessed a delicate sense 
 of humour, a rare and priceless gift in a woman of any 
 nationality. Whilewetalked, Candy sat silently listening, nor 
 could he be induced to join in the conversation ; but it was 
 delightful to see how devoted the two were to each other— 
 more like young lovers, indeed, than the parents of two 
 charming babies. Yet Mrs. Candy was born in Dzibalché of 
 parents of very much the same social status as her husband. 
 She had been educated there, and had never been farther than 
 Merida ; and where she and a thousand other young Yucate- 
 can girls of the same class acquired their gentle manners, 
 good taste, intelligence, and sympathy is difficult to surmise, 
 unless they were heritages handed down from their great 
 ancestors who ruled the land before the coming of the 
 Spaniards. Everyone we encountered in Dzibalché was 
 most bitter in their denunciation of the exactions of the 
 Mayor, who was a nominee of the Federal Government and 
 not one of themselves. Everything was taxed to the utmost 
 farthing, and even if one asked a few friends in to dine or 
 dance, a fee for so doing had to be paid to the Municipality, 
 or the omission was sure to be followed by a heavy fine. 
 We started to explore the fine old church, which we found 
 open that day, as the only cura in the State had come over 
 from Campeche to celebrate a wedding; a state of things 
 which we could not help contrasting with that of Stephens’ 
 day, when every village had its own cura, who almost 
 invariably acted as kindly, cultured host to the explorer 
 and to whose good offices not a little of the comfort and 
 pleasure of his trip through Yucatan was due. Hardly 
 had we entered the church when a constable came along 
 from the “ Jefe’’ to say the church was the property of the 
 Municipality, we were trespassing in it, and must come along 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 193 
 
 at once and answer for our crime. We told him to go and 
 inform the Jefe, with our compliments, that we carried 
 letters from the Governor of the State requesting all officers 
 of the Government to assist us by every means in their power 
 in our archeological investigations, and that under the 
 circumstances we could hardly report to His Excellency on 
 our return that the Chief of the Dzibalché Municipality had 
 done his best to carry out these orders. The message 
 evidently proved effective, as we were molested no more 
 during our stay in the town. On the 3rd we took sorrowful 
 leave of Candy, his wife, and a group of friends whom, 
 though newly made, we really regretted leaving, and made 
 a triumphal procession to the railroad station in the motor- 
 car, where we found the curva, a stout, red-faced, full-fed 
 looking individual surrounded by a group of female members 
 of his flock, who seemed unwilling to part with him, and were 
 pressing on him light refreshments for his tedious forty-five 
 mile train journey. 
 
 We arrived at Campeche in excellent time for a late 
 breakfast, and made our way at once to the Hotel Guatemoc, 
 which has a great reputation for what Yucatecans term 
 “sea food,” including fish, lobsters, oysters, and crayfish. 
 Here we were pleased to encounter Held, who had come 
 round on the Lilian Y by sea, sailing all the way in order to 
 economise gasolene, and putting in at every little fishing 
 village and settlement en route. We had an excellent break- 
 fast, consisting of turkey, soup, oysters, lobster salad ; and 
 afterwards an hour’s siesta in a really magnificent and palatial 
 chamber, for the old hotel had been the Governor’s palace 
 in the brave days of the Spanish occupation, and still showed 
 traces, in its decoration and the spaciousness of its rooms, of 
 viceregal occupation. We had a bath in a real bathroom, 
 where we simply stood in a drained enclosure and allowed 
 floods of rainwater—not the miserable, strictured trickle 
 usually afforded by the shower pipe in Yucatan—to deluge 
 our thirsty skins, which had not enjoyed such a treat since 
 leaving Merida. In the cool of the evening we strolled 
 
 NL 
 
194 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 forth to see the town, which to the visitor straight from 
 Merida forms a strange contrast to that busy, bustling, 
 up-to-date little city. Campeche, with its narrow, dirty 
 streets, iron-barred windows, and air of perpetual siesta, is 
 obviously a relic of the past, a typical ancient Spanish 
 town, where people and city are succumbing peacefully and 
 painlessly together to the dry rot of old age. Yet the city 
 in its day has seen more stirring times probably than any 
 city in the peninsula, for it was the great objective point of 
 buccaneers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who 
 haunted the shallow bay of Campeche, awaiting the passage 
 of the richly freighted galleons and plate ships of Spain on 
 their way from Vera Cruz to Cuba and to Europe. Many of 
 these carried millions of dollars’ worth of bullion, sufficient 
 to enable a whole ship’s company to retire from their 
 hazardous profession and live in the odour of sanctity for 
 the rest of their lives. Campeche was stormed and taken 
 by English and French buccaneers on no less than three 
 occasions within twenty-six years, till in 1692 the citizens, 
 assisted by the Spanish Government, built a great wall 
 round it. This took seventy years to complete and cost 
 250,000 dollars (a vast sum in those days, before the intro- 
 duction of facile millions). It was 26ft. high by 12ft. thick, 
 and was surrounded by a deep moat. It covered an irregular 
 seven-sided polygon, with bastions at each angle and massive 
 forts along the water-side. The greater part of it has now 
 been pulled down, and the work of demolition is still pro- 
 ceeding, yet enough remains to show what a vast under- 
 taking it must have been for a comparatively small popula- 
 tion. We passed two magnificent old churches. One, whose 
 facade is decorated after the Moorish style in exquisite 
 coloured tiles, has had a modern stone house built within a 
 few yards of it, completely obscuring the ancient decoration, 
 while one of its towers has been converted into a lighthouse. 
 In the other the one remaining cura in the State, who had 
 accompanied us from Dzibalché, still officiates from time 
 to time. On returning to the “‘ Guatemoc ”’ we anticipated, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 195 
 
 after our excellent breakfast, an equally excellent dinner, 
 but were somewhat disappointed to find that it consisted 
 only of the cold remains of the morning’s turkey, and when 
 breakfast next morning dwindled to eggs and bread and 
 butter (the last supplied by ourselves from a tin, as none 
 was to be obtained in the town), we concluded it was about 
 time to move on. On reaching the Custom House we dis- 
 covered that the same wearisome and expensive business 
 of clearing the Lilian Y had to be gone through again. 
 She had just arrived from Progreso via Rio Jaina, fifteen 
 miles away, and was bound for Champoton, some forty 
 miles to the south ; all in the same country, and, excepting 
 Progreso, in the same State; yet a fresh clearance, bill of 
 health, and all the endless papers connected withclearing from 
 a port had to be taken out. All through our trip we had 
 found this business of clearing the ship the greatest nuisance. 
 Though we had travelled throughout the entire trip from 
 one Mexican port to another, at each place fresh papers had 
 to be got out, entailing endless delays. Yet our boat was 
 a small one, carried no cargo, and had the highest recom- 
 mendations from the principal authorities with whom we 
 came in contact. She had the misfortune, however, to be 
 English registered, and the Mexicans freely admit that they 
 wish to retain their coastal traffic for their own boats, and 
 had we been Mexican registered we should not have encoun- 
 tered these delays and heavy fees. The Administrador of 
 the Customs recommended us to an agent whose business 
 it was to get the clearance, bill of health, etc., assembled 
 and in order from the various Government Departments 
 where they were issued. After some trouble we ran him 
 to earth, and found a very ancient gentleman, with long 
 white beard, of stately demeanour and very deliberate 
 action. After a time we got him going, and about midday 
 arrived at the Customs Office with all our papers in order, 
 and so at length got safely away. We could not get even 
 the shallow-draft Lilian Y up to the wharf in Campeche, 
 as the water is gradually silting up ; indeed, the port does 
 
196 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 but little business now, and unless dredging operations are 
 undertaken will soon do none at all. 
 
 We arrived off Champoton in the afternoon, and Morley, 
 Held, and myself went ashore. It is a town of 1,000 to 
 1,500 inhabitants, situated at the mouth of the Rio Champo- 
 ton, along which a good deal of the products of the hinterland 
 bush, chiefly chicle, rubber, and logwood, are brought out. 
 We had heard before setting out on our trip to Yucatan 
 that Champoton was a hot-bed of German spies, who ran 
 there openly a wireless outfit. We discovered that the 
 wireless rumour originated in two 6oft. posts, which carried 
 the Mexican telegraph wires across the mouth of the river 
 sufficiently high up to admit of sailing boats passing under- 
 neath, and which at a glance from the sea strongly resembled 
 wireless aerials. The only foundation we could find for the 
 Hun rumour was the presence of a manager at a ranch some 
 way inland, who, it was reported, might be a German, as 
 he was certainly not a native Yucatecan! Champoton is a 
 place of some historical and archeological interest, owing 
 to the fact that it is the site of the sojourn of the Itzas 
 between their first exodus from Chichen Itza, about 700 A.D., 
 and their return to that city two centuries and a half later. 
 There are considerable traces of ruins in the neighbourhood, 
 but all in a very poor state of preservation, partly, no doubt, 
 owing to the fact that they have been systematically 
 wrecked to obtain building stone. Only two strangers lived 
 in Champoton ; one a cura, whose occupation had departed 
 on the closing of the churches by the Government, but who 
 had turned his talents to account as a billiard-marker ; the 
 other a black boy, a native of Belize, who had been working 
 for the American Chicle Company at Bacalar, on the eastern 
 side of the peninsula, at the time of the great hurricane. 
 Like many more chicle bleeders, he had been shut in the 
 bush by the obliteration of all roads and trails owing to the 
 complete flattening out of the forest under the tremendous 
 force of the hurricane. Most of these men had made their 
 way out after weeks of incredible toil and hardship, but 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 197 
 
 many never made their way out at all, leaving their bones 
 to whiten in the bush. The case of this boy was, however, 
 perhaps the most remarkable of all, for though a frail youth 
 of poor physique and no great intelligence, and with no 
 particular knowledge of bush craft, he made his way clean 
 across the base of the peninsula from east to west over a 
 practically trackless stretch of forest and swamp, with no 
 inhabitants beyond, at great intervals, a few chicle and 
 rubber bleeders. He must have covered in all nearly a 
 couple of hundred miles before he happened to encounter 
 a band of chicle bleeders not far from Champoton. He had 
 managed to subsist on such leaves, fruit, roots, and insects 
 as he could pick up along the route, and, of course, was 
 never at a loss for water. When found he was reduced to 
 very little more than skin and bones, and his mind was 
 somewhat fogged as a result of the terrible privations. How 
 long he had taken over the journey he was unable to say, 
 as he had lost all count of time, but such a trip accom- 
 plished alone, and without food or equipment of any kind, 
 postulates tremendous vitality and dogged perseverance, 
 which one would hardly have expected to find in a youth 
 apparently so poorly equipped, both mentally and physic- 
 ally. We shipped him on the Lilian Y and promised to 
 take him back to his family in Belize, whom he had not 
 seen for many months, and by whom he had presumably 
 been given up as dead; but at Progreso, finding wages 
 high and prospects good, he left us silently, nor stood upon 
 the order of his going. 
 
 The campo santo, or burial-ground, at Champoton is about 
 the only thing worth visiting in the place. It is very neatly 
 kept, and the dead, or at least those of them who were 
 well-to-do in life, are provided with miniature houses, 
 some of them almost large enough to have been used as 
 habitations by the living, kept nicely painted and white- 
 washed. Champoton, like Campeche, is suffering from the 
 dry rot of old age. On the outskirts of the town the 
 arcaded ruins of the former Governor’s palace and of 
 
198 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 ecclesiastical buildings are seen falling rapidly into ruins, 
 while many of the larger and better-class houses are empty. 
 For some reason the Campechano, though of practically 
 the same race—mixed Indian and Spanish—as his brother 
 the Yucateco, is quite lacking in the energy and commercial 
 acumen of the latter, and is content to accept as his watch- 
 word the good old Spanish proverb, ‘‘ Manvana, no hoy ’— 
 “To-morrow, not to-day’’—which for the last three 
 centuries has been the béte noive of Latin Americans. 
 
 We left Champoton that night and turned back towards 
 Campeche, having reached the southern limit of our trip, 
 and the last place in this direction at which we might expect 
 to encounter relics of the ancient Maya civilisation. We 
 anchored off Seiba Playa, about twenty-five miles north of 
 Champoton, and spent the night on the Lilian Y. Next 
 morning early we went ashore in the pram to visit the 
 pueblo, which is an exceedingly primitive village of 800 
 Mayas and Yucatecans, with one solitary black man, who 
 seemed to be retained as a sort of curiosity. The only 
 industries are fishing and agriculture. The people are 
 self-supporting, and rarely come in contact with anyone 
 from the outside world, so that our advent was looked upon 
 as quite an event. 
 
 We were told here of ancient ruins a few miles back in the 
 bush, but, on learning that they were mere heaps of stones, 
 made up our minds that it was hardly worth while visiting 
 them. 
 
 Strolling along the beach, we picked up some perfectly 
 gorgeous shells, many of them in excellent preservation, 
 with their colours bright and undimmed, and some of them 
 species which we had not observed before. This would 
 be a conchologist’s paradise, as for some reason the sandy 
 bay, bounded by rocky promontories, seems to act as 
 dumping-ground for every variety of shell-fish known in 
 the Gulf of Mexico. We were followed along the beach by a 
 little queue of children, who were greatly entertained at 
 our picking up quantities of what to them were too common 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 199 
 
 even for playthings, and who evidently regarded us as 
 un poco loco, or a little crazy. 
 
 We reached Campeche about noon, and lunched again at 
 the “‘Guatemoc”’ on a rich selection of sea products. 
 While at table in the restaurant of the hotel we had forcibly 
 brought home to us what one notices at all eating-places in 
 Yucatan—the constant annoyance to which guests are 
 subjected from all sorts of casual strangers, who come up 
 and address one on the flimsiest pretext. The natives are 
 so used to this as apparently not to object to it in the least. 
 On this occasion we were attacked in turn by four im- 
 portunate sellers of the Voz de la Revolucion, the Govern- 
 ment daily paper; three boot-blacks, who, although our 
 boots had been operated on in the plaza just before coming 
 in, were insistent on giving them another polish; two 
 unequivocal beggars seeking caridad; and one _ gentle- 
 man in charge of a subscription list for the relief of 
 a destitute old man—not a bad bag for one solitary 
 half-hour ! 
 
 We took the afternoon train for Merida, where we arrived 
 the same evening quite pleased to find ourselves back again 
 in the “‘ Gran Hotel.’”’ We spent the whole of Wednesday, 
 the 6th, in Merida, chiefly in visiting book-shops and private 
 dealers in books in a vain quest after the Historia de Y ucathan 
 by the Provincial Diego Cogolludo, containing information 
 concerning the manners, customs, and history of the Maya 
 absolutely indispensable to the student of Maya archeology. 
 We were unable to obtain a single copy of either volume 
 for love or money in Merida, but succeeded in obtaining, 
 through a bookseller from Mexico City, an edition of the first 
 volume published in Campeche in 1842, and of the second 
 published in Merida in 1845, bound in a single volume. 
 We heard only of one copy of the original edition, for 
 which the owner asked 1,500 dollars, but the work in any 
 form is exceedingly difficult to acquire, as only 100 copies 
 of the Campeche edition were published, and but 200 of the 
 Merida edition. Books dealing with the antiquities of the 
 
200 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 country are difficult to obtain in Merida, while the prices 
 asked are simply outrageous. Such works as John L. 
 Stephens’ Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, 
 and Yucatan, and his later volume, Incidents of Travel in 
 Yucatan, sell for four or five times what they can be bought 
 for in Europe or the States at any book-dealers, while 
 Molina Solis’ Historta de la Conquista de Yucatan, published 
 in 1896, but now out of print, sells at more than ten times 
 its original cost. In Yucatan, books, like every other 
 commodity where the stranger is concerned, are taxed 
 for all that the traffic will bear. 
 
 We caught the 5.30 a.m. train on the morning of the 7th 
 by an exceedingly narrow margin and were again reduced 
 to sticky, thirst-provoking sponge cakes, snatched up en 
 route, to break our fast. However, this did not matter so 
 much, as our destination was only about twenty miles from 
 Merida—the ruins of Mayapan, situated on the rancho of 
 Xcanchacan. 
 
 On arrival at the station we changed on to a mule-drawn 
 flat car running from the main line up a narrow gorge to 
 the ranch house, on which we squeezed ourselves, in amongst 
 a great crowd of laughing, chattering Indian girls and children, 
 wives and kiddies of labourers on the ranch, some of them 
 going up there to do light work themselves. A gayer and 
 more light-hearted crowd it would be impossible to imagine ; 
 everything was treated as a joke specially got up for their 
 benefit. The loss of my hat from a puff of wind gave rise 
 to roars of laughter, and even the derailing of the car, which 
 might have resulted in a nasty accident—and did result 
 in half an hour’s tedious wait in the sun—only produced an 
 increase of hilarity. An endeavour on Held’s part (who 
 always improved the shining hour on these lines) to carry on 
 a mild flirtation with his pretty neighbour through. the 
 medium of about ten Maya words, and that language of the 
 eyes and lips which is the same all the world over, was a 
 source of pure joy to all beholders, including Morley and 
 myself. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 201 
 
 The ranch house, one of the largest in Yucatan, is an 
 immense one-storied stone mansion over 300ft. long, with a 
 deep, tiled piazza in front, whose vault-like coolness, en- 
 hanced by a gentle breeze, proved a delightful change from 
 the glaring heat of the sun outside. The rooms were large, 
 lofty, well ventilated, stone-floored, and consequently very 
 cool and comfortable, but it must be admitted that from a 
 European point of view they were bare and sparsely fur- 
 nished ; no pictures, carpets, knick-knacks, or ornaments— 
 just the bare chairs, lounges, and hammocks. The estate 
 belongs to the Peon family, one of the oldest and richest in 
 Yucatan, who hold their titles from the Spanish Crown, and 
 whose occupation goes back practically to the conquest. 
 For size it could put many a European principality to shame, 
 with its hundreds of thousands of acres. At one time the 
 power of the owner was that of an absolute monarch, for 
 he administered the high justice, the middle, and the low 
 over his labourers—or, rather, slaves—whose ancestors had 
 been made over to him by the Crown after the conquest of 
 the Indians, and who were themselves just as much his 
 property as the acres upon which they toiled. 
 
