While this was going on, the mayoral crawled along the same path by which we had ascended, and told us that the luggage had arrived. How it could be got to us seemed a problem. The slight clearing on the upper terrace gave us a view of the lower one, which was an unbroken mass of bushes and weeds ten or twelve feet high. Perhaps half an hour had elapsed, when we saw a single Indian ascend the platform of the second terrace, with his machete slowly working his way toward us. Very soon the top of a long box was seen rising above the same terrace, apparently tottering and falling back, but rising again and coming on steadily, with an Indian under it, visible from time to time through the bushes. Toward the foot of the terrace on which we were it disappeared, and after a few minutes rose to the top. Holding on with both hands to the strap across his forehead, with every nerve strung, and the veins of his forehead swelled almost to bursting, his face and his whole body dripping with sweat, he laid his load at our feet. A long line followed; staggering, panting, and trembling, they took the loads from their backs, and deposited them at the door. They had carried these loads three leagues, or nine miles, and we paid them eighteen and three quarter cents, being at the rate of a medio, or six and a quarter cents, per league. We gave them a medio extra for bringing the things up the terrace, and the poor fellows were thankful and happy.
In the mean time the fire was still burning, and the smoke rushing out. We set the Indians at work on the terrace with their machetes, and as the smoke rolled away we directed them to sweep out the apartments. For brooms they had merely to cut a handful of bushes, and to shovel out the dirt they had their hands. This over, we had our luggage carried in, set up our beds in the back sala, and swung our hammocks in the front. At nightfall the Indians left us, and we were again alone in the palace of unknown kings.
We had reached the first point of our journey; we were once more at the ruins of Uxmal. It was nearly two years since we originally set out in search of American ruins, and more than a year since we were driven from this place. The freshness and enthusiasm with which we had first come upon the ruins of an American city had perhaps gone, but our feelings were not blunted, and all the regret which we had felt in being obliged to leave was more than counterbalanced by the satisfaction of returning.
It was in this spirit that, as evening came on, we swung in our hammocks and puffed away all troubles. The bats, retiring to their nightly haunt, seemed startled by the blaze of our fire. Owls and other birds of darkness sent up their discordant cries from the woods, and as the evening waned we found ourselves debating warmly the great question of excitement at home, whether M'Leod ought to be hanged or not.
As a measure of precaution, and in order to have the full benefit of a medical man's company, we began immediately upon a course of preventive treatment, by way of putting ourselves on the vantage ground against fever. As we were all in perfect health, Dr. Cabot thought such a course could not hurt us. This over, we threw more wood upon the pile and went to bed.
Up to this time our course had been before the wind. Our journey from Merida had again been a sort of triumphal procession. We had been passed from hacienda to hacienda, till we fell into the hospitable hands of Don Simon Peon, and we were now in absolute possession of the ruins of Uxmal. But very soon we found that we had to encounter troubles from which neither Don Simon, nor the government, nor recommendations to the hospitality of citizens of the interior, could afford us protection. Early in the evening a few straggling moschetoes had given us notice of the existence of these free and independent citizens of Yucatan; but while we were swinging in our hammocks and the fire burned brightly, they had not troubled us much. Our heads, however, were hardly upon our pillows, before the whole population seemed to know exactly where they could have us, and, dividing into three swarms, came upon us as if determined to lift us up and eject us bodily from the premises. The flame and volumes of smoke which had rolled through the building, in ridding us of the damp, unwholesome atmosphere, seemed only to have started these torments from their cracks and crevices, and filled them With thirst for vengeance or for blood. I spare the reader farther details of our first night at Uxmal, but we all agreed that another such would drive as forever from the ruins.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Perplexities.—Household Wants.—Indian Mode of boiling Eggs.—Clearings.—A valuable Addition.—Description of the Ruins.—Casa del Gobernador.—Hieroglyphics.—Ornaments over the Doorways.—Ground Plan.—Doorways.—Apartments.—Great Thickness of the back Wall.—A Breach made in the Wall.—Prints of a Red Hand.—Sculptured Beam of Hieroglyphics.—Wooden Lintels.—Loss of Antiquities by the Burning of Mr. Catherwood's Panorama.—Terraces.—A curious Stone.—Circular Mound.—Discovery of a Sculptured Monument.—Square Stone Structure.—Sculptured Heads.—Staircase.—House of the Turtles.
Morning brought with it other perplexities. We had no servant, and wanted breakfast, and altogether our prospects were not good. We did not expect to find the hacienda so entirely destitute of persons with whom we could communicate. The mayoral was the only one who spoke a word of Spanish, and he had the business of the hacienda to attend to. He had received special orders from his master to do everything in his power to serve us, but the power of his master had limits. He could not make the Indians, who knew only the Maya, speak Spanish. Besides this, the power of the master was otherwise restricted. In fact, except as regards certain obligations which they owed, the Indians were their own masters, and, what was worse for us, their own mistresses, for one of our greatest wants was a woman to cook, make tortillas, and perform those numerous domestic offices without which no household can go on well. The mayoral had given us no hope of being able to procure one; but in the midst of our anxieties, and while we were preparing breakfast for ourselves, we perceived him coming across the terrace, followed by a train of Indians, and closing the procession was a woman, at that time really a welcome visiter. The mayoral said that the evening before, on his return to the hacienda, he had gone round to all the huts, and proposed to woman after woman, promising liberal pay and good treatment, but they all refused until he came to this one, and with her he had been obliged to stipulate that she should not remain at the ruins in the night, but should return home every evening. This was a great drawback, as we wanted to breakfast early, but we had no choice, and were glad to get her upon her own terms.
She was taller than most of the Indian women, and her complexion was somewhat darker. Her dress fitted more closely to her body, and she had more of it. Her character was unimpeached, her bearing would have kept presumption at a distance, and, as an additional safeguard, she had with her a little grandson, named José, whose complexion indicated that the descending line of her house had no antipathies to the white race. Her age might be a little over fifty, and her name was Chaipa Chi.