MAYA FORTIFICATIONS.
Of the interior arrangement of the Yucatec towns we are told nothing except that the temples, palaces, and houses of the nobility were in the centre, with the dwellings of the common people grouped about them, and that the streets were well kept.[1141] Some of them must, however, have been very large and have contained fine buildings. During Córdova's voyage on the coast of Yucatan a city was seen which, says Peter Martyr, "for the hugenesse thereof they call Cayrus, of Cayrus the Metropolis of Ægipt: where they find turreted houses, stately tēples, wel paued wayes & streets where marts and faires for trade of merchandise were kept."[1142] During Grijalva's voyage a city, the same one perhaps, was seen, which Diaz, the chaplain of the expedition, says was as 'large as the city of Seville.'[1143] None of the Yucatec cities appear to have been located with any view to defense, or to to have been provided with fortifications of any description.[1144] The towns of Guatemala, on the other hand, were very strongly fortified, both artificially and by the site selected. Juarros thus describes the city of Utatlan in Guatemala: "it was surrounded by a deep ravine that formed a natural fosse, leaving only two very narrow roads as entrances to the city, both of which were so well defended by the castle of Resguardo, as to render it impregnable. The centre of the city was occupied by the royal palace, which was surrounded by the houses of the nobility; the extremities were inhabited by the plebeians. The streets were very narrow, but the place was so populous, as to enable the king to draw from it alone, no less than 72,000 combatants, to oppose the progress of the Spaniards. It contained many very sumptuous edifices, the most superb of them was a seminary, where between 5 and 6000 children were educated; they were all maintained and provided for at the charge of the royal treasury; their instruction was superintended by 70 masters and professors. The castle of the Atalaya was a remarkable structure, which being raised four stories high, was capable of furnishing quarters for a very strong garrison. The castle of Resguardo was not inferior to the other; it extended 188 paces in front, 230 in depth, and was 5 stories high. The grand alcazar, or palace of the kings of Quiché, surpassed every other edifice, and in the opinion of Torquemada, it could compete in opulence with that of Montezuma in Mexico, or that of the Incas in Cuzco. The front of this building extended from east to west 376 geometrical paces, and in depth 728; it was constructed of hewn stone of different colors; its form was elegant, and altogether most magnificent; there were 6 principal divisions, the first contained lodgings for a numerous troop of lancers, archers, and other well disciplined troops, constituting the royal body guard; the second was destined to the accommodation of the princes, and relations of the king, who dwelt in it, and were served with regal splendour, as long as they remained unmarried; the third was appropriated to the use of the king, and contained distinct suits of apartments, for the mornings, evenings, and nights. In one of the saloons stood the throne, under four canopies of plumage, the ascent to it was by several steps; in this part of the palace were, the treasury, the tribunals of the judges, the armory, the gardens, aviaries, and menageries, with all the requisite offices appending to each department. The 4th and 5th divisions were occupied by the queens and royal concubines; they were necessarily of great extent, from the immense number of apartments requisite for the accommodation of so many females, who were all maintained in a style of sumptuous magnificence, gardens for their recreation, baths, and proper places for breeding geese, that were kept for the sole purpose of furnishing feathers, with which hangings, coverings, and other similar ornamental articles, were made. Contiguous to this division was the sixth and last; this was the residence of the king's daughters and other females of the blood royal, where they were educated and attended in a manner suitable to their rank."[1145]
Patinamit, the Cakchiquel capital, was nearly three leagues in circumference. It was situated upon a plateau surrounded by deep ravines which could be crossed at only one point by a narrow causeway which terminated in two gates of stone, one on the outside and the other on the inside of the thick wall of the city. The streets were broad and straight, and crossed each other at right angles. The town was divided from north to south into two parts by a ditch nine feet deep, with a wall of masonry about three feet high on each side. This ditch served to divide the nobles from the commoners, the former class living in the eastern section, and the latter in the western.[1146]
Peter Martyr says of the cities of Nicaragua: "Large and great streetes guarde the frontes of the Kinges courts, according to the disposition and greatnes of their village or towne. If the town consist of many houses, they haue also little ones, in which, the trading neighbours distant from the Court may meete together. The chiefe noble mens houses compasse and inclose the kinges streete on euery side: in the middle site whereof one is erected which the Goldesmithes inhabite."[1147]
The Mayas constructed excellent and desirable roads all over the face of the country. The most remarkable of these were the great highways used by the pilgrims visiting the sacred island of Cozumel; these roads, four in number, traversed the peninsula in different directions, and finally met at a point upon the coast opposite the island.[1148] Diego de Godoi, in a letter to Cortés, states that he and his party came to a place in the mountains of Chiapas, where the smooth and slippery rock sloped down to the edge of a precipice, and which would have been quite impassable had not the Indians made a road with branches and trunks of trees. On the side of the precipice they erected a strong wooden railing, and then made all level with earth.[1149]
MAYA TEMPLES.
Of the Maya temples very little is said. There was one at Chichen Itza which had four great staircases, each being thirty-three feet wide and having ninety-one steps, very difficult of ascent. The steps were of the same height and width as ours. On both sides of each stairway was a low balustrade, two feet wide, made of good stone, like the rest of the building. The edifice was not sharp-cornered, because from the ground upward between the balustrades the cubic blocks were rounded, ascending by degrees and elegantly narrowing the building. There was at the foot of each balustrade a fierce serpent's head very strangely worked. On the top of the edifice there was a platform, on which stood a building forty-three feet by forty-nine feet, and about twenty feet high, having only a single doorway in the centre of each front. The doorways on the east, west and south, opened into a corridor six feet wide, which extended without partition walls round the three corresponding sides of the edifice; the northern doorway gave access to a corridor forty feet long and six and a third feet wide. Through the centre of the rear wall of this corridor a doorway opened into a room twelve feet nine inches by nineteen feet eight inches, and seventeen feet high; its ceiling was formed by two transverse arches supported by immense carved beams of zapote-wood, stretched across the room and resting, each at its centre, on two square pillars.[1150] The island of Cozumel was especially devoted to religious observances, and was annually visited by great numbers of pilgrims; there were therefore more religious edifices here than elsewhere. Among them is mentioned a square tower, with four windows, and hollow at the top; at the back was a room in which the sacred implements were kept; it was surrounded by an enclosure, in the middle of which stood a cross nine feet high, representing the God of rain.[1151] Other temples so closely resembled those of Mexico as to need no further description here.[1152]
NICARAGUAN TEMPLES.
The temples of Nicaragua were built of wood and thatched; they contained many low, dark rooms, where the idols were kept and the religious rites performed. Before each temple was a pyramidal mound, on the flat top of which the sacrifices were made in the presence of the whole people.[1153]