Superintending Indians.--The Storm El Norte.--Arrival of Don
Simon.--Subterraneous Chambers.--Discovery of broken Pottery and a
Terra Cotta Vase.--Great Number of these Chambers.--Their probable
Uses.--Harvest of the Maize Crop.--Practical Views.--System of
Agriculture in Yucatan.--Planting of Corn.--A primitive Threshing
Machine.--News from Home.--More Practice in Surgery.--A rude
Bedstead.--A Leg Patient.--An Arm Patient.--Increasing Sickness on the
Hacienda.---Death of an Indian Woman.--A Campo Santo.--Digging a
Grave.--An Indian Funeral.
The next day I resumed my occupation of superintending the Indians. It
was, perhaps, the hardest labour I had in that country to look on and
see them work, and it was necessary to be with them all the time; for
if not watched, they would not work at all.
The next day opened with a drizzling rain, the beginning of the
prevailing storm of the country, called El Norte. This storm, we were
told, rarely occurred at this season, and the mayoral said that after
it was over, the regular dry season would certainly set in. The
thermometer fell to fifty-two, and to our feelings the change was much
for the better. In fact, we had begun to feel a degree of lassitude,
the effect of the excessive heat, and this change restored and
reinvigorated us.
This day, too, with the beginning of the storm, Don Simon arrived from
Jalacho, according to promise, to pay us a visit. He was not in the
habit of visiting Uxmal at this season, and though less fearful than
other members of his family, he was not without apprehensions on
account of the health of the place. In fact, he had suffered much
himself from an illness contracted there. At the hacienda he found the
mayoral, who had just returned with me from Jalacho, ill with calentura
or fever. This, with the cold and rain of the Norther, did not tend to
restore his equanimity. We insisted on his becoming our guest, but
agreed to let him off at night on account of the moschetoes. His visit
was a fortunate circumstance for us; his knowledge of localities, and
his disposition to forward our views, gave us great facilities in our
exploration of the ruins, and at the same time our presence and
co-operation induced him to satisfy his own curiosity in regard to some
things which had not yet been examined.
Throughout the ruins circular holes were found at different places in
the ground, opening into chambers underneath, which had never been
examined, and the character of which was entirely unknown. We had
noticed them, at the time of our former visit, on the platform of the
great terrace; and though this platform was now entirely overgrown, and
many of them were hidden from sight, in opening a path to communicate
with the hacienda we had laid bare two. The mayoral had lately
discovered another at some distance outside the wall, so perfect at the
mouth, and apparently so deep on sounding it with a stone, that Don
Simon wished to explore it.
The next morning he came to the ruins with Indians, ropes, and candles,
and we began immediately with one of those on the platform before the
Casa del Gobernador. The opening was a circular hole, eighteen inches
in diameter. The throat consisted of five layers of stones, a yard
deep, to a stratum of solid rock. As it was all dark beneath, before
descending, in order to guard against the effects of impure air, we let
down a candle, which soon touched bottom. The only way of descending
was to tie a rope around the body, and be lowered by the Indians. In
this way I was let down, and almost before my head had passed through
the hole my feet touched the top of a heap of rubbish, high directly
under the hole, and falling off at the sides. Clambering down it, I
found myself in a round chamber, so filled with rubbish that I could
not stand upright. With a candle in my hand, I crawled all round on my
hands and knees. The chamber was in the shape of a dome, and had been
coated with plaster, most of which had fallen, and now encumbered the
ground. The depth could not be ascertained without clearing out the
interior. In groping about I found pieces of broken pottery, and a vase
of terra cotta, about one foot in diameter, of good workmanship, and
having upon it a coat of enamel, which, though not worn off, had lost
some of its brightness. It had three feet, each about an inch high, one
of which is broken. In other respects it was entire.
The discovery of this vase was encouraging. Not one of these places had
ever been explored. Neither Don Simon nor any of the Indians knew
anything about them, and, entering them now for the first time, we were
excited by the hope that we had discovered a rich mine of curious and
interesting fabrics wrought by the inhabitants of this ruined city.
