AN IDLE DAY IN THE JUNGLE
Several thousands of years before that sturdy Scotch engineer John
MacAdam gave to the world the broken-rock road surface known as
“macadam,” which has done so much to make communication easier, roads
were built in Yucatan that embodied all of his sound principles of
road-making. And MacAdam lived and died without ever having heard
of them. In fact, he had been sleeping beneath the green sod of his
native kirk for at least a decade before Europe or North America knew
that these old roads of Yucatan existed. The thoroughness and good
engineering of their construction rival the famous roads of the Roman
Empire or of present-day highways.
In ancient times Chi-chen Itza and all the great and lesser cities of
the Yucatan peninsula were linked by a network of smooth, hard-surfaced
highways. The Mayas of to-day call these old roads _zac-be-ob_, or
white ways. The name is of ancient origin, used, perhaps, by the
very builders themselves and no doubt these roads were like ribbons
stretching mile after mile through field and forest and deserving
quite as much the appellation of “White Way” as any of our blazing
night-lighted thoroughfares.
But alas! they are no longer white, no longer even distinguishable as
roads for any great distance, but are buried beneath matted roots and
brown earth. And this land which once had the best roads on earth
became a place where until recently good roads were unknown, where
every cow-path was called _camino real_ or royal road but was decidedly
unregal.
Don Eduardo has painstakingly studied the old highways and for the rest
of this chapter I will merely repeat what he has so often told me:
“The old roads, each and every one, went down to bed-rock, and upon that
solid foundation was built up a ballast of broken limestone, with the
larger stones at the bottom. As the surface of the road was reached,
smaller stones were used and the crevices were filled in. And the whole
face of the road was given a smooth, hard coating of a mortar cement of
lime and finely sifted white earth, known then and to-day as _zac-cab_.
The hard-pan of Yucatan is limestone ledge rock and as a rule it is not
very far beneath the surface soil. Often in the building of roads the
first layer or ballast consisted of large boulders, not merely tumbled
in haphazard, but carefully placed and with the interstices filled in
with smaller stones, painstakingly fitted and hammered into place. Thus
a firm anchorage was provided that has held through the centuries.
The second and third courses, each of smaller boulders and stones,
were quite as carefully placed. The final course was constructed of
stones the size of a bushel basket and smaller, wedged together with
rock fragments. Within a foot or so of the desired road-level, rock
fragments from the size of an egg to that of a small walnut were
leveled in, a grouting made, and the whole pounded until a hard, level
surface was obtained. Mortar or cement was then applied in a thin
coating and when this had hardened sufficiently gangs of stout-muscled
laborers armed with smooth, fine-grained polishing-stones rubbed the
plastic surface until it became compacted into a polished flatness
almost as smooth-coated as tile and nearly as hard.
“The majority of the stones used were not quarried but were isolated
boulders rounded by erosion and stained with iron from the ‘red earth’
in which they are usually found. Seldom was any rock used which could
easily be cut and used for the construction of buildings or temples.
“These old highways—what a tremendous labor they must have been! What
miles and miles of carrying the stones to build them! And nothing but
man-power to move the huge boulders. Centuries, perhaps, were spent in
the building, and millions of sweating men.
“Their traffic problems did not concern vehicles, not even horses
nor other beasts of burden. The roads were built for travelers afoot
and the burden-carriers were men, traveling in single file as human
carriers do the world over. And yet there must have been much traffic,
for some of these roads are twenty-five feet in width, so that four
files of men with their loads could easily pass, two lines going one
way and two in the opposite direction.
“The largest and longest of these ancient roadways connects Chi-chen
Itza with the once important cities of Uxmal and Tiho. It is
twenty-five feet wide. The long road from Chi-chen Itza to ancient
Zac-ci (now Valladolid) and the unnamed but important towns between
Zac-ci and Lake Co-ba, is bifurcated again and again into more and more
narrow highways, resembling creeks flowing together to form eventually
a mighty river.
