REMAINS OF TOWER NO. 2, AND ENTRANCE OF SUBTERRANEOUS HALL.
It seems to us a settled question. Why should monuments constructed in the same way, in the same country, amidst the same vegetation, be in ruins when others are partly standing? Does this prove that they are of more recent date? The same causes acted on all. Everything points to their similarity, to their belonging to the same epoch, to their being the work of the same hand; and if the palaces and temples at Comalcalco were extant and inhabited at the Conquest (and everything seems to prove it), the temples and palaces at Palenque must have been in the same condition.
But the palace and the two towers were not the only monuments on the terrace of the pyramid. No. 5 and No. 6 indicate the site of other buildings now completely ruined, whilst the sides were occupied by small chapels, traces of which are still discernible. The pyramid was in itself a small village, or rather an immense lordly mansion, having a palace, temples, houses, and huts for priests and servants. Facing this pyramid, to the north, hidden by the luxuriant vegetation of a virgin forest (reproduced in our drawing), are three other pyramids, of which two rise to the height of some 22 to 26 feet, and the third from 39 to 45 feet. All were crowned by temples, the walls of which are still standing. The layers of demolished cement leave uncovered the body of the wall, in which I notice bricks ranging from 6 in. by 9 by 1 in thickness, and from about 1 ft. 4 in. by 11 by 1 in. thick, and 1 ft. 11 in. by 1 ft. 8 in. by 1 ft. 2 in. thick. The largest were used for the corners. Hundreds of other pyramids, every one occupied by palaces, stretch as far as the seaboard, buried in the depths of the forest, presenting innumerable monuments to be brought to light, for which years, numerous workmen, an iron constitution, are required for the future explorers. I have shown the way—let others follow.
The stupendous ruins, of which we have had but a glimpse, imply an immense amount of labour, and, as a corollary, a dense population. It is quite clear that the present Tabasco, with a population of 100,000 inhabitants, could not produce monuments so imposing as those at Comalcalco, and this is one of the chief objections brought against the recent date we ascribe to these buildings. But then the question arises, who built them ages before the Conquest, and what became of the numerous population which such monuments presuppose? The genius of the Toltecs which we have studied, the quotations of various authors relating to their southward migration, point to them as the sole and true creators of these buildings which we have even now visited, as also those we shall subsequently explore. They found—facts attest it—a numerous population, which they civilised, and which under their peaceful organisation rapidly increased. They had, at the very outset of their establishment, the cheapest, easiest labour ever known in these hardy, sober, submissive people, who, as we noticed before, could live on two tortillas a day, drink nothing but water, carry enormous loads, or work all day without showing fatigue.
If, then, due regard be had to their numbers, their endurance, and their frugal habits, if it be remembered that New Mexico was built in no time by Cortez, the whole city of Tula reconstructed in six years, most likely by statute-labour when great multitudes were pressed into service, directed by foremen who gave the final polishing touch to the work, the number and the bulk of the monuments they have left will not surprise. That such work could be achieved in a very short time is shown at Teotihuacan, where the pyramids are but an assemblage of mud and rude stones kept together by walls faced with coatings of polished cement.
Furthermore, it is an accepted fact that a high state of civilisation can only be developed in temperate regions; in torrid zones the heat, an almost spontaneous growth, the few wants of man, keep him idle and unfit him for work, and this consideration would, in the absence of any other proof, still point to the Toltecs as the authors of the degree of civilisation observable in these regions. As an instance of the truth of our argument look at India, where a foreign race introduced and implanted a ready-made civilisation in the invaded country, using the conquered race for the construction of its buildings. This theory receives still greater weight when we remember how easily a people which has received its civilisation through another, falls back into its original state of barbarism as soon as left to itself; India, Cambodia, Java, are striking examples.
But it will be asked, What has become of the dense population you speak about? Where are the millions of men who peopled these regions at the time of the Conquest? The causes which contributed to their disappearance are not far to seek. First and foremost, the Spanish invasion and the consequent destruction of the Mexican empire, which so deeply disturbed the organisation of all these peoples as to be felt in the most distant provinces; it was a commotion followed by a profound discouragement and apathy, which told directly and radically on the fecundity of the race. Add to this the intense horror felt for the conquerors—a horror so complete as to cause the natives to abandon the places occupied by the hated foreigners—a stupor so great as to have persisted to the present day. Even now Indian villages are abandoned at the appearance of a Spaniard, and again occupied when he leaves, as was the case at Tayasal when taken by the Spanish general Martin Ursua. So much for moral causes.
As to physical causes, historians will tell us they were due to the unheard-of cruelty of the Spaniards—a cruelty all the more inconceivable that Mendieta ascribes to the natives a mild, simple, submissive, patient disposition, in fact all the Christian virtues so conspicuously absent from their hard taskmasters, who were guilty towards the poor Indians of daily savage acts which dishonour humanity, tearing them from their families and sending them to work the mines in the distant mountains, etc.[87]
Then there were epidemics which swept away vast numbers of Indians: 1st, small-pox in 1521, called by the natives huey-zahuatl, “great leprosy”—half the population succumbed under it; 2nd, measles (sarampion), in 1531, tepiton-zahuatl, small leprosy; 3rd, syphilis; 4th, bloody-flux in 1545, when in Tlascala and Tula 250,000 Indians perished; lastly, the various epidemics of 1564, 1576, 1588, 1595, which carried off over 3,000,000 natives. The same epidemics were felt with greater severity in Tabasco and Yucatan.[88] Herrera gives likewise measles, smallpox, bloody-flux, fever, dysentery, as the main causes of the disappearance of the aborigines;[89] as does Motolinia, who mentions besides the great famine consequent on the taking of Mexico; “encomiendas,” and especially the heavy fiscal burdens imposed on the poor Indians by the Spaniards, burdens which had to be paid under penalty of being tortured to death.[90] Other authorities might be adduced to show that the disappearance of the Indians, if unnatural, is to be explained, it being clear that the great cities, so thickly populated on the arrival of the Spaniards, were almost entirely abandoned, whilst the temples and palaces, left to the mercy of the elements and the ruthless efforts of man, were quickly destroyed. If we could wonder, it is that under such circumstances they resisted so long.