It is an oblong enclosure with walls 10 feet thick, with recesses at the four corners. The walls are in some parts perfect to the height of 7 feet. I could not find that there had been originally any doorway to this enclosure, but two entrances have been forced in where the walls are narrowest. It agrees in plan and dimensions with the building figured in Bancroft’s ‘Native Races of the Pacific States,’ as a type of the Tlachtli courts of Mexico, where a game (which is described by Herrera and others) was played with an india-rubber ball.
There were numbers of Chaya (obsidian) flakes lying about on the surface of the ground, and I found one chipped arrow-head, one stone axe, and several pieces of stone axes and of mealing-stones.
Nothing beyond these few dry statements can be squeezed out of my note-book, and what little else is known can be gathered from the photographs and plans. An examination of the ruins on the neighbouring hill-tops would doubtless add much to our knowledge, and there still remains as a field for enquiry the whole of the forest-covered range of the Sierra de las Minas, which has not as yet been touched by the archæologist, and must almost certainly contain interesting ruins. The assertion is not mere guesswork, but is based on the fact that similar ruins are known to exist on the hills above San Gerónimo, and that I believe I gained touch of the same style of building at the ruins of Chacujál on the south side of the valley of the Polochic, which was a flourishing town when Cortés visited it in the year 1526; it is not probable that the country between these sites was left uninhabited.
CHAPTER XIII. THE ROAD TO ZACAPA AND COPAN.
We would gladly have lingered on in the enjoyment of such pleasant lazy days at Coban; but there were many miles to be traversed before we could reach the ruins of Copan, a place so like in name and so different in nature, the goal to which my eyes now turned longingly. Moreover, the season was advancing, and the fervid rays of the sun at midday proclaimed that summer was upon us.
Two days were passed in hunting up mozos to carry our baggage, and it was only owing to the fear of the wrath of the Alcalde and the terrors of the cárcel that they consented to make the journey. The Indians seem to be in absolute servitude to the Alcalde, who orders them to go when and where he pleases, and in our better moments we had pangs of conscience at being accomplices in such slave-driving; but such is the force of custom, that we often found ourselves fretting and fuming because the mozos failed to make their appearance, and their dilatoriness even drew down denunciation on their heads from the mouth of the ever-patient Gorgonio. At length five or six sulky Indians arrived, shouldered our luggage, and started off on the road to Santa Cruz; after bidding our kind host farewell, we rode after them, and on our well-fed and rested mules actually traversed the four leagues to Santa Cruz in three hours. Beyond Santa Cruz the road ran high above the windings of the Coban River, whose steep banks are richly clothed with tree-ferns and flowering creepers. Towards evening we reached the ugly little wind-swept hamlet of Tactic, the usual resting-place for travellers between Coban and the port of Panzos. Travellers must often fare badly, for one small inn, containing a single bedroom, was all the accommodation the village appeared to afford; and but for Mr. Thomae’s forethought in telegraphing to secure this room for us, we might have had to share the verandah for the night with native travellers, arrieros, and dogs, and probably have gone supperless to bed.
At Tactic we left the cart-road leading to Panzos, which, after surmounting the divide, strikes the source of the Rio Polochic, and follows its banks to the eastward. Our course lay along a mule-track which crosses the hills to the southward and connects Coban with the capital. During our morning ride we passed along river-bottoms and good grass land, where well-fed cattle gazed peacefully at us, instead of running after us and glaring with hungry eyes as their less fortunate brethren had done in the dry lands of the Altos. Leaving these pleasant pastures of El Patál, famous for keeping green and fresh throughout the dry season, we mounted a considerable hill and arrived at the small desolate rancho of Santa Rosa. Here we breakfasted in the state apartment of the house, a small windowless mud-floored chamber which served its owners as dining-room, sleeping-room, and oratory, where a dissipated-looking muscovy duck, three minute puppies, and numerous flea-infested, half-starved dogs shared our meal of tortillas and frijoles. After breakfast we clambered over more broken hills to the summit of the range, the cumbre de Cachil; and here again we passed suddenly beyond the limit of the Atlantic rainfall which keeps the Alta Vera Paz so rich and green, and entered a gloomy and desert-looking land. There was no relief to the monotony of the sun-baked mountain-sides, saving the presence here and there in the deeper hollows of a few trees, which in this dry season had dropped their leaves and clothed themselves with a wealth of brilliant blossom—yellow and white frangipani, the madre de cacao, with its soft pink bloom, and another tree unknown to me with feathery white racemes like an acacia.
From the southern edge of the range we saw the hot dried-up plain of Salamá stretching before us, and the white-walled houses of the town glistening in the afternoon sun. Although the road was here well graded and in fair condition, it was a wearisome journey over the last of the hills and down the long descent to the little rivulet which flows along the edge of the plain. The banks of the stream were covered with flowering shrubs and trees, which here near the water’s edge were clothed in green leaves, and we preferred to seek a lodging in a wayside house, under their grateful shade, to riding on over the dusty plain to the hot streets of the little town. Here we were destined to remain for two whole days, refreshed by the last drops of an occasional shower blown to us over the mountains, and solaced by the sweet song of the sensontes, or mocking-birds, which abound in the neighbourhood, whilst the country round was being searched for mozos and mules to carry on our baggage. We were obliged to despatch Caralampio to Rabinal to fetch the boxes which were to have been sent there from Chiché; and, as we afterwards learnt, he had to extend his journey to Chiché itself in order to retrieve them from the Alcalde, in whose hands they had been left, and who had been faithless to his promises to forward them; Caralampio did not overtake us until we had reached Zacapa. The difficulty in engaging mules would have led to a longer delay had not Mr. Harris, the owner of the Hacienda of San Gerónimo, come to our rescue and also invited us to visit him. On our way to the hacienda we passed through Salamá, a pretty little town with a bright stream running through it, and a Plaza planted with cocoanut-palms; and then we rode on across the dried-up plain, which, as we approached the hacienda, lost its sun-baked aspect and became green with cane-fields and coffee-plantations, the result of careful irrigation. At our journey’s end we received a cordial welcome from Mr. Harris and Mr. Burnes.
The Hacienda of San Gerónimo has an interesting history, and has been the cause of endless troubles and litigation. Originally it was a convent of Dominican monks, and their fine enduring work can be seen in the solid building of the house and the church attached to it, and in the extensive irrigation works with tunnels and aqueducts almost worthy of the Romans. Both situation and climate are delightful. It stands about 3000 feet above the sea-level at the edge of the plain, with well-wooded hills at the back of it, which run to join the lofty range of the Sierra de las Minas. The thin burnt-up grass and cracked earth, so characteristic of the plain of Salamá, disappear before the skilfully devised irrigation, and one’s eyes rest gratefully on fields of waving green sugar-cane. Surely the monks had learnt the art of choosing pleasant places and adding to their natural charms, and it must have been a cruel wrench when they were compelled to leave their home, their church, and their vineyards—for here alone in Guatemala they had succeeded in cultivating the vine and producing a wine which was acceptable to their countrymen. After the withdrawal of the Dominicans in about the year 1845 the estate was bought by an Englishman of the name of Bennett, whose representatives now own it; and although the vine has given way to the sugar-cane, and the reputation of its wine is a thing of the past, the “Puro de San Gerónimo,” as the aguardiente now made here is called, is famed throughout the length and breadth of the Republic.