At Tabi, a few leagues distant, is a heap of ruins, from which

material had been taken for the construction of a modern church, and

many sculptured fragments had been inserted in the walls of the

hacienda buildings. A stream of water was pouring from the open mouth

of a stone idol, possibly worshiped by the ancient inhabitants; "to

such base uses," etc. A cave near by was the subject of much marvelous

report, but its exploration led to nothing in an antiquarian point of

view.[V-65]

At Kewick, seven or eight miles southward of Labná, a large space is

strewn with the remains of a ruined city, the casa real itself being

built on the terrace of an ancient mound. One single stone, however,

among these ruins demands the attention of the reader, familiar as he

now is with the general features of ancient Maya art. This stone is

one of those which compose the top layer, joining the sides of the

ceiling in one of the apartments. Singled out for some inexplicable

reason from its fellows, it bore a painting in bright colors, chiefly

red and green, representing a grotesquely adorned human form

surrounded by a line of hieroglyphics. The painting measured eighteen

by thirty inches and was taken out from its place by Mr Stephens for

the purpose of removal, but proved too heavy for that purpose. Two

fronts were sketched by Mr Catherwood at Kewick; one had a line of

pillars separated by diamond-shaped ornaments on each side of the

doorway; the other was decorated also with a line of pillars, or

pilasters, standing close together, as on the Casa de Tortugas at

Uxmal.[V-66]

[Sidenote: XUL, SACACAL, AND CHACCHOB.]

Xul, a modern village near by, stands also on the site of an

aboriginal town, and the cura's residence is built of material from an

ancient mound, many sculptured stones occupying prominent places in

the walls; the church moreover contains sixteen columns from the

neighboring ruins of Nohcacab. Two leagues from Xul where some ruins

were seen, two apartments had red paintings on the plastered walls and

ceilings. A row of legs, suggesting a procession, heads decorated with

plumes, and human figures standing on their hands, all well-drawn and

natural to the life, were still visible, and interesting even in their

mutilated state. The rancho buildings at Nohcacab--a second place of

the same name as the one already mentioned towards Uxmal--are also

decorated with relics from the 'old walls,' but nothing of interest

was seen in connection with the ruins themselves, except one room in

which the ceiling formed an acute angle at the top instead of being

united by a layer of horizontal stones as in other places.[V-67]

Some leagues further eastward, in the neighborhood of the town of

Tekax, ruins are mentioned at Sacacal, Ticum, Santa María, and

Chacchob. At Sacacal is a chamber with an opening at the top, as at

Labná, only much larger; and this one has also three recesses, about

two feet deep, in the sides. An apartment here has a painted stone in

the top layer as at Kewick; and one building has its wall rounded

instead of straight, although this is only on the exterior, the inner

surface being straight as usual. The remains at Ticum were only

reported to exist by the Cura of San José. At Santa María a high mound

only was seen.[V-68] At Chacchob ruins of the usual type are

represented, by a Spanish writer in a Yucatan magazine, to be enclosed

within a wall, straight from north to south, the rest of the

circumference of over six thousand feet being semi-circular. The only

entrance is in the centre of the straight side. A well occupies the

centre of the enclosure, the chief pyramid is on the summit of a

natural elevation, and in one room a door was noticed which was much

wider at the top than at the bottom. On the edge of a wall eight

hundred varas distant, grooves worn by the ropes formerly used in

drawing water are still to be seen.[V-69]

Further north, in the north-eastern corner of the rectangle which

contains our central group of ruins, are Akil and Mani, the relics of

the former locality, so far as known, being chiefly built into the

walls of modern buildings. Mani was a prominent city at the time of

the conquest, and the modern village stands on the remains of the

aboriginal town, mounds and other relics not described being yet

visible. Mr Stephens here found some documents, dating back to the

coming of the Spaniards, which are of great importance in connection

with the question of the antiquity of the Yucatan ruins, and will be

noticed when I come to speak of that point. The only monuments of the

central group remaining to be mentioned are those of Chunhuhu, in the

extreme south-western corner of the rectangle. These are very

extensive, evidently the remains of a large city, and several of the

buildings were sketched by Mr Catherwood, being of one story, and

having grotesque human figures as a prominent feature in their

exterior decoration. One is plastered on the outside, as Mr Stephens

thinks all the Yucatan buildings may have been originally--that is, on

the plain portions of their walls. One front has the frequently

noticed line of close-standing pilasters, with full-length human

figures at intervals, which stand with uplifted hands, as if

supporting the weight of the upper cornice.[V-70]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: RUINS OF CHICHEN ITZA.]

The next, or eastern, group of Yucatan antiquities includes little

beside the ruined city of Chichen Itza,[V-71] a city which was famous

in the ancient traditionary annals of the Mayas, whose structures

served both natives and Spaniards as fortifications at the time of the

conquest, and whose ruins have been more or less known to the

inhabitants of the country since that epoch. The ruins lie twenty

miles west of Valladolid, the chief town of the eastern portion of the

state, on a public road in plain view of all travelers by that route.

In this case the original Maya name has been retained, Chichen meaning

'mouth of wells,' and Itza being the name of a branch of the Maya

people, or of a royal family, which played a most prominent part in

Yucatan history. The name Chichen comes probably from two great

senotes which supplied the ancient city with water, and which differ

from the complicated underground passages noted in other parts of the

state, being immense natural pits of great depth, with nearly

perpendicular sides, the only traces of artificial improvement being

in the winding steps that lead down to the water's surface, and slight

remains of a wall about the edge of the precipice. So far as explored,

the remains may be included in a rectangle measuring two thousand by

three thousand feet, and their arrangement is shown in the plan on the

next page, made by Mr Catherwood.[V-72]

[Illustration: PLAN OF CHICHEN-ITZA]

[Sidenote: CHICHEN--NUNNERY.]

Perhaps the most remarkable of the Chichen edifices is that known as

the Nunnery, marked H on the plan.[V-73] Of course in this and other

buildings I shall confine my description chiefly to points of contrast

with ruins already mentioned, and well known to the reader. Supporting

the Nunnery, instead of a pyramid, we have for the first time a solid

mass of masonry one hundred and twelve by one hundred and sixty feet

rising with perpendicular sides to a height of about thirty-two feet.

On the summit, with a base one hundred and four feet long, is a

building in two receding stories, of which the upper, whose summit was

sixty-five feet above the ground, is almost entirely in ruins. The

first story is better preserved, and its front was decorated with

sculpture of which no drawings have been made. In the centre of the

northern side a stairway fifty-six feet wide leads up, with

thirty-nine steps, to the top of the solid basement, which forms a

broad promenade round the superimposed building, and continues with

fifteen additional steps to the roof of the first story. One room in

this first story is forty-seven feet long; several contain niches in

their walls, extending from floor to ceiling and bearing traces of

having been covered with painted figures, some of them human with

plumed heads; and some of the apparent doorways are false, or walled

up, evidently from the date of their first construction. Attached to

the eastern end of the solid structure is a projecting wing, shown in

the plan, sixty feet long, thirty-five feet wide, and twenty-five feet

high, consisting of only a single story, and divided into nine

apartments, several of which are filled up with solid masonry. The

lintels throughout the Nunnery are of stone, and the interior walls of

the rooms are plastered. The exterior walls of this eastern wing are

covered with rich sculpture, both above and below the cornice, but

this sculpture presents no contrasts with that of Uxmal, or other

cities, sufficiently striking to be verbally described. Only a few

feet from the eastern end of the Nunnery, and indeed described by

Charnay as wings of that edifice, are the two small buildings _a_ and

_b_ of the plan. The former is thirteen by thirty-eight feet, and

twenty feet high; the latter, sometimes known as the Iglesia, or

Church, is fourteen by twenty-six feet, and thirty-one feet high,

containing only one room. These structures present a most imposing

appearance by reason of their great height in proportion to their

ground dimensions.[V-74]

[Sidenote: CHICHEN--AKAB-TZIB.]

The building G of the plan, instead of standing on an artificial

mound, rests on the level plain, but the usual effect is produced by

excavating the surface about it, thus giving it the appearance of

resting on a raised foundation. It measures forty-eight by one hundred

and forty-nine feet, and its outer walls are perfectly plain. The roof

is reached by a stairway forty-five feet wide in the centre of the

eastern front, while, corresponding with the stairway, on the western

front is a solid projection thirty-four by forty-four feet, of unknown

use. The floor of the inner range of rooms is one foot higher than

that of the outer, and on the under surface of a lintel in one of the

interior doorways is the sculptured design shown in the cut on the

following page, surrounded by a row of hieroglyphics, of which only a

small portion are included in the cut, but which are of the same type

as those we have seen at Copan. The subject seems to be some

mysterious incantation or other sacrificial rite, and the

hieroglyphics, known as the 'writing in the dark,' in Maya

_akab-tzib_, have given their name to the building.[V-75]

[Illustration: Sculptured Lintel at Chichen.]

[Sidenote: CHICHEN--THE CASTLE.]

[Illustration: Serpent Balustrade at Chichen.]

[Illustration: Carved Door-Jamb in the Castle.]

