Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. I.

by John L. Stephens

I trust the reader has not forgotten this fine hacienda. It was the same to which, on our former visit, we had been borne on the shoulders of Indians, and in which we had taken a bath in a senote, never to be forgotten. We were once more on the hands of our old friend Don Simon Peon. The whole hacienda, horses, mules, and Indians, were at our disposal. It was but ten o'clock, and we intended to continue our journey to Uxmal, but first we resolved upon another bath in the senote. My first impression of the beauty of this fancy bathing-place did not deceive me, and the first glance satisfied me that I incurred no risk in introducing to it a stranger. A light cloud of almost imperceptible dust, ascribed to the dripping of the waters of the rainy season, or perhaps made visible by the rays of the midday sun, rested on the surface, but underneath were the same crystal fluid and the same clear bottom. Very soon we were in the water, and before we came out we resolved to postpone our journey till the next day, for the sake of an evening bath.

As the reader is now on ground which I trust he has travelled before, I shall merely state that the next day we rode on to the hacienda of San José, where we stopped to make some preparations, and on the fifteenth, at eleven o'clock, we reached the hacienda of Uxmal.

It stood in its suit of sombre gray, with cattleyard, large trees, and tanks, the same as when we left it, but there were no friends of old to welcome us: the Delmonico major domo had gone to Tobasco, and the other had been obliged to leave on account of illness. The mayoral remembered us, but we did not know him; and we determined to pass on and take up our abode immediately in the ruins. Stopping but a few minutes, to give directions about the luggage, we mounted again, and in ten minutes, emerging from the woods, came out upon the open field in which, grand and lofty as when we saw it before, stood the House of the Dwarf; but the first glance showed us that a year had made great changes. The sides of the lofty structure, then bare and naked, were now covered with high grass, bushes, and weeds, and on the top were bushes and young trees twenty feet high. The House of the Nuns was almost smothered, and the whole field was covered with a rank growth of grass and weeds, over which we could barely look as we rode through. The foundations, terraces, and tops of the buildings were overgrown, weeds and vines were rioting and creeping on the façades, and mounds, terraces, and ruins were a mass of destroying verdure. A strong and vigorous nature was struggling for mastery over art, wrapping the city in its suffocating embraces, and burying it from sight. It seemed as if the grave was closing over a friend, and we had arrived barely in time to take our farewell.

Amid this mass of desolation, grand and stately as when we left it, stood the Casa del Gobernador, but with all its terraces covered, and separated from us by a mass of impenetrable verdure.

On the left of the field was an overgrown milpa, along the edge of which a path led in front of this building. Following this path, we turned the corner of the terrace, and on the farthest side dismounted, and tied our horses. The grass and weeds were above our heads, and we could see nothing. The mayoral broke a way through them, and we reached the foot of the terrace. Working our way over the stones with much toil, we reached the top of the highest terrace. Here, too, the grass and weeds were of the same rank growth. We moved directly to the wall at the east end, and entered the first open door. Here the mayoral wished us to take up our abode; but we knew the localities better than he did, and, creeping along the front as close to the wall as possible, cutting some of the bushes, and tearing apart and trampling down others, we reached the centre apartment. Here we stopped. Swarms of bats, roused by our approach, fluttered and flew through the long chamber, and passed out at the doors.

The appearance of things was not very promising for a place of residence. There were two salas, each sixty feet long; that in front had three large doors, opening upon the encumbered terrace, and the other had no windows and but one door. In both there was an extreme sensation of closeness and dampness, with an unpleasant smell, and in the back room was a large accumulation of dirt and rubbish. Outside, high grass and weeds were growing into the very doorway. We could not move a step, and all view was completely cut off. After the extreme heat of the sun out of doors, we were in a profuse perspiration from climbing up the terrace, and the dank atmosphere induced a feeling of chilliness which made us reflect seriously upon what we had not sufficiently regarded before.

Throughout Yucatan "el campo," or the country, is considered unhealthy in the rainy season. We had arrived in Yucatan counting upon the benefit of the whole dry season, which generally begins in November and lasts till May; but this year the rains had continued longer than usual, and they were not yet over. The proprietors of haciendas were still cautious about visiting them, and confined themselves to the villages and towns. Among all the haciendas, Uxmal had a reputation pre-eminent for its unhealthiness. Every person who had ever been at work among the ruins had been obliged by sickness to leave them. Mr. Catherwood had had sad experience, and this unhealthiness was not confined to strangers. The Indians suffered every season from fevers; many of them were at that time ill, and the major domo had been obliged to go away. All this we had been advised of in Merida, and had been urged to postpone our visit; but as this would have interfered materially with our plan, and as we had with us a "medico" who could cure "biscos," we determined to risk it. On the spot, however, perceiving the dampness of the apartments and the rankness of vegetation, we felt that we had been imprudent; but it was too late to draw back, even if we had wished to do so. We agreed that we were better on this high terrace than at the hacienda, which stood low, and had around it great tanks of water, mantled with green, and wearing a very fever-and-aguish aspect. We therefore set to work immediately to make the best of our condition.

