CONCLUSIONS (?).
In the foregoing pages a slight sketch has been given of the principal
groups of ruins visited during my eight winters' wanderings in
Central America, and I will now attempt to formulate some results of
my observations. The first point that is noticeable is the marked
limitation in range of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. I have never
heard of any Maya inscriptions being found beyond the area marked
on the map which accompanies this volume. The geographical features
of this area have probably had a very considerable influence on the
evolution of Maya civilization, for when once the Mayas were settled on
the high land to the north of the great volcanic range which follows
the trend of the Pacific coast, and on the peninsula of which this
range forms the base, they were in an exceptionally strong position
for defence and may have existed there for many centuries, slowly
developing their civilization undisturbed by later migrating tribes
from Mexico, which would have passed along the natural roadway of the
Pacific slope. This idea gains strength when we note that although
tribes of distinctly Nahuatl origin are found in Nicaragua, only one
small tribe of that stock, the Pipiles, is to be found within the area
marked as that of Maya inscriptions, and this tribe is located on the
Pacific seaboard.
[Illustration: THE ISLAND OF FLORES.]
It seems probable that the Mayas and the so-called Toltecs were
originally the same people, but whether the migration from Mexico to
the valleys of the Usumacinta and Motagua was merely owing to the
natural expansion of the race or to expulsion by force there is no
evidence to show. It is usually assumed as most probable that the
general movement of population has been from Mexico to Central America,
but all we know is that there are to be seen in Mexico remains, such
as those at Teotihuacan, which bear more resemblance to the work of
the Mayas than to that of the Nahuas, and these ruins are believed
to be pre-Aztec. However, the true Maya area is apparently to be
distinguished by the existence in it of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions,
and, judging from the evidence at present available, it seems clear
that a distinctly progressive movement, marked by the development of
this hieroglyphic writing, must have taken place after the Mayas had
left Mexico and settled to the east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
With what other races the Mayas may have been brought in contact in
their eastern home we do not know, but they were almost certainly
people of lower culture, and it seems probable that we may possess
specimens of their art in the rude images found near Guatemala city,
which are shown on page 15, and that we may judge of their appearance
from the figures of the prisoners carved on the Stela at Ixkun[8].
After a period of time, which must have included the age during which
the race reached the highest point of its development, the centres of
population were abandoned and the Mayas disappeared from the southern
part of the Maya area, their places being taken by the races whom the
Spaniards found in occupation of the country--races speaking languages
derived from the Maya stock, and possibly allied to the Mayas by blood,
but certainly behind them in the arts of peace and probably inferior
in social organization. When and why the valleys of the Usumacinta and
Motagua were deserted by the Mayas there is no evidence to show; there
are not even vague traditions such as those which have been handed down
regarding the disappearance of the Toltecs from Mexico. Famine and
pestilence, civil strife, and the attacks of warlike neighbours have
all been suggested as the causes, and all may have contributed to the
result, but there is some reason for giving preference to the last. Mr.
Mercer and other investigators have shown us that in Northern Yucatan
the Mayas were the original inhabitants of the country and that they
brought their culture with them from elsewhere, and there seems little
reason to doubt that they brought it from the southern part of the Maya
area. Judging from the sculptures and mural paintings at Chichén Itzá,
this change from south to north seems also to have been a change from
a peaceful to a warlike condition, and it therefore appears likely
that the peopling of Yucatan may have taken place after the Mayas had
been driven by force from their peaceful southern homes, and had been
compelled to cultivate the arts of war in order to save their race from
extinction.
It is true that we do not possess, and are never likely to find, an
account of the abandonment or destruction of Palenque or Tikál, and
it cannot be actually proved that at the time of the Spanish conquest
they had ceased to exist as living cities, but it can be shown that the
absence of all mention of these cities in the Spanish accounts of the
invasion and conquest of the country is incompatible with the theory of
their existence at that time.