In the northern part of the city, at B, is the Pyramid, or Castle, of

Chichen. Its base is one hundred and ninety-seven by two hundred and

two feet; its height about seventy-five feet; and its summit platform

sixty-one by sixty-four feet. A stairway thirty-seven feet wide leads

up the western slope to the platform, and on the north is another

stairway of ninety steps forty-four feet wide, having solid

balustrades which terminate at the bottom in two immense serpent's

heads ten feet long, with open mouths and protruding tongues as in the

opposite cut. On the platform stands a building forty-three by

forty-nine feet, and about twenty feet high, having only a single

doorway in the centre of each front. These doorways have all wooden

lintels elaborately carved, and the jambs,--probably of stone,

although Norman says they are of wood--are also covered with

sculpture. The upper portion of one of these sculptured jambs is

represented in the cut, and the designs on the others are of a similar

general character. The northern doorway, which seems to have been the

principal entrance, is twenty feet wide and its lintel is supported by

two columns, each eight feet and eight inches high, with projecting

bases, and having their entire surface decorated, like the jambs at

the sides, with sculptured figures. The interior plan of this building

differs materially from any we have met; since the doorways on the

east, west, and south open into a corridor six feet wide, which

extends without partition walls round the three corresponding sides of

the edifice; while the northern doorway gives access also to a

corridor forty feet long and six and a third feet wide. Through the

centre of the rear wall of this corridor a doorway leads into a room

twelve feet nine inches by nineteen feet eight inches, and seventeen

feet high. This room also differs widely from any before described,

for its ceiling, instead of being formed by a single triangular arch

running lengthways, has two transverse arches supported by immense

carved zapote-beams stretched across the room, and which rest, each at

its centre, on two square pillars whose dimensions are twenty-two

inches on each side and nine feet in height. The cut shows the ground

plan of this remarkable structure, the squares at _a_ representing the

feet of the interior pillars, and the circles at _b_, the pillars that

support the lintel of the northern doorway.[V-76]

[Illustration: Ground Plan of the Castle.]

[Illustration: Stone Ring at Chichen.]

[Illustration: Painted Boat in the Gymnasium.]

[Sidenote: CHICHEN--THE GYMNASIUM.]

The building at A of the plan is called by the natives the Iglesia, by

Norman the Temple, by Charnay the Cirque, and by Stephens the

Gymnasium. The latter names were applied from the supposition that the

structure served for a peculiar game of ball to which the Aztec kings,

at least, if not the Mayas, were much addicted. Landa seems, however,

entitled to the honor of having invented this theory, since he speaks

of buildings in this part of Chichen devoted to amusements.[V-77] This

structure is very similar to the one marked H on the plan of Uxmal. It

consists of two parallel walls, thirty by two hundred and seventy-four

feet, twenty-six feet high, and one hundred and twenty feet apart. The

inner walls facing each other present a plain undecorated surface, but

in the centre of each, about twenty feet from the ground, is fixed by

means of a tenon, a stone ring four feet in diameter and thirteen

inches thick, with a hole nineteen inches in diameter through the

centre, surrounded by two sculptured serpents intertwined as in the

following cut. M. Charnay found only one of these rings in place at

the time of his visit. The south end of the eastern wall served as a

base to superimposed buildings or ranges of apartments erected on it

after the manner of all the Yucatan structures of more than one story.

The upper range has a part of its exterior wall still standing,

covered with sculpture, which includes, among other devices, a

procession of tigers or lynxes. In the interior, massive sculptured

pillars and door-posts, with carved zapote lintels appear, but what

seemed to Mr Stephens "the greatest gem of aboriginal art which on the

whole Continent of America now survives," was the series of paintings

in bright colors which cover the wall and ceiling of one of the

chambers. The paintings are so much damaged and the plaster so

scratched and fallen, that the connection of the whole cannot be made

out, but detached subjects were copied, one of which is the boat

represented in the cut, inserted here because of the rarity of all

species of watercraft in our surviving relics of aboriginal

decoration. The other paintings represent human figures in various

postures and occupations, battles, processions, houses, trees, and

other objects. Blue, red, yellow, and green are the colors employed,

all the human figures moreover being tinted a reddish brown. It is,

however, the supposed resemblance of these figures to some of the

Aztec sculpture and picture-writings that gave this room and the one

below it in the same building their great importance in Mr. Stephens'

eyes. We shall be better qualified to appreciate this resemblance

after our study of Mexican antiquities in a future chapter. The lower

room referred to has its inner surface exposed to the open air, the

outer wall having fallen. It is covered with figures sculptured in

bas-relief, also originally painted, of which a specimen is shown in

the cut, consisting of human forms, each with plumed head-dress, and

bearing in his hand what seems to be a bunch of spears or arrows,

marching in a procession, or as the natives say, engaged in a dance.

One hundred feet from the northern and southern ends of the parallel

walls, and very probably connected with them in the uses to which they

were by their builders applied, are the two small buildings at _c_ and

_d_ of the plan. The southern building is eighty-one feet long, the

northern only thirty-five, containing a single apartment. Both are

much ruined, but each presents the remains of two sculptured columns,

and one of them has carvings on the walls and ceilings of its chamber

besides. A horizontal row of circular holes in the exterior walls are

conjectured by M. Viollet-le-Duc to have held timbers which supported

a kind of outer balcony or sun-shade.[V-78]

[Illustration: Sculptured Design in the Gymnasium.]

[Illustration: Red House at Chichen.]

The building at E on the plan is called by the natives Chichanchob, or

Red House; Charnay terms it the Prison. It's front is shown in the

cut, the whole being in an excellent state of preservation. The three

doorways lead into a corridor extending the whole length of the

building, forty-three feet, through which three corresponding doorways

give access to three small apartments in the rear. Over these

doorways, and running the whole length of the corridor, is a narrow

stone tablet on which is sculptured a row of hieroglyphics, of which

the first and best preserved portion is shown in the cut. Their

similarity to, if not identity with, the characters at Copan, will be

seen at a glance. There are traces of painting on the walls of the

three rear rooms.[V-79] The building D presents nothing of particular

interest.

[Illustration: Hieroglyphic Tablet at Chichen.]

[Sidenote: CHICHEN--THE CARACOL.]

At F is the Caracol, or winding staircase, called also by Norman the

Dome, a building entirely different in form and plan from any we have

seen. Of the two supporting rectangular terraces, the lower is one

hundred and fifty by two hundred and twenty-three feet, and the upper

is fifty-five by eighty feet. A stairway of twenty steps, forty-five

feet wide, leads up to the former, and another of sixteen steps,

forty-two feet wide, to the latter. The lower stairway had a

balustrade formed of two intertwined serpents. On the upper platform

is the Caracol, a circular building twenty-two feet in diameter and

about twenty-four feet high, its roof being dome-shaped instead of

flat. The annexed section and ground plan illustrate its peculiar

construction. Two narrow corridors, with plastered and painted walls,

extend entirely round the circumference, and the centre is apparently

a solid mass of masonry.[V-80]

[Illustration: The Caracol at Chichen.]

The only remaining monument at Chichen which demands particular

mention is that at C on the plan. Here occur large numbers, three

hundred and eighty having been counted, of small square columns from

three to six feet high, each composed of several separate pieces, one

placed on another, standing in rows of from three to five abreast,

round an open space some four hundred feet square, and also extending

irregularly in other directions in connection with various mounds. The

use of these columns is entirely unknown; but any structure which they

may have supported must have been of wood, since absolutely no

vestiges remain.[V-81] Besides the monuments described, there are the

usual heaps of ruins, mounds, fallen walls, and sculptured blocks,

scattered over the plain for miles in every direction. Chichen was

evidently a great capital and religious centre, and its ruins present,

as the reader has doubtless noticed, very many points of contrast with

those of the central or Uxmal group.[V-82]

Ruins are mentioned by Mr Wappäus as existing at Tinum, a short

distance north-west of Chichen; and are also indicated, on

Malte-Brun's map already referred to, at Espita, still farther north,

and at Xocen, a few miles south of Valladolid. At Sitax, near Tinum, a

vase, 'something of the Etruscan shape,' from some of the ruined

cities, was seen by Mr Norman. At Coba, eastward from Valladolid, the

curate of Chemax, in a report of his district prepared for the

government, described slightly ranges of buildings in two stories.

They are said to be built of stones, each of which measures six square

yards; this is very likely an error, and no other peculiarities were

spoken of worthy of mention. The same cura discovered on the hacienda

of Kantunile far north-eastward toward the coast several mounds, and

in one of them three skeletons, at whose head were two earthen vases.

One of these was filled with the relics shown in the cuts on the

following page, consisting of implements, ornaments, and two carved

shells. The shell carvings are in low relief, and the arrow-heads,

with which the other vase was nearly filled, were of obsidian, a

material not known to exist in Yucatan, and which must consequently be

supposed to have been brought from more northern volcanic states of

Mexico, where it formed the usual material of knives and many other

aboriginal implements and weapons. Besides these different articles,

was a horn-handled penknife in the same vase, proving that this burial

deposit was made subsequently to the coming of Europeans.[V-83]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NORTHERN GROUP.]

[Sidenote: RELICS AT TICUL.]

I now come to the northern group of Yucatan Antiquities, which is

separated from the Uxmal group by the low sierra before mentioned as

running from north-west to south-east across this portion of the

state. First in this group are the ruins of the ancient Ticul, on the

hacienda of San Francisco close to the modern town of Ticul, and just

across the sierra from Nohcacab. Here are thirty-six mounds, or

pyramids, all visible from one of the highest when the trees are free

from foliage. Most of the elevations support buildings, but these are

so completely ruined that nothing can be known of the original city,

save that it must have been of great extent. These ruined piles have

served as quarries to supply building material at Ticul, which is

almost entirely built of stone. Many relics are preserved in the

town, but the only one particularly noticed is the earthen vase shown

in the cut. It is five inches in diameter and four and a half inches

high, and the reader will notice a similarity of style between the

figures on its front and those carved on the burial relics of

Kantunile previously shown. Between two of the mounds of San

Francisco, a square stone wall filled with earth and stones was

opened, and in it, under a large flat stone, was found a skeleton

sitting with knees against the stomach and hands clasping the neck,

facing the west. In connection with this skeleton were found a large

earthen vase, or water-jar, empty, and a deer's-horn needle, sharp at

one end and having an eye at the other. Mr Norman calls this group of

mounds Ichmul, supposes them all to be sepulchres, and says that

several have been opened and disclosed sitting skeletons, with pots at

their feet, and even interior rooms. M. Waldeck briefly mentions in

many parts of his work the ruins of Tixualajtun, which may possibly be

identical with Ticul, and which bear carved stones, indicating by

their number and position in the walls an age of at least three

thousand years.[V-84]

[Illustration: Sepulchral Relics from Kantunile.]

