Sunday.--Mass.--A grand Procession.--Intoxicated Indians.--Set out for
Mazcanu.--A Caricoche.--Scenery.--Arrival at Maxcanu.--Care of
Mazcanu.--Threading a Labyrinth.--An Alarm.--An abrupt
Termination.--Important Discovery.--Labyrinth not subterraneous.--More
Mounds.--Journey continued.--Grand View.--Another Mound.--An
Accident.--Village of Opocheque.--View from the Sierra.--More
Ruins.--Return to Uxmal.--Change of Quarters.--An Addition to the
Household.--Beautiful Scene.
The next day was Sunday. The church was thronged for grand mass;
candles were burned, and offerings were made to the amount of many
medios, and at nine o'clock the bells tolled for the procession, the
crowning scene of the fiesta. The church was emptied of its votaries,
and the plaza was alive with people hurrying to take a place in the
procession, or to see it pass. I climbed up into the Plaza de Toros,
and had a whole box to myself.
The space along the side of the bull-ring was thronged; and first came
a long procession of Indians with lighted candles; then the ministro
with the large silver salver, and money upon it, presenting it on
either side to receive additional offerings. As it passed, a woman
walked up and put upon it two reales, probably her all. Then came,
borne on a barrow above the heads of the crowd, the figure which had
attracted so much veneration in the church, Santiago on horseback, with
his scarlet and embroidered mantle and green velvet pantaloons bordered
with gold. This was followed by the cura, a fat, yellow-looking
half-bred, with his two dirty-faced assistants. Directly under me the
procession stopped, and the priests, turning toward the figure of the
saint, set up a chant. This over, the figure moved on, and stopping
from time to time, continued to work its way around the church, until
finally it was restored to its place on the altar. So ended the fair of
Jalacho and the fete of Santiago, the second which I had seen since my
arrival in the country, and both exhibiting the powerful influence of
the ceremonials of the church over the minds of the Indians. Throughout
the state, this class of the inhabitants pays annually a tax of twelve
reales per head for the support of the cura; and it was said on the
ground that the Indians at this fiesta had paid eight hundred dollars
for salves, five hundred for aves, and six hundred for masses, which,
if true, was an enormous sum out of their small earnings.
But the fiesta was over, and almost immediately the crowd was in
motion, preparing to set out for home. At three o'clock every street
was lined with people, some less and others more heavily laden than
they came, and some carrying home the respectable head of a family in a
state of brutal intoxication; and here I particularly remarked, what I
had frequently observed before, that among all the intoxication of the
Indians, it was a rare thing to see a woman in that state; it was
really an interesting spectacle to see these poor women, with their
children around them, supporting and conducting homeward their
intoxicated husbands.
At four o'clock I set off with Don Lorenzo Peon, a brother of Don
Simon, for Maxcanu. Our mode of conveyance, much used in Yucatan, but
new to me, was called a caricoche. It was a long wagon on two large
wheels, covered with cotton cloth as a protection against the sun, and
on the bottom was stretched a broad mattress, on which two persons
could recline at full length. If they would sit up, it was large enough
for three or four. It was drawn by one horse, with a driver riding as
postillion, and another horse followed to change. The road was broad,
even, and level. It was the camino real between Merida and Campeachy,
and would pass in any country for a fair carriage-road. All along we
passed parties of Indians returning from the fair. In an hour we came
in sight of the sierra which traverses at that point the whole
peninsula of Yucatan from east to west. The sight of hills was
cheering, and with the reflection of the setting sun upon them, they
presented almost the first fine scenery I had encountered in the
country. In an hour and ten minutes we reached Maxcanu, twelve miles
distant, being by far the greatest speed at which I ever travelled in
Yucatan.
The hacienda of Don Lorenzo was in this neighbourhood, and he had a
large house in the village, at which we stopped. My object in coming to
this place was to visit La Cueva de Maxcanu, or the Cave of Maxcanu. In
the evening, when notice was given of my intention, half the village
was ready to join me, but in the morning my volunteers were not
forthcoming, and I was reduced to the men procured for me by Don
Lorenzo. From the time consumed in getting the men together and
procuring torches, cord, &c., I did not get off till after nine
o'clock. Our direction was due east till we reached the sierra,
ascending which through a passage overgrown with woods, at eleven
o'clock we arrived at the mouth, or rather door, of the cueva, about a
league distant from the village.
I had before heard so much of caves, and had been so often
disappointed, that I did not expect much from this; but the first view
satisfied me in regard to the main point, viz., that it was not a
natural cave, and that, as had been represented to me, it was hecha a
mano, or made by hand.