 We sat in the shade of the great corridor, as Stephens had 
 done nearly eighty years previously, and watched, as he 
 had done, the Indian girls going to the well, situated in the 
 great stone yard on the opposite side of the hacienda, for 
 water. All were extremely graceful, slow and deliberate 
 in their movements, and with heavy taza balanced on the 
 head, lightly supported by one upraised, beautifully- 
 modelled bare arm, arrow-straight figure, and majestic walk, 
 were worthy models for a sculptor. 
 
 The majority were of the usual Maya olive or light bronze 
 colour, with thick black hair, dark-brown eyes, and 
 beautiful complexions, but not a few showed a strain of 
 Andalusian blood, and one or two were light-haired, blue- 
 eyed, and fair complexioned—throwbacks, perhaps, to 
 some Norwegian buccaneer ancestor who had harried the 
 coast 200 years ago. Some passed us with eyes demurely 
 
202 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 cast upon the tiles, others with a smirk possibly of greeting, 
 but more probably of amusement at our—to them—strange 
 appearance, while a few unmistakably threw us what John 
 Held classified as the “ glad eye,” in response, I think, to 
 his expansive smile. 
 
 After a rest we took a tour of inspection round the hacienda. 
 On every side, as far as the eye could reach, were vast fields 
 of henequen, or Agave Americana, from which is derived 
 the sisal fibre, practically the only export of the country, 
 which makes it, for its size and population, one of the richest 
 in the world. These aloes are planted in rows at regular 
 intervals ; each one stands from 3ft. to 4ft. high, and con- 
 sists of a central core, attached to which are great, thick, 
 tough, dark-green leaves, 3ft. to 4ft. long, 5in. or 6in. broad, 
 each tipped at the point with a huge black thorn. The outer 
 leaves are cut from each plant at frequent intervals and 
 carried to the mill, where they are beaten and scraped till 
 all the pulp is removed, and only the beautifully white silky 
 fibre remains. This is hung on wires in the sun to dry, and 
 all round the hacienda were drying-grounds, with children 
 at work changing the hanks of fibre from side to side on 
 the wires till they were dried all over by the sun. Lastly 
 they are compressed in hydraulic presses into great bundles 
 bound with hoop iron, in which form they are exported to 
 the U.S.A., where, converted into thin, loosely-woven rope, 
 they bind the sheaves of corn cut by the reapers from 
 Canada to Mexico. 
 
 The whole vast estate is covered with a network of light 
 railroad, on which the labourers ride to work, and along 
 which the stacks of cut leaves are brought in to the mill. 
 
 On returning to the hacienda we discovered an extremely 
 interesting relic of the past—no less, indeed, than a stone 
 stele about Oft. high, brought by a former owner from the 
 ruins of Mayapan, and carefully built into the wall of the 
 corridor, where, preserved from the weather, it should last 
 practically for ever. The top of the stone is rounded, and 
 the upper third of its surface is divided into thirty-six more 
 
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IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 203 
 
 or less equal spaces by incised lines, which probably origin- 
 ally each contained a painted glyph. Below this is a zone 
 of incised geometrical ornamentation, followed by a band 
 consisting of ten quadrangular spaces, and below this again, 
 roughly and crudely cut in low relief, are seen two human 
 figures. The figure on the left as one looks at the stele is 
 much the smaller, and stands upon a low altar, or stool. 
 His headdress is composed of a highly conventionalised 
 bird, and he holds in both hands an indeterminate object, 
 which he is apparently offering to the figure on the rght. 
 This is undoubtedly meant to represent Cuculcan, or the 
 Long-nosed God, one of the most popular deities through- 
 out Yucatan. (Compare the face of the god as shown here 
 with the representation of him in the painted stucco at 
 Tuluum). The god holds in his right hand a ceremonial 
 club, or baton, while his left arm is held in front of him 
 semiflexed. He wears the usual feather-decorated head- 
 dress, and large round ear-plug, with pendant. 
 
 The most interesting and important part of the whole 
 sculpture, however, is the date glyph, which is quite clear 
 and unmistakable. It is situated between the upper part 
 of the club held in the right hand of the figure of the god 
 and the headdress of his worshipper, and records the date 
 ro Ahau; that is to say that the stele was erected 
 to commemorate the end of Katun ro Ahau. A = 
 crack filled in with light-coloured cement passes 
 obliquely across the centre of the stele, and this crack 
 crosses the Ahau sign about its centre. 
 
 There is recorded in the books of Chilam Balam, in which 
 are given the procession of the katuns and the most import- 
 ant events occurring in each, one date with meticulous 
 accuracy, namely, the death of a certain native chief named 
 Napot Xiu, which is said to have occurred in a Katun 13 
 Ahau, while yet 6 tuns (periods of 360 days) were lacking 
 before the end of the katun, on the day g Imix, which was 
 the 18th day of the month Zip. The chronicler further 
 states that this event took place in the year of our Lord 
 
204 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 1536. It is obvious, therefore, that the end of this Katun 
 13 Ahau occurred 6 tuns later, or somewhere in the year 
 1542 A.D. The Maya did not number their 13 katuns from 
 I to 13, but in the following order: 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 13, II, 
 9, 7, 5, 3, I, 12, 10, so that, granting the end of Katun 13 
 Ahau fell within the year 1542, it is obvious that the end 
 of Katun ro Ahau, counting backwards, fell 5 katuns, or 
 too tuns, or 36,000 days earlier—that is, within the year 
 1438 A.D., which is the contemporary date of this stele. 
 Of course, it must be remembered that a Katun ro Ahau 
 recurred every 13 x 20, or 260 tuns, that is, every 256 years, 
 so that it fell also in the year 1182 A.D., but both on stylistic 
 and historical grounds this date may be rejected. 
 
 After an excellent breakfast provided by the major-domo, 
 Morley, Held, and myself, accompanied by a guide, set out 
 on horseback for the ruins of Mayapan. 
 
 At first the road led through vast and apparently inter- 
 minable fields of henequen, criss-crossed in all directions 
 by light railroads, but at length we got beyond the henequen 
 zone into a vast, flat, sterile plain, covered with short grass 
 burnt yellow by the sun, interspersed with stones and 
 patches of low prickly bush. It must be admitted that the 
 name of the ranch, Xcanchacan, or Kanchacan, derived 
 from the Maya, kan, yellow, and chacan, a plain or savanna, 
 expresses well its appearance. We passed the remains of a 
 great stone wall, now completely in ruins, which our guide 
 told us surrounded a more or less square enclosure two 
 miles in each direction, and followed it up in both directions 
 for a short distance, but as there was nothing to be gained 
 by making a complete circuit, and, moreover, the going was 
 very bad, we soon continued on our way to the little ranch 
 house close to the ruins, where we off-saddled and set out on 
 foot for a great mound standing up commandingly from 
 the plain, less than a quarter of a mile away. We encoun- 
 tered a few half-starved cattle, horses, and mules, whose 
 living on this scorched pasture, which did not look as if it 
 could carry one head of stock to twenty acres, must, indeed, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 205 
 
 have been a poor one, and at the little ranch house we 
 observed water being drawn by a wheel turned by a patient 
 horse from a deep well, which flowed into troughs for the 
 benefit of the stock. This primitive contrivance is very 
 rare in Yucatan now, as nearly all the water used is raised 
 from the bowels of the earth by American windmills, fleets 
 of which form the most prominent objects scattered over 
 every town, and without which even the smallest hacienda 
 is rarely found. Of all the ruined sites of Yucatan, Mayapan 
 is perhaps the most disappointing to the archeologist and 
 explorer visiting it for the first time with some historical 
 knowledge of its former importance amongst the Maya. 
 From about 1000 A.D. to 1200 A.D. this city formed, with 
 Chichen Itza and Uxmal, a Triple Alliance which ruled the 
 whole peninsula during the golden period of the Maya 
 occupation of Yucatan. About 1200 A.D., owing to a quarrel 
 between the Halach Uinic, or ruler of Chichen Itza, and his 
 ally of Mayapan, war broke out between the two cities, 
 which ended only by the calling in of Toltec mercenaries 
 from Chiapas to assist the armies of Mayapan, who were 
 getting decidedly the worst of it. This ended in the 
 complete overthrow of the Itzas and the domination of the 
 Cocoms, the ruling family of Mayapan, over their former 
 allies of Chichen Itza, and, indeed, over the whole Maya 
 area. The Cocoms then became the overlords of all the 
 petty kings and caciques, and compelled them to reside for 
 a certain period every year in the city of Mayapan, around 
 which they built a great stone wall, remains of which we 
 passed on our way to the ruins, where each vassal lord had 
 his own palace and temple, his own priests and retainers, 
 and outside the walls of which he was allowed to house 
 servants and stewards, who collected his revenue and 
 supplied the wants of himself, his priests, and his more 
 immediate retainers. This remarkable state of affairs 
 lasted for no less than 250 years—till the year 1450 A.D., 
 in fact, the vassal chiefs and their subjects being kept well 
 under subjection by the Toltec mercenaries and their 
 
206 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 descendants, to whom the Cocoms appear to have handed 
 over the city of Chichen Itza. At length, driven desperate 
 by the overbearing arrogance of the Cocoms and by the 
 exaction of their Toltec mercenaries, the subject lords of 
 Yucatan revolted against the Cocoms, and under the 
 leadership of the ruler of Uxmal made war upon them. This 
 set the whole country in a blaze, and a fierce civil war raged 
 amongst the Maya for anumber of years, till sometime during 
 Katun 8, or about 1448 a.D., the city of Mayapan was taken 
 and utterly destroyed, the whole of the royal family being 
 slain with the exception of one son, who was absent in 
 Honduras. Though, according to the native chroniclers, 
 the whole Cocom family was exterminated with this one 
 exception, the probabilities are that several other members 
 of the royal family escaped, and fled the peninsula, for there 
 exists to-day amongst the Indians of British Honduras and 
 of the province of Peten, in Guatemala, families of Cocoms 
 so much superior to the other Indians in physique, appear- 
 ance, and mentality, as to give one the impression that they 
 belong to a different race. They are, moreover, in some 
 cases associated in the minds of the other Indians with a 
 vague idea of royalty or nobility possessed in the old days. 
 The destruction of Mayapan must, indeed, have been com- 
 plete, as the contemporary accounts relate, for at the 
 present day hardly one stone is left standing upon another, 
 and practically all that remains is the great stone-faced 
 pyramids, or substructures, upon which the temples stood. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Return to Merida—Set Out for Dzitas—Travelling by Volan Coche and 
 on Horseback—First View of the Ruins of Chichen Itza—The Casa 
 Principal and its Legend of Buried Treasure—Attacked by Marching 
 Army of Ants—The Monjas said to have been used as a Nunnery by 
 the Maya—The Iglesia—Tradition that Maya came originally from 
 India—The Akatzib—The Caracol—The Chichanchob, or Red House 
 The High Priest’s Grave—lInscription Giving the Dateof Its Erection 
 —Burial Chambers found within it—Probably a Royal Mausoleum— 
 The Ball Court—Temples at each end of it—Curious Acoustic 
 Properties—Herrera’s Account of the Aztec Game of Ball—Frag- 
 ments of Incense Burners found amongst Débris of Ball Court of 
 Much Later Date—The Temple of the Jaguars—The Serpent God— 
 Painted Sculpture—Paintings on Stucco—The Castillo—Description 
 of the Temple—Wanton Damage to Wood Carving—Temples of Owl 
 and Phalli, Old Chichen Itza. 
 
 ON our return to Merida we determined to remain there for 
 
 a few days while laying in a stock of provisions for our stay 
 
 at Chichen Itza, the largest and most spectacular ruins of a 
 
 New Empire Maya city throughout Yucatan. On March 
 
 7th we left the capital by one of the usual uncomfortable 
 
 5.30 a.m. trains for the town of Dzitas, the nearest point on 
 
 the Yucatan railroad to Chichen Itza, from which it is 
 
 distant about twenty miles. On arriving in Dzitas we found 
 that two methods of reaching the ruins were available—by 
 
 *Volan Coche”’ or on horseback. The Volan, as it is 
 
 usually called, was, before the coming of the railroad, 
 
 practically the only means of transport throughout Yucatan, 
 and a more uncomfortable conveyance it would be difficult 
 to conceive. It consists of a high wooden cart entirely 
 devoid of springs, and drawn by two, three, or four mules. 
 
 The passenger lies, sits, or reposes as best he may at the 
 
 bottom of the cart, which, with the sides, is well padded 
 
 207 
 
208 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 with mattresses and pillows. The driver, usually an Indian, 
 squats in front and drives. The roads are simply broad 
 _ tracks cut through the bush over the limestone surface. 
 Great boulders and ridges of limestone are left, and over 
 these the volan jolts and rocks, taking everything in its 
 stride, the mules keeping up a good hand-gallop most of the 
 way. To the new-comer it is perfect torture, as he is thrown 
 from side to side and up and down in the volan like a 
 shuttlecock, and it is quite useless to try and stop the driver 
 once he has started the mules, as he takes no notice whatever 
 of the most piteous cries, till he has reached his destination. 
 Having had considerable experience with the volan, we de- 
 termined to send on our luggage by one of them while we 
 proceeded on horseback. But even here we were unfor- 
 tunate, for the only four horses available were miserable 
 little skinny, thirteen-hand ponies, so dejected and worn 
 that we hesitated to mount them, especially as the saddles 
 were on a par with the mounts, and the bridles and stirrup 
 leathers of rope. Soon after starting, finding that I was 
 riding with my knees nearly up to my chin, I endeavoured 
 to lengthen the stirrup ropes, but discovered they were not 
 adjustable, so changed horses with Morley, whose legs were 
 better adapted by nature to the short stirrups. We were 
 passed by a volan going at a great pace, occupied by 
 an enormously stout woman and a child; they were being 
 volleyed about in all directions by the jolting of the vehicle, 
 but did not appear to mind it in the least, though I could 
 not help wondering what would have happened if the lady 
 had landed on the child. 
 
 Our progress was slow and uncomfortable, and by the 
 time we arrived at the ruins we were quite tired out, as 
 constant urging had been necessary the whole way to get the 
 unfortunate little ponies to move at all. Our first view of 
 the ruins, however, amply compensated us for all our 
 trouble, as, coming suddenly round a bend, we had presented 
 before us, perhaps a quarter of a mile away through a broad 
 straight cutting in the bush, the splendid structure known 
 

 
 CHICHEN ITZA: LINTEL IN WATER TROUGH AT HACIENDA. 
 
 The uppermost line of the inscription shows plainly the lower part of the 11 Kan 
 and 14 Cumhu, as well as the winged Cauac tun sign. 
 
 [p. 209 
 
 
 
 THE MONJAS, OR HOUSE OF THE NUNS, CHICHEN ITZA, 
 WITH THE SIGLESIAS AT THE. RIGHT: 
 
 [p. 210 
 

 
 
 
 7" 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND | 209 
 
 as the Castillo, perhaps the most spectacular monument 
 now standing in the Maya area, and certainly one of the 
 best preserved. 
 
 Passing the Castillo, we arrived shortly at the Hacienda 
 or Casa Principal, the house of the owner of the ranch, which 
 had been placed at our disposal during our stay. It is a 
 fine, large, cool house, having extensive verandas, built about 
 the middle of the eighteenth century with stone taken from the 
 ruins. The first owner was a recluse who had amassed a 
 large sum of money in gold coin. He lived at the Hacienda, 
 attended only by a Belize Negro man and an old Spanish 
 woman. Feeling that his end was near, and not wishing 
 that his relatives should benefit by his death, he sent these 
 two old retainers off one morning to Valladolid, the nearest 
 town, with instructions to take the whole day off. On 
 returning at night, they found the old man dead in bed, and 
 the treasure gone, the presumption being that he had 
 found just sufficient strength to get up and secrete the 
 treasure, either in the house or somewhere near at hand in 
 the ruins, but, the excitement proving too much, he had 
 returned to his bed to die. 
 
 On being notified of the old man’s death, the relatives at 
 once instituted a search for the treasure, half pulling the 
 house down and digging the floor up in the hope of finding 
 a secret hiding-place, and even going so far as to excavate 
 in some of the closer buildings amongst the ruins ; all to no 
 purpose, however, as they found nothing. Ever since it has 
 been a favourite sport amongst the Indians, and other 
 visitors, to take an occasional dig, in the hope of coming 
 across the treasure accidentally. 
 
 Around the house was an immense stone yard used at one 
 time for cattle, but now empty except for our ponies. Inset 
 in a stone water-trough which had been constructed for the 
 cattle to drink out of is a large slab of stone from the ruins, 
 set in upside down, upon which is inscribed a calendar round 
 date with the wrong numerical coefficient in front of the month 
 
 sign, a most unusual mistake for a Maya sculptor to make. 
 OL 
 
210 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 I elected to sleep in the yard that night, as it was much 
 cooler, but regretted my decision, as in the early hours of 
 the morning I was awakened by a painful stinging and 
 nipping all over my body, and discovered that I had been 
 attacked by myriads of large brown ants known as the 
 “marching army,” who had crawled up the legs of the cot 
 and were endeavouring to make a meal off me. I jumped 
 out of bed, brushing as many off as possible, woke the others, 
 and with all the servants of the hacienda we attacked the 
 invaders with torches made of dry palm leaf. We must have 
 burnt millions of them, but still more millions came on, and 
 it was only after a couple of hours’ strenuous work that we 
 succeeded in driving them from the yard and returned again 
 to bed. These ants are a terrible scourge in Yucatan, and 
 will often drive the Indians from their homes, when they 
 pass through, devouring everything en route. Birds and 
 animals in cages are left as balls of feathers, or fur, and bones, 
 and no doubt if a man or woman were unable to escape 
 nothing would be left of them but bones. They possess, 
 however, one advantage in that they eat up all scorpions, 
 cockroaches, tarantulas, and other noxious insects which 
 always infest thatched houses. 
 