Besides this, we had already ascertained one point in regard to which
we were doubtful before. This great terrace was not entirely
artificial. The substratum was of natural rock, and showed that
advantage had been taken of a natural elevation, so far as it went, and
by this means some portion of the immense labour of constructing the
terrace had been saved.
On the same terrace, directly at the foot of the steps, was another
opening of the same kind, and, on clearing around, we found near by a
circular stone about six inches in thickness, which fitted the hole,
and no doubt had served as a cover. This hole was filled up with dirt
to within two feet of the mouth, and setting some Indians at work to
clear it out, we passed on in search of another.
Descending the terrace, and passing behind the high and nameless mound
which towers between the Casa del Gobernador and Casa de Palomos, the
Indians cleared away some bushes, and brought us to another opening,
but a few feet from the path we had cut through, entirely hidden from
view until the clearing was made. The mouth was similar to that of the
first; the throat about a yard deep, and the Indians lowered me down,
without any obstruction, to the bottom.
The Indians looked upon our entering these places as senseless and
foolhardy, and, besides imaginary dangers, they talked of snakes,
scorpions, and hornets, the last of which, from the experience we had
had of them in different parts of the ruins, were really objects of
fear; for a swarm of them coming upon a man in such a place, would
almost murder him before he could be hauled out.
It did not, however, require much time to explore this vault. It was
clear of rubbish, perfect and entire in all its parts, without any
symptoms of decay, and to all appearances, after the lapse of unknown
years, fit for the uses to which it was originally applied. Like the
one on the terrace, it was dome-shaped, and the sides fell in a little
toward the bottom, like a well-made haystack. The height was ten feet
and six inches directly under the mouth, and it was seventeen feet six
inches in diameter. The walls and ceiling were plastered, still in a
good state of preservation, and the floor was of hard mortar. Don Simon
and Dr. Cabot were lowered down, and we examined every part thoroughly.
Leaving this, we went on to a third, which was exactly the same, except
that it was a little smaller, being only five yards in diameter.
The fourth was the one which had just been discovered, and which had
excited the curiosity of the mayoral. It was a few feet outside of a
wall which, as Don Simon said, might be traced through the woods,
broken and ruined, until it met and enclosed within its circle the
whole of the principal buildings. The mouth was covered with cement,
and in the throat was a large stone filling it up, which the mayoral,
on discovering it, had thrown in to prevent horses or cattle from
falling through. A rope was passed under the stone, and it was hauled
out. The throat was smaller than any of the others, and hardly large
enough to pass the body of a man. In shape and finish it was exactly
the same as the others, with perhaps a slight shade of difference in
the dimensions. The smallness of this mouth was, to my mind, strong
proof that these subterraneous chambers had never been intended for any
purposes which required men to descend into them. I was really at a
loss how to get out. The Indians had no mechanical help of any kind,
but were obliged to stand over the hole and hoist by dead pull, making,
as I had found before, a jerking, irregular movement. The throat was so
small that there was no play for the arms, to enable me to raise myself
up by the rope, and the stones around the mouth were insecure and
tottering. I was obliged to trust to them, and they involuntarily
knocked my head against the stones, let down upon me a shower of dirt,
and gave me such a severe rasping that I had no disposition at that
time to descend another. In fact, they too were tired out, and it was a
business in which, on our own account at least, it would not do to
overtask them.
We were extremely disappointed in not finding any more vases or relics
of any kind. We could not account for the one found in the chamber
under the terrace, and were obliged to suppose that it had been thrown
in or got there by accident.
These subterraneous chambers are scattered over the whole ground
covered by the ruined city. There was one in the cattle-yard before the
hacienda, and the Indians were constantly discovering them at greater
distances. Dr. Cabot found then continually in his hunting excursions,
and once, in breaking through bushes in search of a bird, fell into
one, and narrowly escaped a serious injury; indeed, there were so many
of them, and in places where they were so little to be expected, that
they made rambling out of the cleared paths dangerous, and to the last
day of our visit we were constantly finding new ones.