The mayoral left us to take the horses back to the hacienda, and give directions about the luggage, and we had only a little Indian boy to help us. Him we employed to clear with his machete a space before the principal doorway, and in order to change as quickly as possible the damp, unwholesome atmosphere within, we undertook to kindle a fire ourselves. For this purpose we made a large collection of leaves and brush, which we placed in one corner of the back corridor, and, laying stones at the bottom, built up a pile several feet high, and set fire to it. The blaze crept through the pile, burning the light combustible stuff, and went out. We kindled it again, and the result was the same. Several times we thought we had succeeded, but the dampness of the place and of the materials baffled our efforts, and extinguished the flame. We exhausted all our odd scraps of paper and other availables, and were left with barely a spark of fire to begin anew. The only combustible we had left was gunpowder, of which we made what the boys call a squib, by wetting a quantity of it, and this, done up in a ball, we ignited under the pile. It did not answer fully, but gave us encouragement, and we made a larger ball of the same, which we ignited with a slow match. It blew our pile to atoms, and scattered the materials in all directions. Our ingenuity had now been taxed to the uttermost, and our resources were exhausted. In extremity we called in the boy.

He had, in the mean time, been more successful; for, continuing the work at which we had set him, with characteristic indifference taking no notice of our endeavours, he had cleared a space of several yards around the door. This admitted a sunbeam, which, like the presence of a good spirit, gladdened and cheered all within its reach. We intimated to him by signs that we wanted a fire, and, without paying any respect to what we had done, he began in his own way, with a scrap of cotton, which he picked up from the ground, and, lighting it, blew it gently in his folded hands till it was all ignited. He then laid it on the floor, and, throwing aside all the material we had been using, looked around carefully, and gathered up some little sticks, not larger than matches, which he laid against the ignited cotton, with one point on the ground and the other touching the fire. Then kneeling down, he encircled the nascent fire with his two hands, and blew gently on it, with his mouth so close as almost to touch it. A slight smoke rose above the palms of his hands, and in a few minutes he stopped blowing. Placing the little sticks carefully together, so that all their points touched the fire, he went about picking up others a little larger than the first, and laying them in order one by one. With the circumference of his hands a little extended, he again began blowing gently; the smoke rose a little stronger than before. From time to time he gently changed the position of the sticks, and resumed his blowing. At length he stopped, but whether in despair or satisfied with the result seemed doubtful. He had a few little sticks with a languishing fire at one end, which might be extinguished by dropping a few tears over it. We had not only gone beyond this but had raised a large flame, which had afterward died away. Still there was a steadiness, an assurance in his manner that seemed to say he knew what he was about. At all events, we had nothing to do but watch him. Making a collection of larger sticks, and again arranging them in the same way as before, taking care not to put them so close together as to smother the fire, with a circumference too large for the space of his hands, but of materials so light as easily to be thrown into confusion, he again commenced blowing, so gently as not to disturb a single stick, and yet to the full power that the arrangement would bear. The wood seemed to feel the influence of his cherishing care, and a full body of smoke rose up to gladden us, and bring tears into his eyes. With the same imperturbable industry, unconscious of our admiration, he went on again, having now got up to sticks as large as the finger. These he coaxed along with many tears, and at the next size be saved his own wind and used his petata, or straw hat. A gentle blaze rose in the whole centre of the pile; still he coaxed it along, and by degrees brought on sticks as large as his arm, which, by a gentle waving of his hat, in a few minutes were all ignited. Our uncertainty was at an end. The whole pile was in a blaze, and all four of us went busily to work gathering fuel. There was no necessity for dry wood; we cut down bushes, and carried them in green; all burned together; the flames extended, and the heat became so great that we could not approach to throw on more. In our satisfaction with the result we did not stop to read the moral of the lesson taught us by the Indian boy. The flames were fast rectifying the damp, unwholesome atmosphere, and inducing more warm and genial sensations. Very soon, however, this bettering of our house's condition drove us out of doors. The smoke rolled through the long apartment, and, curling along the roof, passed into the front sala, where, dividing, it rushed through the doors in three dense bodies, and rolled up the front of the palace. We sat down outside, and watched it as it rolled away.