Were it not for the mysterious spirit of “los antiguos,” which seems to fill the whole country, the landscape to a less enthusiastic explorer must appear dreary and melancholy in the extreme. We pass eminences on our right on which once stood noble temples; these remains carry me back to the time when I first visited these parts, and when these ruins fixed my resolve to make archæology the business of my life. Next came a few straggling hamlets; groups of dark women in short petticoats, and naked urchins, gaze on us with wondering eyes as they stand at the entrance of their huts while we speed along. We reach Merida after a run of three hours over a distance of ten leagues, where we learn that no hotel or house is to be found, and it is only after searching the whole place that we can at last secure a room of some fifteen feet square, in which my two companions and myself have to settle down. There is but one atrociously bad restaurant where to get any kind of food; our thoughts, however, are taken up with exploring the ruins rather than with a good maître d’hôtel; we find, besides, a small Anglo-American colony, and in their midst our abominable fare is soon forgotten.
Francisco de Montejo, who founded Merida, had occupied Chichen in 1527, but had been compelled to abandon it and seek reinforcements in Mexico. On his return he was enabled, through a traitorous cacique, to establish himself here, and built Merida in 1542. The conquest of Yucatan was longer and beset with greater difficulties than that of Mexico; here the Spaniards were continually threatened by a warlike population, ever on the alert to raise the standard of rebellion. The history of this people can only be read on the monuments they have left, which have given rise to so many divergent hypotheses. Yet documents were not wanting, and had the religious zeal of the men of that time been less ill-judged, they would have found in the various and multiform manuscripts, in the charts or maps, in the idols, in the pottery and living traditions, ample and reliable materials from which to write an exhaustive history of the Maya civilisation. But the Spaniards were more careful to demolish than to preserve. Zumarraga, Bishop of Mexico, destroyed all the Aztec annals he could lay his hand upon, and Landa, Bishop of Merida, made an auto-da-fé of all the monuments he could collect, having done which, he set himself to writing his history, “De las Cosas de Yucatan.”[104]
All there now remains for us are mere gleanings, the interpretation of certain passages in this very Landa, in Cogolludo and Herrera, and above all by a careful comparison between these monuments and bas-reliefs with those we already know; for with their help only can we hope to reconstruct a past which becomes more familiar the more it is studied. These monuments have been endowed with fabulous antiquity; whereas, on the strength of my explorations, I assert that they are comparatively recent.
Merida stands on the site of ancient Ti-hoo or T-hoo, one of the chief cities of the peninsula; but nothing positive is known, and tradition is almost silent respecting it. If we are to believe the Spaniards, it had long been abandoned on their arrival; but this is not borne out by facts, for although they beheld a dense vegetation amidst the pyramids, the edifices on their summits were entire;[105] moreover, Montejo was able to quarter his troops here, as well as the Indian contingent from Mani. Furthermore, Eligio Ancona, the modern Yucatec historian, describes a celebrated sanctuary known as H-Chun-Caan, “The centre and foundation of heaven,” which was the object of great veneration; it follows therefore that its imposing ceremonies were presided over by revered and powerful priests, that the temples and palaces in Merida were standing after the arrival of the Spaniards,[106] although not in the vast proportions assigned to them by the Abbé Brasseur, whose lively imagination is apt to lead him astray.
Merida was built with the materials of the Indian city, and like all the Spanish places of the New World, is but a huge chess-board, with streets running at right angles, consisting of square blocks of buildings. The centre is occupied by a large plaza, having a waterless fountain and gardens, the flowers of which are perishing for want of water; as for the young trees planted about, they doubtless will afford shade to future generations; for the present the glare of this open space is intolerable. When I visited it some twenty years ago, if not so symmetrical it was certainly more picturesque. In the plaza are found the municipal palace and the cathedral,
MONTEJO’S HOUSE, MERIDA. of monumental proportions for a place of 30,000 souls; it numbered, probably, only the third of this when it was built in 1598. Its erection cost the pious Meridans £60,000, equivalent at the present day to fifteen times that sum, but it is doubtful if even with its greater population so large a sum could now be raised. The front, 179 feet wide, is occupied by a central pavilion in which the principal entrance intervenes, ornamented by an indifferent Corinthian portico, over which, at a height of some 97 feet, a great vaulted arch supports an elegant gallery; on each side of the pavilion are two steeples with a number of galleries narrowing in upward succession, forming with their balustrades a pleasing contrast to the plain façade. The interior of the church, 289 feet long, is imposing; it consists of three naves with round arches, supported by twelve immense columns, and twenty of like dimensions imbedded in the walls. Small chapels run along the sides, and the structure altogether bears the impress of solidity which is so conspicuous a feature of the conquerors’ work. To the south of the square stands Montejo’s house, bearing the date of 1541; it is the oldest in Merida, and an interesting specimen of that epoch. It may be worthy of mention that the sculptures in this house are as defaced as those of the Indian monuments, which seems to indicate similarity of date. The pillars on each side of the entrance bear aloft two Spanish soldiers, whilst on the first floor, by the window, knights armed cap-à-pie are standing on two recumbent Indians, personating the subjugation of the race. The façade with its columns, statues, arabesques, and shields, is a fair specimen of American Renaissance; but if the composition was Spanish, the work, probably, was due to Indian hands, for at the time of its erection the Spaniards were a handful of soldiers or adventurers, whose pride would not have suffered them to do any manual labour.
CATHEDRAL.
Artisans were plentiful among the Mayas, who have interspersed their country with so many remarkable monuments, and whose building aptitude is notable even at the present day. Beside these edifices the town, with very few exceptions, is an assemblage of low houses having but the ground floor, while all the windows are stoutly grated to secure the inmates against housebreakers. But the impression produced by this unpromising exterior soon gives place to agreeable surprise on being introduced into spacious apartments opening on the “patio,” encompassed by Moorish cloisters. The patios are planted with flowers, shrubs, and palm-trees, which, towering above the terraced roofs, break the monotonous lines of the town panorama. Our cut shows Don Alvaro Peon’s house with its charming gallery on the first floor.