That they were constructed for some specific purpose, had some definite
object, and that that object was uniform, there was no doubt, but what
it was, in our ignorance of the habits of the people, it was difficult
to say. Don Simon thought that the cement was not hard enough to hold
water, and hence that they were not intended as cisterns or reservoirs,
but for granaries or store-houses of maize, which, from our earliest
knowledge of the aborigines down to the present day, has been the staff
of life to the inhabitants. In this opinion, however, we did not
concur, and from what we saw afterward, believe that they were intended
as cisterns, and had furnished, in part at least, a supply of water to
the people of the ruined city.
We returned to our apartments to dine, and in the afternoon accompanied
Don Simon to see the harvest of the maize crop. The great field in
front of the Casa del Gobernador was planted with corn, and on the way
we learned a fact which may be interesting to agriculturists in the
neighbourhood of those numerous cities throughout our country which,
being of premature growth, are destined to become ruins. The debris of
ruined cities fertilize and enrich land. Don Simon told us that the
ground about Uxmal was excellent for milpas or corn-fields. He had
never had a better crop of maize than that of the last year; indeed, it
was so good that he had planted a part of the same land a second time,
which is a thing unprecedented under their system of agriculture; and
Don Simon had another practical view of the value of these ruins, which
would have done for the meridian of our own city. Pointing to the great
buildings, he said that if he had Uxmal on the banks of the
Mississippi, it would be an immense fortune, for there was stone enough
to pave every street in New-Orleans, without sending to the North for
it, as it was necessary to do; but, not to be outdone in sensible views
of things, we suggested that if he had it on the banks of the
Mississippi, easy of access, preserved from the rank vegetation which
is now hurrying it to destruction, it would stand like Herculaneum and
Pompeii, a place of pilgrimage for the curious; and that it would be a
much better operation to put a fence around it and charge for
admission, than to sell the stone for paving streets.
By this time we had reached the foot of the terrace, and a few steps
brought us into the corn-field. The system of agriculture in Yucatan is
rather primitive. Besides hemp and sugar, which the Indians seldom
attempt to raise on their own account, the principal products of the
country are corn, beans, and calabazas, like our pumpkins and squashes,
camotes, which are perhaps the parent of our Carolina potatoes, and
chili or pepper, of which last an inordinate quantity is consumed, both
by the Indians and Spaniards. Indian corn, however, is the great
staple, and the cultivation of this probably differs but little now
from the system followed by the Indians before the conquest. In the dry
season, generally in the months of January and February, a place is
selected in the woods, from which the trees are cut down and burned. In
May or June the corn is planted. This is done by making little holes in
the ground with a pointed stick, putting in a few grains of corn and
covering them over. Once in the ground, it is left to take care of
itself, and if it will not grow, it is considered that the land is not
worth having. The corn has a fair start with the weeds, and they keep
pace amicably together. The hoe, plough, and harrow are entirely
unknown; indeed, in general neither of the last two could be used, on
account of the stony face of the country: the machete is the only
instrument employed.
The milpa around the ruins of Uxmal had been more than usually
neglected; the crop turned out badly, but such as it was, the Indians
from three of Don Simon's adjoining haciendas, according to their
obligation to the master, were engaged in getting it in. They were
distributed in different parts of the field; and of those we came upon
first, I counted a small group of fifty-three. As we drew near, all
stopped working, approached Don Simon, bowed respectfully to him, and
then to us as his friends. The corn had been gathered, and these men
were engaged in threshing it out. A space was cleared of about a
hundred feet square, and along the border of it was a line of small
hammocks hanging on stakes fixed in the ground, in which the Indians
slept during the whole time of the harvest, each with a little fire
underneath to warm him in the cool night air, and drive away the
moschetoes.