In Chapter XXI. we followed the earlier expeditions which coasted along
the shores of Yucatan until finally, in April 1519, Hernando Cortés
landed in Mexico on the site of the modern city of Vera Cruz. During
the next few years the conquest of Mexico absorbed the attention of
the Spanish adventurers and the land of the Mayas was neglected, but
on the 12th of October, 1524, Cortés left Mexico city behind him and
started on his celebrated march to Honduras, a march which occupied him
for nearly two years, and carried him through regions where some of the
most magnificent of the Maya ruins are still to be found. Although we
have an account of this expedition both from Cortés's own pen and from
that of his stout-hearted follower Bernal Diaz, it is by no means an
easy matter to trace the exact course of the march and to identify the
places named. The task has, however, been made easier by the researches
of my friend Dr. Sebastian Marimon, who, a few years before his death,
discovered, in the Lonja at Seville, a map of the Province of Tabasco
drawn in the year 1579 by Melchor de Santa Cruz, which contains some
place-names which have disappeared in later maps.
The earlier part of Cortés's march from the city of Mexico to the town
of Guacacualcos, on the northern side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
does not now concern us. On leaving Guacacualcos he entered the
province of Tabasco and crossed the low-lying and swampy plain seamed
by the intricate network of streams which flow towards the Gulf of
Mexico. There was no road to follow, for the good reason that no roads
were in existence, the natives passing from place to place in their
canoes; yet across this difficult country Cortés, with wonderful
persistency, led his troops, wading through swamps, cutting his way
through dense jungle, and building innumerable bridges across the
streams, bridges of such dimensions that Bernal Diaz wrote, in his
old age, "people to this day speak of the bridges of Cortés as they
speak of the Pillars of Hercules." We can trace the line of march with
something like accuracy through the province of Copilco to Zaguatan,
where the Rio Grijalva was crossed, and thence on to Chilapa and
Tepititan on the Rio Tulija. From Tepititan to Ciguatecpan on the
Usumacinta the actual route is obscure, as Cortés and his followers
were for some days lost in the forest, but there can be little doubt
that Ciguatecpan (a name which is not to be found on the maps) was a
town on the banks of the Rio Usumacinta in the near neighbourhood of
Tenosique. A line drawn from Tepititan to Tenosique is between fifty
and sixty miles in length, and in passing from one place to the other,
Cortés must have passed within twenty miles of Palenque, yet, although
he and his men were half starved, and were eagerly seeking for any
trace of a track which would lead them to an Indian settlement, nothing
was seen of Palenque and no track was crossed which might have led to
it. Arrived at Ciguatecpan, Cortés asked the Indians to direct him to
Acalá, which was probably the next place of importance marked on his
map of the country drawn on a cloth, with which he had been furnished
by the natives of Guacacualcos; and on this request a great discussion
arose, some saying that his best way lay through the villages up the
river, others saying that that route was by far the longest and passed
through difficult and uninhabited country, and that the nearest way was
to cross the River Usumacinta at Ciguatecpan and follow a small track
to Acalá much used by pedlars. This last counsel was followed, and it
was probably the better of the two. Had Cortés continued his journey up
the course of the river he must have passed Piedras Negras and Menché,
both the sites of important ruins, which could hardly have been living
cities at that time without some report of their existence having come
to his ears or those of his numerous Indian followers. The position
of the chief town of the Province of Acalá has never been determined,
but it may with some confidence be placed on the upper waters of
the Rio San Pedro. Cortés says that the whole province was thickly
peopled and of considerable commercial importance; the historian
Villagutierre tells us that a few years later the province was brought
into subjection by an expedition from Merida under the leadership of
Don Francisco Tamayo Pacheco, but that the Spaniards were soon driven
out again by the Lacandones and other wild forest tribes. No account of
Pacheco's expedition has come to light and Acalá is no more mentioned.
From Acalá Cortés marched through a thinly peopled country to the
Lake of Peten and visited the island of Tayasal, the modern Flores,
which was then the chief town of the warlike Itzáes, where he was well
received by the chief and people. In his letter to Philip II. of Spain,
Cortés says: "At this village, or rather at the plantations that were
close to the lake, I was obliged to leave one of my horses, owing to
his having got a splinter in his foot. The chief promised to take care
of the animal and cure him, but I do not know if he will succeed or
what he will do with him."
From the Lake of Peten Cortés continued his march into what is now
British Honduras, and after crossing the River Sarstoon, arrived at the
mouth of the Rio Dulce, near where Livingston now stands. Before we
follow him through this latter part of his arduous task, let us return
to Tayasal and the Itzáes and see how far our knowledge of the people
and country can be brought to bear on the question of the existence of
Tikál as a living city. Fortunately we know something of the subsequent
history of the Itzáes, for Tayasal was visited by missionaries from
Yucatan in 1618, 1619, and 1623, and in the year 1697 an expedition
from Yucatan reached the lake, defeated the Itzáes, and captured
Tayasal itself.