“What a picture these forgotten roads must have been in the golden
age of the Mayas!—pulsing with life, crowded with water-carriers,
venders, idlers, pious pilgrims, nobles with their retinues, farmers
bringing their produce to the city, itinerant craftsmen, rich men,
beggarmen, thieves; a cheerful jostling of motley and purple; a riot of
color and of all the things men buy and sell.
“Came a squad of soldiers, crystal-tipped lances glinting in the
sunlight; or a solemn procession of priests and devotees with sacred
whistles shrilling or the boom of the _tunkul_, while the laughing
crowd parted and made silent obeisance to the holy ones.
“Along the sides of the road every now and then are low raised
platforms, or elevations, which have lost all semblance of their
pristine contours, so that one can only guess at their purpose. It
has been suggested that they were originally hollowed out and were
_holtunes_, hollow stones, or water-reservoirs, where the traveler
might quench his thirst. My own examination of them convinces me
that they were, for the major part at least, nothing more than
resting-places where the carrier might deposit his load, letting
slip the band from about his forehead which held the burden on his
shoulders. And well he might rest, this ancestor of the present sturdy
Maya, for he bore just as incredibly heavy burdens for as incredibly
long distances.
“There is a striking similarity in the practical engineering of the
Maya roadways and the construction of the stone terraces upon which the
temples were built. One day, bent upon the study of such construction
and to verify certain conclusions I had reached, I had recourse to
a deep excavation made in the base mound or pyramid of an important
fallen structure which is located some distance north of the Great
Pyramid of El Castillo. This excavation, so some of the natives told
me, had been made by a ‘stranger’ (white man), short of body but
thick-set and very powerful. He was, they said, ‘a very positive man,
with a long gray beard, and this was so long ago that few are now alive
who remember.’ No one who has ever seen and known the late Doctor Le
Plongeon, intrepid investigator and discoverer of the famous monumental
‘Chac Mool’ figure, could fail to recognize the faithfulness of this
native description. And from all his years of labor Doctor Le Plongeon
evolved a Mayan theology which is either inspired or the result of
a mentality unhinged by too great labor. Certainly it seems to be
imagination run wild, with little of fact to bear it out. It is no less
than tragic, for never did archæologist drive himself to more herculean
effort than did Le Plongeon.
“To resume my story, this excavation was like a deep chasm, bisecting
the crowning platform and going clear down to bed-rock, and thus it
fitted perfectly my purpose. Nearly forty years had passed since Le
Plongeon made the excavation, and Nature had done her best with wind
and rain and vegetation to heal the wound. Loosened material from
the sides of the cut had fallen in, providing an excellent bed for
climbing vines, saplings, and big-leafed plants. The roots of big
trees, no longer supported by the stones, had given way and the trees
had fallen, bridging with their trunks the crevice. Vines, saplings,
and flowering plants grew up and twined about and embraced the bridging
tree trunks, so that one would scarcely know without close scrutiny
that an excavation had been made. The two tree trunks which lay side by
side, bridging the space overhead, were both of hardwood. One was a
_yax-nic_, light-colored and with bark of silver gray, while the other
was a _chac-ti_, dark red and with loose-held bark, in decay separating
from the trunk in long, curling ribbons.
“Near me were many big spiders, flat, crab-like and motionless, yet
with bright pin-point eyes that seemed fiercely awake, waiting and
watching for whatever prey might come to their nipper-like jaws.
Their long legs and still longer caliper-pointed antennæ lay sprawled
flat against the tree trunks so close that on casual inspection the
creatures might pass for bits of tree fungus. Small lizard-like
reptiles, with beautiful diamond-like eyes and heads as ugly as sin,
sprinted up and down the tree trunks and under and over the branches,
skilfully avoiding the spiders and other dangers. Both spiders and tiny
lizards on the _yax-nic_ trunk were gray in color, blending perfectly
with the bark surface, while those on the _chac-ti_ trunk were dull
red to match the bark—an example of natural camouflage or protective
coloring as striking as any I have ever seen.
“Out came the powerful pocket magnifying-glass which I always carry.