Don Simon threw himself into one of the hammocks, and held out one of
his legs, which was covered with burrs and briers. These men were free
and independent electors of the State of Yucatan; but one of them took
in his hand Don Simon's foot, picked off the burrs, pulled off the
shoe, cleaned the stocking, and, restoring the shoe, laid the foot back
carefully in the hammock, and then took up the other. It was all done
as a matter of course, and no one bestowed a thought upon it except
ourselves.
On one side of the clearing was a great pile or small mountain of corn
in the ear, ready to be threshed, and near by was the threshing
machine, which certainly could not be considered an infringement of any
Yankee patent right. It was a rude scaffold about eighteen or twenty
feet square, made of four untrimmed upright posts for corners, with
poles lashed to them horizontally three or four feet from the ground,
and across these was a layer of sticks, about an inch thick, side by
side; the whole might have served as a rude model of the first bedstead
ever made.
The parallel sticks served as a threshing floor, on which was spread a
thick layer of corn. On each side a rude ladder of two or three rounds
rested against the floor, and on each of these ladders stood a nearly
naked Indian, with a long pole in his hand, beating the corn. The
grains fell through, and at each corner under the floor was a man with
a brush made of bushes, sweeping off the cobs. The shelled corn was
afterward taken up in baskets and carried to the hacienda. The whole
process would have surprised a Genesee farmer; but perhaps, where
labour was so little costly, it answered as well as the best threshing
machine that could be invented.
The next day we had another welcome visiter in our fellow-passenger,
Mr. Camerden, who was just from Campeachy, where he had seen New-York
papers to the third of November. Knowing our deep interest in the
affairs of our country, and postponing his own curiosity about the
ruins, he hastened to communicate to us the result of the city
elections, viz., a contest in the sixth ward and entire uncertainty
which party was uppermost.
Unfortunately, Mr. Camerden, not being in very good health at the time,
was also infected with apprehensions about Uxmal, and as El Norte still
continued, the coldness and rain made him uneasy in a place of such
bad reputation. Having no ill feelings against him and no spare
moscheto-net, we did not ask him to remain at night, and he accompanied
Don Simon to the hacienda to sleep.
The next day Doctor Cabot had a professional engagement at the
hacienda. In both my expeditions into that region of country our
medical department was incomplete. On the former occasion we had a
medicine-chest, but no doctor, and this time we had a doctor, but no
medicine-chest. This necessary appendage had been accidentally left on
board the ship, and did not come to our hands till some time afterward.
We had only a small stock purchased in Merida, and on this account, as
well as because it interfered with his other pursuits, the doctor had
avoided entering into general practice. He was willing to attend to
cases that might be cured by a single operation, but the principal
diseases were fevers, which could not be cut out with a knife. The day
before, however, a young Indian came to the ruins on an errand to Don
Simon, who had a leg swollen with varicose veins. He had a mild
expression, meek and submissive manners, and was what Don Simon called,
in speaking of his best servants, muy docil, or very docile. He stood
at that time in an interesting position, being about to be married. Don
Simon had had him at Merida six months, under the care of a physician,
but without any good result, and the young man was taking his chance
for better or worse, almost with the certainty of becoming in a few
years disabled, and a mass of corruption. Doctor Cabot undertook to
perform an operation, for which purpose it was necessary to go to the
hacienda; and, that we might return with Mr. Camerden, we all went
there to breakfast.
Under the corridor was an old Indian leaning against a pillar, with his
arms folded across his breast, and before him a row of little Indian
girls, all, too, with arms folded, to whom he was teaching the formal
part of the church service, giving out a few words, which they all
repeated after him. As we entered the corridor, he came up to us,
bowed, and kissed our hands, and all the little girls did the same.
Don Simon had breakfast ready for us, but we found some deficiencies.
The haciendas of that country never have any surplus furniture, being
only visited by the master once or twice a year, and then only for a
few days, when he brings with him whatever he requires for his personal
comfort. Uxmal was like the rest, and at that moment it was worse off,
for we had stripped it of almost every movable to enlarge our
accommodations at the ruins. Our greatest difficulty was about seats.