[Illustration: Earthen Vase from Ticul.]

[Illustration: Mound at Mayapan.]

[Sidenote: RUINS OF MAYAPAN]

[Illustration: Circular Structure at Mayapan.]

About ten miles northward of Ticul, and twenty-five miles southward of

Mérida is the rancho of San Joaquin, included in the hacienda of

Xcanchakan, on which are the remains of Mayapan, the ancient Maya

capital. According to the traditional annals of the country Mayapan

was destroyed by an enemy, in one of the many civil conflicts that

desolated Yucatan, not much more than a century before the Spanish

conquest. Numerous mounds, scattered blocks, and a few ruined

buildings are all that remain to recall the city's ancient splendor.

The best preserved mound is that shown in the preceding cut, one

hundred feet square at the base, and sixty feet high, with a stairway

twenty-five feet wide in the centre of each side. The top is a plain

stone platform, with no signs of its ever having supported any

building. Most of the sculptured fragments contain only parts of

ornamental designs and are fitted with tenons by which they were

probably secured on the front walls, as at Uxmal. One building of the

ordinary type was sufficiently entire to show the triangular ceiling.

A circular building similar to that described at Chichen was also

noticed. It is twenty-five feet in diameter, and twenty-four feet

high, with only a single doorway facing the west. A single corridor

only three feet wide runs entirely round the edifice, the outer wall

being five feet thick, and the inner wall is a solid circular mass of

stone and mortar nine feet in thickness. The interior walls of the

corridor are plastered with several coats of stucco, and yet retain

vestiges of yellow, blue, red, and white paint. The preceding cut

shows the exterior of this structure, and also gives a good idea of

the similar one at Chichen. On a terrace of the mound which supports

this dome, are eight round columns, two and a half feet in diameter,

and each composed of five stones placed one upon another. Among the

sculptured blocks with which the country for miles around is strewn,

are some which differ from those mentioned as parts of façade

decorations. They are rudely carved, and each represents a subject

complete in itself. Two of these, one four and the other three feet

high, together with some of the decorative fragments alluded to, are

shown in the cut on the opposite page. An idol was also found in one

of the subterranean passages of a senote. The inhabitants of the

locality report that the ruins extend over the plain within a

circumference of three miles, and that the foundations yet remain of

a wall that once surrounded the city.[V-85]

[Illustration: Mayapan--Sculptured Fragments.]

[Sidenote: RELICS OF TIHOO AT MÉRIDA.]

Mérida, the capital of Yucatan, was built by the Spanish conquerors on

the ruins of the aboriginal city of Tihoo, the ancient mounds

furnishing material to the builders of the modern town. Only very

slight vestiges of Tihoo remain; yet in the lower cloisters of the

Franciscan convent, which is known to have been erected over an

ancient mound and building, the Spanish architects left one of the

peculiar aboriginal arches intact, unless we suppose that they

imitated such an arch in their own work, which is most unlikely.

Bishop Landa describes and illustrates with a ground plan one of the

largest and finest of the Tihoo structures, as it was in the sixteenth

century. In most respects his description agrees exactly with the

ruins of the grander class already mentioned. The supporting mound has

two retreating terraces on all sides except the western, which side

seems to have been perpendicular to its full height. Stairways running

the whole length of the mound lead up to the eastern slopes, and on

the summit platform is a courtyard surrounded by four buildings, like

the Casa de Monjas at Uxmal. A gateway leads through the centre of

both eastern and western buildings, and one of these gateways is

represented by Landa as having a round arch, the other being of the

ordinary form. The buildings are divided into a single range of small

apartments opening on the court, except the southern, which has two

large rooms, and in front of which was a gallery supported by a row of

square pillars. A round building or room is also mentioned in

connection with the western range. Landa also mentions several other

structures, including the one over whose ruins the Franciscan convent

was built. M. Waldeck mentions an excavation in a garden of the city,

which is twenty-three by thirty feet, and fifteen feet deep, with

double walls three and six feet thick, where the bones of a tapir and

other bones were dug up. He also saw here several idols collected from

different parts.[V-86]

[Sidenote: PYRAMID AND COLUMNS OF AKÉ.]

Some twenty-five miles east of Mérida, at a place called Aké, barely

mentioned in the annals of the conquest as the locality where a battle

was fought between the Spaniards and Mayas, are the ruins of an

aboriginal city; ruins which, according to Mr Stephens, their only

visitor, have a ruder, older, and more cyclopean air than any others

seen. Some of the stones here employed are seven feet long. One

remarkable feature is a pyramid, whose summit platform is fifty by two

hundred and twenty-five feet, and supports thirty-six columns, each

four feet square, and from fourteen to sixteen feet high. These

columns are arranged in three parallel rows, ten feet apart from north

to south, and fifteen feet from east to west. Each column is composed

of several square stones. A stairway one hundred and thirty-seven feet

wide, with steps seventeen inches high, and four feet five inches

deep, leads up the southern slope. Of this mound Mr Stephens says: "It

was a new and extraordinary feature, entirely different from any we

had seen, and at the very end of our journey, when we supposed

ourselves familiar with the character of American ruins, threw over

them a new air of mystery." Between Mérida and Mayapan is mentioned a

stone wall, which crosses the road and extends far on either side into

the forest. Near by is also an aguada, said by the inhabitants to be

of artificial formation.[V-87]

[Illustration: Cara Gigantesca at Izamal.]

[Sidenote: RUINS OF IZAMAL.]

Izamal, something more than twenty miles further eastward, was a city

of great importance in aboriginal times, as we shall see in the

following volume. Two or three immense pyramids are all the vestiges

that remain of its former greatness. The largest mound is between

seven and eight hundred feet long, and between fifty and sixty feet

high, and Mr Stephens "ascertained beyond all doubt" that it has

interior chambers, concerning which he very strangely gives no further

information. M. Charnay's photograph shows that this mound was in two

receding stages, on the slopes of the upper of which steps are still

to be seen. The modern town is built on the site of the ancient city,

and the mounds as elsewhere have furnished the material of the later

structures. The upper portion of a pyramid facing the one already

mentioned was leveled down, and on the lower platform was erected the

Franciscan church and convent. Another smaller mound is in the

courtyards of two private houses, and on its side near the base is the

cara gigantesca, or gigantic face, shown in the cut. It is seven feet

wide and seven feet eight inches high. The features were first rudely

formed by small rough stones, fixed in the side of the mound by means

of mortar, and afterward perfected with a stucco so hard that it has

successfully resisted for centuries the action of air and water. There

were signs of a row of similar stucco ornaments extending along the

side of the mound; and either on this mound or another near by, M.

Charnay photographed a similarly formed face, which is twelve feet

high. These colossal stucco faces are the distinctive features of the

ruins of Izamal, nothing of the kind appearing elsewhere in Yucatan,

although a slight resemblance may be traced to the gigantic faces in

stone at Copan. Bishop Landa describes one of the Izamal structures as

it appeared in his time, and adds a plan to his description. He

represents the supporting pyramid as being over one hundred feet high,

with a very steep stairway and very high steps, being built in a

semi-circular form on one side. According to his statement the

edifices were eleven or twelve in number, standing near together.

Lizana, another of the early writers on Yucatan, mentions five of the

sacred mounds supporting buildings which were already in ruins in his

time, and he also gives the Maya name of each temple with its meaning.

It should be noted, moreover, that Izamal is, according to the annals

of Yucatan, the burial place of Zamná, the great semi-divine founder

of the ancient Maya power.[V-88]

[Sidenote: SENOTE OF BOLONCHEN.]

I now come to the southern group of Maya antiquities, over which I may

pass rapidly, beginning with the ruins of Ytsimpte near the village of

Bolonchen, some fifteen miles south of Chunhuhu, the most

south-western ruin of the central group. By the kindness of the cura

and the industry of the natives this ruined city was cleared of all

obstacles in the shape of vegetation, and its thorough exploration was

thus rendered easy; but unfortunately no corresponding results

followed, since no new features whatever were discovered. Here are

undoubtedly the remains of a great city, but most of the walls, and

all of the sculptured decorations have fallen. Bolonchen means 'nine

wells,' so named from a group of natural wells in the plaza. These

fail for several months in the dry season, and then the inhabitants

resort to a senote in the neighborhood, which, as one of the most

wonderful in the peninsula, is shown, or rather one of its several

passages is shown, in the cut. By a series of rude ladders water is

brought from springs over fifteen hundred feet from the opening at the

surface, and at a perpendicular depth of over four hundred feet.

[Illustration: Senote at Bolonchen.]

[Illustration: Ground Plan of Labphak Structure.]

[Illustration: Sculptured Tablet at Labphak.]

[Sidenote: RUINS OF LABPHAK.]