La Cueva de Maxcanu, or the Cave of Maxcanu, has in that region a
marvellous and mystical reputation. It is called by the Indians Satun
Sat, which means in Spanish El Laberinto or El Perdedero, the
Labyrinth, or place in which one may be lost. Notwithstanding its
wonderful reputation, and a name which alone, in any other country,
would induce a thorough exploration, it is a singular fact, and
exhibits more strikingly than anything I can mention the indifference
of the people of all classes to the antiquities of the country, that up
to the time of my arrival at the door, this Laberinto had never been
examined. My friend Don Lorenzo Peon would give me every facility for
exploring it except joining me himself. Several persons had penetrated
to some distance with a string held outside, but had turned back, and
the universal belief was, that it contained passages without number and
without end.
Under these circumstances, I certainly felt some degree of excitement
as I stood in the doorway. The very name called up those stupendous
works in Crete and on the shores of the M[oe]ritic Lake which are now
almost discredited as fabulous.
My retinue consisted of eight men, who considered themselves in my
employ, besides three or four supernumeraries, and all together formed
a crowd around the door. Except the mayoral of Uxmal, I had never seen
one of them before, and as I considered it important to have a reliable
man outside, I stationed him at the door with a ball of twine. I tied
one end round my left wrist, and told one of the men to light a torch
and follow me, but he refused absolutely, and all the rest, one after
the other, did the same. They were all ready enough to hold the string;
and I was curious to know, and had a conference with them on the
interesting point, whether they expected any pay for their services in
standing out of doors. One expected pay for showing me the place,
others for carrying water, another for taking care of the horses, and
so on, but I terminated the matter abruptly by declaring that I should
not pay one of them a medio; and, ordering them all away from the door,
which they were smothering, and a little infected with one of their
apprehensions of starting some wild beast, which might be making his
lair in the recesses of the cave, I entered with a candle in one hand
and a pistol in the other.
The entrance faces the west. The mouth was filled up with rubbish,
scrambling over which, I stood in a narrow passage or gallery,
constructed, like all the apartments above ground, with smooth walls
and triangular arched ceiling. This passage was about four feet wide,
and seven feet high to the top of the arch. It ran due east, and at the
distance of six or eight yards opened into another, or rather was
stopped by another crossing it, and running north and south. I took
first that on the right hand, running south. At the distance of a few
yards, on the right side of the wall, I found a door, filled up, and at
the distance of thirty-five feet the passage ended, and a door opened
at right angles on the left into another gallery running due east.
Following this, at the distance of thirteen feet I found another
gallery on the left, running north, and beyond it at the end, still
another, also on the left, and running north, four yards long, and then
walled up, with only an opening in it about a foot square.
Turning back, I entered the gallery which I had passed, and which ran
north eight or ten yards; at the end was a doorway on the right,
opening into a gallery that ran east. At the end of this were six
steps, each one foot high and two wide, leading to another gallery,
which ran north twelve yards. At the end there came another gallery on
the left which ran west ten yards, and at the end of this another on
the right, running north about sixty feet. This passage was walled up
at the north end, and at the distance of five yards from this end
another doorway led into a passage running to the east. At the distance
of four yards a gallery crossed this at right angles, running north and
south, forty-five feet long, and walled up at both ends; and three or
four yards farther on another gallery crossed it, also running north
and south. This last was walled up at the south, and on the north led
to still another gallery, which ran east, three yards long. This was
stopped by another gallery crossing it, running to the south three
yards, when it was walled up, and to the north eight yards when it
turned to the west.
In utter ignorance of the ground, I found myself turning and doubling
along these dark and narrow passages, which seemed really to have no
end, and justly to entitle the place to its name of El Laberinto.
I was not entirely free from the apprehension of starting some wild
animal, and moved slowly and very cautiously. In the mean time, in
turning the corners, my twine would be entangled, and the Indians,
moved by the probability of getting no pay entered to clear it, and by
degrees all came up with me in a body. I got a glimpse of their torches
behind me just as I was turning into a new passage, and at the moment I
was startled by a noise which sent me back rather quickly, and
completely routed them. It proceeded from a rushing of bats, and,
having a sort of horror of these beastly birds, this was an ugly place
to meet them in, for the passage was so low, and there was so little
room for a flight over head, that in walking upright there was great
danger of their striking the face. It was necessary to move with the
head bent down, and protecting the lights from the flapping of their
wings. Nevertheless, every step was exciting, and called up
recollections of the Pyramids and tombs of Egypt, and I could not but
believe that these dark and intricate passages would introduce me to
some large saloon, or perhaps some royal sepulchre. Belzoni, and the
tomb of Cephrenes and its alabaster sarcophagus, were floating through
my brain, when all at once I found the passage choked up and
effectually stopped. The ceiling had fallen in, crushed by a great mass
of superincumbent earth, and farther progress was utterly impossible.