All contrived to be provided for, however, except Don Simon, who
finally, as it was an extreme case, went into the church and brought
out the great confessional chair.
Breakfast over, the doctor's patient was brought forward. He was not
consulted on the subject of the operation, and had no wish of his own
about it, but did as his master ordered him. At the moment of
beginning, Doctor Cabot asked for a bed. He had not thought of asking
for it before, supposing it would be ready at a moment's notice; but he
might almost as well have asked for a steamboat or a locomotive engine.
Who ever thought of wanting a bed at Uxmal? was the general feeling of
the Indians. They were all born in hammocks, and expected to die in
them, and who wanted a bed when he could get a hammock? A bed, however
(which means a bedstead), was indispensable, and the Indians dispersed
in search, returning, after a long absence, with tidings that they had
heard of one on the hacienda, but it had been taken apart, and the
pieces were in use for other purposes. They were sent off again, and at
length we received notice that the bed was coming, and presently it
appeared advancing through the gate of the cattleyard in the shape of a
bundle of poles on the shoulder of an Indian. For purposes of immediate
use, they might as well hare been on the tree that produced them, but,
after a while, they were put together, and made a bedstead that would
have astonished a city cabinet-maker.
In the mean time the patient was looking on, perhaps with somewhat the
feeling of a man superintending the making of his own coffin. The
disease was in his right leg, which was almost as thick as his body,
covered with ulcers, and the distended veins stood out like whipcords.
Doctor Cabot considered it necessary to cut two veins. The Indian stood
up, resting the whole weight of his body on the diseased leg, so as to
bring them out to the fullest, and supporting himself by leaning with
his hands on a bench. One vein was cut, the wound bound up, and then
the operation was performed on the other by thrusting a stout pin into
the flesh under the vein, and bringing it out on the other side, then
winding a thread round the protruding head and point, and leaving the
pin to cut its way through the vein and fester out. The leg was then
bound tight, and the Indian laid upon the bed. During the whole time
not a muscle of his face moved, and, except at the moment when the pin
was thrust under the vein, when his hand contracted on the bench, it
could not have been told that he was undergoing an operation of any
kind.
This over, we set out on our return with Mr. Camerden to the ruins, but
had hardly left the gate of the cattle-yard, when we met an Indian with
his arm in a sling, coming in search of Doctor Cabot. A death-warrant
seemed written in his face. His little wife, a girl about fourteen
years old, soon to become a mother, was trotting beside him, and his
case showed how, in those countries, human life is the sport of
accident and ignorance. A few days before, by some awkwardness, he had
given his left arm a severe cut near the elbow with a machete. To stop
the bleeding, his wife had tied one string as tightly as possible
around the wrist, and another in the hollow of the arm, and so it had
remained three days. The treatment had been pretty effectual in
stopping the bleeding, and it had very nearly stopped the circulation
of his blood forever. The hand was shrunken to nothing, and seemed
withered; the part of the arm between the two ligatures was swollen
enormously, and the seat of the wound was a mass of corruption. Doctor
Cabot took off the fastenings, and endeavoured to teach her to restore
the circulation by friction, or rubbing the arm with the palm of the
hand, but she had no more idea of the circulation of the blood than of
the revolution of the planets.
The wound, on being probed, gave out a foul and pestilential discharge,
and, when that was cleared away, out poured a stream of arterial blood.
The man had cut an arterial vein. Doctor Cabot had no instruments with
him with which to take it up, and, grasping the arm with a strong
pressure on the vein, so as to stop the flow of blood, he transferred
the arm to me, fixing my fingers upon the vein, and requesting me to
hold it in that position while he ran to the ruins for his instruments.
