All provisions and all materials for the work, including such things as photographic dry-plates, moulding-paper, lime, oil, and nearly four tons of plaster, had to be carried in small quantities, sometimes on mules, but more usually on men’s backs, from the port of Yzabal, about 24 miles distant, over a range of hills, along a track which proved almost impassable in bad weather.
We commenced work early in February, which is usually the beginning of the dry season, but unluckily during that whole month the rains continued and work was carried on under the greatest difficulties; excavations were filled with water as soon as made, and no moulding could be done unless a water-tight roof was first built over the monument which was to be worked at. At one time the floods covered all but a few feet round the knoll on which we had built our palm-leaf shanty, everything in the camp turned green with mould and mildew, and snakes and scorpions were very troublesome, and mosquitoes were innumerable. Worse than all, the sick list increased, until at last twelve Indians were ill with fever on the same day, and the sound ones all ran away home. After a long and tedious search I was able to engage other labourers, and from that time matters began to mend; the Indian labourers suffering from fever recovered, and the weather became so hot and dry, that we were able to work on steadily until the first week in May. By that time I had secured a complete set of photographs of each of the monuments; Mr. Giuntini had finished a plaster mould of the great turtle—a mould of over six hundred pieces—and he had also moulded the most interesting portions of two other monuments. In addition to this, with the aid of my half-caste companions I had taken a mould in paper of one entire monument, and of every table of hieroglyphics and picture-writing which could be found, and Mr. Blockley had made a careful survey of the site of the ruins. The work of packing and transporting the moulds to the port was one of even greater difficulty than bringing the material, for there were over a thousand pieces of plaster moulding of all shapes and sizes with delicate points and edges which had to be protected from the slightest jar, and large paper moulds, some of which measured nearly five feet square. The last loads were not over the mountains when the rains commenced again with tremendous thunderstorms, and the mountain tracks were again an alternation of mud-holes and watercourses. A few of the paper moulds were damaged by damp on the passage home, but, on the whole, the result of the expedition has been very satisfactory.
QUIRIGUA, THE GREAT TURTLE.
Since 1883 one other fallen monument has been discovered, and we have learnt that the stone-faced mounds are the foundations of temples similar to those at Copan, but much more completely ruined. It was mainly with the purpose of more thoroughly examining these foundation-mounds and correcting the survey that we revisited the ruins in 1894. During our short stay we took a number of moulds and had finished all the clearing and made the necessary preparations for the survey, which Mr. Price was to carry out after our departure. But, alas! a very few days after we left the ruins both Mr. Price and Gorgonio were prostrated by a very bad type of fever, and it was with much difficulty that they succeeded in reaching Yzabal, where, owing to the kind attention they received from Mr. and Mrs. Potts, to whom many a traveller owes a debt of gratitude, they recovered sufficiently to start, Gorgonio for his home at Coban, and Mr. Price for England.
The survey was necessarily left unfinished, and the plan here given is taken from Mr. Blockley’s survey, amended as far as possible from Mr. Price’s notes. As both Mr. Price and Gorgonio were too ill to attend to the packing of the moulds, that work was perforce left to the local carpenter at Yzabal, with the result that more than half the moulds were found to be in a hopelessly ruined condition, when, after some unexplained delay, they arrived six months later in England. I spent an unhappy day at the Museum opening the packing-cases and rescuing the less-injured moulds from the evil-smelling mass of mildewed paper, and returned home only to be sent to bed for what the doctor first of all called an attack of influenza, but on the next day declared to be undoubtedly malarial fever, whether caught from germs conveyed from the tropics in the rotting paper, who shall say?
CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE WAY TO THE COAST.
Although the work which my husband had planned to do at the ruins was not nearly finished, we had reluctantly to cut short our stay at Quirigua, as we learnt that the next steamer to leave Livingston would be the last to carry passengers to New Orleans without a long detention on account of quarantine. As far as our personal comfort was concerned I was sincerely glad of the move, for as the season advanced the heat and steamy dampness had become exceedingly trying. A few days before setting out, an exceptionally heavy shower had driven a party of women, who were passing by, to take shelter in our house; one of them carried in her dress a baby squirrel, a charming little brown creature with a long, grey, feather-like tail. I longed to possess it, and with some hesitation made an offer for it of five reals, about 1s. 6d. of our money, which was eagerly accepted, and the tiny thing became our property. I gave him a grass saddle-bag for a bed and hung him inside my mosquito curtain, where he slept through the night without disturbing me. During the day, when not cuddled up asleep in my hand, he was rushing about the house, prying into all the corners, and amusing my lonely days by his pretty ways and the grace of his movements. “Chico,” as we named him, took most kindly to his afternoon tea, a habit which has grown upon him so that he shows much impatience when it is not served at the proper time; but the first time he drank tea, the effect upon his nerves was disastrous, he could not sleep, and a long midnight run on the sand-bank was necessary before he could be quieted.
On the 14th April we were ready to leave Quirigua for the port of Yzabal, and, sad as was the thought that this was to be our last day’s ride under the lovely sky of Guatemala, I plead guilty to a feeling of relief when our house and its surroundings were out of sight and we were once more wending our way along the forest beneath the arches of great coroza palm-leaves. Thence we rose again to the pine-woods and rode over the hills to the eastward, striking the main road from the capital to Yzabal, and, looking back, we caught lovely glimpses of the llanos of the Motagua River and the forest we had left. It was late in the afternoon when we crossed the gap in the Sierra del Mico and began the descent to the Golfo Dulce, which we could see lying tranquilly below us, and the moonlight was playing its usual tricks, lighting up the scattered palm-trees and throwing a glamour of beauty even over the white-washed houses of the village when we rode into Yzabal. It was indeed a delicious change from the stifling heat of the forest, for a refreshing breeze was blowing from the lake, and I was lulled to sleep by the cooling sound of the wavelets lapping on the beach.