Labphak is about twenty miles further south, and is one of the

grandest of the Maya ruins, although the single brief exploration by

Mr Stephens, its only visitor, is barely sufficient to excite our

curiosity respecting its unknown wonders. Only one building was

examined with care; this has three receding stories. The western front

was carefully cleared, and, sketched by Mr Catherwood, resembling very

closely the other three-storied structures before described. But at

the last moment it was discovered that this was only the rear wall,

and that the eastern front "presented the tottering remains of the

grandest structure that now rears its ruined head in the forests of

Yucatan." The dimensions and arrangement of rooms of the lower story,

differing from any that have been met further north, are shown in the

accompanying ground plan, together with the stairways that lead up to

the second story. Besides the grand central eastern staircase, there

are two interior stairways, each in two flights, leading up to the

platform of the second and third stories from the rooms of the western

range. This is the first instance of interior stairs, but the method

of their construction is not explained. The western wall of the third

story has no doorways. On the platform of the second story stand two

high buildings like towers, ornamented with stucco, and on the third

platform two similar structures at the head of the stairway before the

central entrance. These upper rooms have plain walls and ceilings. The

lower ones present numerous imprints of the ever-present red hand, and

one of them has a painted stone in the tier over the arch, as at

Kewick. At the points marked _a_ in the plan, are sculptured tablets

of stone fixed in the exterior walls, one of which is shown in the

cut. Each tablet is composed of several pieces of stone, and the

sculptured figures are naturally much worn by exposure to the air and

rain. Two circular openings to _chultunes_, or cisterns, like those at

Uxmal and elsewhere, were found near by. Another Labphak structure

formed a parallelogram, surrounding a courtyard, and presenting two

peculiarities; the entrance to the court was by stairways leading over

the flat roof of one of the ranges of buildings; and the ornamentation

of the court façades was in stucco instead of sculptured stone. With

this slight description I am obliged to leave this most interesting

city, whose solitude, so far as I know, has remained undisturbed for

thirty years and more since Messrs Stephens and Catherwood spent two

days in the halls of its departed greatness. Now as then, "it remains

a rich and almost unbroken field for the future explorer."

At Iturbide, the south-western frontier town of modern Yucatan, there

is a mound of ruins in the plaza, and also a well some four feet in

diameter, and twenty-five feet deep, stoned with hewn blocks without

mortar; its sides polished by long usage, and grooved by the ropes

employed in drawing water. This well is considered the work of the

antiguos, and another similar one was seen near by. In the outskirts

of Iturbide the plain is dotted with the mounds and stone buildings of

the ancient town of Zibilnocac. Thirty-three mounds were counted, but

the walls of the buildings had all fallen except one, which presented

the peculiarity of square elevations, or towers, with sculptured

façades, at each end and in the middle. Its rooms also preserved

traces of interesting paintings, representing processions of human

figures whose flesh was colored red.

[Sidenote: AGUADAS OF THE SOUTH.]

At the rancho of Noyaxche, a few miles distant, is a seemingly natural

pond, which, being explored by the proprietor during a very dry

season, proved to have an artificial bottom of flat stones many layers

thick, pierced in the centre with four wells, and round the

circumference with over four hundred small pits, or cisterns. At

Macoba, twelve or fifteen miles eastward is another similar aguada,

and ruined buildings are also found, actually occupied by the natives

as dwellings. Mankeesh is another locality in this region where

extensive ruins are reported to exist. At the rancho of Jalal is an

aguada similar to the one mentioned at Noyaxche, the forms of the

wells and cisterns, pierced in its paved bottom being illustrated by

the cut. Upwards of forty deep wells were discovered by the natives in

the immediate neighborhood. Yakatzib is another place near by, where

ruined buildings were seen. Becanchen is a town of six thousand

inhabitants, and owes its existence to the discovery of a group of

ancient wells, partially artificial, and a stream of running water.

Fragments of ancient structures are built into the walls of the

town.[V-89]

[Illustration: Aguada at Jalal.]

* * * * *

Only the monuments found on or near the coast of the peninsula remain

to be noticed, and in describing them I shall begin in the south-east

and follow the coast northward, then westward, and again southward to

Lake Terminos. For a description of Maya structures, as found by the

earliest Spanish voyagers on the eastern coast, I refer the reader to

the chapter on Central American buildings in volume II. of this

work.[V-90] M. Waldeck, giving no authority for his statement,

mentions the existence of ruined buildings at Espíritu Santo Bay, and

at Soliman Point, but no description is given.[V-91]

[Sidenote: RUINS OF TULOOM.]

[Illustration: Plan of Tuloom.]

Tuloom is the most important city of antiquity on the eastern coast,

standing in about 20° 10´. It is undoubtedly one of the many

aboriginal towns whose 'towers' excited so much wonder in the minds of

the first European voyagers along this coast. It presents several

marked contrasts with the other monuments that have been described,

not only in the construction and arrangement of its edifices, but in

its site, since it is built on a high bluff on the very border of the

sea, commanding a view of wild and diversified natural scenery,

differing widely from the somewhat monotonous plain that constitutes

for the most part the surface of the peninsula. Tuloom has only been

visited by Mr Stephens, and his exploration was nearly at the end of

his long journey, when the keen edge of his antiquarian zeal was

naturally somewhat blunted by fatigue, sickness, and a desire to

return home. Moreover, countless hordes of mosquitos, with a

persistent malignity unsurpassed in the annals of their race, scorning

the aid even of their natural allies in the defense of Central

American ruins, the garrapatas and fleas, proved victorious over

antiquarian heroism, and drove the foreign invaders from their

stronghold. The annexed cut is a ground plan of the ruins so far as

explored, and we notice at once a novel feature in the wall A, A, that

bounds them on three sides--the first well-authenticated instance

which we have met of a walled Maya town. A precipitous cliff rising

from the waters of the ocean makes a wall unnecessary on the eastern

side, but on the other sides the wall is in excellent preservation,

stretching six hundred and fifty feet from east to west, and fifteen

hundred feet from north to south, from eight to thirteen feet thick,

and built of rough flat stones without mortar. The height is not

stated. On each of the inland corners at C, C, is a small structure,

twelve feet square, with two doors, which may be considered a

watch-tower, and which is shown in the cut on the next page. Five

gateways, each five feet wide, at B, B, B, give access to the city.

Within the walls the largest and most imposing structure is that at D,

known as the Castle, which stands on the cliff overlooking the sea. A

solid mass of masonry thirty feet square and about thirty feet in

height, ascended on the western side by a massive stairway of the

same width with solid balustrades, supports on its summit a building

of the same size as the foundation, and about fifteen feet high. The

doorway at the head of the stairway is wide, and its lintel is

supported by two pillars. Over the doorway are niches in the wall, one

of which contains fragments of a statue. The interior is divided into

two corridors connected by a single doorway, the front one having what

are described as 'stone benches' at the ends, and the rear range

having a similar bench along one of its sides. The rear, or sea, wall

is very thick and has no doorways, but several small openings of

oblong shape form the nearest approach to windows found in Yucatan.

The corridors have ceilings of the usual type, the doorways are

furnished with stone rings for the support of doors, and the imprint

of the red hand appears on the interior walls. Against each end of the

solid foundation is built a wing in two stories, thirty-five feet

long, making the whole length of the Castle one hundred feet. The

upper story of each wing consists of two apartments, one of which is

twenty by twenty-four feet. Two columns, ornamented with stucco, stand

in the centre of the room, of which the ceiling has fallen, although a

succession of holes along the top of the walls indicate that it had

been flat and supported by timbers. The building north of the Castle,

at E, contains a single room seven by twelve feet, with a raised step

or bench at each end, and much defaced painted ornaments in stucco on

its walls. Over the doorway on the outside is the figure we have met

before, standing on the hands with legs spread apart. The building

close to the Castle on the south has four columns in the centre of a

room nineteen by forty feet, and also in another room are fragments of

a sculptured tablet. A senote with artificial steps, which supplied

water to the ancient inhabitants, is included within the enclosure at

K. At H is a building remarkable for its roof, which differs radically

from the usual Maya type. Four timbers fifteen feet long and six

inches thick stretch across the room from wall to wall, and crossways

on these timbers are placed smaller timbers ten feet long and three

inches thick close together, and the whole covered with a thick layer

of coarse pebbles in mortar. Several other buildings evidently had

similar roofs originally, else it might be suspected that this one had

undergone modern improvements, especially as an altar was found in it

with traces of use at no very remote period. In this building also

sea-shells take the place of stone rings at the sides of the doorways.

One of the structures marked G on the plan has two stories. The front

is decorated with stucco, and the doorway of the lower story occupies

nearly the whole front, its top being supported by four pillars. The

interior plan is similar to that of the Castle at Chichen Itza, since

a corridor extends round three sides of a central apartment. The

interior walls of both room and corridor are painted, and in the

latter is an altar on which copal is supposed to have been burned. The

second story, which has no stairway or other visible means of

approach, differs from all other upper stories in Yucatan, in standing

directly over the central lower room, instead of over a solid mass of

masonry as elsewhere. Among other ruins near this, two stone tablets

with indistinct traces of sculpture were noticed. The cut shows one

of several small structures found at Tuloom outside the walls, and

probably intended as altars or adoratorios. This building is twelve by

fifteen feet and contains a single room where a copal altar appears.

Tuloom was undoubtedly one of the cities seen by the early voyagers

along this coast, and from the perfect state of preservation of many

of the monuments, especially of the stucco ornament resembling a

pine-apple shown in the last cut, Mr Stephens believes that the city

was occupied long after the conquest of other parts of the peninsula.

At Tancar, a few miles north of Tuloom, are many remains of small

ancient edifices, much dilapidated and not described.[V-92]

[Illustration: Watch-Tower at Tuloom.]

[Illustration: Tuloom Relics.]

[Sidenote: RUINS ON THE EASTERN COAST.]

[Illustration: Building at Cozumel.]

The island of Cozumel has not been explored, by reason of the dense

growth which covers its surface, but in a small clearing on the shore

two buildings were discovered. One of them is shown in the preceding

cut. It is sixteen feet square, with plain exterior walls formerly

plastered and painted. A doorway in the centre of each side opens into

a corridor only twenty inches wide, extending round a central chamber

five by eight and a half feet, with one doorway. The other is similar

but larger. One of the dome-shaped cisterns was also found on the

island. Here is also a ruined Spanish church, which very probably

furnished the cross with a crucified Christ, preserved in Mérida as an

aboriginal relic, and much talked of by enthusiasts who formerly

believed that Christianity was introduced into America long before the

Spaniards came. On the main land opposite the island ruined stone

buildings are also visible from the sea, as they were to Grijalva and

Córdova in the sixteenth century. Pole, or Popole, is one of the

localities somewhat further north where ruins are located on the

maps.[V-93]

At Point Nisuc Mr Stephens locates ruins on his map, as does

Malte-Brun at the mouth of the River Petampich a little further south,

and the former also mentions stone buildings as visible on the barren

island of Kancune. On the northern point of Mugeres Island, known to

the early voyagers as Point, or Cape, Mugeres, are two small buildings

of the usual type. One of them, fifteen by twenty-eight feet, resting

on a solid foundation with perpendicular sides in which a narrow

stairway was cut, is located on a cliff at the extreme point of the

island.[V-94]

At Cayo Ratones is a ruin according to Malte-Brun's map; and Cape

Catoche was the location of one of the cities seen by the Spaniards in

the sixteenth century, this early discovery being perhaps the only

authority for M. Waldeck's statement that a ruined city may there be

found.[V-95]

[Sidenote: NORTHERN COAST RELICS.]