 Next morning, directly after coffee we started a survey 
 of the ruins, beginning with the Casa de Monjas, or Convent, 
 which is quite close to the hacienda. This building 
 received its name from the fact that it was supposed 
 to have been a convent occupied by the Maya maidens, 
 who, like the vestal virgins, served the gods and were 
 sworn to chastity for life. There is, however, no proof 
 forthcoming that it was specially used for this purpose. 
 It consists of a solid block of masonry apparently without 
 any chambers in its interior, upon one side of which 
 is built a wing containing nine chambers with arched 
 Maya roofs. The great solid structure adjoining the wing 
 was apparently constructed only to support two ranges of 
 buildings. The first is approached by a stairway passing 
 up the solid central block 56ft. wide and 32ft. high, leading 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 211 
 
 to a range of rooms extending all round the structure, with 
 a platform, 14ft. wide in front of them. From this platform 
 ascends a second stairway of fifteen steps leading to a second 
 range of rooms, now in a very bad state of preservation. 
 The total height of the building was 65ft. Closely adjoining 
 the wing is a small structure known as the Iglesia, or church, 
 26ft. long, 14ft. broad, and 31ft. high. The outside of this 
 is decorated with gigantic stone faces of the long-nosed god, 
 one of which is very clearly seen in profile in the illustration. 
 The nose curves up somewhat like an elephant’s trunk, and 
 forms the chief ground for the somewhat fanciful theory that 
 the ancestors of the Maya, who built the ruins of Copan and 
 Yucatan, came originally from India, whence they carried 
 with them the tradition of the elephant reproduced in their 
 sculpture. The most interesting point about the Monjas 
 perhaps is that a great excavation 30ft. deep, which has been 
 made in one side of it by a former proprietor, for the purpose 
 of taking out building stone, shows that the great central 
 core is entirely solid, and, furthermore, that it has on two 
 occasions been added to, the original core having supported 
 quite a small, unpretentious temple, the second an extension 
 of this, while the last consisted of the addition of the great 
 stairway, the upper range, and the lower range containing 
 nine rooms. 
 
 The Monjas was probably constructed during the great 
 period of the New Empire, i.e. between 1000 and 1200 A.D., 
 and it clearly indicates how rapid must have been the 
 growth of the city when within a couple of centuries a 
 simple temple underwent such tremendous extension and 
 elaborate sculptural decoration. Close to the Monjas is 
 seen the building known as the Akatzib, or “‘ Writing in the 
 Dark.” It faces east, and measures r4oft. by 48ft. The 
 facade is quite plain, and in the centre of the building, which 
 contains in all eighteen rooms, is a solid mass of masonry, to 
 the platform, upon the top of which originally led a great 
 stone stairway, now in ruins. From various indications 
 it would appear that this building was unfinished, and that 
 
212 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 it was contemplated to build a second range of buildings 
 upon the top of the great central solid core, an enterprise 
 probably stopped by the Toltec conquest of the city. The 
 name “‘ Writing in the Dark ”’ is derived from the presence 
 of some hieroglyphic inscriptions in the southern room, none 
 of which, unfortunately, give the date of the erection of the 
 building ; they are difficult to read, as the room is almost 
 in darkness. 
 
 Proceeding northward from the Monjas, at a distance of 
 40oft. stands the building known as the Caracol, from the 
 spiral stairway in its interior, the only structure of this kind 
 found throughout the Maya area, with the single exception 
 of one at Mayapan, now a mere heap of ruins. It is circular 
 in form, and stands upon the upper of two terraces. The 
 lower terrace measures 223ft. by 150ft. Its summit is 
 approached by a broad flight of stone steps, on each side of 
 which, forming a balustrade, is a gigantic stone serpent, 
 their heads resting upon the ground. The upper terrace 
 measures 8oft. by 55ft., and its summit is reached by another 
 flight of sixteen stone steps. Upon the summit of this 
 terrace stands the Caracol, a circular building 22ft. in 
 diameter. One side and a great part of the roof have fallen 
 in. The roof must originally have sloped inwards almost 
 to an apex. At each of the cardinal points is a small door 
 opening into a circular passage 5ft. in diameter, the inner 
 wall of which is pierced by four more doors, placed at 
 intermediate points and opening into a second circular 
 passage 4ft. in diameter. The centre of the building is 
 occupied by a solid core of masonry. The whole structure 
 is in such a tottering state that it is very dangerous to ex- 
 plore it, as the least movement brings down loose stones, 
 and very little would be required to bring the whole 
 structure down on the head of the explorer. 
 
 One hundred and fifty yards north-west from the Caracol 
 stands the building known as the Chichanchob, or Red 
 House, one of the most compact and best-preserved buildings 
 amongst the ruins. It stands on a terrace measuring 
 

 
 CHICHANCHOB, OR RED HOUSE, CHICHEN ITZA. 
 
 ebees © 
 
 
 
 CHICHANCHOB, OR RED HOUSE, CHICHEN ITZA. 
 
 [p. 212 
 
* 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 213 
 
 62ft. by 55ft., faced with cut stone, the rounded angles 
 being formed by much larger stones. It is approached by 
 a stairway 20ft. wide. The building itself measures 43ft. 
 by 23ft., and possesses three doorways opening into a 
 passage or corridor which runs the whole length of the 
 building. Behind this are three small chambers, each with 
 a door of its own opening into the front corridor. Ex- 
 tending along the whole of the upper part of the back wall 
 of the corridor is a band of hieroglyphics, all in a very bad 
 state of preservation, but not, so far as may be judged by 
 those which can still be deciphered, dealing with time counts. 
 
 Not far from the Red House stands one of the most interest- 
 ing buildings at the ruins, known as the High Priests’ Grave. 
 It consists of a stone-faced pyramid approached by a 
 stairway, on each side of which were the extended bodies of 
 gigantic stone serpents, forming a balustrade, their heads, 
 with open jaws and extended tongues, resting upon the 
 ground, their tails containing the Crotalus rattle held up- 
 right. The illustration showing an Indian standing beside 
 one of the heads gives a good idea of their size. On the 
 summit of the pyramid stands the ruins of a small stone 
 temple supported on square stone columns. Upon one of 
 these columns is an extremely interesting inscription reading 
 2 Ahau 18 Xul, and just beneath this Tun1z1,2 Ahau. This 
 means that the contemporaneous date of the temple fell 
 upon a day 2 Ahau, the 19th day of the month Xul in the 
 calendar round, and that in the Initial Series count this fell 
 upon a Tun 11 ending in 2 Ahau. Now the only Initial 
 Series date which would fit in with these data is I1.19.11.0.0, 
 2 Ahau 18 Xul, which occurs in the year 1350 A.D. The 
 date of the High Priest’s Grave consequently is 1350 A.D. 
 A short time ago excavations were made in the stone floor 
 of the temple at the summit of the pyramid, as it sounded 
 hollow beneath. On removing the large slabs, a circular 
 opening was disclosed leading into a stone-lined chamber, 
 which contained a human skeleton with a number of orna- 
 ments and some pieces of pottery. On removing the slabs 
 
214 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 from the floor of this chamber a second one was disclosed 
 beneath it, in which were also found human bones, accom- 
 panied by some very beautifully carved ornaments (beads, 
 earrings, gorgets, etc.) of polished green jade. Beneath the 
 second chamber a third one was discovered, also containing 
 human bones, together with three large pearls, contained in 
 a small saucer, which had unfortunately lost all their lustre 
 after nearly five centuries of burial in this damp vault. The 
 bones were in such a poor state of preservation that they 
 crumbled away on being touched, and it was found im- 
 possible to preserve them. A tradition existed that this 
 mound was the burial-place of the High Priests of Chichen, 
 and that from the lower chamber an underground passage 
 passed to the Cenote of Sacrifice. No trace could be found 
 of the passage, but it may exist, as working in the confined 
 space and impure air of this lowest chamber—especially 
 excavating, which throws up clouds of impalpable dust—is 
 extremely difficult. I am strongly of opinion that the 
 pyramid was the burial-place, not of the priests, but of the 
 reigning Toltec family of Chichen at the time of its erection, 
 and what leads me to this conclusion is that amongst the 
 débris from the three chambers, which the excavator had 
 left on the floor of the temple as worthless, I discovered the 
 petrous portion of the temporal bone (the most indestructible 
 part of the whole skull) of a child of about five years of age. 
 Now if this had been the mausoleum of the high priests, 
 no child would certainly have been buried there, but if it 
 had been the royal mausoleum, probably all members of the 
 royal family would have been interred within it. 
 
 Passing to the north of the Castillo we come to the Ball 
 Court. This consists of two parallel walls each 274ft. long, 
 30ft. thick, and 120 ft. apart, faced throughout on their 
 inner sides with neatly-cut square blocks of stone. To the 
 north of the Ball Court, and facing the space between the 
 two walls, is a small building standing on a terrace and 
 approached by a flight of steps. It is 39ft. long, and contains 
 but a single chamber. The front is supported by two 
 

 
 SERPENT COLUMNS BY THE SIDE OF THE RUINED STAIRWAY LEADING 
 UP THE PYRAMID OF THE HIGH PRIEST’S GRAVE, CHICHEN ITZA. 
 
 (e213 
 
 
 
 CHICHEN ITZA : HIGH PRIEST’S GRAVE, A ROYAL 
 MAUSOLEUM. DATED COLUMN SHOWING IN- 
 SCRIPTION COMMENCING 2 AHAU 18 XUL. 
 
 [p. 213 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 215 
 
 elaborately sculptured columns, while the back wall is 
 covered from floor to arch with sculptured figures in low 
 relief, now much defaced. At the opposite end of the 
 court stands another building, facing the space between the 
 walls. This is 81ft. long, and contains a single room. It 
 - was supported on a series of elaborately sculptured square 
 columns, now in ruins. In the centre of each wall, 2oft. 
 from the ground, and exactly facing each other, was a great 
 stone ring 4ft. in diameter and I3ins. thick, the diameter 
 of the hole being 1gin. Round the borders of each are 
 sculptured intertwined serpents. These courts were un- 
 doubtedly made for playing the Mexican game of thlachtl, 
 which was unknown to the Maya till introduced about 1200 
 A.D. by the Toltec conquerors, for ball courts are found only 
 at the two cities where Mexican influence was strongest, 
 namely Chichen and Uxmal. The acoustic properties of 
 the Ball Court are very remarkable, though whether they 
 were intentional on the part of the builders it is impossible 
 now to say. The lowest tones of a speaking voice in the 
 North Temple can be heard quite plainly in the South 
 Temple, though nearly an eighth of a mile separates them, 
 and it is perfectly delightful, especially on a fine, calm, moon- 
 light night, to sit in the South Temple and listen to the 
 sweet voice of one of the native Maya girls singing a native 
 song, as it almost appears as if she were standing at one’s 
 elbow to sing. 
 
 Herrera the historian, in describing Mexican games, 
 gives the following vivid account of the ball game, or, as 
 he calls it, tennis: 
 
 “The King took much delight in seeing sport at Ball, 
 which the Spaniards have since prohibited because of the 
 mischief which often happened at it; and was by them 
 called Tlachil, being like our Tennis. The Ball was made 
 of the gum of a Tree that grows in hot countries, which, 
 having holes made in it, distils great white drops, that 
 soon harden, and being worked and moulded together, 
 
216 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 turn as black as pitch. The balls made thereof, though 
 hard and heavy to the hand, did bound and fly as well as 
 our Footballs, there being no need to blow them; nor 
 did they use chaces, but vy’d to drive the adverse Party 
 that is to hit the wall, the others were to make good, or 
 strike it over. They struck it with any part of their 
 body, as it happened, or they could most conveniently ; 
 and sometimes he lost that touched it with any other 
 Part but his Hip, which was looked upon among them 
 as the greatest dexterity ; and to this effect, that the 
 ball might rebound the better, they fastened a piece of 
 stiff leather to their hips. They might strike it every 
 time it rebounded, which it would do several times one 
 after another, in so much that it looked as if it had been 
 alive. They played in parties, so many on a side, for a 
 load of mantles or what the gamesters could afford, at 
 so many scores. They also played for gold and leather 
 work, and sometimes played themselves away as has been 
 said before. The place where they played was a ground 
 room, long, narrow and high, but wider above them, 
 below and higher on the sides than at the ends, and they 
 kept it very well plastered, and smooth, both the walls 
 and the floor on the side walls they fixed certain stones, 
 like those of a mill with a hole quite through the middle, 
 just as big as the ball, and he that could strike it through 
 _ there won the game, and in token of its being an extra- 
 ordinary success, which rarely happened, he had a right 
 to the cloaks of all the lookers on, by the ancient custom 
 and law amongst gamesters, and it was very pleasant to 
 see, that as soon as ever the ball was in the hole the 
 standers by took to their heels, running away with all 
 their might to save their cloaks, laughing and rejoicing, 
 others scouring after them to secure their cloaks for the 
 winner, who was obliged to offer some sacrifice to the 
 idol of the Tennis Court, and the stone through whose 
 hole the ball had passed. Every Tennis Court was a 
 temple having two idols, the one of gaming and the other 
 
 a a oe 
 

 
 SERPENT COLUMN ON SUMMIT OF HIGH PRIEST’S GRAVE. 
 
 [p. 213 
 
 
 
 MAYA INDIAN IN RUINED SANCTUARY OF HIGH PRIEST’S GRAVE. 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 217 
 
 of the ball. On a lucky day, at midnight they performed 
 ceremonies and enchantments on the lower walls and on 
 the midst of the floor, singing certain songs or ballads ; 
 after which a Priest of the Great Temple went with some 
 of their religious men to bless it, he uttered some words, 
 threw the ball about the tennis court four times, and 
 then it was consecrated, and might be played in, but not 
 before. The owner of the Tennis Court, who was always 
 a Lord, never played without making some offering and 
 performing certain ceremonies to the idol of gaming, 
 which shows how superstitious they were, since they had 
 such regard to their idols even in their diversions. Monte- 
 zuma carry’d the Spaniards to this sport and was well 
 pleased to see them play at it, as also at cards and dice.” 
 
 This description by Herrera of the game of tennis as 
 played at the court of Montezuma can leave no room for 
 doubt that the game was introduced by the Toltec con- 
 querors from Mexico, as the courts, the rings, and the 
 temples of sacrifice, with a few minor variations, are exactly 
 as he described them. In clearing out the Ball Court 
 enormous quantities of fragments of large clay incense 
 burners, with the figure of a god in high relief done in 
 appliqué on their outer surface, were found. These were 
 buried amongst the dust, vegetal mould, and débris of 
 falling walls, and had evidently been placed there since 
 the abandonment of the Ball Court, probably in early 
 Spanish times, by a few poor remnants of the Maya, who, 
 as we have seen at Chacmool, still carried on the worship 
 of their ancient gods in forests, ruins, and secret places 
 notwithstanding the cruel persecution of the Spaniards, 
 and especially of the priests. 
 
 At the southern end of the east wall of the Ball Court 
 stands the temple known as the Casa del Tigres, or Temple 
 of the Jaguars. The lower story consists of a single room 
 with vaulted roof, supported in front by two elaborately 
 sculptured columns. The back wall is covered by very 
 
218 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 elaborate sculpture in low relief, showing a procession of 
 Toltec warriors painted in red, green, and yellow, every 
 detail of their plumed spears, shields, and other arms, their 
 elaborate headdresses, their ornamental sandals, and even 
 their crests or coats of arms which are placed by the side 
 of each, is brought out with the utmost fidelity, and in the 
 absence of any other evidence this painted, sculptured wall 
 would prove conclusively that Chichen was at one time 
 under Mexican dominion. Unfortunately, a great number 
 of the stones from this magnificent painted sculpture have 
 fallen, and we hoped to be able to find them all amongst 
 the piles of débris which litter the floor of the chamber. 
 This hope, however, we were compelled to abandon on 
 finding several of them built into the wall of the church at 
 Pisté, an Indian village a couple of miles distant from 
 Chichen. The upper story of this temple is decorated by 
 a most elaborate cornice, showing a procession of jaguars 
 following each other all round the temple. The position of 
 the animals—head forward and front paw upraised as they 
 creep along—is most realistic. The front of this upper 
 story is supported by two immense serpent columns, one 
 of which is shown, with an Indian standing beside it. These 
 serpents represent Quetzalcoatl, the hero god of the Maya, 
 whose name signifies the “ Feathered Serpent,’ and on both 
 the head and the square column which represents the body 
 of the serpent conventionalised feathers can clearly be seen. 
 The single room of this upper story is covered with stucco, 
 upon which are painted in green, yellow, red, blue, and 
 brown, in a highly realistic manner, scenes from the domestic 
 and religious life of the inhabitants, warriors with shield 
 and spear, dancing men, women about their domestic 
 occupations, dug-out canoes on lake or sea, musicians, 
 priests offering sacrifices, houses, figures of gods, and 
 religious ceremonies. 
 
