The villages we passed were monotonously alike: squares of palm-leaf-thatched huts round a plot of wiry grass centred by the village well with gibbet-like uprights and crosspiece of wood over which hung the bucket. At all hours of the day there clustered here knots of Indian women and girls, the cantaros (earthenware water-jars) balanced on their left hips as they pattered to and fro to their whitewashed huts with the precious liquid. We generally called our midday halt between these settlements, as we found that our arrival was hailed with the same popular excitement as that which welcomes a circus in an English village; and it is a trifle disconcerting, even if your menu is not very varied, to eat one's lunch in the centre of a serried circle of bright-eyed children and women, and grinning, wondering men. But the fourth day at the little village of Pokboc we were so much tempted by the wonderful shade of a large ceibo-tree which stood by the huge ruined church, inside the gaunt staring walls of which a whitewashed Indian hut now did duty for such infrequent services as were held, that we broke our rule. Though we were now deep in Yucatan's cool season, the heat had been blistering all the morning, and, steering as we had been due north on a fairly straight road, the sun on our backs had made us feel quite sick. Thus the deep shade offered by the giant tree, the leafiest of all trees found in the country, was an irresistible temptation. The horses, too, had suffered, and stood as meek as lambs to be unsaddled. But before we had got far in our preparations for a meal half the village was round us, to make way in a second for two men, one about sixty, with a long tufted beard of grey, growing from the extreme limit of his chin, the other some twenty years younger. They cordially introduced themselves as the village Jefe and his son; the latter insisting upon calling himself "el secretario." They kept the store and public-house of the village, and, in the absence of customers, had filled up their time by serving themselves so liberally that they were quite merry. They insisted that we should come to their shop and take some of their "agua ardiente" (fire-water: and it lives up to its name too); but we explained that we were teetotalers.
At this moment there came racing across the plaza a perfectly lovely little laddie, bare-legged and bare-headed, with the scantiest of cotton vests and black-cotton knickerbockers on. El Secretario introduced the little fellow as his son, "Cipriano, su servidor" ("Cipriano, at your service"), and told us he was ten. We had a bottle of acid drops with us, and diving in our saddle-bags we in a moment won Cipriano's heart and cemented our budding friendship with the family by filling his pretty little hand full of the sweets. By this time a baby sister had arrived, and we found it impossible longer to resist the pressing hospitalities of the Jefe. We were anxious, too, to taste the national drink, which has the alias of "anise" and is made from crushed sugar-cane and aniseed. So we temporarily threw our teetotal principles to the four winds (or at least to where those most desirable elements successfully hid themselves, for there was not a breath of air) and walked over to the store. Once there, large glasses of the clear white liquid were poured out, and our hosts, enchanted at the excuse for more tippling, began drinking our healths in such lavish style as was ominous of the great difficulty we should have in getting away from their bibulous friendliness without the risk of a quarrel. We had just sipped at our glasses, which was all we ever intended to do, when fortune came to our aid. Looking across the plaza, we saw a stray village horse biting our stallion's neck. With a hurried word of excuse, we rushed out of the shop, our hosts shouting to us to return after we had righted things. But we never did; and the somnolent effects of the last "bumpers" of anise they had drunk were so complete that we were left to eat our lunch in peace. By the time we had finished it was the siesta hour and the village had crept into its hammocks. As we rode past the store, we caught a glimpse of our friend the Jefe stretched full length, fast asleep, on his own counter.
From Pokboc it was some three leagues (all distances in Yucatan are measured by the league, which is not the well-conducted league of Europe, but, like the French verbs, irregular to the verge of impropriety) to Calotmul on a road which seemed redder and hotter than ever. Calotmul is a town run to seed, a ruinous unwieldy place with a plaza of mangy grass as big as Trafalgar Square, a long stuccoed, arcaded building in one corner of which served as the Jefetura where loitered some of Contrario's brothers-in-arms. Big as these decayed Spanish-Indian villages are, there is never any attempt at an inn, the very rare travellers by the roads being local Yucatecans who are sure of having one or more kinsmen in each village. So knowing no one and having been sated with Yucatecan interiors at vile Valladolid, we pushed on through the town, preferring the freedom of our woodland hotel. Our obstinacy much alarmed Contrario. He knew that Tizimin, the town to which we were steering and which was to serve as the base for serious exploration, was fourteen miles further on, and he thought we intended to try and reach it that night. But he became easier in his mind when we unhooked from the saddle our tripod boiler, which had throughout the journey served as a pail for fetching drinking-water, and sent him back to the well. By the time he had overtaken us we had selected a camping-ground about half a mile from the village, the horses were feeding quietly by the roadside, the baggage had been carried into the woods and our hammocks slung.