In 1618, when the Padres Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan de Orbita
set out from Merida on their missionary expedition to Peten, the
extreme Spanish outpost in Yucatan was at Tipu, on the upper waters
of the Rio Hondo, near the present frontier of British Honduras, and
within a few days' march of the Lake of Peten. On reaching Tayasal
the missionaries were well received by the chief of the Itzáes, and
on the day after their arrival they were conducted round the town.
"The padres estimated the number of houses at about two hundred; these
stood along the shore of the lagoon, at a little distance one from
the other, and in each one of them dwelt parents and sons with their
families. On the higher ground in the middle of the island stood the
cués, or oratories, where they kept their idols. They (the padres) went
to see them and found twelve or more temples equal in size and capacity
to any of the churches in this province of Yucatan, and according to
their account each one could hold more than a thousand persons. In
the middle of one of these temples there was a great idol in the form
of a horse, made of stone and cement (cal y canto). It was seated on
the floor of the temple on its haunches with its hind legs bent under
it, raising itself on its fore legs. It was worshipped as the God of
Thunder and called Tzimin Chac, which means the horse of thunder or
the thunderbolt. The reason why they possessed this idol was that when
Don Fernando Cortés passed through this land on his way to Honduras,
he left behind him a horse which could travel no further. As the horse
died the Indians, terrified at the thought of not being able to give
it up alive, should Cortés by chance return that way and ask them for
it, had a statue made of the horse and began to hold it in veneration,
so that it might be clear (coligiessen) that they were not to blame
for its death. Believing the horse to be an intelligent being (animal
de razon), they gave it to eat chickens and other meat and offered it
garlands of flowers as they were wont to do to their own chieftains.
All these honours, for such they were in their sight, helped to bring
about the death of the poor horse, for he died of hunger. It was given
its name (the god of the thunderbolt) because they had seen some of
the Spaniards discharging their arquebuses or guns when on horseback
hunting the deer, and they believed that the horses were the cause of
the noise, which appeared to them like thunder, and the flash from
the muzzle of the gun and the smoke of the powder they mistook for
lightning. Upon this the Devil took advantage of the blindness of their
superstition so to increase the veneration in which the statue was held
that, by the time the missionaries arrived, this idol had become the
principal object of their adoration.
"As soon as the Padre Fray Juan de Orbita caught sight of the idol
(says the Padre Fuensalida) it seemed as if the spirit of our Lord had
descended on him, for, carried away by a fervid and courageous zeal for
the glory of God, he took a great stone in his hand, climbed to the top
of the statue of the horse and battered it to pieces, scattering the
fragments on the ground"[9].
This act naturally roused the anger of the Indians, who, however,
refrained from attacking the missionaries, but a few days later the
padres, finding that their preaching was of no effect, left the island
and returned to Tipu.
The following year the missionaries again visited Tayasal, but at the
end of a few weeks they were driven out by the Indians, and returned to
Tipu after suffering great hardship on the way.
In 1623 another attempt was made to Christianize the Itzáes. Padre
Diego Delgado reached Tayasal from Tipu accompanied by a few Spanish
soldiers and eighty Indians; the Spaniards were apparently received
with courtesy, but as soon as they had been thrown off their guard the
Itzáes turned on them and massacred the whole party.
Towards the end of the 16th century the Spaniards began to press upon
the unconquered Indians from all sides. Expeditions from Chiapas
and Guatemala met on the Rio Lacandon and founded the settlement of
Dolores de los Lacandones, and exploring parties descended the river
to its junction with the Pasion, and then ascended that stream for a
considerable distance. With the exception of the small clusters of
ranchos inhabited by the Lacandones, no Indian settlements were met
with, but the discovery of the ruins of an ancient stone-built town of
great size is incidentally mentioned in one of the reports.
About the same time missionary expeditions were pressed forward into
the northern forests by way of Cajabon, but met with little success
amongst the Choles, Mopanes, and other scattered tribes of forest
Indians, and when at last a small advance-guard of Spanish soldiers
under Captain Juan Dias de Velasco actually reached the shores of the
Lake of Peten they were attacked and annihilated by the Itzáes.