 One hundred and twenty yards to the south of the temple 
 of the Tigers stands the Castillo. The pyramid upon which 
 it is erected measures at the base 197/ft. by 202ft., and stands 
 

 
 THE BALL COURT, CHICHEN ITZA. 
 [p. 214 
 
 
 
 CHICHEN ITZA, CASA DEL TIGRE, 
 OR TEMPLE OF THE JAGUARS. [p. 217 
 
> 
 
 “? 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 219 
 
 75ft. high. It is approached by four stairways, the one on 
 the north is 44ft. wide, and those on the other sides 37ft. wide. 
 The northern stairway was evidently the main approach to 
 the temple, as on each side of it are two great serpent balus- 
 trades whose heads rest upon the ground. Both stairway 
 and balustrades are now in ruins. The stairway on the 
 west side has been restored, and one can reach the temple 
 on top by means of it, though as the steps are very narrow 
 and high the ascent is not easy, and numerous accidents 
 have happened, especially to half-intoxicated Indians who 
 have rashly undertaken the ascent without assistance. 
 The platform at the summit of the mound measures 64ft. 
 by 61ft., and the temple which stands upon it 4oft. by 43ft. 
 The temple possesses four doors facing the four cardinal 
 points, each with a lintel of carved sapote wood, now a good 
 deal weathered after their 500 years’ exposure to the weather, 
 and jambs of stone upon which are sculptured in low relief 
 the figures of warriors with plumed headdresses, ear-plugs, 
 and nose-ornaments. The northern doorway is by far the 
 most important, as from it no doubt started the processions 
 of priests accompanying the victims to the Cenote of Sacri- 
 fice. It is 20ft. wide, and divided into three by two elabor- 
 ately sculptured columns 8ft. 8in. high. It leads into a 
 corridor 4oft. long and 17ft. high, in the rear wall of which 
 is a door giving access to what is undoubtedly the most 
 remarkable room throughout the whole ruins. It measures 
 roft. 8in. by 12ft. gin., and is 17ft. high. Within it are two 
 elaborately carved square stone columns oft. gin. high and 
 22in. in diameter, and they support great sapote beams 
 also very elaborately carved. Unfortunately, a great part 
 of the surface of these beams has crumbled away from dry 
 rot, and the best preserved piece of carving has been attacked 
 by some vandal with an axe, perhaps a couple of feet of it 
 removed, but a much greater area, of course, completely 
 destroyed. One can only hope that there is in the future 
 a special hell reserved for the type of person who will do 
 this wanton and irreparable damage, and, above all, for 
 
220 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 those who are unable to leave a ruin or a monument without 
 recording, as conspicuously and in as prominent a place as 
 possible, their name and the date of their visit. From the 
 top of this temple a magnificent view is obtained of all the 
 surrounding country. Far as the eye can reach in every 
 direction nothing is visible but an endless sea of virgin bush, 
 flat as a table, and silent as the grave. To the east of 
 the Castillo is found the curious structure known as the 
 Market-place, or ‘‘ The Group of a Thousand Columns.” 
 It consists of groups of three, four, or five columns standing 
 on long, elevated terraces. Each column is composed of 
 round, flat stone discs, and as their number is approximately 
 a thousand they have been called “‘ The Group of a Thousand 
 Columns.’ Most of them have fallen, and round all of them 
 quantities of débris have collected, in some cases covering 
 them to a height of 5ft. or 6ft. The group encloses on three 
 sides a quadrangular space of considerable size. It is broken 
 at intervals by temples and pyramids, and within the 
 enclosed space are also a few small temples. There can be 
 but little doubt that these columns formed an arcade 
 surrounding a central market-place, and that at one time 
 they supported a roof, possibly of cement, but more probably 
 of palm leaf, carried on sapodilla beams. The group of 
 columns, with their subsidiary temples, the Castillo, the Ball 
 Court, the Temple of the Tigers, and numerous other smaller 
 temples and pyramids, all stand upon one vast low terrace, 
 which was at one time covered with stucco. The whole 
 group, viewed from the summit, must in the days when 
 the city flourished have presented a perfectly magnificent 
 spectacle. 
 

 
 CHICHEN ITZA., 
 Castillo from the West. 
 [p. 219 
 
 
 
 CHICHEN ITZA. . INSCRIPTION ON INITIAL SERIES LINTEL. 
 
 (I) UNDER SURFACE OF LINTEL. (2) FRONT OF LINTEL. 
 [p. 226 
 

 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The Cenote of Sacrifice—A Weird Pool—The Most Sacred Spot in Yucatan 
 —Sacrifice to the Rain God of Young Girls—Wonderful Treasure 
 Recovered from the Cenote, with Skeletons of Girls—Objects Found— 
 Wide Distribution Geographically of Art Treasures—Sacrificial 
 “ Killing’ of Objects before Throwing in the Cenote—First Historical 
 Account of the Ruins—Montejo’s Ill-fated Occupation of Chichen 
 Itza—The Spaniards Escape by a Ruse—The Temple of the Initial 
 Series—The Chacmool Temple—The Temple of the Atlantean Figures 
 —The Temple of Two Lintels and its Date—The Temple of the Owl 
 and its Date—Dated Buildings Found Covering the Three Periods 
 of the City. 
 
 To the north of the Castillo lies the Cenote of Sacrifice, one 
 of the most interesting sights at the ruins. It is a great 
 circular well nearly 300ft. in diameter, with perpendicular 
 sides descending 7oft. to the surface of the water, which is 
 7oft. deep. The bottom is covered by a layer of thick 
 brown mud 3o0ft. deep. It is a gloomy, repellant and 
 mournful place, surrounded by thick bush, where a weird 
 silence always exists, unbroken by the cry of an animal or 
 the song of a bird. The surface of the water is of a dark 
 greenish colour, without a ripple even in the highest wind. 
 A stone dropped in produces a dull booming reverberation 
 around the whole great cavity. It is from this cenote that 
 the city took its name Chichen Itza, i.e. Chi, mouth, Chen, well, 
 Itza, of the Itzas, the branch of the Maya who first occupied 
 the site. From the Toltec conquest at the end of the 
 twelfth century it was regarded as the most sacred spot in 
 Yucatan, and hither came devotees from all over the Maya 
 provinces to sacrifice to the god of rain. At ordinary times 
 the sacrifices consisted of the most valuable and ‘beautiful 
 products of the land—jade, turquoise, and gold jewels, 
 stone and wood carvings, weapons of flint and obsidian, 
 beautifully decorated pottery, gold vessels and gold inlaid 
 
 221 
 
222 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 ornaments, and pieces of incense made from the gum of the 
 white acacia of all sizes and shapes. During times of stress 
 and especially during droughts, which must have been 
 particularly dreaded by the inhabitants of this arid land, 
 the most beautiful of their maidens were sacrificed to the 
 god by being thrown into the cenote from the temple on 
 its margin, the remains of which still exist. These sacrifices, 
 till a few years ago, were regarded as merely traditionary ; 
 then systematic dredging of the mud at the bottom of the 
 cenote was undertaken, with the most astonishing results. 
 The top layers of mud when brought up by the dredges 
 yielded absolutely nothing, and operations were about to be 
 abandoned, as it was supposed that tradition was, as usual, 
 lying, when a few light-weight Maya artifacts appeared 
 mixed with the mud. The deeper the dredges went the 
 more things were brought to light, amongst them some of 
 the most wonderful products of Maya art, including gold 
 vases, cups, and bowls of all sizes, weapons, implements 
 and ornaments of gold, jade, and obsidian, many thousands 
 of pieces of incense, some contained in the vessels into which 
 they had been poured while liquid, others spherical lumps, 
 exquisitely carved round shields, and throwing sticks of 
 hardwood, covered with a thin layer of gold following the 
 contour of the carving, carved jade plaques, and, perhaps 
 most interesting of all, great numbers of the skeletons of 
 young girls, in a wonderful state of preservation, and 
 coloured a dark brownish yellow by the mud in which they 
 had been buried for so many centuries. Thus, then, the 
 tradition handed down by Landa, Bishop of Yucatan, soon 
 after the conquest, in his writings on the Indians and their 
 customs, proved true in every particular. The reason why 
 no objects were found in the upper layers of mud was 
 probably that these had accumulated during the 400 years 
 which had elapsed since the conquest of Yucatan, when, of 
 course, no sacrifices were made in the cenote. From the 
 Castillo—undoubtedly the principal temple during the 
 Toltec occupation—to the cenote stretches a straight, broad, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 223 
 
 elevated road, along which the girl victims marched to the 
 sacrifice. They were accompanied by many priests in 
 procession, and by bands of players on musical instruments, 
 while the people in their thousands lined the sides of this 
 via dolorosa and the edge of the cenote itself. The victims, 
 who were probably partially drugged, seem to have gone 
 to their fate, not only without fear, but with actual Joy, as 
 they believed that they would within a few moments enter 
 their heaven, a joyous, fertile land ruled over by the bene- 
 ficent rain god, where sickness, sorrow, and death were 
 unknown. If, as occasionally happened, one of the victims 
 survived till midday at the bottom of the cenote, either by 
 swimming or clinging to the side, she was rescued, being 
 regarded as a messenger sent back with a communication 
 from the god as to the kind of sacrifices necessary to procure 
 the much-desired rain. One of our principal amusements 
 while at Chichen was picking up pieces of jade from the 
 margins of the cenote, 
 
 When the dredges came up full of mud from the bottom 
 this was dumped on the ground and felt over by hand, by 
 Indians, under very close supervision. Notwithstanding 
 these precautions, however, a considerable number of gold 
 ornaments, bells, beads, etc., and some beautifully carved 
 jade objects, were stolen. Most unfortunately, nearly all 
 the objects offered as sacrifices to the rain god were “ killed ”’ 
 before being thrown into the cenote ; that is, the jades were 
 smashed, often into tiny pieces, the flints and obsidians were 
 broken, the gold objects were hammered together into 
 compact masses, and the lumps of incense were partially 
 consumed, frequently with a jade plaque or a few beads 
 on top of them, which were necessarily calcined and 
 blackened. 
 
 Thus it happened that thousands of small pieces of jade 
 and turquoise were left amidst the mud on the margins of 
 the cenote, and after every heavy fall of rain these are 
 washed out and may be picked up. I found several beads 
 of beautifully polished translucent green jade, one piece with 
 
224 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 half a Maya glyph of the day Ahau inscribed upon 
 it, and hundreds of fragments of blackened and calcined 
 jade which had been burnt in the incense before being 
 thrown in. Some of the objects sacrificed are evidently 
 heirlooms, which had been handed down in the great 
 Maya families for centuries. This applies particularly to 
 the jade plaques, some of which can, on stylistic grounds, 
 be dated back to the Old Empire, and were at least 600 
 and perhaps 1,000 years old when they were thrown in. 
 
 Turquoise from as far north as the Pueblo region is found 
 side by side with gold ornaments from as far south as 
 Nicaragua. The cenote must, therefore, have been regarded 
 with extraordinary veneration both by the Maya and their 
 conquerors, while either the rain god cult extended from 
 the Pueblo region to Nicaragua, or, what is more probable, 
 the Maya carried on commerce with the people of both these 
 regions, and sacrificed the more precious of the objects 
 obtained from them in the cenote, 
 
 The first historical mention of the ruins of Chichen Itza 
 was when, in 1528, Francisco Montejo penetrated them 
 with his soldiers from the east coast, starting from 
 opposite the Island of Cozumel, shortly after he had been 
 appointed Adelantado, or Governor of Yucatan. Montejo 
 decided to settle at Chichen Itza, as he considered that the 
 strength of the great buildings as fortresses would enable 
 him to defend them against any attack launched by the 
 Indians. Here he made the fatal mistake of dividing his 
 forces, sending one section off under Davila to Chetumal, 
 where the existence of gold had been reported. Though the 
 ruins were probably at this time abandoned, for since the 
 middle of the previous century the Maya had degenerated 
 greatly in every way owing to the constant internecine 
 wars between the small rulers of the peninsula, yet never- 
 theless there must have been a dense population around 
 Chichen Itza, for we are told that, in making the distribution 
 allowed by the Royal Charter, not less than 2,000 fell to any 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 225 
 
 of the conquistadores. The Indians, enraged by the brutal 
 treatment of the Spaniards and the constant drain on their 
 stocks of provisions, at no time much more than sufficient 
 to support themselves, determined to get rid of their oppres- 
 sors at any cost. With this end in view they first of all 
 cut off the supply of provisions completely, and when the 
 Spaniards sent out foraging parties, these were set upon and 
 exterminated. 
 
 Immense numbers of Indians now began to collect round 
 the Spanish fortification, and the Spaniards, seeing that 
 they must either fight or die of starvation, sallied forth and 
 fought the most sanguinary battle ever recorded in Yucatan 
 between the Indians and their conquerors. The Spaniards 
 were victorious, but at a terrible cost, for 150 of their number 
 were killed, and hardly one of the survivors was without 
 a wound. 
 
 Surrounded by Indians, unable to obtain food, the 
 situation was obviously untenable, so they had resort to a 
 ruse to make good their escape. One dark night, after 
 the Indians had been well tired out by constant sallies during 
 the day, and were off their guard, the Spaniards tied a dog 
 to the clapper of a bell, and placed some food beside him just 
 out of his reach. The dog, endeavouring to follow them, 
 and later to get at the food, kept the bell constantly going, 
 while the Indians, imagining the Spaniards were sounding 
 an alarm, waited daybreak before attacking them 
 again. 
 
 In the meantime the Spaniards had marched quietly out 
 and made their way towards Silan, where the cacique was 
 friendly towards them, and eventually assisted them in 
 making their way to the coast. From that date to the 
 middle of the eighteenth century no further mention is 
 made of Chichen Itza, but the probabilities are that the 
 Indians were left pretty much to themselves, as the accu- 
 mulation of fragments of incense burners in the Ball Court, 
 sure sign of a return to idolatry and an absence of priestly 
 
 influence, would tend to show. 
 PL 
 
226 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 We found innumerable smaller temples and other struc- 
 tures at Chichen Itza, many of which possessed some point 
 of special interest, though compared with the larger buildings 
 they were in themselves insignificant. 
 
 Of these the most important was the Temple of the 
 Initial Series. Situated a considerable distance to the south 
 of the hacienda, this small ruined temple stands on a low 
 pyramid, and forming one of its entrances are two Atlantean 
 figures supporting a stone lintel, upon the front of which 
 is sculptured in low relief the Initial Series 10.2.9.1.9. 
 9 Muluc 7 Zac, falling within the year 619 A.D. On the under 
 surface of the lintel is sculptured a Tun 10 ending on a day 
 2 Ahau, which brings the contemporaneous date of this 
 lintel to 10.2.10.0.0. 2 Ahau 13 Chen, falling within the year 
 620 A.D. This, however, it must be understood, is the con- 
 temporaneous date of the lintel only ; the temple itself belongs 
 to a much later period, for as the Atlantean figures—a purely 
 Mexican innovation—show, it was not built till after the 
 Toltec invasion about 1200 A.D. It follows, therefore, that 
 the lintel must have been taken from an old Maya temple 
 and reused in its present situation by the conquerors, with- 
 out altering its original date. Had it not been supported 
 on Atlantean columns, this lintel would undoubtedly have 
 been regarded as dating the temple of which it forms 
 part. 
 
 The Initial Series is extremely interesting, partly because 
 it is the earliest one of the only three known in Yucatan, 
 and partly because it fixes, without a shadow of a doubt, the 
 earliest Maya occupation of the city. 
 
 Situated a short distance to the north-east of the Castillo 
 is what is known as the Chacmool Temple. A few years ago, 
 when the substructure upon which this temple stood was 
 excavated, there was brought to light a gigantic human figure 
 in areclining position, the arms pressed to the sides, legs drawn 
 up, and head looking backward over the shoulder, precisely 
 similar in every respect to the one found at Chacmool, 
 already described. Since then numbers of these figures 
 

 
 CHACMOOL’ STATUE, FROM ONE OF SMALLER TEMPLES, CHICHEN ITZA. 
 
 [p. 226 
 
 
 
 UXMAL : HOUSE OF THE ADIVINO. 
 
 ip. 248 
 

 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 227 
 
 have been discovered at the ruins, and there can be no doubt 
 but that they were introduced by the Toltecs, and probably 
 worshipped by them as gods. 
 
 The temple of the Atlantean Figures is situated just north 
 of the Market-Place. It is a square building standing on a 
 high stone-faced pyramid, both now in a very ruined condi- 
 tion. In the small back room as sanctuary of the temple are 
 a number of Atlantean figures such as are found in great 
 quantities all over the city. Here the use to which they were 
 originally put is well shown, for four of them support a 
 large rectangular slab of stone, evidently used as an altar, 
 upon one side of the sanctuary, while on the opposite side 
 a similar altar has fallen, leaving the Atlantean figures and 
 top scattered on the floor. This temple is known locally as 
 the Temple of the “Mesas or tables, from the resemblance 
 of these altars to low stone tables. 
 
 The Temple of the Two Lintels is interesting in that it 
 contains one of the only four dates found at Chichen Itza. 
 The inscription shown in the illustration reads 9 Eznab, a 
 day, eleven, the month Yax, occurring in a Tun 13; which 
 may be interpreted as the calendar round date g Eznab, 
 Ir Yax, occurring in a Tun 13, and corresponding to the 
 Initial Series date 13.7.12.16.18.9 Eznab 11 Yax, falling 
 within the year I107 A.D., which may be regarded as 
 the contemporaneous date of this little temple. The 
 tun sign given in this inscription is a winged Cauac, the 
 meaning of which we discovered from data collected 
 on this trip, a discovery which has helped immensely 
 in the decipherment of the glyphs throughout the whole 
 peninsula. 
 
 From a small structure situated quite close to the Temple 
 of the Initial Series, and known as the Temple of the Owl 
 because the head of that bird is sculptured upon it in 
 several places, was taken a capstone, upon which was 
 painted 1 Ahau ending a Tun 13, this would correspond with 
 the Initial Series date 12.2.13.0.0. 1 Ahau, 18 Ceh, falling 
 within the year I4II A.D. 
 
228 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 We had now found dated monuments corresponding to 
 the three periods of occupancy of the city. The Initial 
 Series date on the Temple of the Initial Series—620 Aa.D.— 
 goes back to the first Maya settlement after the hegira 
 from the Old Empire. The Temple of Two Lintels, 1107 
 A.D., corresponds to the Great Period, between r1ooo and 
 I200 A.D., when the League of Mayapan existed. 
 
 The High Priest’s Grave, 1350 A.D., and the Temple of 
 the Owl, I41I A.D., correspond to the latest or Toltec period 
 of the city. 
 
 A small temple situated close to the Temple of the Owl 
 is of interest, as from the inner walls of two of the rooms 
 project gigantic phalli, the only indication throughout the 
 whole city that phallic worship was ever practised by the 
 Maya. 
 
 To archeologists used to exploring ancient Maya cities 
 two facts stand out as remarkable at Chichen Itza—the 
 absence of small burial-mounds and of potsherds. Usually 
 Maya sites are covered with potsherds, and such small 
 articles as clay beads and spindle whorls, arrow-heads, and 
 pieces of obsidian knives, flint hammerstones and scrapers, 
 and similar comparatively valueless indestructible objects. 
 
 At Chichen Itza, however, nothing of this kind is found, 
 and even potsherds are extremely rare. One reason possibly 
 is that a very durable kind of cement used in the ruins was 
 composed largely of broken-up potsherds, most of which 
 may have been collected and used for this purpose. This 
 would not, however, account for the complete absence of 
 all small artifacts so common at most other Maya sites. 
 
