From Kabah to Santa Helena we travel at last on a good road, wide enough to secure us against collisions, smooth enough and shady enough to make locomotion highly agreeable; a sensation which is increased rather than diminished on reaching the beautiful native village of Santa Helena, extending over a wide expanse divided in square blocks like a modern town. Each dwelling is planted with ciruelos, with orange-trees, a profusion of flowers, and encompassed by a fencing wall. Near the huts are aerial gardens, made by means of poles fixed in the ground supporting twined branches covered over with a few inches of earth, where the cottagers grow flowers and vegetables; while the yard is occupied by multitudes of cackling hens, quacking ducks, and grunting pigs. The church stands in the centre of the village, on the site of an ancient temple.
This hamlet was like a vision of the past, for from all we had seen and knew, it was easy to conjure up what it had been in former times. Nor will it seem unnatural that little or no modification should be observable in an Indian village, if it be considered what powerful factors are traditions, instincts, and surroundings, particularly with a rural population. When the Spaniards imposed their religion on the Mayas, they did so by the sword rather than persuasion; but the natives retained their culture, their customs, and their national dress, whereas the conquerors forgot their own language, were modified at the contact of the subdued race, and adopted their ancient institutions, the better to replace the caciques.
Yucatan, as we have seen, was under a feudal system of government before the Conquest, when it was followed by “encomiendas,” giving the Spaniards the right to enforce the services of the natives to the number of one or two thousand to each cavalier according to his importance. The marks of this system are observable in all great buildings which formerly were a centre or a manor-house; whilst from the number of pyramids may be surmised the power of the cacique once the lord of the locality. At the present day, it is true, centres are few in number, and in consequence of the cruel treatment of the natives by the conquerors, they have fallen to a tenth of their primitive numerical strength; yet cities, hamlets, and haciendas are even now standing witnesses of how far superior was the condition of the Mayas before the coming of the Europeans. Nothing is changed, save that the ancient lords have fallen into servile condition, that haciendas and Moorish-Spanish structures have superseded the princely palaces and the mansions of the gentry, and that the straight American doorway and triangular arch are replaced by the Arab-Hispano arch; but if the ancient palaces are a ruinous mass, the huts of the peasantry cluster now as of old around the manor-house. Religion alone has changed; the church has succeeded to the temple without replacing it; the Christian dogma seems cold and arid to a singularly mystic people, who in the days of their national life peopled the forests with votive chapels and mysterious voices.
To continue: we reach safely Sac-Akal, a wretched hacienda lost in a trackless wilderness, when we disappear in the dense vegetation which completely invades our path, and after much difficulty we arrive at the hacienda of Uxmal late in the evening. We are received by the mayor-domo, Don Perez, and, under the auspices of his charming daughter, an excellent supper is soon got ready; when, with feet under the table, and a pleasant talk with our host, the fatigues and harass of the journey are soon forgotten. The hacienda is no longer the dismal habitation of former days; on its site is reared an imposing pile of building, containing lofty apartments, surrounded by open cloisters. A sugar factory gives employment to a large number of hands, while a tramway connects it with the sugar plantations, and facilitates the transport to the mill. All is bustle, movement, and noise; but the place is now as unhealthy as ever, and the mayor-domo himself is a martyr to fever and ague.
The ruins are some two thousand yards beyond. We set out the next day to visit them; but the aspect of these old palaces, which I had looked forward to visiting with so much anticipation, was most disappointing. Owing to the vegetation which is suffered to clothe everything with its thick green mantle, the general outline of the city, nay, an entire structure, is no longer discernible. From their state of good preservation some monuments at Uxmal seem to belong to the revival we noticed at Kabah, and to be more recent than those at Chichen.
The place has been so often visited and written about that we will limit ourselves with describing the palaces reproduced in our cuts, noticing, at the same time, any fresh indication in support of our theory.
The Governor’s Palace, reared on three successive colossal terraces, is the most extensive, the best known, and the most magnificent monument of Central America; its ornamentation is in turns simple or very elaborate. The frieze, which runs in a line of 325 feet, having a row of colossal heads, divided in panels, filled alternately with grecques in high relief, and diamond or lattice-work, is most striking in its effect. The palace looks new, although it has been abandoned for over three hundred years; and it would be entire had it not been for the vandalism of its owners, who used the stones of the basement for the erection of their hacienda.
The youthful appearance of this edifice is obvious to the observer, for monuments, like men, carry more or less their age on their countenance, which a thoughtful mind can easily read. Their wrinkles are seen in the fissures of their walls, in their stones eaten away by the elements, whilst the moss, the trees, and the lianas mantling over them, complete their hoary exterior.
A tradition derives the name of Uxmal from a word meaning “thrice built;” whether the town was demolished and reconstructed, or whether its monuments were built three times, does not appear. The latter version would indicate the Indian method of building. In fact, this is seen in all our drawings of the palace, where the fallen edifice shows that the inner wall is in a perfect state of preservation, forming an independent work. These inner walls formed the apartments of the edifice, and in all probability were perpendicular to a height of some 6 to 9 feet, when the side walls began to approach each other so as to form the false vault (triangular arch) of the double range of apartments of the palace.