Following the coast westward, an ancient mound is seen at Yalahao, the

map shows another at Emal, and Monte Cuyo is a lofty mound, reported

to have no traces of buildings, visible from far out at sea. This

latter may perhaps be identical with "a small Hill by the Sea, call'd

the _Mount_," mentioned by the old English voyager Dampier, who says:

"I was never ashore here, but have met with some well acquainted with

the Place, who are all of opinion that this Mount was not natural, but

the Work of Men."[V-96] Two pyramids are reported further east, near

the Rio Lagartos, but their existence rests on no very reliable

authority.[V-97] Two mounds, once covered with buildings, at the port

of Silan, are the only other monuments to be mentioned on the northern

coast. One of these latter is of great size, being four hundred feet

long and fifty feet high. The padre could remember when the building

on the other, known as the Castle, was still standing.[V-98]

On or near the western coast are few monuments of antiquity worthy of

note. At Maxcanú, some twenty-five miles north-west from Uxmal, a

locality visited by Stephens during his trip toward the coast, are

several mounds covered with ruins, which present no peculiarities. But

in the interior of one of these mounds was found a gallery four feet

wide and seven feet high, with triangular-arched ceiling, extending

several hundred feet with many branches and angles. Before Mr

Stephens' visit this was supposed by the inhabitants of the region to

be a subterranean passage, or cave, known as Satun Sat, or the

Labyrinth. The presence of this gallery of course suggests the idea

that others of the Yucatan pyramids may contain similar ones, and that

their exploration might lead to important results. On the hacienda of

Sijoh, a few leagues nearer the coast, is a large group of ruined

mounds and buildings, presenting nothing new, except that the stones

of one of them were much larger than usual, one being noticed that was

three by six feet. In a kind of courtyard in the midst of these mounds

are standing many huge stones, resembling in their situation and size

the monoliths of Copan, but they bear no marks of sculpture, being

rough and unhewn as if just taken from the quarry. The largest is

fourteen feet high, four feet wide and a foot and a half thick. At

Tankuché one apartment of a ruined building has its walls and ceiling

decorated with paintings in bright colors, but the room was filled up

with rubbish, and nothing definite could be made out respecting the

designs, except in the case of one ornament which seemed to resemble a

mask found at Palenque. Ruins are reported also at Becal, in the same

region.[V-99] At the mouth of the Rio Jaïna a tumulus, with pottery

and spear-heads on its surface, is mentioned by Waldeck and Norman,

and perhaps at the same place under the name of Chuncana, ruins are

indicated on Malte-Brun's map.

[Illustration: Campeche Idol in Terra Cotta.]

[Sidenote: MONUMENTS OF CAMPECHE.]

[Sidenote: RELICS AT CAMPECHE.]

[Illustration: Campeche Idols in Terra Cotta.]

Further south, in the region extending from Campeche to Laguna de

Terminos there is only the vaguest information respecting antiquities.

The city of Campeche itself is said to be built over extensive

artificial galleries, or catacombs, supposed to have been devoted by

the ancient people to sepulchral uses; but I find no satisfactory

description of these excavations. On the Rio Champoton, some leagues

from the coast, ruins are reported concerning which nothing definite

is known. From the tumulus mentioned, "and other places contiguous to

ruins of immense cities, in the vicinity of Campeachy," Mr Norman

claims to have obtained "some skeletons and bones that have evidently

been interred for ages, also a collection of idols, fragments, flint

spear-heads, and axes; besides sundry articles of pottery-ware, well

wrought, glazed, and burnt." The cuts on the preceding pages show five

of these idols, which are hollow and have small balls within to rattle

at every movement. Padre Camacho is also said to have collected at

Campeche a museum composed of many relics from different localities,

many of them interesting but not particularly described.[V-100]

[Sidenote: MAYA CALZADAS.]

Besides the monuments that have been described, the remains of

ancient paved roads, or calzadas, have been found in several different

parts of the state. The traditionary history of the country represents

the great cities and religious centres as connected, in the time of

their original splendor and prosperity, by broad smooth paved ways,

constructed for the convenience of the rulers in sending dispatches

from place to place. These roads are even reported to have stretched

beyond the limits of the peninsula, affording access to the

neighboring kingdoms of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Tabasco. Modern

discoveries lend some probability to these reports. Cozumel was one of

these great religious centres from which roads led in every direction,

and Cogolludo says that in his time "were to be seen vestiges of

calzadas which cross the whole kingdom, said to end at its eastern

border on the sea-shore." The cura of Chemax, speaking of Coba, far

eastward of Chichen toward the coast, says "there is a calzada, or

paved road, of ten or twelve yards in width, running to the south-east

to a limit that has not been discovered with certainty, but some aver

that it goes in the direction of Chichen Itza." Bishop Landa mentions

"a fine broad calzada extending about two stone's throw to a well"

from one of the Chichen structures. Izamal was another much-frequented

shrine, from which Lizana tells us "they had constructed four roads,

or calzadas, towards the four winds, which reached the ends of the

county, and even extended to Tabasco, Guatemala, and Chiapas; and even

now are seen in many places portions and traces of these roads." Landa

also states that between Izamal and Mérida, "there are to-day signs of

there having existed a very beautiful paved way." In the same

locality, running parallel to the modern road for several miles, M.

Charnay found "a magnificent road, from seven to eight mètres wide,

whose foundation is of immense stones surmounted by a concrete

perfectly preserved, which is covered with a coating of cement two

inches thick. This road is everywhere about a mètre and a half above

the surface of the ground. The coating of cement seems as if put on

yesterday;" the whole being buried, however, some sixteen inches deep

in soil and vegetable accumulations. The Cura Carillo and party found

in 1845 one of these paved roads four and a half varas wide, running

parallel with the modern road south-eastward from Uxmal, and said by

the natives to connect the latter city with Nohpat. It is perhaps the

same calzada, in Maya _Sacbé_, 'a road of white stone,' that has given

a name to the Sacbé ruins, and is described by Mr Stephens as "a

broken platform or roadway of stone, about eight feet wide and eight

or ten inches high, crossing the road, and running off into the woods

on both sides," reported to extend from Uxmal to Kabah.[V-101]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: GENERAL RÉSUMÉ.]

Having now completed my detailed description of Maya antiquities in

all parts of the peninsula where aboriginal relics have been seen or

reported, I have thought it best to give in conclusion a general view

of these antiquities, their peculiarities, the contrasts and

similarities which they present among themselves and when compared

with more southern monuments, together with such general remarks and

conclusions as their examination may seem to warrant.

The comparatively level and uniform surface of the peninsula left the

aboriginal builders little choice in the location of their cities and

temples, yet a preference for a broken hilly region may be traced in

the fact that the central, or Uxmal, group, the most crowded with

ancient monuments, corresponds with the principal transverse ranges of

the peninsula; likewise the eastern coast cities rest generally on

elevated bluffs overlooking the sea. In the selection of sites,

however, as in the construction of their cities, security against

enemies seems to have been not at all, or at best very slightly,

considered. None of the cities on the plains are located with any view

to defence, or have any traces of fortifications to guard their

approaches. Tuloom, on the eastern coast, was indeed surrounded by a

strong wall on which watch-towers were placed; but of all the Yucatan

cities this is best guarded by its natural position and would seem to

have least need of artificial defences. Some slight remains of walls

are seen at Uxmal and Mayapan, but insufficient to prove that these

were walled cities. A wall more or less perfect is also reported at

Chacchob. No structure has been found which partakes in any way of the

nature of a fort, or which appears to have been erected with a view to

military defense. It is true the numerous pyramids and their

superimposed buildings would serve as a refuge for non-combattants, as

well as property, and would afford facilities for defense in a

hand-to-hand conflict, or perhaps against any attack by men armed with

aboriginal weapons; but would in nowise serve as a protection to the

dwellings or fields of the populace which must be supposed to have

dotted the plains for a wide extent about the palaces of the nobility

and temples of the gods.

In the laying out both of cities and of individual structures, no

fixed plan was followed that can now be ascertained, except that a

majority of the edifices face in general terms the cardinal points;

that is, as nearly as these points would naturally be determined by

observation of the rising and setting sun. The oft-repeated statement

that all the temples and palaces were exactly oriented is altogether

unsupported by facts.

The materials employed by the Maya builders were limestone, mortar,

and wood. The limestone used is that which, covered with a few feet of

sand or soil, forms the substratum of the whole peninsula. It is soft

and easily worked, and may be readily quarried in any part of the

state. Somewhat strangely, none of the quarries which supplied the

stone for building, or for sculptured decorations and idols, have ever

been found;--at least none such have been reported by any

explorer.[V-102] With very few exceptions, such as in the case of the

city wall at Tuloom, the stone employed, whether rough or hewn, was

laid in mortar. Cement was also used on roofs and floors; plaster on

interior walls; and stucco in exterior decorations. Mortar, cement,

plaster, and stucco were presumably composed of the same materials,

lime and sand, mixed in different proportions according to the use for

which it was designed. No satisfactory analysis seems to have been

made of the mortar, nor is anything definite known respecting the

method of its manufacture, or the source from which lime was obtained.

