At Rosario, eight or ten miles south of the same lake, we have a bare mention of a beautiful aqueduct in ruins.[IV-24] Twenty-five or thirty miles west of the lake, at the western foot of the volcano of Fuego, Don José María Asmitia, a Guatemalan official of antiquarian tendencies, reports the discovery on his estate of a well-preserved aqueduct, constructed of hewn stone and mortar, together with nine stone idols each six feet in height. He proposed to make, at an early date, more thorough explorations in that vicinity. Like other explorers he had his theory, although he had not personally seen even the relics on his own estate; deriving the American culture from a Carthaginian source.[IV-25] Farther south on the Pacific lowlands, at a point called Calche, between Escuintla and Suchiltepeques, the Abbé Brasseur speaks of a pyramid cut from solid stone, which had been seen by many Guatemalans.[IV-26]
RUINS OF PATINAMIT.
Passing now north-westward to the region lying about Lake Atitlan, and noting that the town of Sololá on the northern lake-shore is said to be built on the ruins of the aboriginal Tecpan Atitlan,[IV-27] we come to the ruins of the ancient Patinamit, 'the city', the Cakchiquel capital. It is near[IV-28] the modern town of Tecpan Guatemala, fifteen miles south-east of the lake, and forty miles north-west of Guatemala. The aboriginal town, to which Brasseur de Bourbourg would assign a very ancient, pre-Toltec origin, was inhabited down to the time when the conquistadores came, and was by them destroyed. With the state of the city as found and described by them, I have, of course, nothing to do in this volume, having simply to record the condition of the ruins as observed at subsequent periods, although in the descriptions extant the two phases of the city's condition are considerably confounded. The remains are found on a level plateau having an area of several square miles, and surrounded by a ravine from one hundred to four hundred feet in depth, with precipitous sides. The plateau is accessible at one point only by a path artificially cut in the side of the barranca, twenty to thirty feet deep, and only wide enough to permit the passage of a single horseman. At the time of Mr Stephens' visit nothing was visible but confused irregular masses, or mounds, of fallen walls, among which, however, could still be made out the foundations of two buildings, one of them fifty by one hundred feet. Two sculptured figures were pointed out by the natives, lying on the ground, on one of which the nose and eyes of some animal were discernible. Fuentes, who wrote in the century following the conquest, observed, during his examination of the city, more definite traces of its former grandeur. Two gates of chay-stone afforded entrance to the narrow passage which led up to the plateau; a coating, or layer, of clay covered the soil to a depth of two feet; and a trench six or eight feet deep, faced with stone and having also a breastwork of masonry three feet high, running north and south across the table, divided the city's site into two portions, inhabited, as is suggested, respectively by the plebeian and aristocratic classes of its original citizens. The street-lines, crossing each other at right angles, were traceable, indicating that the city was regularly laid out in blocks. One of the structures whose foundations were then to be seen was a hundred yards square, besides which there remained the ruins of what is described as a palace, and of several houses. West of the city, on a mound six feet high, was "a pedestal formed of a shining substance, resembling glass." Brasseur also mentions 'vastes souterrains,' which, as usual, he does not deign farther to describe. The modern town is built to a considerable extent, and its streets are paved, with fragments of the hewn stone from Patinamit, which have been carried piece by piece on the backs of natives up and down the sides of the barranca. The aborigines still look with feelings of superstitious respect on this memorial of their ancestral glory, and at times their faithful ears detect the chimes of bells proceeding from beneath the hill. A famous black stone was, in the days of aboriginal independence, an object of great veneration in the Cakchiquel religious rites connected with the fate of prisoners, its shrine being in the depths of a dark ravine near at hand. In Fuentes' time it had been consecrated by the Catholic bishop and placed on the altar of the church. He describes it as of singular beauty and about eighteen inches square. Stephens found it still on the altar, the object of the people's jealous veneration; and when his Spanish companion had, with sacrilegious hand, to the infinite terror of the parish priest, ripped open the cotton sack in which the relic was enveloped, there appeared only a plain piece of ordinary slate measuring ten by fourteen inches. Brasseur de Bourbourg, however, believes that the former visitors were both in error, and that the original black stone was never permitted to fall into the hands of the Spanish unbelievers.[IV-29] At Patzun, a native pueblo near Tecpan Guatemala, two mounds were noticed, but not opened.[IV-30]
Quezaltenango, the aboriginal Xelahuh, is some twenty-five or thirty miles westward from Lake Atitlan. In the days of Quiché power this city was one of the largest and most powerful in the land. I find no evidence that any remains of the town itself are to be seen, though Wappäus speaks of such remains, even classing them with the most ancient type of Guatemalan antiquities. Two fortresses in this vicinity, however, Olintepec and Parrazquin, supposed to have guarded the approaches to Xelahuh, are said to have left some traces of their former strength.[IV-31]
RUINS OF UTATLAN.
