CHAPTER XII.
COMALCALCO.
Description of Comalcalco—Fonda—Manners—Climate—Masks and Figures—Ruins—El Blasillo—Old Palaces Visited—Bricks and Bridges—Cemented Roads—Great Pyramid and its Monuments—Palace Described—Vases and Jicaras—Tecomates—Towers—Bas-reliefs—Small Pyramids and Temples—Reflexions—Disappearance of Indian Populations—Return to S. Juan—Don Candido—El Carmen—A Rich Wood-cutter.
The road from Paraïso to Comalcalco is no road at all, a veritable “Slough of Despond,” in which our horses sink to the hocks, sometimes to the girths, but as the natives see nothing to find fault in it, there is little hope of improvement. The road follows the course of Rio Seco, ancient Tabasco to our right, and three hours’ march brings us to Comalcalco, a little modern town situated on an island of the river, some ninety miles north-west of S. Juan Bautista, and twenty-four, as a bird flies, from the seaboard. The place, including the outskirts, numbers some two thousand inhabitants; the streets are straight, the houses low and built with bricks. The banks of the lagoons are clad with thick long grass, in which naked urchins and ducks innumerable seem to luxuriate all day long, alternating with plunges into the water, puffing at cigars nearly as big as themselves. Comalcalco is the very Elysium of life for both ducks and urchins.
Our “fonda” is not exactly luxurious, but the civility of the people, and the excellent cooking of our hostess, a handsome woman of five-and-twenty, combine to make life bearable. True, our beds are not water-proof, for the water gets in every time it rains, whilst the quacking of the ducks awakes us twenty times of a night; but as this seems to be the normal state of things, as nobody appears to mind, it behoves us not to be over fastidious in a country in which things are taken mighty easy. Salt, owing to the excessively damp climate, is liquid, and served in bottles. The terrible Norte is nearly as much felt here as in Vera Cruz; it brings invariably persistent rain, waterspouts, trebunadas, and frightful squalls. My camera has created a furore in this out-of-the-way place, and we are besieged all day with people wanting their portraits taken, to the delight of our “tendero”; meanwhile valuable time is spent in explanations and refusals before we can rid ourselves of these simple, troublesome people. No sooner, however, did our mission become known, than everybody was eager to come as guides, and workmen were obtained with the greatest facility.
The local doctor speaks enthusiastically of the ruins lying some six miles north-east of this place, and about a mile and a half from the river. Masks, pottery, idols of the description found at Teotihuacan, have been brought to light; but what was deemed far more important by the natives, an inexhaustible mine of baked bricks of every size, with which the houses of the village have been built, and the main walk paved. When these excavations first began, statues, stones of sacrifice (indicative of later times), columns, huge flags, and cement were unearthed. Unfortunately the whole was destroyed by these ignorant people.
The ruins consist in groups of pyramids of different dimensions, so extensive as to cover twenty-four miles, and on this account are called the “Cordillera” by the natives. A country gentleman tells me that he has counted over three hundred of these artificial mounds on his own property, and that they were built with mud and baked bricks.
Besides these ruins others are to be met at Blasillo, situated on the Toltec march of migration, answering the description given by Bernal Diaz regarding Tonala. I hear from a montanero, who first discovered them, that an important Indian city formerly existed there, whose monuments, like those of Comalcalco, consist of caryatides, columns, and statues; but in this abominable weather it is utterly impossible to visit them. This city having the same origin, the same environment with Comalcalco, must have the same origin; and Toltec migration, Toltec civilising influence being admitted as well as proved, these two cities would be among the first built by them after their great migration, for the simple reason that they stand nearest their point of departure, as the most distant would mark their later settlements; and this our investigations will amply demonstrate.
We set out for the ruins, following for a time the right bank of the Rio Seco; then a path across fields, bordered with large yellow and red flowers. We notice to our right and left thick layers of cement, the remains of the old Indian road which connected the city with the river. We cross rivulets formerly spanned by bridges, of which bricks and a corbel vault are still visible.