This was by no means pleasant. If I lost the right pressure, the man
might bleed to death; and, having no regular diploma warranting people
to die on my hands, not willing to run the risk of any accident, and
knowing the imperturbable character of the Indians, I got the arm
transferred to one of them, with a warning that the man's life depended
upon him. Doctor Cabot was gone more than half an hour, and during all
that time, while the patient's head was falling on his shoulder with
fainting fits, the Indian looked directly in his face, and held up the
arm with a fixedness of attitude that would have served as a model for
a sculptor. I do not believe that, for a single moment, the position of
the arm varied a hair's breadth.
Doctor Cabot dressed the wound, and the Indian was sent away, with an
even chance, as the doctor considered, for life or death. The next that
we heard of him, however, he was at work in the fields; certainly, but
for the accidental visit of Doctor Cabot, he would have been in his
grave.
After this there were some delicate cases among the women of the
hacienda; and these multifarious occupations consumed the whole of the
morning, which we had intended to devote to Mr. Camerden and the ruins.
It was a cold and cheerless day; the Norther was increasing in force,
and he saw malaria and sickness all around him. In the afternoon he
left us to return to New-York by the same vessel which had brought us
out. Unfortunately, he carried away with him the seeds of a dangerous
illness, from which he did not recover in many months.
The next day Don Simon left us, and we were again alone. Sickness was
increasing on the hacienda, and two days afterward we received notice
that Doctor Cabot's leg patient was ill with fever, and also that a
woman had died that day of the same disease, and was to be buried the
next morning. We ordered horses to be sent up to the ruins, and early
in the morning Dr. Cabot and myself rode to the hacienda, he to visit
his patient, and I to attend the funeral, in the expectation that such
an event, on a retired hacienda, without any priest or religious
ceremonies, would disclose some usage or custom illustrative of the
ancient Indian character. Leaving my horse in the cattle-yard, in
company with the mayoral I walked to the campo santo. This was a
clearing in the woods at a short distance from the house, square, and
enclosed by a rude stone fence. It had been consecrated with the
ceremonies of the church, and was intended as a burial-place for all
who died on the estate; a rude place, befitting the rude and simple
people for whom it was designed. When we entered we saw a grave half
dug, which had been abandoned on account of the stones, and some
Indians were then occupied in digging another.
Only one part of the cemetery had been used as a burial-place, and this
was indicated by little wooden crosses, one planted at the head of each
grave. In this part of the cemetery was a stone enclosure about four
feet high, and the same in diameter, which was intended as a sort of
charnel-house, and was then filled with skulls and bones, whitening in
the sun. I moved to this place, and began examining the skulls.
The Indians, in digging the grave, used a crowbar and machete, and
scooped out the loose earth with their hands. As the work proceeded, I
heard the crowbar enter something with a cracking, tearing sound: it
had passed through a human skull. One of the Indians dug it out with
his hands, and, after they had all examined and commented upon it,
handed it to the mayoral, who gave it to me. They all knew whose skull
it was. It was that of a woman who had been born and brought up, and
who had died among them, and whom they had buried only the last dry
season, but little more than a year before. The skull was laid upon the
pile, and the Indians picked out the arms and legs, and all the smaller
bones. Below the ribs, from the back downward, the flesh had not
decayed, but dried up and adhered to the bones, which, all hanging
together, they lifted out and laid upon the pile. All this was done
decently and with respect.
As I stood by the enclosure of bones, I took up different skulls, and
found that they were all known and identified. The campo santo had been
opened but about five years, and every skull had once sat, upon the
shoulders of an acquaintance.
The graves were all on one side, and on the other no dead had been
buried. I suggested to the mayoral, that by beginning on the farther
side, and burying in order, every corpse would have time to decay and
become dust before its place was wanted for another, which he seemed to
think a good idea, and communicated it to the Indians, who stopped
their work, looked at him and at me, and then went on digging. I added,
that in a few years the bones of the friend they were about burying,
and his own, and those of all the rest of them, would be pulled and
handled like those on the pile, which, also, he communicated to them,
and with the same effect. In the mean time I had overhauled the
skulls, and placed on the top two which I ascertained to be those of
full-blooded Indians, intending to appropriate and carry them off at
the first convenient opportunity.