 The city was occupied for nearly 1,000 years, and at one 
 time its population was probably in the neighbourhood of 
 250,000, so that at a very moderate computation at least 
 one million persons must have been buried in and around 
 it, from the date of its foundation on to the Spanish con- 
 quest, including kings, priests, and nobles, and yet, with 
 the exception of the High Priest’s Grave and one other 
 sepulchral temple, no burials have been found up to now. 
 

 
 CHICHEN ITZA. 
 Text from High Priest’s grave. Above 2 Ahau 18 Xul; 
 below Tun 11, 2 Ahau. 
 
 [p. 213 
 
 
 
 CHICHEN ITZA. 
 Temple of the two lintels. 
 
 I. 9 Ezgnab, A CENA B ER 
 3. -Eleven. 4. Month Yax. 
 5. Occurring in Tun 13 
 OV-Lt, 712.10, 18), 6. EZ0aD Tr Yax0l 1107 A.D: 
 
 [p. 227 
 
“Z 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 229 
 
 The small mounds in the neighbourhood of the city are not, 
 as one might expect, sepulchral, but almost invariably 
 formed substructures for small temples. What, then, did 
 the inhabitants do with their dead ? 
 
 All round the city are found quarries, mostly shallow 
 excavations in the limestone, from which had been taken 
 the vast quantities of stone required for the construction 
 of the buildings. In many of these quarries great blocks 
 of stone still remain, some of them partially squared, just 
 as they had been left by the builders. 
 
 It is difficult to form a true conception of the extent of 
 the city. We found ruins three miles to the north of the 
 cenote and a couple of miles to the south of old Chichen, 
 while paved roadways branch out to ruins to the east of 
 the city. All except the few central buildings are buried 
 in dense bush, and till this is cleared and burnt it is impossible 
 to say for how many miles the ruins extend in each direction. 
 
 We had thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the ruins, our 
 only regret being that we could not remain longer, but this 
 was out of the question, and it will require years of syste- 
 matic work in clearing and excavation to bring all its 
 hidden secrets to light. 
 
 We found garvapaias, or ticks, the most troublesome pest 
 at Chichen, where they abound in every part of the bush, 
 and vary in size from a large split pea to a small pin’s head. 
 On returning from work in the ruins at dusk we always had 
 a rub down with gasoline and afterwards a good bath with 
 soap and water, thus ensuring a peaceful night. Indeed, if 
 we got badly covered with ticks during the morning’s work 
 we often had to resort to a midday rub down and bath as 
 well. One horrible pest seems to be peculiar to this locality, 
 as I have never seen it in any other part of Central America. 
 This is a beetle about riin. in length, with a long proboscis, 
 which it digs into one’s skin. It usually attacks early in 
 the morning, and fortunately gives warning of its approach 
 with a loud booming noise, but as it is extraordinarily 
 quick one is not always able to avoid its attack, even when 
 
230 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 duly warned. The puncture inflicted does not itch or give 
 any trouble for the first twenty-four hours, but after that 
 for two or three days it swells to a painful lump, which 
 itches intolerably, and may not completely disappear for 
 several weeks, and may even suppurate. 
 

 
 ees 
 
 STONE ALTAR SUPPORTED ON ATLANTEAN 
 
 COLUMNS, CHICHEN ITZA. 
 
 pn 227 
 
 
 
 irre 
 ~ g wk % SOE seaman teats le ies a = 
 
 SIELE REPRESENTING TWO NATIVES CLAD IN LOIN 
 CLOTHS, CARRYING THE CARCASS. OF A DEER: SLUNG 
 ONSA POLE. 
 
 lp. 227 
 

 
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CHAPTER XV 
 
 We return to Dzitas—Unsuccessful Effort to Stop Réveillé by Inaian 
 Performers—An Accommodating Judge—Similarity of the Yucate- 
 cans to the Irish—Arrival at Ticul—An Uncomfortable Night— 
 The Cave of Loltun—Petroglyphs—Water Receptacles—The Only 
 Date found in the Cave—Tradition Amongst the Indians in Con- 
 nection with the Cave—The Ranch of Tabi—Hospitably Enter- 
 tained—A Luxurious Ranch—-An Equine Battle Royal—A Curious 
 Stele showing traces of Spanish Influence—The Inscription Un- 
 decipherable—A Bad Road—Santa Ana—Great Pyramid at: 
 Kabah—Great Numbers of Ruined Buildings throughout Yucatan 
 —Other Buildings at Kabah—Glyphs which we Could Not Read 
 —A Triumphal Arch—A Stone-faced Terrace; Buildings on It— 
 Removal of Sapodilla Beams Leads to the Fall of the Buildings— 
 Removal of Sculptured Lintel to New York and Its Destruction— 
 Sculptured Door Jambs—Disappointed In Not Finding a Date in 
 the City—Pleasant City to Visit—Scarcity of Water—Source of 
 Water Supply of Ancient Inhabitants. 
 
 On Saturday, March 17th, we left Chichen early in the 
 morning on horseback, sending our luggage on with Muddy 
 by volan for Dzitas. It came on to pour with rain when 
 we had gone about eight miles, and for the last half of the 
 journey never let up, so that we arrived like drowned rats. 
 We were given the Cabildo, or combined Court House, 
 Police Station, and Lock-Up, to sleep in ; a fine, large, airy 
 clean, whitewashed room, with an earth floor, where we 
 were very glad to get into dry clothes and hang up our 
 hammocks. Tea and food were our first thought after 
 changing—both difficult to obtain, as all the shops close 
 every day at noon by order of the Municipality. The tea 
 we managed to obtain by giving a Turk two dollars gold to 
 open his store and sell us }lb., but as we heard he was fined 
 ten dollars for doing so it cannot have been a very profitable 
 
 231 
 
232 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 transaction. Tortillas, sponge cakes, eggs, and Jonganis, 
 or native sausage, Muddy managed to procure by a house- 
 to-house tour, so we did not do so badly. A bugle and 
 drum reposed in the corner of the Cabildo, and, knowing by 
 bitter experience the horrible custom in all Yucatecan 
 villages, where a few soldiers are stationed, of sounding 
 révéille at cock crow every morning, and prolonging the 
 agony for a quarter of an hour, we carefully wet the drum- 
 heads and poured water into the bugle. To no purpose, 
 however, as next morning before five we were awakened by 
 the well-known racket right outside the door of the Cabildo. 
 It was a trifle spluttering at first, and the bugler was using 
 horrible language in Maya, while the drum was decidedly 
 flat, but the volume of noise was unimpaired, and I think 
 we got an extra long performance. 
 
 Next morning the stores were open, and we bought some 
 provisions from a tiny shop next the Cabildo, outside which 
 were collected several litigants waiting till we had finished 
 early tea for the Court to open. At breakfast-time the 
 Judge, who kept the little store where we bought our 
 provisions, very courteously adjourned Court till we had 
 finished, when we discovered it was time for us to get on to 
 the railway-station. 
 
 The more one sees of Yucatan, the more it reminds one 
 of Ireland ; the same soft, fragrant, indescribable atmo- 
 sphere found nowhere else in the world, the same straggling 
 villages with their whitewashed thatched cabins, with the 
 same pig, the mainstay of the family, running in and out 
 at will, and the same kitchen midden under the window ; 
 the same happy-go-lucky, kind-hearted, hospitable, super- 
 stitious, irresponsible people, equally ready for a row or a 
 spree, hating the one the Mexican, the other the Sassenach 
 with a bitter, hereditary racial hatred. 
 
 From Dzitas we took train to Ticul, another large village, 
 whose inhabitants are nearly all Indians and Mestizos. The 
 national flag was flying half mast high on our arrival, and 
 on enquiring the reason we were informed that it was in 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 233 
 
 mourning for the anniversary of General Alvorado’s en- 
 trance to Yucatan four years previously, when the Yucatecans 
 were, after a bitter lesson, subjected to the Carranza Govern- 
 ment. Surely nowhere else but in the Emerald Isle could 
 the conqueror be thus insulted publicly without after- 
 thoughts of reprisals! But Mexico now justly regards 
 Yucatan as the goose which lays the golden eggs, whose 
 laying abilities are not to be lightly interfered with. 
 
 We slept that night at Ticul, where, as there is nothing 
 approaching an hotel, we were glad to be able to hire ham- 
 mocks in the house of a merchant from whom we had hired 
 a ‘‘ Fotingo’”’ to take us to the ranch of Tabi next day. 
 Our host was an enormously stout man, and at the usual 
 Yacatecan supper of chicken, beans, eggs, tomatoes, chili, 
 and tortillas entertained as with the half-dozen sentences 
 in English of which he was the master. He was like all 
 Yucatecans, extremely anxious to learn the language, but 
 as an opportunity of conversing with a citizen of the U.S.A. 
 only occurred about once a year, while 1 was probably the 
 first Englishman he had encountered, his progress was 
 naturally slow. The whole family sat around at the lesson, 
 and gave us some useful hints in Maya pronunciation in 
 return. 
 
 They were all very stout, and soon after we had retired 
 to our hammocks all commenced to snore in different keys; 
 though doubtless, being used to each other’s little idio- 
 syncrasies, none of them apparently kept the others awake. 
 For me, however, the noise rendered sleep impossible, and 
 though I had no compunction in waking our host, I hesitated 
 to enter the sefiorita’s room for that purpose, lest my motives 
 be misunderstood, so retired with a small cot and rug to the 
 patio, or yard, to keep the house dog company, though even 
 his reception. was far from friendly. 
 
 We made a very early start next morning with the 
 “‘ Fotingo,”’ in which the driver engaged to take us as near 
 as the auto could go to the mouth of the great cave of Loltun. 
 From this point we would walk to the cave, while he 
 
 OL 
 
234 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 went on to the ranch at Tabi, where we were to join him 
 later. 
 
 Arrived at the point, Morley, Held, myself, and Muddy 
 started with a guide for the cave, which we were assured was 
 but three short kilometres away. After walking over a 
 rocky road for nearly an hour in the broiling sun we thought 
 we must be approaching our destination, and, on asking 
 the guide, were told: “ Pues, senvor, no es mas que una 
 legua’’—‘ Well, sir, it’s not over a league! ”’ 
 
 In another forty minutes, however, we reached the mouth 
 of the cave, a comparatively small and not very impressive- 
 looking hole in the ground. Entering, we found ourselves 
 in a sloping passage, scrambling down which, we arrived at 
 a ledge from which a ladder, constructed of two tree-trunks, 
 having steppers tied on with strands of liana, led to the 
 floor of the cave. .It proved to be a vast, rock-strewn 
 chamber, with many stalactites hanging from the lofty roof, 
 the floor covered by a layer of soft brown earth. From the 
 chamber, at various levels, innumerable passages led away in 
 all directions, some low, narrow tunnels only large enough to 
 squeeze through on all fours, others vast galleries, lofty and 
 spacious as the nave of a cathedral. 
 
 We followed one of the largest, and shortly came to another 
 great rock-strewn chamber, with an opening to the outer 
 world through its roof, perhaps 4oft. overhead, partly 
 obscured by an exquisite tracery of creeping vines covered 
 with flowers and leaves. The name of the cave—“‘ Loltun,” 
 or ‘‘ Flower Stone ’’—may have been derived from these, or 
 possibly from the fancied resemblance of some of the 
 stalactitic formations to flowers. 
 
 We passed numerous petroglyphs, both on the walls of the 
 cave and on the rock outcropping from the floor. They 
 were, however, very roughly executed—mostly geometrical 
 devices, as circles, lines, and squares, with a few crude 
 human figures. At frequent intervals basins for the accumu- 
 lation of the constantly dripping water have been cut in the 
 rock formation, and these having in the course of centuries 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 235 
 
 become encrusted with lime salts, now present the appear- 
 ance of great smooth monolithic fonts, ever full of ice-cold 
 water to refresh the weary traveller. 
 
 The earth covering the floor of the cave, near the overhead 
 openings, is full of relics of the ancients—pottery, beads, 
 potsherds, fragments of idols, charcoal, pieces of bone, 
 bone needles and borers, malacates or spindle whorles, 
 broken grindstones, and a great variety of indestructible 
 débris. It is evident that these rooms, being light and dry, 
 were at one time occupied by the former inhabitants ; 
 indeed, it is probable that those unfortunate Indians who 
 fled from their Spanish conquerors took refuge in this vast 
 catacomb, from which a whole army corps could never 
 have dislodged them. 
 
 Away from the skylights the cave is pitch dark, and the 
 atmosphere chill, musty, and oppressive. The extent of the 
 whole subterraneous system must be enormous, as on one 
 occasion a party well equipped with torches, and leaving a 
 thread track behind to guide their return, travelled for two 
 days on one of the main galleries without finding an end to 
 it. 
 
 In a chamber under an opening into the cave about a mile 
 from the one by which we first descended is the only date 
 discovered up to the present, carved very plainly on the 
 rock. This consists of a 3 Ahau, signifying that it was 
 executed at the end of Katun 3 Ahau, which might corres- 
 pond to either of the two dates 12.1.0.0.0. 3 Ahau, 18 
 Kayab (that is, 1379 A.D.), or to 11.8.0.0.0. 3 Ahau, 18 Chen 
 (that is, 1123 A.D.). / 
 
 It is practically impossible to say which date should be 
 accepted as contemporaneous, as no doubt the cave was 
 well known to the natives centuries before the earlier and 
 after the later. 
 
 We did not explore any of the innumerable galleries very 
 far, as, knowing well their vast extent, we were afraid of 
 getting lost. Moreover, though the skylights are numerous, 
 they are for the most part mere holes in the roof, with no 
 
236 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 means of access from below, those by which it is possible 
 to leave or enter the cave being few, and situated miles 
 apart. Indeed, wandering in these interminable pitch-dark 
 passages and galleries one would be far more likely to fall 
 into a pot-hole or crevasse than to stumble on to an exit 
 leading to the open air. 
 
 There is a tradition handed down amongst the modern 
 Indians that during one of the innumerable internecine 
 wars amongst the Maya which followed the breaking-up of 
 the central authority in Mayapan, the inhabitants of a 
 certain village were driven to take refuge in this cave by a 
 band of their enemies, who pursued them even into this last 
 refuge, and that of neither pursued nor pursuers was any 
 trace ever again seen, not asingle survivor returning to tell the 
 fate of the rest. Some believe that all fell over a precipice 
 in one of the unexplored galleries; others that all lost 
 their way and died of starvation; and others, again, that 
 all were poisoned by irrespirable gasses. Whatever their 
 fate, the possibility of encountering at any turn several 
 hundred rag-clad skeletons, shrouded in the impalpable 
 dust of centuries, does not detract from the eerie feeling 
 one experiences in traversing these dark and silent 
 galleries. 
 
 On emerging from the cave, we made our way to the 
 hacienda of Tabi, a magnificent stone palace with a broad 
 corridor 300ft. long, from which opened huge, cool, spacious 
 rooms. It was flanked by a fine church, while at the back 
 were vast stone corrals full of cattle, horses, and mules. 
 The village occupied by the labourers was close to the house, 
 but here—as elsewhere in Yucatan—the houses were falling 
 into ruins, and the peons had deserted the rancho for better- 
 paid work, or to start small fincas, or farms, of their own. 
 The sugar mills and distillery, amongst the finest in Yucatan, 
 were closed—in fact, work on the hacienda was confined 
 almost exclusively to stock-raising. 
 
 We were entertained by the major-domo with the usual 
 lavish hospitality of the country, and dined with him and 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 237 
 
 several of his staff, who having a Chinese cook, and a free run 
 on the resources of the vancho’s gardens, stockyards, and 
 hen-houses, did themselves uncommonly well. We con- 
 tributed as our quota to the feast a few small luxuries in 
 tins and bottles, which even in Merida were exceedingly 
 difficult to procure. 
 
 Amongst the other luxuries of the vancho was an enormous 
 stone tank, with several feet of water in it, fed by guttering 
 from the roof, in which one could not only enjoy a bath, but 
 a fair imitation of a swim, and where, if a warm bath were 
 desired, it was only necessary to wait until late after- 
 noon, when the sun had heated the water to about blood 
 heat. 
 
 Even at this paradise amongst vanchos, however, we were 
 not to enjoy a peaceful night, for soon after we had retired 
 to our hammocks pandemonium broke loose amongst the 
 horses in the corral, and an equine battle royal raged, which 
 must havelasted a coupleofhours. The squealing, neighing, 
 and shrieking of the animals, punctuated by the drum-like 
 thud of hoofs on ribs, the bellowing of the cattle in the 
 neighbouring corrals, the shouting and swearing of the 
 stockmen trying to quiet the disturbance, combined to 
 produce a terrific din, while a great bunch of milling animals 
 dimly visible by the light of flaring torches, made a scene 
 difficult to describe, and impossible to sleep through. At 
 last things quieted down gradually, but next morning the 
 effects of the battle were plainly visible in the form of two 
 dead stallions lying side by side in one of the corrals, the earth 
 floor of which, torn up by their hoofs, resembled a ploughed 
 field, their carcases were already being fought over by a 
 pack of great mangy, half-savage dogs, and flocks of 
 sopilotes, or black vultures, tearing the skin and flesh to 
 get at the entrails. 
 
 Near the gate of the great patio, or yard, which surrounds 
 the hacienda, is a very remarkable stele representing two 
 Indians clad only in loin cloths, carrying, slung on a pole, 
 the carcase of a deer, above which, on a rounded arch of 
 
238 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 stone, is sculptured a row of hieroglyphics, now so weather- 
 worn as to be completely indecipherable. This stele is 
 quite unique in the nature of the event recorded, the free and 
 unconventional treatment of the subject, and the fact that 
 the figures are not merely executed in relief upon the face of 
 the great flat stone, but perforations have been made in it 
 following the main outlines. The whole, in fact, shows 
 strong Spanish artistic influence, and it would almost seem 
 as if it had been executed after the conquest by Indians, 
 who, coming in contact with the Spaniards, had absorbed 
 some of their notions of art. The hieroglyphics at the top 
 probably described the nature of the event depicted below. 
 Some Goth, as may be seen, has recently given the whole a 
 coat of limewash in two colours. 
 
 This stele, with several other inscribed stones about the 
 hacienda, was taken from ruins in the vicinity, which have 
 been completely torn down to build the house, church, 
 labourers’ homes, and corrals, so that nothing remains now 
 but mounds of débris. 
 