El Sacrificatorio at Utatlan.
Thirty miles farther back in the mountains north-eastward from Quezaltenango, toward the confines of Vera Paz, was Utatlan, 'road of the waters,' in the native language Gumarcaah, the Quiché capital and stronghold, at the modern town of Santa Cruz del Quiché. This city was the richest and most magnificent found by the Spaniards south of Mexico, and at the time of its destruction by them was, unlike most aboriginal American towns, in its highest state of prosperity. Slight as are the ruins that remain, they are sufficient to show that the Spanish accounts of the city's original splendor were not greatly exaggerated; this, with the contrasts which these ruins present in the absence of statues, sculpture, and hieroglyphics, and in other respects, when compared with those of Quirigua and Copan, constitutes their chief importance in archæological investigations. Like Patinamit, Utatlan stood on a plateau, or mesa, bounded by a deep ravine on every side, a part of which ravine is believed to be of artificial construction. The barranca can only be crossed and the site of the city reached at one point, from the south-east. Guarding this single approach, at the distance of about half a mile from the village of Santa Cruz, are the ruins of a long line of structures of carefully laid hewn stone, evidently intended as fortifications and connected one with another by a ditch. Within this line and more immediately guarding the passage, is an immense fortress, El Resguardo, one hundred and twenty feet high, in the form of a square-based pyramidal structure, with three ranges of terraces, and steps leading up from one to another. A stone wall, plastered with a hard cement, incloses the area of the summit platform, in the centre of which rises a tower furnished with steps, which were also originally covered with cement. Crossing the barranca from the fort Resguardo, we find the table which was the site of the ancient city covered throughout its whole extent with shapeless masses of ruins, among which the foundations of a few structures only can be definitely made out. The chief edifice, known as the grand castle, or palace, of the Quiché kings, and said to have been in round numbers eleven hundred by twenty-two hundred feet, occupied a central position. Its upper portions have been carried away and used in the construction of the modern town, but in 1810, if we may trust the cura of the parish, the building was still entire. The floors remain, covered with a hard and durable cement, and also fragments of the partition walls sufficient to indicate something of the original ground plan. A plaster of finer quality than that employed on the floors and pyramids, covers the inner walls, with evident traces of having been colored or painted. The ruins of a fountain appear in an open court-yard, also paved with cement. Another structure, El Sacrificatorio, still visible, is a pyramid of stone sixty-six feet square at the base and, in its present state, thirty-three feet high, the plan and elevation of which are shown in the cuts. Each side except the western is ascended by a flight of nineteen steps, each step eight inches wide and seventeen inches high. The western side is covered with stucco, laid on, as is ascertained by careful examination, in several successive coatings, each painted with ornamental figures, among which the body of a leopard only could be distinguished. The pyramid is supported by a buttress in each of the four corners, diminishing in size toward the top. The summit is in ruins, but our knowledge of the Quiché religious ceremonies, as set forth in the preceding volume of this work, leaves little doubt that this was a place of sacrifice and supported an altar. No sculpture has been found in connection with the ruins of Utatlan. Its absence is certainly remarkable; but it is to be noted that the natives of this region have always been of a haughty, unsubdued spirit, ardently attached to the memory of their ancestors; and the destruction or concealment of their idols with a view to keep them from the sacrilegious touch and gaze of the white man, would be in accordance with their well-known character. They have the greatest respect for the holy pyramid on the plateau, and at one time when the reported discovery of a golden image prompted the destruction of the palace in search of treasure, the popular indignation on the part of the natives presaged a serious revolt and compelled the abandonment of the scheme, not, however, until the walls had been razed. Flint arrow-heads are mentioned as of frequent occurrence among the débris of fortifications outside the barranca, and a Spanish explorer in 1834 found a sitting figure twelve inches high, and two heads of terra cotta exceedingly hard, smooth, and of good workmanship. One of the heads was solid, the other and the idol were hollow. The annexed cut shows the sitting figure. Under one of the buildings is an opening to what the natives represented as a subterranean passage leading by an hour's journey to Mexico, but which only revealed to Mr Stephens, who entered it, the presence of a roof formed by overlapping stones. This form of arch will be described in detail when I come to speak of more northern ruins, where it is of frequent occurrence. That a long time must have passed between the erection of Copan and Utatlan, the civilization of the builders meantime undergoing great modifications, involving probably the introduction of new elements from foreign sources, is a theory supported by a careful study of the two classes of remains. For an account of Utatlan and other Guatemalan cities as they were in the time of their aboriginal glory, I refer the reader to Volume II. of this work.[IV-32] The cura at Santa Cruz del Quiché said he had seen human skulls of more than natural size, from a cave in a neighboring town.[IV-33]