Meanwhile the Governor of Yucatan had been clearing a road through the
forest and was approaching Peten from the opposite direction. In the
autumn of 1695 the road was open to Chuntuchí, in lat. 17° 30Ž N., and
at the close of the year Padre Fray Antonio de Avendaño, accompanied
by two Spanish monks and a few Indians, set out thence on an embassy
to the chief of the Itzáes. After six days' rough march they reached
the outlying villages of the Itzáes, whence they were conducted to
Tayasal. The embassy was well received by the chief, but at the end of
three or four days, as it was evident that mischief was brewing amongst
the people, he advised the Spaniards to leave the island at once and
return by way of Tipu, so as to avoid observation. With the help of
some of his family the chief secretly conveyed the Spaniards to the
mainland during the night, and entrusted them to the care of one of
his dependents, who was to furnish them with guides. The guides proved
faithless and soon deserted the unfortunate Spaniards, who, after
wandering on for ten days in the direction of Tipu, gave up all hope of
reaching that settlement and, turning to the westward, groped their way
for twenty-five days through the uninhabited forest, when fortunately
they struck the new road from Merida to Chuntuchí and were saved from
starvation by a party of Indian cargadores who were carrying food to
the road-makers.
By February 1697 the road had been carried to within two leagues of the
lake, and Don Martin Ursua, the Governor of Yucatan, arrived to take
command of the expedition in person. When the Lake was reached, boats
were built and launched, and on the 13th March the Governor embarked in
his galley to cross to the Island of Tayasal. As the galley approached
the island, canoes manned by Indian warriors came out in swarms to
attack it, and for a time it seemed to rain arrows, but Ursua would
not allow a shot to be fired in return, and ordered his interpreters
to shout to the Indians that he came in peace. However, his words
were of no avail, the patience of the Spanish soldiers was exhausted,
and a shot fired by a wounded Spaniard was the signal for a general
fusillade; then, as the galley touched the shore, the soldiers jumped
overboard and stormed the town.
The effect of the firing from the guns was instantaneous and
marvellous, the Itzáes, who had up to this time shown such a bold
front, at once took to flight, jumping out of their canoes and swimming
to the mainland, and the crowds of natives who lined the shores of the
island and swarmed about the buildings followed the example set them,
so that within a few minutes the Spaniards were in possession of a
deserted town and the lake was black with Indian heads.
If we turn to such descriptions of the buildings of the Itzáes as have
come down to us, we can see that a comparison of Tayasal with Tikál
would be much the same as a comparison of Utatlan with Copan. There
are the statements of eye-witnesses that the temples on the island
were built with low stone walls into which posts were fixed to support
a thatch roof, and, as I shall show later on, Cortés unconsciously
confirms this statement when describing the town of Chacujál in
Guatemala. There are no remains of pyramidal foundation-mounds now
to be seen on the island such as support all the well-known Maya
temples; and although the statement, attributed to the missionary
fathers, that the temples would each have held a thousand persons was
probably a gross exaggeration, it is hardly possible to imagine such a
statement could have been made about any stone-roofed building erected
by American Indians. To me it appears probable that Tayasal was a
stronghold of much the same character as Utatlan and Uspantan, and that
it was in no way comparable to the great centres of Maya civilization;
moreover, that it could never have become, as it undoubtedly had
become, the most important town in that part of the country as long as
Tikál was in existence.
The later history of the island is uneventful. Notwithstanding the
efforts of the Spanish authorities the Itzáes could never be persuaded
to return in any numbers to their old home, and they probably scattered
in small settlements in the forest and on the borders of the numerous
smaller lakes, where they must have rapidly diminished in numbers
and importance, for little more is heard of them. Tayasal sank to
the position of an insignificant village, and a few years after its
conquest it passed from the rule of Yucatan to that of Guatemala.
It is only fair to assume that the missionaries who faced such great
perils and suffered such hardships in their efforts to convert
the Itzáes, the soldiers who led the expeditions from Yucatan and
Guatemala, and the officials who subsequently took over the government
of the country must all have been keenly alive to the necessity of
collecting trustworthy information regarding the Itzáes and their
neighbours. We know that the missionaries must have passed within
twenty miles to the east of Tikál on their journeys between Tipu
and Tayasal, that the Yucatan road on nearing the lake must have
approached within the same distance to the south-west, and that Fray
Antonio de Avendaño must have passed close by the site of the ruins
when wandering through the forest from the neighbourhood of Tipu to
Chuntuchí, but not one word has reached us from Spanish sources about
the existence of a large and important centre of population and culture
where the ruins of Tikál now stand.