That the material was of excellent quality is proved by the resistance

it has offered for at least three centuries to tropical rains and the

inroads of tropical vegetation. It is nearly as hard as the stone

blocks which it holds together, and to its excellence the preservation

of the Yucatan monuments is in great measure due.[V-103]

Wood was employed by the Maya builders only for lintels, for timbers

of unknown use stretched across the rooms from side to side of the

ceilings, in one case at Chichen for beams to support the regular

stone arches of the roof, and, at Tuloom only, for the support of a

flat cement roof. The only wood mentioned is the zapote, native to

some parts of the peninsula, extremely hard and heavy, but not

resinous or particularly well fitted to resist decay or the ravages of

worms. It seems remarkable that any portion of this woodwork should

have survived even their three or four centuries of unquestioned

age;--and, indeed, few or none of the lintels of outer doorways

exposed to the weather have remained unbroken.

Having fixed upon a site for a proposed edifice, the Maya builder

invariably erected an artificial elevation on which it might rest. And

this peculiarity is observed, not only in Yucatan, but, as we shall

see in many other portions of the Pacific States, no less universally

in regions where natural hills abound than on level plains. In several

places, however, the artificial structure rests on a natural hill of

slight elevation, as at Chack and Zayi; in other cases advantage is

taken of a small hill to save labor in the accumulation of material,

as at Uxmal; and in one instance at Chichen the appearance of a mound

is gained by excavating the surrounding earth. Buildings resting on

the natural surface of the earth are unknown, as are also subterranean

apartments or galleries of artificial construction, excepting only the

reported catacombs under the city of Campeche. The bases of the

foundation structures, or pyramids, are usually rectangular, the

largest dimensions being fifteen hundred feet square at Zayi, while

many have sides of three to eight hundred feet. They diminish in size

towards the summit, from twenty to fifty feet high in the case of the

larger mounds, and from sixty to ninety feet in some of the smaller

ones. Most of the larger mounds have two or more terrace-platforms on

their slope. The mass of the mound is composed of rough stones and

fragments generally in mortar, making a coarse concrete; the outer

surface is faced with hewn stones, not generally laid so as to form

steps, as seems to have been the case at Copan, but so as to present a

smooth surface on the slope. It is uncertain whether some of the

larger terrace-platforms were paved with regular blocks or not. The

corners are often rounded. Sculptured decorations occur in a few

instances, as on the Pyramid at Uxmal; and at Izamal a row of faces in

stucco adorn the base. A stairway always occupies the centre of one

side, often of more than one side. Some of these stairways are over a

hundred feet wide, and their steps are rarely arranged with any

reference to convenience in mounting. Balustrades remain on some

stairways, ornamented in a few instances by sculptured monsters'

heads. There is nothing to show that the surface of the slopes or the

steps were covered with cement. The supporting stone structure of one

building at Chichen and also of one at Tuloom has perpendicular

instead of sloping sides. All the pyramids are truncated, none forming

a point at the top, although there is one or more in every group of

ruins whose summit platform presents no traces of ever having

supported buildings of any kind. Interior galleries were explored in a

mound at Maxcanú, and chambers in the body of that at Izamal were

reported; others are solid so far as known, except that a few small

chambers have been mentioned with a vertical entrance at the top,

which may have been cisterns.

The edifices supported by the mounds are built either on the summit

platform, or in receding ranges, one above another, on the slope. In

the latter case these receding ranges form the nearest approach on the

part of the Mayas to buildings of several stories, except in one

instance at Tuloom, where one room is directly over another. In one

building at Kabah the outer wall rises from the foot of the mound, and

the inner from the summit. One building usually occupies the summit;

but in several cases four of them enclose an interior courtyard. The

buildings are long, low, and narrow. Thirty-one feet is the greatest

height, thirty-nine the greatest width, and three hundred and

twenty-two the greatest length. The roofs are flat and, like the

floors, covered with cement. The walls are, in proportion to the

dimensions of the buildings, very thick, usually from three to six

feet, but sometimes nine feet. Like the pyramids, the buildings

consist of a mass of concrete, stones and mortar, faced with hewn

blocks of nearly cubical form, and of varying dimensions rarely

exceeding eighteen inches, but found at Sijoh and Aké as large as

three by six and seven feet. Only one building has been noted whose

exterior walls are not perpendicular, but the corners are in most

cases rounded.

The interior has generally two, often one, and rarely four parallel

ranges of rooms, while in a few of the smaller buildings an

uninterrupted corridor extends the whole length. Neither rooms nor

corridors ever exceed twenty feet in width or height, while the

ordinary width is eight to ten feet and the height fifteen to eighteen

feet. Sixty feet is the greatest length noted. The walls of each room

rise perpendicularly for one half their height, and then approach each

other, by the stone blocks overlapping horizontally, to within about

one foot, the intervening space being covered with a layer of wide

flat stones, and the projecting corners being beveled off to form a

straight, or rarely a curved, surface. In a few instances, as at

Nohcacab, the sides of the ceiling form an acute angle at the top; and

once, at Uxmal, the overlapping stones are inclined instead of lying

horizontally, forming a slight, but the nearest, Maya approach to the

true arch. This is the only kind of ceiling found in Yucatan, except

one at Tuloom which is flat and supported by timbers stretched across

from wall to wall. I have followed Stephens and applied the name of

'triangular arch' to this structure of overlapping stones, although

the term may by a strict interpretation be liable to some

criticism.[V-104]

The tops of the few gateways discovered are constructed by means of

the same arch as that employed in the ceilings. One solitary arch

unconnected with any other structure has been noted at Kabah; and in

the Castle at Chichen two interior arches rest on beams supported by

stone columns instead of the usual perpendicular walls. In some of the

buildings at Kabah and Chichen the floor of the inner range of rooms

is higher than that of the outer, being reached by stone steps. Small

round timbers extend from side to side of the ceiling in nearly all

rooms, and at Tuloom stone benches are found along the sides and ends.

Rarely do more than two rooms communicate with each other. The

doorways are on an average perhaps four feet wide and eight feet high,

with square tops formed by zapote beams or stone lintels, which rest

on stone jambs composed of two or three pieces, or are built into the

regular wall of the building. At Chacchob a doorway is reported wider

at the top than at the bottom. Many exterior doorways are wide and

divided into two or more entrances by stone pillars supporting the

lintels. Stone rings, or hooks, replaced at Tuloom by shells, near the

top on the inside, and in a few cases at both top and bottom, are the

only traces of the means by which the entrances were originally

closed. Wooden lintels are almost exclusively employed at Uxmal, but

elsewhere stone is more common; a few both of wood and stone are

covered with carved devices, as are also some of the door-posts.

Besides the doorways the rooms have no openings whatever, no chimneys,

windows, or ventilators being found, if we except the oblong openings

in the rear wall of the Castle at Tuloom.[V-105]

Respecting the rooms, aside from their decoration, nothing remains to

be noticed except the casas cerradas, or rooms filled with solid

masonry, and the interior stairways of unexplained construction at

Labphak. Exterior stairways supported by a half arch lead up to the

top of such of the buildings as have more than one story, and also to

the summit of the few mounds that have perpendicular sides; in one

case the entrance to the courtyard is by stairways leading over the

roof of one of the enclosing edifices. The only important exceptions

to the usual type of Yucatan buildings are the circular structures

with conical roofs, at Chichen and Mayapan, and the gigantic walls

composing the so-called gymnasiums at Chichen and Uxmal.

It will be noticed that the strength of these structures depended to a

great extent on the excellence of the mortar by which the blocks were

united, since the latter are not usually laid so as to break joints,

although carefully placed so that the plummet line applied to such

walls as are uninjured, rarely detects any departure from perfect

regularity. A Maya custom of inserting projecting stones, or

_katunes_, in the walls of their buildings as a record of time and in

commemoration of great events is spoken of by many authors; and by

certain stones which he identifies with the katunes, M. Waldeck

computes the age of some of the ruins, but I am unable to tell which

are the stones meant, unless they be those already mentioned as

elephants' trunks.

Besides the columns mentioned in connection with doorways, many others

are found whose use in most cases is not understood. They are both

round and square, and usually, if not always, composed of several

pieces placed one upon another. Among them may be mentioned the row

of round columns on the terrace of the Governor's House at Uxmal,

sixteen columns at Xul from the ruins of Nohcacab, thirty-six square

columns on the summit platform of the pyramid at Aké, three hundred

and eighty short pillars, also square, arranged round a square at

Chichen, eight round pillars on the terrace of the round house at

Mayapan, the reported line of square columns originally supporting a

gallery at Mérida, and finally the monoliths of Sijoh, which latter may

have been idols.

I now come to the interior and exterior decorations of the Yucatan

buildings. In some apartments, particularly at Uxmal, the walls and

ceilings present only the plain surface of the hewn blocks of stone.

Most, however, are covered with a coating of fine white plaster, and

in many this plastered surface is wholly or partially covered with

paintings in bright colors. The paintings are much damaged in every

case, but seem to have been executed with much care and skill. They

are, apparently, never purely ornamental, but represent some definite

objects, oftener than otherwise human beings in various attitudes and

employments, battles, processions, and dances. In one or two

localities, as at Kewick, a single stone is decorated with painting,

while the rest of the surface is left plain. Niches in the walls of a

room at Chichen, benches along the sides and ends at Tuloom, and a

reported inner cornice at Zayi vary the usual interior monotony of the

Maya apartments.

Interior sculptured decorations are of comparatively rare occurrence.

A few of the lintels and jambs in each of the cities are covered with

carvings; the steps leading up to the raised inner room at Kabah,

together with the base of the walls at their sides, are sculptured;

small circles are cut on the walls of the Casa del Adivino at Uxmal; a

tablet of hieroglyphics stretches over the inner doorways of a

corridor at Chichen; and a sculptured procession covers the wall and

ceiling of a room on the Gymnasium wall at the same city.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions are not very numerous, but are apparently

identical in character with those we have seen at Copan. The only

instance noted of interior decoration in stucco is that of the stucco

birds in a room at Kabah, and a few stuccoed columns.