 Early next morning we started in the “ Fotingo ”’ for the 
 ruins of Kabah, over a road which had never before been 
 negotiated by a motor-car, and which everyone at the 
 vancho warned us was impassable. Our impedimenta were 
 even more extensive than usual, as in addition to cots, 
 bedding, food, cooking utensils, photographic apparatus, 
 suit-cases, etc., which constituted our normal outfit, we had to 
 carry a good supply of water in demijohns, as none was to 
 be procured at Kabah. By dint of walking most of the way, 
 removing the largest rocks from the road, and pushing the 
 car up the worst rocky ridges, we managed to cover the five 
 miles or so to the vancho of Santa Ana in about two hours. 
 Here we stopped for a rest, and the major-domo had a large 
 bag of oranges picked for us from a very prolific little 
 orange-grove in the vancho. Like most of the other 
 haciendas we had seen in Yucatan, this showed signs of 
 having once been a fine, prosperous estate, now gradually 
 undergoing a process of slow degeneration. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 239 
 
 From Santa Ana to Kabah the going was better, and we 
 passed innumerable ruins, plainly visible on each side of the 
 road through the thin bush which surrounded them. These 
 were mounds, stone-faced pyramids, and fallen temples, but 
 all in a very dilapidated condition, nor did we anywhere 
 come across a large aggregation of ruined buildings denoting 
 a former city site. 
 
 The ruins of Kabah are buried in a dense growth of low, 
 thick bush, with a few narrow, indistinct paths, used by the 
 Indians, passing through it here and there. The most 
 conspicuous object is a great pyramid situated in the centre 
 of the ruins, 60 yds. in diameter at the base, and 8oft. high. 
 It had originally been faced with cut stone, and the summit 
 reached by stone stairways like the Castillo at Chichen Itza 
 and the House of the Dwarf at Uxmal. These had now, 
 however, completely fallen away, leaving only a vast mound 
 of ruins covered with bush, and showing traces of ruined 
 buildings only at the summit. From the top a magnificent 
 view was obtained over the whole surrounding country, 
 bounded, except to the west, by ranges of low hills, 
 and showing the grey bleached walls or ruins visible 
 in all directions through the parched green of the low 
 scrub. 
 
 Wherever one goes in Yucatan ruins are found in extra- 
 ordinary abundance ; indeed, one cannot help realising that 
 the whole country in the days of its magnificence must 
 have been literally so covered with cities, both large and 
 small, that their suburbs almost joined each other, leaving 
 hardly a square mile which did not contain a stone palace 
 or temple, round which clustered the thatched huts of the 
 workers. The whole country, as one of the conquistadores 
 puts it, resembled a garden. 
 
 A quarter of a mile to the east of this pyramid is a great 
 stone-faced terrace approached by a flight of steps 2oft. high. 
 Upon this terrace are the ruins of many buildings, one of 
 which measured r07ft. by r106ft. at the base, and rose to 
 three stories, each smaller than the one beneath it. The 
 
240 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 summit was approached by a broad stone stairway supported 
 on the half of a Maya arch, springing from the ground, and 
 leaning against the wall of the building. We used one of the 
 small stone-faced rooms of the lower story as a store-room 
 and the arched space beneath the stairway as a kitchen, for 
 being open at both ends, there was always a good draught 
 passing through to carry off the pungent wood smoke. 
 
 On the opposite side of the platform stood a long building 
 approached by a broad, steep flight of stone steps, and 
 possessing a most elaborately decorated facade, the sculpture 
 reaching from the platform to the roof of the building. This 
 resembled very closely the facades of the Jglesta and part of 
 the Monjas at Chichen Itza, and consisted of reproductions of 
 the face of the long-nosed god in rows, one above the other. 
 The nose resembles an elephant’s trunk, the teeth are square 
 and jagged, and the pupils of the eyes are formed of round 
 stone tenoned in, most of which have now fallen from the 
 hollow eye-sockets. 
 
 Two somewhat remarkable stone heads found among 
 the ruins are seen resting in the lower cornice of this 
 facade. 
 
 The interior of the building contained a front and back 
 row of apartments, the front measuring 27ft. by roft. 6in. ; 
 the back 27ft. by 1oft. The inner room is on a higher level 
 than the outer, and is approached by two stone steps. In 
 front of this building is a square structure discovered by 
 Stephens, upon some of the stones of which he describes 
 hieroglyphics. This was almost completely covered by 
 earth, and we had to dig the stones out very carefully one at 
 a time. 
 
 The only intelligible glyphs we found were an Imix G3) 
 repeated several times, and an Ahau ; both, however, 
 without numerical coefficients. It would appear that the 
 inscription had gone all round the structure, and that the 
 stones containing it had got out of their proper places. 
 
 As it would have required much more time than we had at 
 

 
 KABAH : THE DOOR ON THE RIGHT IS THE ENTRANCE TO OUR 
 SITTING-ROOM. 
 
 [p. 240 
 
 
 
 KABAH : FACADE ORNAMENTED WITH FACES OF THE LONG NOSED GOD. 
 
 Two of these are shown, the left eye of the face on the left side 
 still retaining in situ the stone which served as the pupil. Beneath 
 these are seen two stone heads dug from the ruins. 
 
 [p. 240 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 241 
 
 our disposal to excavate this building thoroughly, find all the 
 stones, put them in their proper sequence, and decipher the 
 inscription, we buried them again for future reference on our 
 next visit to the ruins. 
 
 Just to the south-west of the central pyramid stands a 
 great solitary arch with a span of r4ft. It is placed upon a 
 slight elevation, and, as it is quite unconnected with any other 
 building, was no doubt intended as a triumphal arch to 
 commemorate some victory. It is constructed on the 
 cantilever principle, and the upper part has fallen, but it is 
 nevertheless a very imposing structure, and the span is 
 unusually large for an arch of this type. 
 
 To the south-west of the central pyramid is a great stone- 
 faced terrace 300yds. long by 30yds. wide, buried in the 
 dense bush, upon which stand the ruins of two buildings. 
 The first, 217ft. long, with seven openings in front, and what 
 had at one time been a very elaborately sculptured facade, 
 is now almost completely in ruins. 
 
 The second building was 142ft. long, and consisted of two 
 stories, the upper set back from the lower and approached by 
 a great arched stone stairway. 
 
 At the time of Stephen’s visit in 1841 the lintels of these 
 doors, cut from sapodilla wood, were all 7 situ, and in fairly 
 good preservation; now throughout the whole ruin we 
 did not find a single wooden lintel ; all had been torn down, 
 in some case bringing with them the buildings to which they 
 belonged, and adding very materially to the rapidity with 
 which this once great city has fallen into ruins. 
 
 Stephens himself is not to be absolved of blame in the 
 matter, as from the second of the buildings on this terrace 
 he removed a beautiful carved sapodilla lintel in three pieces, 
 the vast gap which has been left in the process still bearing 
 mute and pathetic witness to this act of vandalism, now 
 seventy-seven years old. The lintel, which was removed to 
 New York, was unfortunately destoyed by fire, with a great 
 part of the large collection made by Stephens, soon after its 
 arrival in the U.S.A. 
 
242 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 Close to the great terrace Stevens found a comparatively 
 small stone building with sculptured figures on the door- 
 jambs, facing each other, representing small kneeling 
 figures in front of large, elaborately clad warriors, beneath 
 each of which was a row of hieroglyphics in excellent 
 preservation. 
 
 We looked forward to finding at least a period ending date 
 amongst these, by which we might accurately date the city, 
 and our disappointment was great at finding the building 
 a mere heap of great stones, with the jambs probably buried 
 beneath hundreds of tons of rubbish, and utterly beyond our 
 power to disinter with the time and labour at our disposal. 
 
 Kabah was probably a purely Maya city, as no Chacmools, 
 serpent columns, Atlantean figures, or other indications of 
 Toltec culture are to be found anywhere within it, whereas 
 the Maya long-nosed god is very conspicuous on the facades 
 of the temples. Stylistically it is extremely like the Monjas 
 at Chichen Itza, and was probably erected within a few 
 years of that building—that is, during the Maya renaissance 
 between 1000 and 1200 A.D. 
 
 We slept in the open during our stay at Kabah, without 
 even a mosquito net, and though on one occasion I was 
 annoyed by a vampire bat hovering around my head, none 
 of us were attacked by these pests while asleep. 
 
 These are, from the explorers’ point of view, thoroughly 
 delightful ruins to visit, as there are neither mosquitoes by 
 night nor ticks by day to annoy one. The great drawback 
 is the lack of water, for the nearest supply is three miles 
 away, and has to be brought in on the back of an Indian, 
 who received four dollars gold per day, and refused to make 
 more than a single trip daily, carrying quite a small water- 
 jar. We had to dispense with personal ablutions entirely, 
 and towards the end of our stay it got to be a question of 
 washing the plates or going without tea; but the plates 
 seemed to do very nicely with a scour from a palm leaf, 
 supplemented by a polish from a piece of newspaper, 
 whereas tea, after our exertions in the sun, was absolutely 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 243 
 
 indispensable. We were greatly puzzled as to how the 
 ancient inhabitants, who must have been numbered by 
 tens of thousands, obtained their water-supply, till we 
 observed in the stone-paved courts, in front of some of the 
 temples, openings nearly blocked up, leading to large, 
 cement-lined, subterraneous water cisterns beneath the 
 courtyards, the drainage from which must have filled them 
 very rapidly. 
 
CHAPTER XYi 
 
 Visit to Uxmal, the City of the Tutul Xiu—The Casa del Gobernador— 
 We Take Up our Abode on the Uppermost Terrace—A Romantic 
 Spot—Mausoleum of the former Kings of Uxmal—Graffiti on one of 
 the Walls—Removal of the Sapodilla Lintels from the Casa del 
 Gobernador—The House of the Dwarf—Uxmal Visited by Padre 
 Cogolludo—The Ruins Still Venerated by Modern Indians—Casa de 
 las Monjas—Description of the Building—lInscription in One of the 
 Rooms—Painted and Dated Capstone—Other Capstones on which 
 We Could Not Read the Dates—Stele with Time Count Engraved 
 upon It—The Ball Court—Inscribed Rings—Probably Record the 
 Shifting of the Month Coefficient by One Day—Accounts of the 
 Unhealthiness of the Ruins Not Justified—Held’s Unpleasant Job 
 of Copying the Capstones—Visit from Indian Pilgrims—Two Pretty 
 Girls—An Aboriginal American Royal Family—End of our Work in 
 Yucatan—What We had Accomplished During the Trip. 
 
 On Friday, the 22nd, we returned to Tabi, where we spent 
 the night, proceeding next day by an excellent road to the 
 ruins of Uxmal. This, owing to its proximity to Merida, 
 and the facility of reaching it, is probably the best known 
 and most frequently visited ruined city in Yucatan. In the 
 number of its buildings, the beauty of its architecture and 
 sculpture, and the area which it covers, it is second only to 
 Chichen Itza. It was the capital city of the Tutul Xiu, a 
 branch of the Maya, and from 1000 to 1200 A.D. formed, 
 with Chichen Itza and Mayapan, the third member of the 
 Triple Alliance. After the conquest of Mayapan its inhabi- 
 tants, for some unknown reason, deserted it en masse, and 
 retired to the insignificant provincial city of Mani, never 
 again returning to the magnificent palaces, temples, and 
 public buildings which must have cost them such a tremen- 
 dous outlay in time and labour. 
 
 On arriving at the ruins we took up our quarters in the 
 
 244 
 

 
 Roath CADE OF ONE OF THE MAIN TEMPLE. 
 
 
 
 UXMAL : WEST RANGE OF MONJAS. 
 
 
 
 UXMAL : MONJAS LOOKING TOWARDS CASA DEL ADIVINO, WHICH 
 IS SEEN IN THE BACKGROUND. 
 
 [p. 250 
 
— oo 
 
 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 245 
 
 building known as the Casa del Gobernador, or House of the 
 Governor, one of the finest aboriginal buildings on the 
 American continent. The structure itself is 322ft. long by 
 39ft. broad. It contains twenty-four rooms in all, which are 
 divided by a wall running the whole length of the building 
 into a front and back range. The front facade is divided 
 into an upper and lower zone by a projecting cornice, the 
 lower being quite plain, the upper most elaborately decorated 
 by complicated sculptural devices, amongst which are seen 
 the head of the long-nosed god, seated human figures, 
 probably rulers or high priests of the city, geometrical 
 devices, together with a band of glyphs representing 
 constellations over the main doorway. There are eleven 
 doorways in this facade opening into the front range of 
 rooms, the back rooms being reached by doors opening from 
 the front range or from the sides, as the back wall is quite 
 plain and undecorated, and possesses no doorways. The 
 rooms are ceiled by the corbel arch, and the roof is 
 flat. 
 
 This building stands upon the topmost of three great 
 stone terraces, the lowest 575ft. long and 3ft. high, the 
 second 545ft. long and 2oft. high, and the uppermost, upon 
 which the building stands, 365ft. long by roft. high. The 
 first terrace is approached from the ground level by an 
 inclined plane, while the third terrace is approached from 
 the second by a broad stone stairway, on the side opposite 
 
 the inclined plane. 
 
 _ We spread our cots on the uppermost terrace, and took up 
 our residence here during our three-day sojourn at the ruins. 
 It afforded a cool and airy lodging, free from bush and its 
 attendant ticks and red bug, while the open doors of the 
 palace rooms presented a desirable retreat in case of rain, and 
 a magnificent view over the whole of the ruined city was 
 always before our eyes from this lofty perch. 
 
 We often sat up long into the night discussing our day’s 
 work and discoveries, entranced by the spectacle spread out 
 before us, bathed in a flood of tropical moonlight, the grey 
 
246 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 ruins standing out ghostlike from the darker background of 
 shadowy, mysterious bush, and the dead silence of the night 
 broken only by the murmur of our own hushed voices, 
 the mournful note of the nightjar, or the distant 
 scream of a jaguar seeking his supper in the surrounding 
 forest. 
 
 A short time before coming to Yucatan I had purchased 
 two magnificent stucco heads, painted red, white, and black 
 in the devices used by the aborigines to decorate their faces, 
 upon which were modelled the ear, nose, lip, and forehead 
 ornaments used by them. These were taken from a vault 
 below the floor of one of the back chambers of the Casa del 
 Gobernador, and probably represented the king of the 
 city and his queen, who had been buried there, as they 
 were undoubtedly intended as portraits of a man and 
 a woman. We saw the closed-in opening of this vault, and 
 it seems probable that each of the other rooms contains 
 beneath it a sepulchral chamber, in which are interred the 
 remains of a king or high priest, with his jewels and orna- 
 ments, accompanied by his life-sized statue, showing his 
 official dress moulded in stucco, and painted in the original 
 colours, for the two heads which I purchased were said to have 
 been broken from statues of this descripton. This opened up 
 wonderful possibilities in the excavation of the floors of the 
 chambers, though the fate of the original explorer was 
 not encouraging, as we heard that he had been fined 5,000 
 Mexican dollars for his pains, and the guardians of the ruins, 
 who are always in evidence, keep an uncommonly close watch 
 on all strangers visiting them. 
 
 Seated over the actual burial-places of the former kings 
 and priests of the city, we could, on these hushed moonlit 
 nights, almost visualise life as it was lived there some eight 
 or nine centuries ago, for the palace dated back to the days 
 of the Triple Alliance. We saw again the stately houses 
 of the nobles restored to their pristine magnificence by the 
 dim light of the moon, gorgeously attired men and beautiful 
 women moving about in the stone courtyards. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 247 
 
 The great Temple of the Adivino, perched just opposite to 
 us on its lofty pyramid, a procession of white-robed priests 
 leading a sacrificial victim up the steep terraced sides, 
 while packed thousands of the common people pressed 
 around the base, waiting for the headless body to be rolled 
 down the stairway to them; these same commons toiling 
 and sweating under the scorching sun, all day and every day, 
 on the erection of the vast palaces and temples, and to 
 supply the wants of the caciques and priests who ruled them 
 with the iron rod of superstition; the courtyard of the 
 monastery, which lay just beneath us, full of grave monks 
 and minor priests, occupied with their daily devotions and 
 sacrifices, the painting of their religious and astronomical 
 manuscripts, and probably the treatment of the sick ; and 
 lastly the Halach Uinic, or king himself, almost a god to his 
 people, palanquin borne, surrounded by a richly dressed 
 throng of minor chiefs and soldiers ascending by the great 
 stairway to his palace, now occupied by three members of an 
 alien race. These visions invariably faded as the moon- 
 beams which induced them gave place to the chilly wind of 
 early dawn, reminding us that it was long past time for 
 sleep if we were to do any work that day. 
 
 In one of the front rooms, deeply scratched on the plaster 
 of the front wall, we found Maya graffiti, one of which is 
 shown in the illustration. The ear-plugs, elaborate feather 
 headdress, and sandals, are all typically Maya, and it was 
 probably the work of some Indian during the sixteenth or 
 seventeenth centuries, as we know from the Padre Cogolludo 
 that for at least a century after the conquest they were in the 
 habit of returning secretly to Uxmal to burn incense to and 
 worship their ancient gods. If only the artist who drew 
 these graffiti had taken the trouble to write beneath them 
 the current katun and calendar round date, as well as the 
 date in our era, with all of which he must have been quite 
 familiar, what a vast amount of controversy he would have 
 saved amongst Maya archeologists. 
 
 The lintels of these doors were originally of sapodilla 
 
248 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 wood, but have unfortunately all been removed within the 
 last century, after withstanding for nearly 1,000 years the 
 climate of Yucatan, so destructive to all woody material. 
 Their removal has caused many of the doorways to partly 
 fall in, and has hastened the decay of the ruins by centuries. 
 Here again Stephens was the chief offender, as he shamelessly 
 admits having removed the only carved sapodilla lintel 
 from Uxmal for transport to the U.S.A., where it met with 
 the same fate as the Kabah wood carving, and was destroyed 
 by fire. 
 
