The evening found us at S. Domingo, where we took up our quarters with one of two European families settled here. Again the delay caused by the carriers gave us time to take an impression of two slabs, which were formerly inlaid in the pillars supporting the altar in the Temple of the Cross No. 1. In 1840 Stephens found them in the house of two elderly spinsters, who refused to part with them; but after their death the Municipality declared them public property, and had them put up in the church façade, where they are now to be seen; one of them, however, is broken into three pieces. Their dimensions are 6 feet by about 3 feet. The left slab represents a young man magnificently arrayed; he wears a richly-embroidered cape, a collar and medallion round his neck, a beautiful girdle to his waist; the ends of the maxtli are hanging down front and back, cothurni cover his feet and legs up to the knee. On the upper end of his head-dress is the head of a stork, having a fish in his bill, whilst others are ranged below it.

Left Pillar.Right Pillar.
SCULPTURED STONES, TEMPLE OF THE CROSS NO. 1.

The cross on the altar justifies our seeing in this gorgeously-attired young man another personification of the god of rain, of spring, of verdure and water, symbolised by the fishes and the stork’s head, attributes which are found also on the basement of the Tlaloc of Tacubaya. The other slab represents an old man, clothed in a tiger’s skin, blowing out air, with a serpent round his waist, whose tail curls up behind and coils in front, the well-ascertained attributes of Quetzalcoatl, god of wisdom. Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl are often seen side by side; and we shall meet them in the Temple of the Cross, when we shall be in a position to advance with some show of truth that the same was dedicated to both deities.[91]

After much disagreeable and unavoidable delay, we found ourselves at Palenque, some six and a half miles east of S. Domingo; we start immediately for the ruins, which are made accessible by a path through the woods opened by Don Rodriguez. El Rio Michol, to the north, seems the limit of the ancient city on that side; to the right and left, starting from the Rio, mounds, hillocks, and vestiges of ruins are noticeable. To the south, the Rio Chacamas washes the base of lofty peaks, which, on this side, encompass the last traces of habitations; the path winds up broad rising ground, seemingly artificial. At a turn of the road, the men carrying our baggage admonish us to look at the palace, which we should never have spied out owing to the luxuriant vegetation which completely hides it. But before we describe the ruins, we will say a few words respecting Cortez’ march through Acala and Honduras. Some writers, thinking the former a city, have attempted to identify it with Palenque, an error which we hope to be able to dispel.

In this ill-advised expedition, his personal retinue consisted of two pages, several musicians, dancers, jugglers, and buffoons, showing more of the effeminacy of an Oriental than the valour of a hardy commander. The Spanish force, amongst whom was Guatemozin, the cacique of Tacuba, and a number of Indians as carriers and attendants, was swelled by 3,000 Mexicans.[92] Two ships with supplies were to sail along the coast under the command of Simon de Cuenca. From Goatzacoalco, Cortez followed the coast, halted at Tonala, at Ayagualulco, and seven leagues further crossed a river over a bridge 3,250 feet long; next came Mazapa, whose course runs from Chiapas to Los Dos Brazos. After this point the names mentioned by Diaz are not known; but the march must have been continued along the coast, since inland caciques, some even from distant Teapa, sent Cortez fifty transports with supplies; now the only way for canoes was by El Blanquillo and modern Tabasco. The force must have passed near Frontera or east of it, skirting El Chilapa, an affluent of El Tabasco, and halting at Tepetitan at the head of Chilapa, called next at Iztapan and Acala Mayor, where Cortez was informed by the natives that they would have three large streams and three smaller ones to cross; probably the Usumacinta and its tributaries. That this was the line of march is certain, for had Cortez passed Palenque, he would have had no rivers to cross, and could have marched south without obstacles; whereas the compass and the map furnished the only clue to extricate them from the gloomy labyrinth in which they were involved, and Cortez and his officers, with their chart on the ground, anxiously studied the probable direction of their route, which they decided was to be in an eastern direction.

With the aid of the map furnished by the Indians, and such guides as they could pick up, they continued their march through other villages, and must have passed Ziguatepec, sixteen leagues further, when Cortez inquired of the caciques where the deep and large river he saw discharged itself, and whether they had observed vessels sailing on the sea. He was told that the river discharged itself at Xicalango, situated on one of the tributaries of the Usumacinta, some twenty or twenty-five leagues from Palenque as a bird flies—a considerable distance in these wooded regions.

From Ziguatepec Cortez sent two of his followers to look for the ships, which had orders to wait at Xicalango; but when they reached the place they found the crews had been massacred and the ships destroyed by the Indians.

The Spaniards next halted at Acalan, a district composed of some twenty villages; very unlike the approaches to Palenque, which is situated on the first rising ground of the Cordillera. Cogolludo,[93] who follows Herrera, says that the capital of the great province of Acalan was Izancanac, whose king, Apoxpalon, had a palace sufficiently large to accommodate all the Spaniards without displacing the inmates, and that the multitudes of Indian auxiliaries were quartered in the town. This does not tally with what is known of Palenque, where, save the palace, all the houses and temples were too small ever to have made it possible to accommodate large numbers, unless they were distributed all over the town.

All the various indications we can glean with regard to Izancanac, lead us to assume that it was situated somewhere on the banks of S. Pedro, a confluent of the Usumacinta, an assumption which becomes almost a certainty, since that was the direct road to Honduras, and still more so when we find that they held on their toilsome way in the direction of Peten, reaching Chaltuna and Tayasal after three or four days’ march, to do which, had they come from Palenque, they must have employed at least twenty days.

But what has become of Izancanac? Where are the great buildings which could accommodate hundreds of people? The very site is unknown, whilst Palenque is still to be seen.[94] Although it is so difficult to determine the route held by Cortez, it affords, nevertheless, the best account we have relating to the organisation of the regions he traversed. He observed throughout independent caciques, a country divided into more or less important provinces, making it probable that the civilising and powerful influence which had knit these peoples into a mighty empire, had long ceased to be felt among these restless populations which, left to their warlike instincts, lived in constant warfare, as, for instance, in Yucatan after the fall of the dominant Cocomes and Tutulxius.