A TEMPLE NEAR RABINAL.
We had already changed our plans once, when the failure to find a road from Belehú to Rabinal diverted our steps to the Alta Vera Paz and Coban, and now news reached us that, through some blunder, the cases of instruments and boxes of provisions which were to have been forwarded to Salamá for our use at Rabinal had never left Guatemala, so that again we had to alter our plans, and all thoughts of exploring the ruins near Rabinal had finally to be abandoned. I regretted this the more as I had already caught a glimpse of these ruins when on a journey from Santa Cruz Quiché to Coban in 1887, and was much impressed with what I then saw; but as I was then only able to spend five hours examining one of the sites, my notes taken on that occasion are very scanty: however, I will give them here in the hope of attracting the attention of some other traveller, whom I have no doubt will be amply repaid for the trouble of examining the ruins more thoroughly.
The two towns of Cubulco and Rabinal are situated about twelve miles apart at either end of a plain surrounded by high ranges of hills. Lower hills run out into the plain from north and south, and almost divide it in two near the middle, and spurs of the high range and partly detached hills jut out into the plain from all sides. Many of these lower hill-tops are the sites of ancient Indian buildings, and on one of them, to the north of the town of Rabinal, the ruins are visible from the town itself; but as the foundations of the buildings of this group are said to be much destroyed, I chose as the object of my excursion another site further to the west and almost equidistant from Rabinal and Cubulco.
A spur of the bare rocky foothills, rising to over one thousand feet in height, here juts out into the plain from the main northern range, and for about three quarters of a mile along its top ridge stands the ruins of an Indian town. At the narrow neck where the spur leaves the main range there are the remains of two curved walls about fifty yards apart, which were no doubt used for defensive purposes. Outside these walls towards the main range there is one group of buildings. On leaving this group and crossing the walls to follow the ridge towards the south, the top and slopes of the hill, for about one hundred feet down on either side, are seen to be covered with the small terraced foundations which may have supported very small houses built of some perishable material, or may possibly be the sites of burial-places. These terraces are sometimes oblong, measuring 20-30 feet in length by 6-7 feet in width; but more often they are of this shape:—
and they stand out from the hill thus:—
Along the ridge of the hill there are seven separate groups of what must have been public buildings, each group arranged on nearly the same plan so as to enclose a level plaza. It seems to me most probable that here we have an example of the villages “of not more than six houses, standing a gunshot apart,” mentioned by Las Casas, and that it was the inhabitants of the houses on these hill-tops whom he had so much difficulty in persuading to leave their homes and form the settlement at Rabinal. The relative position of the seven groups of buildings is shown on the sketch plan.