 The Casa del Adivino, or House of the Diviner, sometimes 
 known as the House of the Dwarf, stands upon a great 
 stone-faced pyramid 88ft. high, and measuring 235ft. by 
 155{ft. at the base. The house or temple itself is long and 
 narrow, 72{t. in length by only 12ft. in breadth, and is 
 divided into three small rooms, which do not communicate 
 with each other. The outside is badly ruined, but still 
 retains a facade elaborately ornamented by complicated 
 stone sculptures, chiefly geometrical in character. 
 
 The temple is surrounded by a platform 5ft. wide, 
 approached on the east side, from the ground, by a great 
 stone stairway 7oft. wide, containing ninety narrow, high 
 steps. On the west side, the one shown in the illustration, 
 6oft. up the side of the mound, a door opens upon a stone 
 step leading to a small two-roomed temple, quite un- 
 decorated. This is approached by a flight of stone stairs 
 from the ground level, which are now completely in ruins. 
 They were supported upon a great corbel arch resting 
 against the side of the sub-structure, and, when whole, must 
 have presented a very imposing appearance. 
 
 Padre Cogolludo visited Uxmal one hundred years after 
 its conquest, and ascended the House of the Dwarf by the 
 great stairway on its eastern side, where he says that “‘ on 
 attempting to descend, his sight failed him and he was in 
 some danger.” He states that in the rooms of the temple 
 still remained the idols of the Indians, and that he found 
 offerings of cacao and copal incense which had been made 
 
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 “IVWXN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 ‘Iaquivyy sefuoyy aq} Ul 9U0jsdeo vy] WOIy E1 UNE Y JO 
 gi un], Ul suLIIM900 UTyUey 61 xt S UOdOSUT By 
 
 SIR GME 
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IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 249 
 
 to them quite recently. The ruins of Uxmal appear to have 
 been resorted to by the Indians, for the purpose of sacrificing 
 to their ancient deities, up to a recent date, and even now 
 the “‘ Noh nah ti Uxmal,’” or ancient houses of Uxmal, are 
 invoked in one of the prayers of the Cha Chac ceremony, as 
 carried out by the modern Indians when sacrificing to the 
 chacs, or gods of fertility, in order to ensure a fruitful maize 
 harvest. 
 
 The Casa de las Monjas, or Nuns’ House, was probably 
 originally a monastic institution. It consists of a great 
 quadrangular range of buildings surrounding a stone-paved 
 courtyard, measuring 258ft. by 214ft., which is entered by a 
 very fine corbel arch 16ft. 8in. wide. The inner facades of 
 the building towards the courtyard are elaborately decorated 
 above the cornices by stone sculpture, the face of the long- 
 nosed god being, as usual, a very prominent decorative 
 motif. Each of the four buildings surrounding the court- 
 yard contains a front and back range of rooms, all roofed by 
 the Maya arch. These apartments, which open on to the 
 courtyard, are almost exactly alike in size and shape, and 
 number eighty-eight in all. Upon the plaster in one of 
 them we found written this inscription, in Spanish. 
 
 Mi espiritu contemplando 
 De esas ruinas la hermosura 
 Las admiro con ternura 
 Y las dejo suspirando 
 — Manuel Gomez. 
 
 Literally translated, this runs : 
 
 “My soul contemplating the beauty of these ruins, I 
 admire them, and leave them with a sigh.” 
 
 A delightful sentiment, and not badly expressed, O Manuel, 
 but it is the visitor who does the sighing when he contem- 
 plates the virgin white wall of the chamber defaced by a daub 
 of large black painted letters, no matter how appropriate the 
 sentiment they record. 
 
 In the north-east room of the quadrangle we discovered a 
 RL 
 
250 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 capstone with the date 5 Imix, 19 Kankin, occurring in 
 Tun 18, Katun 13, painted upon it, which corresponds with the 
 Initial Series date II.12.17.1I.1., or to I21Q A.D. in our era. 
 This capstone occupied the central position in the corbel 
 arch which formed the ceiling of the room. In some 
 instances we found that the image of the god to whom the 
 temple was dedicated had been painted upon the capstone, 
 together with the date of its erection. In most cases these 
 paintings, which were executed in red, blue, green, black, 
 and white, had become almost obliterated by damp, and 
 were quite illegible, but where this had not occurred they 
 fixed the date of the erection of the building containing them 
 with absolute accuracy. We found several more painted 
 capstones in the ruins of the Monjas; on all of these, — 
 however, the dates were too much defaced to admit of our 
 reading them. 
 
 It will be observed that this temple was erected at the 
 very end of the Great Period of the New Empire, just about 
 the time, in fact, when the Triple Alliance between Chichen 
 Itza, Mayapan, and Uxmal was broken up, and before 
 Mexican influence had had time to be generally felt. On 
 the north side of the quadrangle we unearthed from a heap 
 of rubbish the face of a stele, with four glyphs, each possessing 
 numerical coefficients and evidently recording a date, 
 engraved upon it. This is shown in the illustration, but the 
 glyphs were unfortunately too much weathered by their long 
 exposure to be deciphered. 
 
 Between the Monjas and the Casa del Gobernador the 
 ruins of the Uxmal Ball Court are found. These are much 
 smaller and less elaborate than the one at Chichen Itza, 
 measuring only 128ft. by 7oft. The remains of two great 
 stone rings 4ft. in diameter, fixed in the walls by tenons 
 exactly opposite to each other, are still im situ. The outer 
 portions of these rings have been broken away, apparently 
 wantonly, and, though we searched very carefully in the 
 great pile of rubbish beneath each of them, we were able to 
 recover only a few of the missing fragments. 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 251 
 
 Sculptured on the north surface of each ring is a 
 period ending date, and these we were fortunately able 
 to make out, as enough of the inscription remains to 
 make its meaning perfectly clear. It reads 10 Imix (the 
 Io being the head variant for that number) 17 Pop, in 
 Tun 17, ending in a day r2 Ahau, which corresponds 
 to the Initial Series date II.15.16.12.14., or 1277 A.D. 
 On one ring the date is written 10 Imix, 17 Pop, and 
 on the other ro Imix, 16 Pop. We know from the 
 Maya records that at some period between the Old 
 Empire and the books of Chilam Balaam the month 
 coefficient was shifted back one day; thus Imix, which 
 occupied the seventeenth place in the month during the 
 Old Empire, in the books of Chilam Balaam occupies the 
 16th; and it is not improbable that this very important 
 inscription records the date of this change. The date 
 1277 A.D. was approximately seventy years after the break- 
 up of the Triple Alliance, and the Mexican mercenaries had 
 already been for that period in Yucatan—long enough, 
 evidently, to introduce the purely Aztec game of ball to the 
 inhabitants of Uxmal, though one does not, as at Chichen 
 Itza, find other evidence of their presence, in the form of 
 Chacmools, serpent columns, and Atlantean figures, and the 
 probabilities are that, except so far as the game of ball was 
 concerned, the people of Uxmal came but little under their 
 influence. 
 
 Our discoveries in Uxmal had more than realised our 
 most sanguine expectations, in a city where no date had 
 ever previously been discovered, and to the ruins of which 
 an immense antiquity, amounting sometimes to thousands 
 of years, had been ascribed, we were able to fix the date 
 of at least two of the most important buildings—the Monjas 
 and the Ball Court—in their correct position in Maya 
 chronology and in the Christian era. 
 
 We had received many warnings as to the unhealthiness 
 of the ruins, the prevalence there of malignant types of 
 malaria and dysentery, and the plague of mosquitoes ; but, 
 
252 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 as a matter of fact, our stay there was one of our pleasantest 
 experiences in Yucatan. The weather was dry and warm, 
 and mosquitoes were conspicuous by their absence, while 
 never once did we have to retire under a roof for either 
 cooking, eating, or sleeping. The cuidador, or Government 
 guardian of the ruins, followed us about everywhere we went 
 at first, but, realising at length that we were really what we 
 gave ourselves out to be—merely crazy gringoes, wasting 
 precious hours in sketching, photographing, and copying 
 inscriptions—he soon left us entirely to our own devices. 
 
 Held, who was always complaining that when a job 
 involving anything like real work turned up he was invariably 
 the goat, actually had this woeful plaint justified at Uxmal ; 
 for we had to erect an exceedingly tottery and insecure 
 scaffolding beneath each of the painted capstones, upon 
 which he had to li flat on his back gazing upwards at the 
 roof, while he made an exact reproduction of the painting 
 and glyphs, with every probability of being precipitated 
 to the stone floor, 15ft. beneath, if he indulged in even the 
 most circumspect movement to relieve the constraint of his 
 position. 
 
 During the second day of our stay at the ruins, a party 
 of Indians of all ages and both sexes came from the large 
 Maya village of Muna, on a pilgrimage to a shrine near the 
 ruins, where the santo possesses a considerable local reputa- 
 tion for healing the sick and granting the petitions of his 
 devotees. They were greatly interested in our camping outfit 
 especially the culinary part of it, and stood round in an 
 admiring circle watching Muddy prepare our lunch, 
 exchanging light badinage with us meanwhile in Maya, about 
 one word in five of which we understood. 
 
 They were nearly all of the usual Maya type—long black 
 hair, dark eyes, and olive complexions—but two of the girls, 
 each aged about sixteen, presented such a remarkable 
 contrast the one to the other as to fix our attention 
 almost exclusively on them. The one was pure Maya, with 
 large brown, expressive eyes, long black lustrous hair, 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 253 
 
 straight, well-formed nose, rather prominent red lips, and 
 exquisite light olive complexion ; while the other, with blue 
 eyes and ropes of yellow hair hanging down her back, might 
 well have passed for a Norwegian and, indeed, was 
 probably athrow-back to some Norse, buccaneer ancestor, 
 who tired of his roving life, had settled amongst the 
 Indians a couple of centuries or so previously. 
 
 These two young ladies were by no means shy, and their 
 comments on us in Maya—which perhaps it was as well we 
 could not understand—were a source of pure joy to the other 
 members of their party. Muddy was the only one of our 
 party who had a really comprehensive knowledge of collo- 
 quial Maya, and I noticed that even he could not refrain from 
 snickering at some of their essays, though he refused to 
 translate, saying they were merely Maya jokes which did not 
 bear translation into English. They so far honoured us as 
 to try some of our canned peaches and apricots—which 
 they liked—and sardines and cheese—which they didn’t— 
 and spent a good part of the afternoon with us, their 
 dazzling smiles, pretty faces, engaging manners, and broken 
 Spanish amply rewarding us for their earlier criticisms. 
 Both were barefooted, and skipped about like deer amongst 
 the sharp broken stones of the ruins, and, though they had 
 never worn shoes, their feet were not only beautifully 
 formed, but small and high-arched, which is most unusual in 
 those who have gone barefooted from infancy. 
 
 Uxmal was our last ruined city, and we left it with real 
 regret, for on returning to Merida our two months’ trip 
 would be over. I should have to return to Belize in the 
 Lilian Y, while Morley and Held continued on to the ruins 
 of Palenque, in the State of Chiapas. 
 
 As before stated, the Tutul Xiu were the ruling family in 
 Uxmal from the date of its foundation till it was deserted for 
 the new capital at Mani. About two generations ago the 
 last few surviving members of this once great family—the 
 only aboriginal American royal family now in existence— 
 removed from Mani to Oxcutzcab, where two descendants 
 
254 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 
 in the direct line still live, and were visited by Morley, who 
 procured from them the following genealogical tree : 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TREE OF THE XIU FROM 1790 
 Anares Xiu—Antonia Us 
 
 b. abb. 1790 
 Buenaventura Xiu—Francisca Baezu 
 b. abb. 1815 
 Bernabe Xiu—Maria Quijada Anselmo Xiu 
 1839—I9I11 d. a child of 2. 
 I 2 3 4 
 Jacinto Xiu—Calalina Ildefonso Xiu—Alvina Gerardo—Natividad 
 1860 Chulim 1861—I9II Perez Xiu Chulim 
 Bernabe Xiu Nemensio Xiu—Edwarda Mis Marcellino—Isidra 
 d. a child Xiu Cocom 
 Dionsio Xiu Marcellino Xiu 
 a child of 3 a child of 2 
 in 1918 in 1898 
 
 Roberto Xiu 
 d. in rg11 at 
 25 unmarried 
 Devero Xiu—Romana Uman Bonafacio Xiu 
 boy of 12 in 
 1918 
 
 From Bernabe Xiu (1839-1911) the chronicle of 
 Oxcutzcab, which is now in the Peabody Museum, was 
 obtained. It is a record of the Xiu family as far back 
 as 1600 A.D., when Gaspar Antonio Xiu was interpreter 
 under the Spanish Crown. He was a son of Ah Kin Xiu, 
 and grandson of Francisco Montejo Xiu, who offered his 
 allegiance to Montejo, the Spanish Conqueror of Yucatan, 
 at Meridain 1541. This Francisco Montejo Xiu was a direct 
 descendant of the Tutul Xiu who, coming into the peninsula 
 from the West, first founded the city of Uxmal, and with his 
 people populated the western part of the Yucatan. 
 
 We reached Merida on the 25th, and Progreso on the 
 following day ; at which port I boarded the Lilian Y, while 
 Morley and Held set out a few days later for Chiapas and 
 Tabasco. 
 
 From an archeological point of view our expedition had 
 been extremely successful. We had discovered one large new 
 ruined city at Chacmool, and two minor sites at Cancuen and 
 Playa Carmen. We had elucidated the method of dating in 
 use in Yucatan, and discovered the meaning of the winged 
 
IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 255 
 
 Cauac sign, the key of the problem ; while we had deciphered 
 at least thirteen new dates, extending over a period of 800 
 years, from 619 to 1438, and practically covering the whole 
 occupancy of the peninsula by the Maya tribes from the 
 earliest immigration to within 100 years of the Spanish 
 conquest. The annexed table drawn up by Morley gives 
 the city and building in which each date was found, the 
 date as actually recorded, and its position in the Initial 
 Series and in Christian chronology. 
 
To, 
 
 II. 
 
 If. 
 
 256 IN AN UNKNOWN LAND 
 NEW CHRONOLOGICAL MATERIAL FROM YUCATAN, MEXICO 
 Site Building Record Maya Era Christian 
 Era @ 
 Cave of 3 Ahau I2.1.0.0.0 3 Ahaur8 Kayab 1379 A.D. 
 Loltun or 11.8.0.0.0 3 Ahau 18 Chen II23 A.D. 
 Uxmal Ball 1o Ix 17 Pop II.15.16.12.14 10Ix17 Pop 1277A4.D. 
 Court in Tun 17 
 ending on 
 the day 13 
 Ahau 
 Uxmal Mon. Quad. 5 Imix 19 II.12.17.11,.2 6 [mx I2I9Q A.D. 
 West Kankin in 19 Kankin 
 Range. Tun 18 of 
 North Katun 13. 
 Room. 
 Holactun Temple Tun 13, 2 10.9.13.0.0 2 Ahau 8 Uo 761 A.D. 
 of the Ahau or I1.2.13.0.0 2 Ahau 8 Yax IOI7 A.D. 
 Lo. 10.9.8.4.9 10.9.8.4.9 7 Muluc1r7 Kankin 756a.pD. 
 47. Muluc or 11.2.8.4.9 7 Muluc 17 Tzec IOI2 A.D. 
 11.2.8.4.9. : 
 7. Muluc 
 Mayapan Stele 9 Katun 10 12.4.0.0.0 ro Ahau 18 Uo 1438 A.D. 
 Ahau 
 Mayapan Stele 8 13 Ahau, Tun I1.3.13.0.0 13 Ahau 1 Mac 1037 A.D. 
 13 or I1.16.13.0.0 13 Ahau 3 Zip I293 A.D. 
 Chichen Temple g Eznab 11 13.7.12.16.18 g Ezmabrzr Yax I1I07 A.D. 
 Itza of Two Yax in Tun 
 Lintels. rs. 
 Chichen Temple Tun 10 10.2.10.0.0 2 Ahau 13 Chen 620 A.D. 
 Itza of the ending on 10.2.9.1.9 9 Muluc 7 Zac 619 A.D, 
 to day 2 Ahau 
 10.1.9.1.9. 
 9 Muluc 7 Zac 
 Chichen High 2 Ahau 18 I1.19.11.0.0 2 Ahau18 Xul 1350A.D, 
 Itza Priests Xul, Tun 11 
 Grave 2 Ahau 
 Chichen Painted 1 Ahau, Tun 13 112.2.13.0.0 rAhaur8Ceh  I4IIA.D. 
 Itza Lintel 
 from 
 Temple 
 of the 
 Owl. 
 Tuluum Stele 9.6.10.0.0. 9.6.10.0.0 8 Ahau 13 Pax 304 A.D, 
 8 Ahau 13 
 Pax, end of 10.6.10.0.0 7 Ahau 18 Yaxkin 699 A.D. 
 a lahuntun 
 
 7 Ahau 
 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 A 
 
 Acumal, village near Tuluum, 41 
 
 Aguilar, Geronimo, connection of, 
 with Cortez, 139-41 
 
 Ah Moo Chel, priest of Mayapan, 99 
 
 Ah Puch, Maya god of death, 128-9 
 
 Alcohol, effect on Indian tempera- 
 ment of, 49 
 
 Alfredo, Honduranian engineer of 
 the party, 20; unpleasant ex- 
 perience of, 130-1. 
 
 Alvarado, holds an auto da fé at 
 Isla de las Mujeres, 143 
 
 Alvarado, General, damage done in 
 Merida by soldiers of, 173 
 
 Ambergris Cay, people of, 21 
 
 Anamix Chel, Lord of the Cheles, 
 165 
 
 Ants, a scourge in Yucatan, 210 
 
 Ascension, ruins of, 27 
 
 Ascension Bay, tiger tracks follow- 
 ing racoon, 73-4; a sporting 
 paradise—fish, game, and birds 
 of—valuable logs driven into, 
 
 74-5 
 B 
 
 Bacalar, Spaniards in, 15; colon- 
 ised by Maya, 92, 95-6 
 Belize, foundation and history of, 
 13 et seq., starting place of ex- 
 peditions—mixed population 
 of, 13-4; logwood in, 14; 
 Spanish trade, 14-5 
 
 Benque Viego, Indian village, 54 
 
 Blacadores Cay, Lilian Y, grounds 
 XE PX 
 
 Boca Iglesias, difficulties of landing 
 at ancient church, 156—60 
 
 Boca Paila, described, 62 
 
 Bravo General, reconquest of town 
 of Santa Cruz by, 30-1 
 
 British Honduras, small settlers in, 
 16-7 
 
 Buccaneers, in Belize, 14-5 
 
 Cc 
 
 Cacicazgos, divisions of Yucatan, 
 99-100 
 
 Calendar, of the Maya, 112 e¢ seq. 
 