The exterior walls have almost invariably a cornice extending over the

doorways round the whole circumference, and another near the roof.

Several buildings have one or two additional cornices. Besides the

cornices a very few fronts are plain; most are so below the lower

cornice, but are decorated in their upper portions, as several are

from top to bottom, with a mass of complicated sculptured designs, of

which the reader has formed a clear idea by the drawings that have

been presented. These ornaments, or the separate parts of each, are

carved on the faces of cubical or rectangular blocks which are built

into the face of the wall, each carved piece fitting most accurately

into its place as part of a most elaborate whole. Some parts of the

decoration are also joined to the walls by means of long tenons. In

the human faces represented in profile among the ornamental carvings

the flattened forehead, or contracted facial angle, is the most

important feature noticed, and this is not as strongly marked as in

many other regions of America. Excepting the phallus, which is

prominent in many of the decorations, and which was probably a

religious symbol, no ornaments of an obscene nature are noticed.

Instead of stone, stucco is employed at Labphak in exterior

decorations, and to a slight extent at Tuloom also. Over the front

wall of some buildings, and from the centre of the roof of others,

rises a lofty wall, sometimes in peaks, or turrets, apparently

intended only as a basis for ornamentation. At Kabah this

supplementary wall is plain and resembles from a distance a second

story; on the Nunnery at Uxmal the ornamentation is in stone; but in

other cases stucco is employed. Only one exterior wall, at Chunhuhu,

is plastered; but all the exterior decorations are supposed to have

been originally painted, traces of bright colors still remaining in

sheltered positions.[V-106]

[Sidenote: MAYA IDOLS.]

The scarcity of idols among the Maya antiquities must be regarded as

extraordinary. The double-headed animal and the statue of the Old

Woman at Uxmal; the nude figure carved on a long flat stone and the

small statue in two pieces, at Nohpat; the idol at Zayi reported as in

use for a fountain; the rude unsculptured monoliths of Sijoh; the

scattered and vaguely mentioned idols on the plains of Mayapan; and

the figures in terra cotta collected by Norman at Campeche, complete

the list; and many of these may have been originally merely

decorations for buildings. That the inhabitants of Yucatan were

idolators there is no possible doubt, and in connection with the

magnificent shrines and temples erected by them, stone representatives

of their deities carved with all their aboriginal art and rivaling or

excelling the grand obelisks of Copan, might naturally be sought for.

But in view of the facts it must be concluded that the Maya idols were

small, and that such as escaped the destructive hands of the Spanish

ecclesiastics, were buried by the natives, as the only means of

preventing their desecration. Altars are as rare as idols; indeed,

only at Tuloom are such relics definitely reported, and then they are

of small size and of simple construction, merely hewn blocks on which

copal was burned.

The almost complete lack of pottery, implements, and weapons is no

less remarkable. Earthen relics, so abundant over nearly the whole

surface of the Pacific States, even in the territory of the wildest

tribes, where no ruined edifices are to be seen, are rarely met with

in Yucatan and Chiapa, where the grandest ruins indicate the highest

civilization. No trace of any metal has been found in Yucatan,

although there is some historical evidence that copper implements were

used by the Mayas to a slight extent in the sixteenth century, the

material for which must have been brought from other parts of the

country. Besides spear and arrow heads of flint or obsidian which have

been found in small numbers in different parts of the state, and the

implements included in the Camacho collection at Campeche already

mentioned, there remains to be noticed "a collection of stone

implements, gathered by Dr. J. W. Veile, in Yucatan," spoken of by Mr

Foster as resembling in many respects similar relics from the

Mississippi Valley. "The material employed is porphyry. Some of them

are less than two inches in length, and the edges are polished as if

from use. At the first glance it would be said that many of these

implements were too small for practical purposes, but when we reflect

that the material out of which the ancient inhabitants of that region

cut their basso-relievos, was a soft coralline limestone, I find, by

experiment, that such a tool is almost as effective as one of steel.

Some of the implements, however, are cylindrical in shape, with the

convex surface brought to an edge, and the opposite side ground out

like a gouge."[V-107] There can be little doubt that the Maya

sculpture was executed with tools of stone, although with such

implements the complicated carvings on hard zapote lintels must have

presented great difficulties even to aboriginal patience and skill.

[Sidenote: THE MAYAS AS ARTISTS.]

With respect to the artistic merit of the monuments of Yucatan, and

the degree of civilization which they imply on the behalf of their

builders, I leave the reader to form his own conclusion from the

information which I have collected and presented as clearly as

possible in the preceding pages. That they bear, as a whole, no

favorable comparison with the works of the ancient Greeks, Romans,

Egyptians, Assyrians, and perhaps other old-world peoples must, I

believe, be granted. Yet they are most wonderful when considered as

the handiwork of a people since lapsed into a condition little above

savagism. I append in a note some quotations designed to show the

impression these monuments have made on explorers and students.[V-108]

[Sidenote: ANTIQUITY OF THE MAYA MONUMENTS.]

Finally I have to consider the antiquity of the Yucatan monuments. As

in the case of all ruined cities and edifices, the questions, when and

by whom were they built? are of the most absorbing interest. In

Yucatan the latter question presents no difficulties, and the former

few, compared with those connected with other American ruins. It was

formerly a favorite theory that the great American palaces and temples

of ancient times, whose remains have astonished the modern world, were

the work of civilized peoples that have become extinct, probably of

some old-world people which long centuries ago settled on our coasts

and flourished for a long period, but was at last forced to succumb to

the native races whose descendants occupied the land at the coming of

Europeans in the sixteenth century. The discussion of the origin of

the American people and of the American civilization, as well as of

the possible agency of old-world elements in the development of the

latter, belongs to another part of my work; still it may be

appropriately stated here that the theory of extinct civilized races

in America, to which our ruined cities may be attributed, rests upon

only the very vaguest and most unsubstantial foundation, while so far

as the Yucatan cities are concerned it rests on no foundation at all.

The traditional history of the peninsula, which will be given in the

following volume, represents Yucatan as constituting the mighty Maya

empire, whose rulers, secular and religious, reared magnificent

cities, palaces, and temples, and which flourished in great, if not

its greatest, power down to within a little more than a century of the

Spaniards' coming. Then the empire was more or less broken up by civil

wars, an era of dissension and comparative weakness ensued, some of

the great cities were abandoned in ruins, but the edifices of most,

and especially the temples, were still occupied by the disunited

factions of the original empire. In this condition the Spaniards found

and conquered the Maya people. They found the immense stone pyramids

and buildings of most of the cities still used by the natives for

religious services, although not for dwellings, as they had probably

never been so used even by their builders. The conquerors established

their own towns generally in the immediate vicinity of the aboriginal

cities, procuring all the building material they needed from the

native structures, destroying so far as possible all the idols,

altars, and other paraphernalia of the Maya worship, and forcing the

discontinuance of all ceremonies in honor of the heathen gods. A few

cities escaped the damning blight of European towns in their vicinity,

and kept up their rites in secret for some years later; such were

Uxmal, Tuloom, and probably others of the best preserved ruins. All

the early voyagers, conquistadores, and writers speak of the wonderful

stone edifices found by them in the country, partly abandoned and

partly occupied by the natives. To suppose that the buildings they saw

and described were not identical with the ruins that have been

described in these pages, that every trace of the former has

disappeared, and that the latter entirely escaped the notice of the

early visitors to Yucatan, is too absurd to deserve a moment's

consideration. That the Mayas were found worshiping in the temples of

an extinct race is a position almost equally untenable. The Spaniards

forced the Mayas to accept a new faith, utterly crushed out their

ancient spirit by a long course of oppression, and then together with

other Europeans resorted to the theory of an extinct old-world race to

account for the wonderful structures which the ancestors of the

degraded Mayas could not have reared. The Mayas are not, however, the

only illustrations of a deteriorated race to be seen in Yucatan, as

will be understood by comparing the present Spanish population of the

peninsula with the proud Castilian conquerors of the sixteenth

century.

Mr Stephens, to whom many of the Spanish and Maya documents relating

to Yucatan history were unknown, sought carefully for proofs in

support of his belief that the cities were constructed by "the same

races who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest,

or by some not very distant progenitors." He was entirely successful

in establishing the truth of his position, which rested on the

statements of the historians with whose works he was acquainted, and

on the following points, many of them discovered by himself, and whose

only weakness is the fact that they were not really needed to justify

his conclusions. 1st. The Maya arch in the foundations of the

Franciscan convent at Mérida, built in 1547, with the historical

statement that Mérida was built on the mounds of ancient Tihoo. 2d.

The traditional destruction of Mayapan in 1420. 3d. The custom of the

Spaniards to locate their towns near those of the natives, together

with the almost uniform location of the ruins, near the modern towns.

4th. The skeletons and skulls dug up at Ticul were pronounced by Dr

Morton to belong to the universal American type. 5th. Sr Peon's deed

to the Uxmal estate, dated in 1673, states that the natives still

worshiped in the stone buildings; that a native then claimed the

estate as having belonged to his ancestors; that at that time there

were doors in the ruins which were opened and shut; and that water was

then drawn from the aguadas. 6th. The sword in the hands of the

kneeling sculptured figure at Kabah, which has already been mentioned

as almost identical with an aboriginal Maya weapon. 7th. A map dated

1557 was found at Mani, on which Uxmal is designated by a different

character from all the other surrounding towns, being the only one

that is not surmounted by a cross. 8th. With the map was found a

document in the Maya language, also dated 1557, announcing the arrival

of certain officials with interpreters at, and their departure from,

Uxmal. Now there never was a Spanish town of Uxmal, and the hacienda

was not established until one hundred and forty-five years later. 9th.