In the concluding chapters of Villagutierre's 'History,' which
was published two years after the fall of Tayasal, a good deal of
information is given about the Itzáes and the villages on the borders
of the lake, but nothing whatever is said relating to Tikál or even
to the existence of the ruins. It is, of course, possible that the
existence of the ruins may have been known and passed over as not
worthy of record, as the Spaniards were so frequently meeting with
similar remains in Yucatan, but that the existence within a day's
march of a living town or great religious centre could under the
circumstances have been either overlooked or ignored is absolutely
impossible.
To return to the march of Cortés from Tayasal to Honduras. It was not
until he arrived at the mouth of the Rio Dulce that he got into touch
with the Spaniards of whom he had come in search. The first of his
countrymen whom he met with were forty men and twenty women belonging
to the party under the command of Gil Gonzales de Avila. These
unfortunate people were even in a more pitiable condition than his own
half-starved followers. Expeditions had at once to be despatched into
the surrounding country in search of food, but they proved singularly
unsuccessful until Cortés himself took the matter in hand. In a
"brigantine" and boats belonging to Gonzales's men he set out with a
party of forty Spaniards and fifty Indians, ascended the Rio Dulce, and
landed on the south side of the great lake, probably somewhere to the
east of the site of Yzabal. Leaving his boats in charge of a guard,
Cortés and his followers pushed on during the next few days across the
spurs of the Sierra de las Minas and crossed the innumerable streams
which score the mountain sides, finding, as he says, the path so rough
and steep that they had to make use of both hands and feet in climbing.
Some villages were met with on the way, but at the approach of the
Spaniards the natives fled to the forest, and the Spaniards found no
stores of food--indeed, they barely obtained enough to supply their
immediate wants.
In his letter to the King, Cortés writes:--"Having asked some of the
Indian prisoners whether they knew of any other village in the vicinity
where dry maize could be obtained they answered me that they knew of
one called Chacujál, a very populous and ancient one, where all manner
of provisions might be found in abundance."
The Spaniards reached the neighbourhood of this village at sunset, and
Cortés made his arrangements to take it by surprise on the following
morning. To quote his own words:--"I had laid down on some straw, in
order to rest, when one of the scouts came to me, and said that by the
road communicating with the village he saw a body of armed men coming
down upon us; but that they marched without any order or precaution,
speaking to each other, and as if they were ignorant of our being
on their passage. I immediately summoned my men up, and made them
arm themselves as quickly and noiselessly as they could; but as the
distance between the village and the place where we had encamped was
so short, before we were ready to meet them the Indians discovered
the scouts, and letting fly on them a volley of their arrows began to
retreat towards their village, fighting all the time with those of my
men who were foremost. In this manner we entered the village mixed up
with them; but the night being dark, the Indians suddenly disappeared
in the streets, and we could find no enemies. Fearing some ambush, and
suspecting that the people of the village had been somehow informed
of our arrival, I gave orders to my men to keep well together, and
marching through the place, arrived at a great square, where they had
their mosques and houses of worship; and as we saw the mosques and the
buildings round them just in the manner and form of those of Culúa,
we were more overawed and astonished than we had been hitherto, since
nowhere since we left Aculan had we seen such signs of policy and
power.... We passed that night on watch, and on the following morning
sent out several parties of men to explore the village, which was well
designed, the houses well built and close to each other. We found in
them plenty of cotton, woven or raw, much linen of Indian manufacture
and of the best kind, great quantities of dried maize, cacao, beans,
peppers and salt, many fowls, and pheasants in cages, partridges, and
dogs of the species they keep for eating, and which are very tasteful
to the palate, and in short every variety of food in such abundance,
that had our ship and boats been near at hand, we might easily have
loaded enough of it to last us for many a day; but unfortunately we
were twenty leagues off, had no means of carrying provisions except on
the backs of men, and we were all of us in such a condition that, had
we not refreshed ourselves a little at that place, and rested for some
days, I doubt much whether we should have been able to return to our
boats."
