CHAPTER XVIII.
CHICHEN-ITZA.
Chichen-Itza—El Castillo—General Survey—A Maya City—Aguilar—Historical Jottings—Montejo’s Expedition—Historians—Their Contradictions—Chichen Deserted—The Conqueror’s Retreat—The Nunnery—Impressions and Photographs—Terrestrial Haloes—An Unexpected Visitor—Electric Telegraph—Akab-Sib—Prison—Caracol—Cenotés—Ruined Temples—The Temple of the Sacred Cenoté—Tennis-Court—Monuments Described—Portico—Paintings—Bas-reliefs—New Analogy—The Tlalocs of Chichen and of the Uplands—Market-place—End of Our Labours—Col. Triconis.
The ruins of Chichen are two miles east of Pisté, and were used as pasture for the cattle of the inhabitants, who at stated periods had the woods cut down, when the monuments were easily distinguished. It was a favourite place, to the prejudice of the palaces and the sculptures, which were made the butt by the visitors to shoot at; but since the destruction of Pisté, nature again reigns supreme; every sign of the buildings has disappeared, and the jungle has become so impassable, that twenty men were required to open the old path.
This was not my first visit to Chichen, nevertheless my emotion was profound on beholding again the gigantic outline of El Castillo, which we had decided beforehand should be our headquarters, as from its elevated position it offered many strategical advantages, which would secure us against surprise. It was with considerable difficulty that we climbed the steps, which are steep and completely invaded by a vigorous vegetation; as for our great quantity of baggage, none but nimble, sure-footed natives could have succeeded in hauling it up on to the platform of the monument.
Our next thought was how to dispose of ourselves. The interior of El Castillo consists of a rectangular corridor, running along two-thirds of the edifice, pierced east, south, and west by three large apertures, and a gallery giving access to a great hall closed in on every side. We very stupidly gave up the latter to our men, with the idea that we should be cooler and have more air in the open gallery, not taking into consideration that at this altitude, whichever way the wind blew, it would sweep in upon us in fearful blasts, causing perpetual sneezing, coughing, and freezing the very life out of us.
The day was spent unpacking and classifying, and at suppertime we discovered that our cook, who was to have come from Valladolid, had failed us; food we had in tins, but no water, having left our cantaros at Citas, so that we were obliged to go without soup, coffee, or our evening tub.
It may seem unworthy to have been put out by such trivial details with the grand spectacle we had before us: a glorious moon had risen, sailing on her course with her brilliant retinue of scintillating stars, illuminating the vast wooded expanse, like a boundless, heaving ocean on a calm day; fragments of walls, mounds, eminences, shrouded in a sombre vegetation, were distinctly visible, which I pointed out one by one to my companions who, unlike myself, beheld them for the first time. El Castillo occupies nearly the centre of the ruins; below it to the east was the Market-place, and two small palaces which belonged to it; to the north, a stately but ruinous building, the cenoté and the temple attached; to the north-west, the famous Tennis-court; to the west and south-west, the Chichan-Chob, the Caracol and the other cenoté, the Nuns’ Palace, the Akab-Sib; and farther south, the hacienda, which has long been abandoned.
We were conversing in subdued tones of the mysterious past of this dead city, which mayhap our studies and explorations would bring to life again; all was hushed, and the death-like silence was only broken at regular intervals by the cry of our sentinels; and these very cries carried us back to the far-gone days, when the city was perhaps similarly guarded against a sudden inroad from her jealous neighbours.
The morning effects of light and shade were no less beautiful; the broad level wrapped in a transparent mist, pierced here and there by the pyramids and the wooded eminences, looked like a whitening sea interspersed with green islets; while the horizon was gilded with the brightness of the rising sun, who seemed to create, to raise suddenly into life all the objects touched with his golden wand; presently, like a mighty giant he tore asunder and burnt up the white vapour, and lit up the whole sky.