Such, so far as we were able to discover them, are the ruins of Zayi, the name of which, to the time of our visit, had never been uttered among civilized men, and, but for the notoriety connected with our movements, would probably be unknown at this day in the capital of Yucatan. Our first accounts of them were from the cura Carillo, who, on the occasion of his only visit to this part of his curacy, passed a great portion of his time among them.
It was strange and almost incredible that, with these extraordinary monuments before their eyes, the Indians never bestowed upon them one passing thought. The question, who built them? never by any accident crossed their minds. The great name of Montezuma, which had gone beyond them to the Indians of Honduras, had never reached their ears, and to all our questions we received the same dull answer which first met us at Copan, "Quien sabe?" "Who knows?" They had the same superstitious feelings as the Indians of Uxmal; they believed that the ancient buildings were haunted, and, as in the remote region of Santa Cruz del Quiche, they said that on Good Friday of every year music was heard sounding among the ruins.
There was but one thing connected with the old city that interested them at all, and that was the subject of a well. They supposed that somewhere among these ruins, overgrown and lost, existed the fountain which had supplied the ancient inhabitants with water; and, believing that by the use of our instruments its site could be discovered, they offered to cut down all the trees throughout the whole region covered by the ruins.
[CHAPTER II.]
Visit to a ruined Building near Chack.—A Field of Táje.—Description of the Building.—Hornet's Nest.—Young Vulture.—Picturesque View from the Terrace.—Well of Chack.—Exploration of its Passages.—Return to the Rancho.—Departure from Schawill.—The Camino Real.—Rancho of Sennacté.—Wild Appearance of the Indians.—Continued Scarcity of Water.—Another ruined City.—Two ruined Buildings.—Apartments, Columns, &c.—High Wall.—Journey continued.—Rancho of Sabachshé.—Casa Real.—Well.—Hut of the Alcalde.—The Señora.—Ruins of Sabachshé.—Picturesque Edifice.—Alacrity of the Indians.—Façade.—Pilasters, Cornices, &c.—Encounter with an Iguana.—Another Ruined Building.—The Agave Americana.—More Ruins.—The Red Hand.—The Red Hand used as a Symbol by the North American Indians.—Conclusions to be deduced from this Circumstance.—Delicate Manner of doing a Service.
The next morning, while Mr. Catherwood was engaged in drawing the building represented in the last engraving, Dr. Cabot and myself set out to visit the one which we had passed in coming from the rancho of Chack.
In the suburbs of the rancho we turned off to the right by a path, which we followed for some distance on horseback, when it changed its direction, and we dismounted. From this place our guides cut a path through the woods, and we came out upon a large field of táje, being long stems growing close together, eight or ten feet high, straight, and about half an inch thick, having a yellow flower on the top, which is a favourite food for horses. The stems, tied up in bundles three or four inches thick, are used for torches. On one side of this field we saw the high building before referred to, and on the other side was a second not visible before. A bird which the doctor wished to procure lighted on a tree growing upon the latter, and we went to it, but found nothing of particular interest, and struck across the field of táje for the former. This táje was as bad as the woods to walk through, for it grew so high as to exclude every breath of air, and was not high enough to be any protection against the sun.
The building stood on the top of a stony hill, on a terrace still firm and substantial. It consisted of two stories, the roof of the lower one forming the platform in front of the upper, and had a staircase, which was broken and ruined. The upper building had a large apartment in the centre, and a smaller one on each side, much encumbered with rubbish, from one of which we were driven by a hornet's nest, and in another a young vulture, with a hissing noise, flapped its plumeless wings and hopped out of the door.
The terrace commanded a picturesque view of wooded hills, and at a distance the Casa Grande, and the high wall before presented. They were perhaps three or four miles distant. All the intermediate space was overgrown. The Indians had traversed it in all directions in the dry season, when there was no foliage to hide the view, and they said that in all this space there were no vestiges of buildings. Close together as we had found the remains of ancient habitations, it seemed hardly possible that distinct and independent cities had existed with but such a little space between, and yet it was harder to imagine that one city had embraced within its limits these distant buildings, the extreme ones being four miles apart, and that the whole intermediate region of desolation had once swarmed with a teeming and active population.
Leaving this, we toiled back to our horses, and, returning to the road, passed through the rancho, about a mile beyond which we reached the pozo, or well, the accounts of which we had heard on our first arrival.