 Campeché, history and description 
 of, 192-4; natives of, com- 
 pared with Yucatanese, 198 
 
 Canché Balaam, ruined shrine, 
 24-5 
 
 Cancuen, island, 142; described— 
 buildings—a native iconoclast, 
 ruin in, 148 ef seq. 
 
 Candelario, Mrs., 191-2 
 
 Candelario, Sefior, 182, 191-2 
 
 Canules, Toltec tribe, 99 
 
 Caribs, in Belize, 14 
 
 Carnegie Institute, 13, 20, 89 
 
 Carranza, damage done in Merida 
 by soldiers, of 173 
 
 Castillo, the temple of Tuluum, de- 
 scribed, 108-10; Initial series 
 date on stele at, 120 ef seq.; 
 correspondence of, with temple 
 at Chacmool, 131-2 
 
 Catoche, Cape, 156 
 
 257 
 
258 
 
 Cauac sign, meaning of, discovered, 
 254-5 
 
 Central, town, platforms and 
 
 cisterns at, 38-9 
 Central America, theory of climatic 
 changes in, 94 
 
 Cerro Cuyo, brisk commerce at, 
 162-3 
 
 Cha Chac ceremony, described, 
 55-8 
 
 Chacmool, 80 e¢ seqg.; human sac- 
 rifices in, 85-7; name—ruins 
 of, described, 101; buildings 
 of, 131-2 
 
 Chac-Xib-Chac, quarrels with King 
 of Mayapan, 97-8 
 
 Champoton, occupation of, by 
 Itzar,96; described—report of 
 German spies at, 196; re- 
 markable escape of Chiclero 
 boy at, 196-7 
 
 Chanes, the, a branch of the Maya, 
 95-6; change their name to 
 Itzar, 100 
 
 Chichen Itza, 92, 95-6, I21, 189; 
 serpent columns at, 109; 
 legend of buried treasure, 209 ; 
 “Casa de Monjas,” 210-11; 
 
 the Akatzib, 211-2 ; the 
 Caracol, 212; Chichanchob, 
 212-3; High Priest’s Grave, 
 
 213-5; the Ball Court, 215-7 ; 
 Casa del Tigres, 217-8; the 
 Castillo, 218-20; the “‘ Group 
 of a Thousand Columns,” 
 220; the Cenote of Sacrifice, 
 221-4; derivation of name of 
 —sacred character of, 221; 
 young girls sacrificed in, 221- 
 3; discoveries in smaller 
 temples of, 226 et seg.; an 
 indication of phallic worship— 
 probable population of, 228; 
 insect pests, 229-30 
 Chicleros, described, 28-30 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chilam Balam, 88 ; Maya historical 
 records, 118-9 ; Chronology of, 
 203-4 
 
 Chronology of the Maya, 113 eé¢ seq. 
 
 Chunyancha Indians, a branch of 
 the Maya, 62 
 
 Cochua, Desiderio, 59, 62, 133; 
 commands army of General 
 Mai, 39, 41 
 
 Cocom Cat, a member of the 
 Cocom family, 99 
 
 Cocomes, the ruling family of 
 Mayapan, 98-9; 205-6 
 
 Cogolludo, Abbé, on Maya customs, 
 I4I1; on progress of the 
 Spaniards in Yucatan, 165; 
 his Historia de Yucatan, 173-4, 
 199-200 
 
 Coloradillos, insect pest in Yucatan, 
 69 
 
 Conquistadores, the, 30-1; 68-9; 
 100; witness human sacrifices 
 to Indian gods, 132 
 
 Copan, discovery of early Maya 
 stele at, 9I 
 
 Cortez, incident in life of, 64-9; 
 his Conquistadores, 132; at 
 island of Cozumel, 139-41 ; 
 at ‘“‘ Isle de las Mujeres,’’ 143 
 
 Cozumel, island, Neo-Mexican 
 culture in, 62 et seq. ; Cortezin, 
 65, 139-41 ; salubrity of, 71-2 
 
 Cross, the, an emblem of Maya 
 worship, 91 
 
 Cuculcan, Maya god, 87; apotheo- 
 sis of, 97; meaning of name, 
 127-8; how represented in 
 stele, 203 
 
 Culebra Cays, life at, 26 
 
 Cupules, Maya tribe, 99-100 
 
 D 
 Diaz, Bernal, incident in life of 
 
 Cortez, related by, 64-9; with 
 expedition of Cortez, 143 
 
INDEX 
 
 Diaz, Padre Juan, with conquista- 
 dores in Cozumel, 66; _ his 
 diary, 105 
 
 Dogs in Yucatecan villages, 64 
 
 Dresden, Codex, Maya paintings 
 and hieroglyphs in, 129-30 
 
 Dzibalché, Indian town, described : 
 Ford cars in, prohibition in, 
 182; strange sleeping-place 
 in, 190; incident in church at, 
 192-3 
 
 E 
 
 Ek Ahau, Maya war diety, 130 
 
 El Meco, Espiritu Santo Bay, 
 Maya temple at, described, 
 153-5; described, 23 
 
 Esquivel, Amado, v. ‘‘ Muddy ”’ 
 
 F 
 
 Flores, record of first Katun at, 93 
 Ford motor-car, much used in 
 Yucatan, 182 
 
 G 
 
 Garcia, Sefior Sixto, 183 
 
 George, 20, 2I, 110 
 
 Gomez, Manuel, verses on ruin of 
 Uxmal, by, 249 
 
 Grijalva, Juan de, discovers Cozu- 
 mel, 67-8; voyage of, to 
 coast of Yucatan, 105; chap- 
 lain of, on Tuluum, 134; at 
 “Isla de las Mujeres ” in 1517, 
 143 
 
 Guatemala, Maya established in, 
 gi ; earthquake in city of, 91-2 
 
 Guerrero, Gonzalo, apostasy of, 140 
 
 H 
 Held, John, 19, 20, 200; abilities 
 
 of, as a caricaturist, 64; his 
 unspeakable gramophone, 103 ; 
 
 259 
 
 visits the Castillo, 108 e¢ seq., 
 reproduces paintings and 
 glyphs in Uxmal, 252 
 
 Henequen, or sisal fibre: exported 
 from Silan, 163-4 ; importance 
 of trade in—how the aloe 
 plants are treated, 202 
 
 Herrera, on progress of Spaniards 
 in Yucatan, 165; on Mexican 
 games, 215-7 
 
 Holbox, Indian settlement, 160-1 
 
 Honduras, Maya established in 
 first century in Western, 91 
 
 Howe, Dr., visits Tuluum, 106-7; 
 leaves remarkable monolith at 
 Castillo, 111-2 
 
 Hubert, 18; a spoiler of food, 78 ; 
 his cookery, 102-3; disrated 
 as cook, III 
 
 Hunnac Ceel, King of Mayapan, 
 97-8 
 
 I 
 
 Icaiche Indians, their chief, subsi- 
 dised by Mexican Government, 
 44 
 
 Independencia, wreck of the, 61 
 
 Insect pests, of Yucatan, 70-1 
 
 International Harvester Co., 
 business done by, in Silan, 163 
 
 “Isla de las Mujeres,’’ origin of 
 name—treception by inhabi- 
 tants of—Maya ruins in, 142 
 et seq. 
 
 Itzamna, 87, 95; apotheosis of, 
 97; priest-chief of Maya, 121 ; 
 god of Yucatan, 127 
 
 Itzas, the, their place in Maya New 
 Empire, 95 et. seq., alliance of, 
 with Uxmal and Mayapan, 
 96-7 
 
 K 
 
 Kabak, ruins of—glyphs and pyra- 
 mids of, 238-43 
 Kanchacan, visit to, 204-5 
 
260 
 
 L 
 
 Laffite, pirate, 167 
 
 Lakin Chan, Maya priest and 
 leader, 95 
 
 Landa, Bishop, on Maya customs, 
 141; history dealing with 
 MSS. of the aborigines, 174 ; 
 tradition handed down by, 222 
 
 Lilian Y., sloop, 18 et seq., 21, 41, 
 61, 73, 102; customs difficul- 
 ties in regard to, 195-6 
 
 Logwood, cutting of, near Belize, 14 
 
 Loltun, cave, described—petro- 
 glyphs in, 233-6 
 
 M 
 
 Mahogany, cutting of, in Honduras, 
 16 
 
 Mai, General, chief of Santa Cruz 
 Indians, 29, 39-41 
 
 Marriage amongst the mahogany- 
 cutters of Honduras, 16 
 
 Martin, Don Julio, his story of an 
 ancient Maya shrine, 37-8 
 
 Martin and Martinez, Messrs., 29, 
 30, 61 
 
 Martinez, Don Juan, his unique 
 
 knowledge of the ancient 
 Maya, 179-81 
 
 Maya, the, civilisation of, 13, 25; 
 history of, 30-1, 87, 90; 
 
 tombs and shrines of, 36-8; 
 theories regarding disruption 
 of the old Empire of the, 94-5 ; 
 105; architecture of, 25, 39; 
 79; temples described, 78-88, 
 calendars and chronology of, 
 89, 112 et seg.; monoliths 
 described, 91 e¢ seq.; old and 
 new Empires of, 92, 95 et seq. ; 
 language of, 101, 138; effect 
 of foreign religions on tempera- 
 ment of, 126-7; sleeping 
 powers of natives, I9I ; women 
 of, 201-2, 252-3 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mayapan, conquest of, 25-6, 99; 
 alliances formed by, 96-7, Io1, 
 189, 205-6; wall of, 123-4; 
 discovery of interesting stele 
 from ruins of, 202-3; destruc- 
 tion of, 206 
 
 Mechorego, interpreter to Cortez, 
 65-6 
 
 Merida, described—expulsion of 
 padres from, 173; buildings 
 and people of, 175-6; prohi- 
 bition in, 176; knowledge of 
 Spanish and Maya in, 177; 
 millionaires in, 180—1 
 
 Mestisada, the, Spanish dance 
 described, 47 
 
 Mexico, 25, 91 
 
 Monolith, discovery of, at Castillo, 
 I1I-2 
 
 Montejo, Francisco, 165, 169, 224-5 
 
 Montezuma, 132 
 
 Morales, Carlos Castro, Governor 
 of Yucatan, ability of, religious 
 convictions, 178% official 
 assistance given by, 179 
 
 Morley, Dr. Sylvanus G., 13, 19, 
 23, 60, 72, 74, 302, 38G,. 795, 
 184; on Maya history, 89 et 
 seg.; discovery of earliest 
 dated Maya stele by, 92; 
 visits ruins of Tuluum, 106; 
 at the temple of Castillo, 110 
 et seq. ; personal characteristics 
 of, 136; chronological table 
 drawn up by, 256 
 
 Muddy, 20, 23, 110-1 ; fluent know- 
 ledge of Maya language, 137; 
 trouble with Customs officers 
 in Merida, 177 
 
 Mules, freakish behaviour of Indian 
 36, 59, 61 
 
 N 
 
 Nakum, important Maya centre, 92 
 Napot Xiu, Maya chief, 119 
 
INDEX 
 
 Naranjo, Maya city of archaic 
 period, stele discovered at, 91 
 
 Negro labour, in British Honduras, 
 16 
 
 Neo-Mexican culture, 62 e¢ seq. 
 
 “New Yucatan,’ the, 163 
 
 Noh Capal Peck, founds Cacicazgo 
 of Ceh Peck, 99 
 
 Nokhu, meaning of, 
 language, 104 
 
 Nusbaum, Mr., 
 Tuluum, 106 
 
 in Maya 
 
 visits ruins of 
 
 O 
 
 Obeah, significance of serpent in 
 mystic rites of, 131 
 
 P 
 
 Palenque, Maya city of First 
 Empire, 91 
 
 Parmalee, Mr., visits Tuluum, 106— 
 7; leaves remarkable monolith 
 at Castillo, 111-2 
 
 Patricia, Government yacht, trip 
 to Corozal in, 19 e¢ seq. 
 
 Payo Obispo, reception at, 20 
 
 Pec, Roman, chief of Santa Cruz 
 Indians, 49 
 
 Peon family, size of estate of, 201 
 
 Perez, Benito, Bishop of Culhua, 
 67 
 
 Peten Itzas, last Maya stronghold, 
 100 
 
 Piedras Negras, discovery of early 
 Maya stele at, 91 
 
 Piracy in the Caribbean ‘Sea, 
 17-8 
 
 Playa Carmen, historical interest 
 of ruins at, 139 et seq. 
 
 “Poke and Go Boys,”’ in battle of 
 St. George’s Cay, 15-6 
 
 Polanco, Miguel, ruins of Maya 
 city discovered by, 72; cross- 
 examination of, 73 
 
 261 
 
 Progreso, Customs regulations at, 
 I7I-2; wages and cost of 
 living in, 172 
 
 Puerto Morelos, sport and work at, 
 142 
 
 Q 
 
 Quintana Roo, Mexican territory, 
 20; national railroad of, 27-8 
 
 Quirigua, Maya monolith discovered 
 at, 91-2; initial series taken 
 from ruins of, 115 e¢ seq. 
 
 R 
 
 Rio Lagarto, 162 
 Roman Pee, v. Pec, Roman 
 
 S 
 
 St. George’s Cay, battle between 
 Spaniards and natives at, 15-6 
 
 San Andres Tuxtla, discovery of 
 Maya statuette at, 90-1 
 
 San Luis, Indians at, 185; Maya 
 temple at, described, 185-9 
 
 San Miguel, 62 
 
 San Pedro, 21; fishermen of, 26 
 
 Santa Cruz, Indians of, 27-32, 38, 
 133, 135 et seg.; history of, 
 30-2; butchery of Spanish 
 prisoners, 33-4; diseases of, 
 40-I, 50-2; characteristics of 
 natives—women of, 41 e¢ seq. ; 
 custom in regard to children— 
 drunkenness in, 48; execu- 
 tions and minor punishments, 
 50; superstitions, 52 et seq.; 
 gods of, 54-5 
 
 Santa Cruz de Bravo, 
 Church in, 33-4 
 
 Seibal, important Maya centre, 92 ; 
 record of first Katun at, 93 
 
 Seiba Playa, a conchologist’s para- 
 dise, 198-9 
 
 Spanish 
 
262 
 
 Silan, exports of sisal from, 163; 
 gigantic mound, 163-5 ; glyphs 
 of ruined temples, 166-7; 
 tablets in old church in, 
 167-9 
 
 Snakes, of Yucatan, 71 
 
 Soldier crabs, in bush at Ascension 
 Bay, 76 
 
 Solis, General Octaviano, hospitable 
 reception by, 20 
 
 Solis, Don F. J. M., historian of 
 Yucatan, 181; cost of his 
 Historia de la Conquista de 
 Yucatan, 200 
 
 Spinden, his theory of the disrup- 
 tion of the old Maya Empire, 
 94 
 
 Stele, discovery of, by Stephens at 
 Tuluum—curious history of, 
 123, 
 
 Stephens, John L., 13, 66, 200; 
 visits Tuluum, 105-6; in 
 Silan, 165; relations of, with 
 Yucatanese clergy, 192; his 
 discoveries in Kabah, 240-3 
 
 “i 
 
 Tabi, hacienda of, described, 236— 
 8 
 
 Tikal, discovery of Maya stele at, 
 91; record of first Katun at, 
 93 
 
 Toltecs, 98-9, 215, 217 
 
 Tuluum, description of architec- 
 tural style, 25, 87; city of, 71; 
 buildings of, 122 e¢ seq; 
 mural paintings, 127 et seq; 
 mystery of, 104 et seg, 133-4} 
 human sacrifices in temples of, 
 132-4 
 
 Tutul Xiu, the, cities founded by, 
 96; war of, with Cocomes, 99 ; 
 ruling family in Uxmal— 
 genealogy of, 253-5 
 
 INDEX 
 
 U 
 
 Uaxactum, discovery of Maya 
 records in, 93 
 
 Usher, Captain, 20 
 
 Uxmal, 96-7, 100, 189; calendar 
 records in Ball Court, 118-9; 
 ruins of the great temple of 
 the Adovino, 245-8; the 
 ““Casa de las Monjas” in 
 249; the Ball Court of, 
 250-1 
 
 Vv 
 
 Vasquez, Pedro, 110-1 
 
 Via Chica, 27-8 
 
 ““Volan Coche,’? means of trans- 
 port in Yucatan, 207-8 
 
 WwW 
 
 ‘“‘ War of the Castes,’’ Maya revolt 
 against the Spaniards, 105 
 
 Witchcraft, how punished by the 
 Indians, 50 
 
 x 
 
 Xcalac, population of, 22-3 
 
 Xcalumkin Savanna, ancient popu- 
 lation of, 189 
 
 Xiu, Bernabe, record of Xia family 
 by, 254 
 
 Xiu, Francisco Montejo, allegiance 
 offered to Montejo by, 254 
 
 Xiu, Gaspar Antonio, interpreter 
 under Spanish Crown, 254 
 
 24 
 
 Yalahau, old pirate stronghold, 
 described, 161-2 
 
 Yaxchilan, Maya city of First 
 Empire, 91 
 
INDEX 
 
 Yucatan, 21-2, 64, 96, 199, 205, 
 
 206, 239, 254; home of the 
 Maya race, 13; conquered by 
 Spaniards, 25; weapons of 
 fauna and flora of, 70-1; 
 racial unity of people of, 110 ; 
 human sacrifices in, 132 ; com- 
 pared with Ireland, 169, 232-3; 
 
 263 
 
 virtues and faults of people of, 
 
 177-8; hospitality in, 
 the histories of, 181; 
 
 180 ; 
 agri- 
 
 culture in, 183; anomaly of 
 the orange trade in, 183-4; 
 
 roads in, 184; women 
 bourgeois class in, 191-2 
 Yzabal, Jadeite plates from, 91 
 
 of