The Indians worked as slowly as if each was digging his own grave, and
at length the husband of the deceased came out, apparently to hurry
them. He was bare-headed, had long black hair hanging down over his
eyes, and, dressed in a clean blue flannel shirt, he seemed what he
really was, one of the most respectable men on the hacienda. Sitting
down by the side of the grave, he took two sticks which were there for
that purpose, with one of which he measured the length, and with the
other the breadth. This, to say the least of it, was cool, and the
expression of his face was of that stolid and unbending kind, that no
idea could be formed of his feelings; but it was not too much to
suppose that a man in the early prime of life, who had fulfilled well
all the duties of his station, must feel some emotion in measuring the
grave of one who had been his companion when the labours of the day
were over, and who was the mother of his children.
The grave was not large enough, and he took his seat at the foot, and
waited while the Indians enlarged it, from time to time suggesting an
improvement. In the mean time Doctor Cabot arrived on the ground with
his gun, and one of the grave-diggers pointed out a flock of parrots
flying over. They were too far off to kill; but as the Indians were
always astonished at seeing a shot on the wing, and all seemed anxious
to have him shoot, he fired, and knocked out some feathers. The Indians
laughed, watched the feathers as they fell into the graveyard, and then
resumed their work. At length the husband again took the sticks,
measured the grave, and finding all right, returned to the house. The
Indians picked up a rude barrow made of two long poles with
crosspieces, which had been thrown down by the side of the last corpse
it had carried, and went off for the dead body. They were gone so long
that we thought they wished to wear out our patience, and told the
mayoral to go and hurry them; but presently we heard a shuffling of
feet, and the sound of female voices, heralding a tumultuous procession
of women. On reaching the fence of the cemetery they all stopped, and,
seeing us, would not come in, except one old Beelzebub, who climbed
over, walked directly to the foot of the grave, leaned down, and,
looking into it, made some exclamation which set all the women outside
laughing. This so incensed the old woman that she picked up a handful
of stones, and began pelting them right and left, at which they all
scattered with great confusion and laughter, and in the midst of this,
the corpse, attended by an irregular crowd of men, women, and children,
made its appearance.
The barrow was lifted over the fence and laid down beside the grave.
The body had no coffin, but was wrapped from head to foot in a blue
cotton shawl with a yellow border. The head was uncovered, and the feet
stuck out, and had on a pair of leather shoes and white cotton
stockings, probably a present from her husband on his return from some
visit to Merida, which the poor woman had never worn in life, and which
he thought he was doing her honour by placing in her grave.
The Indians passed ropes under the body; the husband himself supported
the head, and so it was lowered into the grave. The figure was tall,
and the face was that of a woman about twenty-three or twenty-four
years old. The expression was painful, indicating that in the final
struggle the spirit had been reluctant to leave its mortal tenement.
There was but one present who shed tears, and that was the old mother
of the deceased, who doubtless had expected this daughter to lay her
own head in the grave. She held by the hand a bright-eyed girl, who
looked on with wonder, happily unconscious that her best friend on
earth was to be laid under the sod. The shawl was opened, and showed a
white cotton dress under it; the arms, which were folded across the
breast for the convenience of carrying the body, were laid down by the
sides, and the shawl was again wrapped round. The husband himself
arranged the head, placed under it a cotton cloth for a pillow, and
composed it for its final rest as carefully as if a pebble or a stone
could hurt it. He brushed a handful of earth over the face; the Indians
filled up the grave, and all went away. No romance hangs over such a
burial scene, but it was not unnatural to follow in imagination the
widowed Indian to his desolate hut.
We had been disappointed in not seeing any relic of Indian customs,
and, as it was now eleven o'clock and we had not breakfasted, we did
not consider ourselves particularly indemnified for our trouble.