M. Charnay has published an interesting account of his journeys in a book entitled ‘Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde,’ and the collection of casts made from moulds taken during his two years’ wanderings, which is now exhibited at the Trocadero Museum in Paris, and in other museums in Europe and America, has formed the basis of much modern research.
In one of the half-ruined buildings we found a beautifully carved lintel, fallen from its place and resting face downwards against the side of the doorway. This excellent example of Maya art I determined to carry home with me, and at once set my men to work to reduce the weight of the stone, which must have exceeded half a ton, by cutting off the undecorated ends of the slab and reducing it in thickness. This was no easy matter, as we had not come provided with tools for such work, but shift was made with the end of a broken pickaxe and some carpenter’s chisels; by keeping mozos at work at it, three at a time, in continual rotation, at the end of a week the weight of the stone had been reduced by half, and we were able to move it to the river-bank and pack it in the bottom of our largest canoe.
On the 26th March we struck our camp and all started up the river together, and on the following day, at the Paso de Yalchilan, I lost the pleasant companionship of M. Charnay, who here rejoined his men and returned direct to Tenosique. It was very hard work hauling the canoe, heavily laden with the stone lintel, against the swift current of the river, and we were four days getting as far as the mouth of the Rio Lacandon. On the 30th March we reached the first inhabited rancho at Santa Rosa, and next day I met Mr. Schulte at the mouth of the Rio Salinas and accepted a passage in his canoe to the Paso Real, leaving the mozos and my heavily-laden canoes to follow more slowly. On the way up-stream we landed on the left bank of the river not far from the mouth of the Rio Salinas, and passed a few hours in examining the ruins of a town of considerable extent. I could find no stone houses standing, but there were several fragments of sculptured stones bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions lying amongst the numerous foundation mounds, and the whole site would probably repay careful exploration.
From the Paso Real the stone lintel was carried by Indians to Sacluc, where I purchased a saw from one of the wood-cutters and was again able slightly to reduce the weight of the stone. From Sacluc it was hauled across the savannah to the neighbourhood of Flores on a solid-wheeled ox-cart, the solitary wheeled vehicle then existing in the province of Peten; then it was again slung on a strong pole and carried by sixteen Indian mozos through the forest to the British frontier village of El Cayo, where it was again packed in the bottom of a canoe and sent down the river to Belize; it now rests at Bloomsbury in the British Museum.
MENCHÉ, FRAGMENT OF A STONE LINTEL.
At the time of my visit Menché was supposed to lie within the Guatemalan frontier, and a few years later leave was obtained for me from the Government of that Republic to remove some other carved lintels from the ruins. Gorgonio Lopez and his brothers were sent down the river for this purpose, and after making careful moulds of all the carved lintels still in position in the houses, they removed some others from those houses which had fallen into ruin; these they packed in the canoes and hauled up the Usumacinta to the mouth of the Rio Salinas. That stream was then ascended to a point above the Nueve Cerros where canoe-navigation ceases, and the stones were thence carried overland to Coban, where they were carefully packed and sent in carts to the port of Panzos, on the Rio Polichic, for shipment to England. I presented these sculptures also to the National Collection, and they are now to be seen at the British Museum. By a recent treaty Menché and the valley of the Lacandon River have passed into the possession of Mexico. Since the date of my visit a party of mahogany-cutters formed a camp on the site of the ruins, but at the end of two years the “monteria” was abandoned, and the ancient city is again left in the solitude of the forest.
FLORES.