“Then I am sold, robbed, done out of my find,” I cried in my disappointment, as though the cemetery were my property.
“But,” objected the old volcanero softly, “only a few loads of detritus were taken away; there must be more to come out.”
Acting on advice which seemed so reasonable, I soon discovered numerous tepalcates, fragments of vases, cups, and various potteries; we had lost so much time, however, in looking about, that we were soon obliged to abandon the mountain, trusting in what the morrow would bring forth.
A few words about our encampment may not be out of place here. The men occupied an open shed, with a huge chimney in the centre, where twice a day they prepared their own food, consisting of a small quantity of meat and the indispensable tortilla, the whole washed down with a good drop of mezcal. They slept on trusses of dry grass and mats. We were not better housed than the men, whilst our cooking was a great deal worse; if our shed was not quite so open, it was sufficiently so to admit the bitter night cold; the wind came in at all the windows unprotected by any shutters, through the thousand cracks of the ill-jointed enclosure, searing our faces and causing incessant sneezing. Although whole trees were burnt in the huge chimney, it made no appreciable difference in the atmosphere of the room, and as there was no tunnel we were nearly suffocated by the smoke, which, hovering about us, only escaped through the roof. At this altitude, with six or seven degrees below zero (Centigrade) at night, our bed of guttapercha felt like icicles, and every time I came in direct contact with it, I instantly awoke.
The food was plentiful, for the Tlacualero, our “errand-man,” went twice a day to Amecameca to fetch what was required for the whole party; and although the distance was fifteen leagues over a mountain path, I never knew him late. But if provisions were abundant, Julian’s cooking was so extraordinarily bad, that the only one who seemed to enjoy and thrive on it was the dog d’Artagnan; to him it was a matter of indifference if cutlets and beefsteaks were burnt to a cinder, if beans were transformed into sticks—nothing came amiss. As for us, not wishing to starve, we were obliged at last to do the cooking ourselves and confine our Calino to “washing up.” Not that he was a bad fellow, far from it; he deserved in every respect the excellent character I had received with him for honesty, but a man may have given satisfaction as a sacristan, as no doubt he had, and yet be a sorry cook.
The chill nights were certainly trying, but they were made up to us by the glorious mornings; we rose with the first light of day; the sun, still invisible to us, was already greeting the summit of the great volcano, from which rose a light vapour. We watched the snow changing from a delicate pink to dazzling white; the crest of El Fraile, as yet wrapped in nocturnal mists, showed gray against a transparent blue sky, whilst its base, shrouded by a deep fringe of funeral pines, gradually emerged from their gloom at the sun’s magic touch. To the east the plain of Puebla, and far away on the horizon the imposing cone of Orizaba, whilst in the middle distance the severe outline of Malinche seemed to divide the sky. The city de los Angeles, with her square massive buildings, her steeples, cupolas, the towers of the cathedral, the stately pyramid of Cholula rose at our feet bathed in a flood of morning light.
VASES FOUND AT TENENEPANCO.
The old Indian proved a true prophet; my predecessors had not removed everything; trenches branching off in every direction so as to embrace the whole plateau were at once made and brought to light wholly undisturbed tombs. The first was that of a woman whose head I was able to preserve intact: the bones of all the rest were unfortunately reduced to a gelatinous paste. The dead were buried at a depth varying from some two feet to four feet eight inches; the bodies doubled up, both chin and arms resting on their knees; hands and feet were gone. Within the tomb, over the head, was a sebile, or hollow terra-cotta plate, two small black earthen horns, besides several vases. The whole was damp and moist, the vases filled with earth and water, and the utmost care was required in taking up such fragile objects. They soon, however, hardened by exposure, when they could be easily and safely cleaned and packed. As far as could be judged from the bones and pottery, one of the tombs contained the bodies of a man and a woman. Another, probably that of a chief, had no human remains left, but I found a great variety of precious objects, made of chalchihuitl, a hard green stone, which takes a fine polish, a kind of jade or serpentine, much valued by the Indians; besides these were numerous arrows of obsidian, beads for necklaces, some of hard stone, some of terra-cotta, and a few small figures. A singular circumstance marked this tomb; not a single bead, not a single ornament but was broken, presumably at the time of the burial, as a token of grief. It is at least the only plausible solution which can be given for so many hard and resisting objects having been systematically destroyed.
Moreover, by far the largest proportion of these granite or porphyry beads, whether owing to their great antiquity or their having lain in a very destructive soil, crumbled away at our touch. Broadly speaking, the tombs which had not been disturbed were two to one; the dead had been buried without any regard to their position.