The gymnasiums at Chichen and Uxmal, agreeing with those traditionally

described in connection with certain aboriginal games of ball. 10th.

Many scattered resemblances to Aztec relics and customs. 11th. The

European penknife discovered in a grave with aboriginal relics at

Kantunile. 12th. The comparatively fresh appearance of the altars and

other relics at Tuloom.[V-109]

It may then be accepted as a fact susceptible of no doubt that the

Yucatan structures were built by the Mayas, the direct ancestors of

the people found in the peninsula at the conquest and of the present

native population. Respecting their age we only know the date of their

abandonment--that is the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nothing in

the ruins themselves gives any clue to the date of their construction,

and this is not the place to discuss the few vague historical

traditions bearing on the subject. The data on which different writers

have based their speculations, and claimed for these monuments greater

or less antiquity are the following. 1st. The immense trees that are

found growing on the ruins, and the accumulation of soil and vegetable

matter on the roofs and terrace platforms; but to persons acquainted

with the rapid growth of trees in tropical countries, these constitute

no evidence of antiquity. 2d. The ignorance of the natives respecting

the builders of the monuments; the investigations of Indian character

in the preceding volumes of this work, however, show conclusively

enough that two generations, to say nothing of three centuries, are

amply sufficient to blot from the native mind everything definite

concerning the past. 3d. Comparisons of the Yucatan ruins with

different old-world remains; the argument being that if an American

monument is more dilapidated than an Egyptian one, it must be older.

4th. And on the other hand, against a great antiquity, the

destructiveness of the tropical vegetation and tropical rains. 5th.

The softness of the building material. 6th. The perfect preservation

in many places of wood and paint. 7th. The rapid decay of the ruins

between the periods of the earliest and latest visits.

It will be at once noted that the preceding points all bear on the

date of abandonment and not at all on the date of construction.

Explorers may marvel, according to the view they take of the matter,

either that the buildings have resisted for three or four hundred

years the destructive agencies to which they have been exposed; or,

that three or four short centuries have wrought so great ravages in

structures so strongly built; still the fact remains that the

buildings were abandoned three or four hundred years ago. M. Waldeck's

theory, by which he computes the antiquity of some of the ruins by

certain stones peculiarly placed in the walls, or by the small

houses--_calli_, or house, being one of the signs of the Aztec

calendar--over the doorways of the Nunnery at Uxmal, like Mr Jones'

argument that the structures must have been reared before the

invention of the arch, is mere idle speculation, utterly unfounded in

fact or probability. The history of the Mayas indicates the building

of some of the cities at various dates from the third to the tenth

centuries. As I have said before, there is nothing in the buildings to

indicate the date of their erection,--that they were or were not

standing at the commencement of the Christian Era. We may see how,

abandoned and uncared for, they have resisted the ravages of the

elements for three or four centuries. How many centuries they may have

stood guarded and kept in repair by the builders and their descendants

we can only conjecture.[V-110]

FOOTNOTES:

[V-1] 'Le sol de l'Yucatan est encore, aujourd'hui, parsemé

d'innombrables ruines, dont la magnificence et l'étendue frappent

d'étonnement les voyageurs; de toutes parts, ce ne sont que collines

pyramidales, surmontées d'édifices superbes, des villes dont la

grandeur éblouit l'imagination, tant elles sont multipliées et se

touchent de près, sur les chemins publics: enfin on ne saurait faire

un pas sans rencontrer des débris qui attestent à la fois l'immensité

de la population antique du Maya et la longue prospérité dont cette

contrée jouit sous ses rois.' 'Nulle terre au monde ne présente

aujourd'hui un champ si fécond aux recherches de l'archéologue et du

voyageur.' _Brasseur de Bourbourg_, _Hist. Nat. Civ._, tom. ii., pp.

20, 24. 'A peine y a-t-il dans l'Yucatan une ville, une bourgade, une

maison de campagne qui n'offre dans ses constructions des restes de

pierres sculptées qui ont été enlevées d'un ancien édifice. On peut

compter plus de douze emplacements couverts de vastes ruines.'

_Friederichsthal_, in _Nouvelles Annales des Voy._, 1841, tom. xcii.,

pp. 300-1. 'Elle est, pour ainsi dire, jonchée de ruines. Partout,

dans cette partie de l'Amérique, la poésie des souvenirs parle à

l'imagination.' _Larenaudière_, _Mex. et Guat._, p. 320.

[V-2] The earliest modern account of Yucatan Antiquities with which I

am acquainted is that written by Sr Lorenzo de Zavala, Ambassador of

the Mexican Government in France, and published in _Antiquités

Mexicaines_, tom. i., div. ii., pp. 33-5. Sr Zavala visited Uxmal

several years before 1834. His communication gives a tolerably good

general idea of the ruins, but it is brief, unaccompanied by drawings,

and relates only to one city. It is, therefore, of little value when

compared with later and more extensive works on the subject, and is

mentioned in this note only as being the earliest account extant. Yet

long before Zavala's visit, Padre Thomas de Soza, a Franciscan friar

of the convent of Mérida, had observed the ruins during his frequent

trips through the province, and he gave a slight account of them to

Antonio del Rio, who mentioned it in his _Descrip. of an Ancient

City_, pp. 6-8.

M. Frédéric de Waldeck, a French artist, visited Uxmal in 1835 during

a short tour in the peninsula, and published the result of his labors

in his _Voyage Pittoresque et Archéologique dans la Province

d'Yucatan_, Paris, 1838, large folio, with 22 steel plates and

lithographic illustrations. M. de Waldeck became in some way obnoxious

to the Mexican Government, which threw some obstacles in his way, and

finally confiscated his drawings, of which he had fortunately made

copies. Waldeck in his turn abuses the government and the people, and

has consequently been unfavorably criticised. His drawings and

descriptions, however, tested by the work of later visitors under

better auspices, are remarkable for their accuracy so far as they

relate to antiquities. The few errors discoverable in his work may be

attributed to the difficulty of exploring alone and unaided ruins

enveloped in a dense tropical forest. 'Supplied with pecuniary aid by

a munificent and learned Irish peer.' (Lord Kingsborough.) _Foreign

Quar. Rev._, vol. xviii., p. 251. 'Waldeck, aumentando ó disminuyendo

antojadiza y caprichosamente sus obras, las hace participar, en todos

sentidos, de las no muy acreditadas cualidades de verídico, imparcial

y concienzudo que aquí le conocieron.' _M. F. P._, in _Registro

Yucateco_, tom. i., p. 362.

Mr. John L. Stephens, accompanied by Fred. Catherwood, artist, at the

end of an antiquarian expedition through Central America, arrived at

Uxmal in 1840, and began the work of surveying the city, but the

sickness of Mr Catherwood compelled them to abandon the survey when

but little progress had been made and return abruptly to New York. The

results of their incomplete work were published in _Stephens' Cent.

Amer._, N. Y., 1841, vol. ii.

Mr B. M. Norman, a resident of New Orleans, made a flying visit to

Yucatan from December to March, 1841-2, and published as a result

_Rambles in Yucatan_, N. Y., 1843, illustrated with cuts and

lithographs. According to the _Registro Yucateco_, tom. i., p. 372,

this trip was merely a successful speculation on the part of Norman,

who collected his material in haste from all available sources, in

order to take advantage of the public interest excited by Stephens'

travels. However this may be, the work is not without value in

connection with the other authorities. 'The result of a hasty visit.'

_Mayer's Mex. Aztec, etc._, vol. ii., p. 172. The work 'n'est qu'une

compilation sans mérite et sans intérêt.' _Morelet_, _Voyage_, tom.

i., p. 150. 'A valuable work.' _Davis' Antiq. Amer._, p. 12. 'By which

the public were again astonished and delighted.' _Frost's Pict. Hist.

Mex._, p. 77. Norman's work is very highly spoken of and reviewed at

length, with numerous quotations and two plates, in the _Democratic

Review_, vol. xi., pp. 529-38.

Mr Stephens arrived in New York on his return from his Central

American tour in July, 1840, having left Yucatan in June. 'About a

year' after his return he again sailed for Yucatan on October 9th and

remained until the following June. This is all the information the

author vouchsafes touching the date of his voyage, which was probably

in 1841-2, Stephens and Norman being therefore in the country at the

same time; the latter states, indeed, that they were only a month

apart at Zayi. Stephens' work is called _Incidents of Travel in

Yucatan_, N. Y., 1843. (?) (Ed. quoted in this work, N. Y., 1858.) The

drawings of this and of the previous expedition were published, with a

descriptive text by Stephens, under the title of _Catherwood's Views

of Ancient Monuments in Central America_, N. Y., 1844, large folio,

with 25 colored lithographic plates. Stephens' account was noticed,

with quotations, by nearly all the reviews at the time of its

appearance, and has been the chief source from which all subsequent

writers, including myself, have drawn their information. His

collection of movable Yucatan relics was unfortunately destroyed by

fire with Mr Catherwood's panorama in New York. Critics are almost

unanimous in praise of the work. 'Malgré quelques imperfections, le

livre restera toujours un ouvrage de premier ordre pour les voyageurs

et les savants.' _Brasseur de Bourbourg_, _Esquisses_, p. 7. 'Stephens

y Catherwood, por ejemplo, sin separarse de la verdad de los

originales, los cópia el uno, y los describe el otro con exactitud,

criterio y buena fé,' _M. F. P._, in _Registro Yucateco_, tom. i., p.

362. 'Ce que M. Stephens a montré talent, de science et de modestie

dans ses narrations est au-dessus de toute appréciation.' _Dally_,

_Races Indig._, p. 14. Jones, _Hist. Anc. Amer._, criticises Stephens'

conclusions, and his criticisms will be somewhat noticed in their

proper place. See also p. 82, note 14, of this volume.