I was not prepared for this abrupt termination. The walls and ceiling
were so solid and in such good condition that the possibility of such a
result had not occurred to me. I was sure of going on to the end and
discovering something, and I was arrested without knowing any better
than when I entered to what point these passages led, or for what
purposes they had been constructed. My first impulse was, not to turn
back, but to begin immediately and dig a way through; but the
impossibility of accomplishing anything in this way soon presented
itself. For the Indians to carry out the earth on their backs through
all these passages would be a never-ending work; besides, I had no idea
how far the destruction extended, and, for the present at least,
nothing could be done.
In a spirit of utter disappointment, I pointed out to the Indians the
mass of earth that, as it were, maliciously cut off all my hopes, and
told them to put an end to their lying stories about the Laberinto and
its having no end; and in my disappointment I began to feel most
sensibly the excessive heat and closeness of the place, which I had
hardly perceived before, and which now became almost insufferable from
the smoke of the torches and the Indians choking the narrow passage.
All that I could do, and that was very unsatisfactory, was to find out
the plan of this subterraneous structure. I had with me a pocket
compass, and, notwithstanding the heat and smoke, and the little help
that the Indians afforded me, under all annoyances, and with the sweat
dropping on my memorandum book, I measured back to the door.
I remained outside a few moments for fresh air, and entered again to
explore the passage which branched off to the left of the door. I had
just gone far enough to have my hopes revived by the prospect of some
satisfactory result, when again I found the passage choked up by the
falling in and burial of the arch.
I measured and took the bearings of this too. From the excessive heat
and annoyance, this plan may not be very correct, and therefore I do
not present it. The description will enable the reader to form some
general idea of the character of the structure.
In exploring that part to the left of the door, I made an important
discovery. In the walls of one of the passages was a hole eight inches
square, which admitted light, and looking through it, I saw some plump
and dusky legs, which clearly did not belong to the antiguos, and which
I easily recognised as those of my worthy attendants.
Having heard the place spoken of as a subterraneous construction, and
seeing, when I reached the ground, a half-buried door with a mass of
overgrown earth above it, it had not occurred to me to think otherwise;
but on examining outside, I found that what I had taken for an
irregular natural formation, like a hill-side, was a pyramidal mound of
the same general character with all the rest we had seen in the
country. Making the Indians clear away some thorn-bushes, with the help
of the branches of a tree growing near I climbed up it. On the top were
the ruins of a building the same as all the others. The door of El
Laberinto, instead of opening into a hill-side, opened into this mound,
and, as near as I could judge from the ruins along the base, was ten
feet high, and the Laberinto, instead of being subterraneous, or,
rather, under the surface of the earth was in the body of this mound.
Heretofore it had been our impression that these mounds were solid and
compact masses of stone and earth, without any chambers or structures
of any kind, and the discovery of this gave rise to the exciting idea
that all the great mounds scattered over the country contained secret,
unknown, and hidden chambers, presenting an immense field for
exploration and discovery, and, ruined as the buildings on their
summits were, perhaps the only source left for acquiring knowledge of
the people by whom the cities were constructed.
I was really at a loss to know what to do. I was almost tempted to
abandon everything else, send word to my companions and not leave the
spot till I had pulled down the whole mound, and discovered every
secret it contained; but it was not a work to be undertaken in a hurry,
and I determined to leave it for a future occasion. Unfortunately, in
the multiplicity of other occupations in distant regions of the
country, I never had an opportunity of returning to this mound. It
remains with all its mystery around it, worthy the enterprise of some
future explorer, and I cannot but indulge the hope that the time is not
far distant when its mystery will be removed and all that is hidden
brought to light.
In the account which I had received of this Labyrinth, no mention had
been made of any ruins, and probably, when on the ground, I should have
heard nothing of them, but from the top of this mound I saw two others,
both of which, with a good deal of labour, I reached under the guidance
of the Indians, crossing a patch of beans and milpa. I ascended them
both. On the top of one was a building eighty or a hundred feet long.
The front wall had fallen, and left exposed the inner part of the back
wall, with half the arch, as it were, supporting itself in the air. The
Indians then led me to a fourth mound, and told me that there were
others in the woods, but all in the same ruinous condition; and,
considering the excessive heat and the desperate toil of clambering, I
did not think it worth while to visit them. I saw no sculptured stones,
except those I have before mentioned, dug out like troughs, and called
pilas, though the Indians persisted in saying that there were such all
over, but they did not know exactly where to find them.
At three o'clock I resumed my journey toward Uxmal. For a short
distance the road lay along the ridge of the sierra, a mere bed of
rock, on which the horse's hoofs clattered and rang at every step.