While looking at a gorgeous little insect decked in gold and green, I
became aware of a commotion in the _yax-nic_ tree and turned the lens
in that direction. What I saw was a fearsome-looking head and a body
that was no less than an walking horror. The head seemed to be all jaws
and glittering eyes—deep, powerful grinding mandibles that worked like
steel-cutting shears; eyes lidless, unblinking, bulging, and coldly
cruel. And the whole body and pointed legs were incased in gray armor
of metallic luster. It was with a sigh of relief that I laid down the
lens and realized that I had been gazing only at a spider and not some
antediluvian monster. Except for the comforting fact of relativity of
size between man and these creatures, I doubt if there ever existed
three more terrifying animals than the crab-like spider, _chin-tun_,
the tiny crested lizard, _hu_, and the giant-armored ant, _choch_,
whose sting is worse than that of the scorpion, often producing fever
and sometimes death.
“Directly overhead, between the fallen trees, I could see growing at
the top of the mound the thorny _katzin_, one long branch of which
swayed over the brink of the man-made chasm. And almost at the very tip
of this branch hung the pensile nest of an oriole, with the brilliant
feathered male singing his lungs out beside it. The gold-and-black
plumage against the green leaves and the glossy jet-black Spanish moss
of which the nest was made produced a picture that Gauguin would surely
have longed to put on canvas. Suddenly his song ended in a high-pitched
scream, as a brown hawk swooped from the sky and clutched not the bird
but the nest. With one scaly talon the pirate gripped the neck of the
nest, while with the other he tore at its woven bottom. He worked like
a flash, but my revolver flashed yet more quickly and effectively. The
mother bird and the eggs, I think, were saved, but the nest was sadly
in need of the work of an expert in oriole nest-repairing and I imagine
it was some time before the master of the house recovered sufficiently
from his fright to resume his liquid melody. At least I heard no more
from him that day, although every other bird in the neighborhood
immediately dropped what he was doing and came over to view the damage
and condole with or congratulate the victims of the assault, so that it
was a full ten minutes before the jungle resumed its habitual quiet
and the averted tragedy was sufficiently forgotten for the near-by
_dzaypkin_, or tree cicada, to resume his not unmusical note that
sounds like a muted automobile siren.
“I had outlined my work for the morrow, selected the place where the
shovel should follow out the prodigious work of Le Plongeon, gone these
many years. I had even snapped the rubber band back on my note-book
and was turning my thoughts luncheonward when almost between my feet
I heard a frightened squeak and saw a small brown rabbit dart from
the opening under the stone ledge on which I was sitting and scurry
into the adjoining underbrush at a speed incredible even for a much
frightened bunny.
“This looked promising and I concluded to sit a while longer and wait
developments. Only a few seconds elapsed before there emerged from the
same hole the blunt ophidian head of an enormous boa-constrictor. The
unpleasant creature came out uncertainly and the ugly head wavered
about nearly on a level with my knees and much too close for comfort.
Boas, I think, have not a very keen power of scent. This one, at least,
seemed to take up the trail of the rabbit with some difficulty. Yet I
can believe, too, that that particular rabbit got over the ground so
quickly that he left no scent whatever. Or it is possible that the near
presence of an unseen human being bewildered the scent faculties of the
huge snake.
“You may be sure that I had kept very, very still, trying to believe
what has so often been told me—that few jungle creatures recognize man
by his form alone as long as he remains silent and motionless. At any
rate, the big reptile finally started in the general direction taken by
the rabbit, which no doubt was several hundred miles away by that time
if he had maintained his initial rate of travel. Apparently the same
idea came to the boa, for he soon reappeared and, still heedless of my
presence, passed almost between my legs and reëntered what appeared
to be his permanent home, on the ground floor of the pyramid, in the
interstices between the big stones which formed its base.
“After making sure that he had entirely gone in and, figuratively
speaking, closed the door after him, I took his measurements from
observations on certain stone projections he had passed. He was not
less than sixteen and a half feet long. Deciding that I had had quite
enough adventure for one morning, I bade the spot adieu and went home
to lunch.”