We always made a practice of one of us seeing the horses properly watered, while the other stayed in camp. As soon as Contrario rejoined us it was time for "watering order"; and one of us started out on Cyclops, while Contrario led the other horses, tied together. We had given him the kettle and one of the water-bottles to carry. The well was reached safely, the horses watered, and some corn bought at the local store; but on return to camp Contrario was only carrying the kettle. He had already annoyed us by the slow pace at which he had kept the horses going and by loitering to talk with some of the National Guard. We were tired and not in the best of tempers, and somewhat testily demanded to know where the water-bottle was. He gabbled away in Spanish some sentences we did not understand, but did not attempt to produce it. We thought he had left it at the well and tried to say so, ordering him to return for it. He entirely misunderstood, and believed we were accusing him of stealing it. The fellow was a fool but he was genuinely honest, and the most we were accusing him of was carelessness. But he would not be pacified, and wringing his hands and in a snivelling whine repeating again and again "Yo soy no robo!" ("I am no robber!"), he gathered up his traps, and, regardless of pay, was about to leave when suddenly by the firelight one of us detected the water-bottle, lying hidden in the shadow of a boulder where he had set it down and forgotten it before going down to the well. We were really sorry to have hurt his feelings, and he saw it, and with almost childish pleasure accepted our apologies. It was like a thunderstorm, it cleared the air; and as, after our frugal meal of black beans, boiled eggs, tortillas, and Cadbury's cocoa, we sat round the fire smoking, we became quite "chummy" with the soldier-lad, who, delighted at the rehabilitation of his character, talked nineteen to the dozen till hammock-time, when we cemented our new-found friendship by giving him one of our blankets to aid his own flimsy Mexican wrap in keeping him warm during the cold night.
The next day, in sunlight which was positively grilling, we completed our journey to Tizimin. It was siesta time when we rode into the plaza under the shadow of the gaunt walls of the hideous ruined monastery. The town was quiet, almost like a city of the dead. The shops were closed; and at the long grated window-spaces sunblinds were drawn. The grass had invaded the streets; the whole place looked like a Rip Van Winkle city which had got badly "left" in the race of civic life. Stretched in the thick dust a mangy dog or two lay panting; here and there under the shadow of a wall dozed an Indian, crouched on his haunches. We rode up to the Jefetura, and there from a yawning soldier we learnt that the Jefe was taking his morning tub, so we had some minutes to wait before we could expect an official welcome. Meanwhile we had time to glance round us. The plaza was of much the same size as Valladolid. In front of the Palacio Municipal, where the becottoned National Guard were drowsing in the verandah-shade, was an avenue of orange trees loaded with fruit. On the other side of the square stood another of those huge stuccoed churches we had become so accustomed to seeing. The seventeenth-century Spaniards in Yucatan certainly had no taste in building. Nothing could be more distressing than these great piles of stucco, flat-faced as any Hottentot. Their bigot builders certainly preferred quantity to quality. Even when new, these ecclesiastical eyesores must have always been such. But now, ... with plaster peeling off, with tufts of rank weeds growing from gaps in the walls, surrounded by a courtyard half cobble, half leprous grass, the enclosing walls tumbling in ruin, the church gate sagging on its broken rusty hinges or perchance replaced by a hurdle, they admirably typify the bedraggled down-at-heel ceremonial which masquerades throughout Yucatan as religion.
By this time our arrival had attracted representatives of the Tiziminians in the shape of three of the fattest boys we had ever seen outside a show. They were pretty fellows, too, about thirteen years old; but they would have been a good deal prettier if they had possessed less adipose tissue. Their tight holland knickers seemed on the point of giving up the task of enclosing the luxuriant opulence of what one might politely call their southern façades; while their bare brown legs were so ludicrously plump and rounded that they looked as if they had been blown up with a bicycle pump. The boys gazed at us and we gazed at the boys; it was hard to say which of the two sets of gazers was most astonished. But by this time a shuffling among the troops heralded the approach of the Jefe, coming like a giant refreshed from his bath. He was a great contrast to the epicene bird-like creature who had lorded it over the civic fortunes of Valladolid. A grand old man of good height, swarthy skinned, with a snow-white full patriarchal beard reaching nearly to his waist, he greeted us with true Spanish courtesy, with a hospitable wave of his hand inviting us within the cool stone room, where above the row of rocking-chairs hung a life-sized coloured print of the great Diaz. It was a most humiliating moment. Dusty, dirty, sweaty, covered with garrapatas, with many days' growth of beard, we were grieved indeed that this should be the snowy-haired Don's first sight of England. We indicated as best we could that this was not the normal condition of Englishmen, and that we should be more than grateful if he would allow us to wash first and talk afterwards. But he insisted upon hearing our plans, and when we told him of our intention of going through the country to the eastward his face bore a look of alarm. He declared the country "muy peligroso" (very dangerous); that the Indians were hostile to the whites; that even for the contents of a water-bottle travellers were killed, as in fact had actually happened to two Yucatecans but a few weeks before. We were too much in need of a wash to be much depressed by his pessimism, and were glad when he made a move to find us lodgings. These we found without much difficulty, a young Yucatecan being fetched and offering us a house for four dollars the week. It was only a few yards away, nothing really but two or three lofty whitewashed barns en suite, stone-floored, the walls decorated with hammock-pegs. But the great advantage was that it possessed a small paddock, rankly overgrown with shrubs and grass, which would serve as an excellent corral for our horses. A well too, there was, and before the genial Jefe had bade us "Adios!" we had our rubber bath out and were preparing for a glorious wash.