Coming out upon the brow of the sierra, we had one of those grand views
which everywhere present themselves from this mountain range; an
immense wooded plain, in this place broken only by a small spot like a
square on a chess-board, the clearing of the hacienda of Santa Cruz. We
descended the sierra, and at the foot of it struck the camino real.
About an hour before dark, and a league before reaching the village of
Opocheque, I saw on the left, near the road, a high mound, with an
edifice on its top, which at that distance, as seen through the trees,
seemed almost entire. It stood in a corn-field. I was not looking out
for anything of the kind, and but for the clearing made for the milpa,
I could not have seen it at all. I threw the bridle of my horse to the
major domo, and made for it, but it was not very easy of access. The
field, according to the fashion of the country, was enclosed by a
fence, which consisted of all the brush and briers collected on the
clearing, six or eight feet high and as many wide, affording a
sufficient barrier against wild cattle. In attempting to cross this, I
broke through, sinking almost to my neck in the middle, and was
considerably torn by thorns before I got over into the milpa.
The mound stood on one side of the milpa, isolated, and of the building
upon it, the lower part, to the cornice, was standing. Above the
cornice the outer wall had fallen, but the roof remained, and within
all was entire. There was no view from the top; beyond the milpa all
was forest, and what lay buried in it I had no means of ascertaining.
The place was silent and desolate; there was no one of whom I could ask
any questions. I never heard of these ruins till I saw them from the
back of my horse, and I could never learn by what name they are called.
At half past six we reached the village of Opocheque. In the centre of
the plaza was a large fountain, at which women were drawing water, and
on one side was a Mestizo family, with two men playing the guitar. We
stopped for a cup of water, and then, pushing on by a bright moonlight,
at nine o'clock reached the village of Moona, which the reader of my
former volumes may remember was the first stage of our journey on
leaving Uxmal for home.
Early the next morning we resumed our course. Immediately behind the
village we crossed the sierra, the same broken and stony range,
commanding on both sides the same grand view of a boundless wooded
plain. In an hour we saw at a distance on our left the high mound of
ruins visible from the House of the Dwarf, known under the Indian name
of Xcoch. About five miles before arriving at Uxmal, I saw on the right
another high mound. The intervening space was covered with trees and
thorn-bushes, but I reached it without dismounting. On the top were two
buildings about eighteen feet each, with the upper part of the outer
walls fallen. Of both, the inner part was entire.
At twelve o'clock I reached Uxmal. The extent of my journey had been
thirteen leagues, or thirty-nine miles; for though I had varied my
route in returning, I had not increased the distance, and I had seen
seven different places of ruins, memorials of cities which had been and
had passed away, and such memorials as no cities built by the Spaniards
in that country would present.
The ruins of Uxmal presented themselves to me as a home, and I looked
upon them with more interest than before. I had found the wrecks of
cities scattered more numerously than I expected, but they were all so
shattered that no voice of instruction issued from them; here they
still stood, tottering and crumbling, but living memorials, more worthy
than ever of investigation and study, and as I then thought, not
knowing what others more distant, of which we had heard, might prove,
perhaps the only existing vestiges that could transmit to posterity the
image of an American city.
As I approached, I saw on the terrace our beds, with moscheto-nets
fluttering in the wind, and trunks and boxes all turned out of doors,
having very much the appearance of a forcible ejectment or ouster for
non-payment of rent; but on arriving I found that my companions were
_moving_. In the great sala, with its three doors, they had found
themselves too much exposed to the heavy dews and night air, and they
were about removing to a smaller apartment, being that next to the last
on the south wing, which had but one door, and could more easily be
kept dry by a fire. They were then engaged in cleaning house, and at
the moment of my arrival I was called in to consult whether the rooms
should undergo another sweeping. After some deliberation, it was
decided in the affirmative, and about two bushels more of dirt were
carried out, which discouraged us from carrying the process of cleaning
any farther.
Daring my absence an addition had been made to our household in a
servant forwarded from Merida by the active kindness of the Dona
Joaquina Peon. He was a dark Mestizo named Albino, short and thick, and
so near being squint-eyed that at the first glance I thought him a
subject for Doctor Cabot to practise on. Bernaldo was still on hand, as
also Chaipa Chi, the former under the doctor's instructions, as chef de
cuisine, and Chaipa still devoting all her energies to the business in
which she shone, the making of tortillas.
In the afternoon we were comfortably settled in our new quarters. We
continued the precaution of kindling a fire in one corner, to drive
away malaria, and at night we had a bonfire out of doors. The grass and
bushes which had been cut down on the terrace, parched and dried by the
hot sun, were ready for the fire; the flames lighted up the facade of
the great palace, and when they died away, the full moon broke upon it,
mellowing its rents and fissures, and presenting a scene mournfully
beautiful.