The Indians, however, did not return to their town, and Cortés was left
in peace to build rafts on which to convey the grain he had captured,
and after an adventurous passage down the Rio Polochic he rejoined the
brigantine in the Golfo Dulce and carried the much-needed supplies to
his half-starved companions.
In 1882, when camped at Quirigua, I sent one of my men up the Rio
Polochic to make enquiries for the ruins of Chacujál, pointing out to
him the localities in which the ruins were most likely to be found.
On his return he told me that he could hear nothing whatever of any
place named Chacujál, but that there was a ruin known as Pueblo Viejo
on the Rio Tinaja, on the south side of the Polochic a few miles from
Panzos. This situation answers so exactly to the requirements of the
description given by Cortés that there can be little doubt that we
had found the ruins of the town called by him Chacujál. In 1884 I was
able to make a hurried visit to the ruins myself, and found a number
of foundations surmounted by low walls somewhat similar to those in
the neighbourhood of Rabinal already described in Chapter XII., but I
could find no trace of sculptured stones or inscriptions. As the whole
site was covered with a dense jungle it was not possible to make any
plan of the ruins during the few hours at my disposal; however, I saw
quite enough to convince me that, although the plan of the town had
been carefully laid out, the buildings were of no great importance
and in no way comparable to those at Copan or Palenque. Yet this is
the town which Cortés compares to Culúa in Mexico, and deems to be of
greater importance than any town he had seen since leaving Acalá, a
statement which goes far to confirm the views which have been expressed
in this chapter with regard to Tayasal, and to prove that Cortés and
his followers had met with none of the great centres of Maya art during
their wonderful march.
I was not successful in connecting these ruins on the Rio Tinaja with
the name of Chacujál, until one of my canoemen whom I was questioning
on the subject, after repeating the name several times exclaimed
"Chaki-jal! that is what the Indians of these parts call the ripe corn"
(chaki = dry, jal = maize), and the origin of the name was at once
evident.
I began this chapter with the intention of summing up in a few
paragraphs the conclusions I had myself come to, but although the
paragraphs have grown into pages I find that no definite statements
have been made.
How can we assert that the Maya hieroglyphics were originated and
developed within the Maya area until the ruins on the Rio Panuco, and
at Teotihuacan, have been thoroughly excavated and explored, and up
to the present they have only been scratched at? Did the development
of Nahua culture affect that of the Mayas, and is that the reason why
the art at Chichén has an indefinable Nahua flavour? We shall not
know this for certain until the ruins in Tabasco, Campeche, and Peten
have been thoroughly explored, and we can trace the connecting links.
Amongst the many other puzzles, how are we to account for those curious
mural paintings recently found by Dr. Gann in British Honduras, on the
eastern limit of the Maya area, paintings essentially Nahua in style
yet accompanied by a legend in Maya hieroglyphics? It is a fascinating
subject for speculation, but the field offered for actual exploration
is still more fascinating, and further research on the ground promises
to supply facts worth more than volumes of dissertation built upon
insufficient premises.
Within the Maya area there may, of course, have been many layers
of culture widely removed in time which we cannot at present
differentiate. Although it is not yet possible to trace the various
stages which must have marked the evolution of the art which culminated
in Copan and Palenque, it is not difficult to show that a great gap
exists between the remains of those centres of ancient culture and
the ruins of towns known to have been inhabited at the time of the
Spanish invasion. I called attention to this fact when treating of the
strongholds of the Quichés and Cachiquels, and have endeavoured in
this chapter to show that the same gap yawns unbridged between Tayasal
and Tikál. Prescott's picturesque account of the Aztec city of Mexico,
and Stephens's interesting description of the ruins he visited in
Honduras, Tabasco, and Yucatan, aided by Fuentes's fabulous stories of
the glories of Utatlan, have engendered a popular belief that at the
time of the Spanish conquest the Indians throughout Central America
were living sumptuously in magnificent stone-built cities. Such beliefs
die hard, indeed they lay such hold of the imagination that from time
to time enterprising newspapers echo the story told to Stephens sixty
years ago by the Padre of Santa Cruz Quiché, and favour us with reports
of Indian cities still inhabited and flourishing, hidden from the gaze
of the vulgar by a wall of impenetrable forest.
[Illustration: SERPENT BIRDS, PALENQUE.]