We were now in what is known as the Kantunil district, and in touch with the north-eastern branch of the independent Mayans. For Tizimin is the last outpost of Yucatecan authority. Even the Indians living within the town are a very different breed from the haciendado-ridden ones of the Yucatan which lay behind us. And this is perhaps the best place to give some idea of the physical appearance of the Mayan Indians generally. The whole race throughout the Peninsula is still singularly homogeneous, though it is in the Kantunil and eastern coast district, where crossings with the whites or even inter-tribally are unknown, that the purest types are found.
The Mayan is stoutly built and muscular, but seldom tall. His colour is a rich dark reddish brown—a beautiful tint remarkably distinct from that of the American Indian race in general. His hair is invariably raven black, lank and coarse. His eyes are black or black-brown, usually small and somewhat cunning-looking; straight set as a rule, but occasionally with a suspicion of obliquity. The nose is well formed, straight or slightly aquiline, and at times somewhat Semitically heavy at the tip; but scarcely ever pyramidal in the pure Mayans. The noses of the women one would almost declare their best feature. The hair of the women, worn gathered in a knot at the back of the head, is often luxuriantly long; but men are fairly closely cropped. Of baldness we never saw a trace, though grey Indians of both sexes are fairly common. Both sexes have a Mongolian lack of body hair; legs, arms and chests being rarely hirsute. The teeth are always good, and add to the charm of the sweet smile which at the least provocation comes to rob the faces of both sexes of the rather sullen expression characteristic of them. Many of the children are extraordinarily pretty, and young girls of twelve (at which age they usually marry) are often fascinating pictures of youthful bloom, quite statuesque in their grace, their exquisitely developed figures showing through the clinging folds of their one chemise-like linen garment.
Mayan women age rapidly; but between puberty (about ten) and their twenty-fifth year they are remarkable for matronly health and strength and their graceful carriage. They incline to flesh, and before forty are often unwieldy to a degree which is really ludicrous; such "too, too solid flesh" scarcely harmonising with the severely scanty lines of the huipil. This—the universal dress of all Indian women throughout Yucatan—is really nothing but a sheet, folded double and sewn down the sides and a half-moon cut out of the middle of the fold. Through this the head goes, and round this yoke runs back and front a flowered border, stamped coloured cotton among the poorer, elaborately hand-embroidered among the richer, women. The hem of the garment, which reaches rather more than half-way down the calf, is also often ornamented with embroidery. This shift or chemise—for it is little else—is sleeveless; and the only attempt at underclothes is a plain cotton petticoat; but many women and most young girls do not wear this. In some of the wilder districts we visited the girls are stark naked till puberty, while the old women and many of the young matrons wear nothing but a short cotton kilt from waist to knee. Round her neck the Indian woman wears a chain (though this habit is less common among the independent Mayans than among the Indians of Merida and the north-west district), oftenest of gilt or glass beads, with some small gold coin, gewgaw, charm or crucifix attached. Large gold earrings, too, are much worn. Round her shoulders she throws, when out of doors, a wrap of cotton or silk, brought up over the head and then allowed to hang down over the other shoulder. These wraps, which serve a practical purpose in protecting from the sun, are most picturesque. In Merida, as we have said, you see all colours; but a dark indigo or rich copper brown are the most common in the country districts. Almost without exception the women go barefoot, and their feet, though small, have from long shoelessness become broad.
The Mayan man dresses in loose white-cotton trousers, which he usually wears turned up to the knees, and a loose-fitting shirt of white cotton tucked in at the belt. As often as not the shirt is discarded while at work or in the bush, and the trousers give place to the maxtli, a broad loin-cloth. A pudding-basin-shaped straw hat, home-plaited, and sandals made of a single thickness of tanned hide cut to the shape of the foot, with a piece of cord coming up between the first and second toe, passing over the instep and through a string loop on either side of the heel and then twisted round the ankle, complete his outfit. Every Indian wears belted round him in a leather sheath the machete, the native weapon universal throughout Central America. It is a sword-like knife, the blade about thirty inches long and two broad, with a plain hand-grip of bone or wood about four inches long. These are fearsome-looking weapons even when, as is usually the case, the blade is straight; but they are positively bloodcurdling when they are, as one sees them sometimes, scimitar-shaped or ending with an ugly hook, like the finish of an English billhook.