Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II.

by John L. Stephens

Near the mouth were some noble seybo trees, throwing their great branches far and wide, under which groups of Indians were arranging their calabashes and torches, preparing to descend; others, just out, were wiping their sweating bodies. At one moment an Indian disappeared, and at the next another rose up out of the earth. We noticed that there were no women, who, throughout Yucatan, are the drawers of water, and always seen around a well, but we were told that no woman ever enters the well of Chack; all the water for the rancho was procured by the men, which alone indicated that the well was of an extraordinary character. We had brought with us a ball of twine, and made immediate preparations to descend, reducing our dress as near as possible to that of the Indians.

Our first movement was down a hole by a perpendicular ladder, at the foot of which we were fairly entered into a great cavern. Our guides preceded us with bundles of táje lighted for torches, and we came to a second descent almost perpendicular, which we achieved by a ladder laid flat against the rock. Beyond this we moved on a short distance, still following our guides, and still descending, when we saw their torches disappearing, and reached a wild hole, which also we descended by a long rough ladder. At the foot of this the rock was damp and slippery, and there was barely room enough to pass around it, and get upon another ladder down the same hole, now more contracted, and so small that, with the arms akimbo, the elbows almost touched on each side. At this time our Indians were out of sight; and in total darkness, feeling our way by the rounds of the ladder, we cried out to them, and were answered by distant voices directly underneath. Looking down, we saw their torches like moving balls of fire, apparently at an interminable distance below us.

At the foot of this ladder there was a rude platform as a resting-place, made to enable those ascending and descending to pass each other. A group of naked Indians, panting and sweating under the load of their calabashes, were waiting till we vacated the ladder above; and even in this wild hole, with loads on their backs, straps binding their foreheads, and panting from fatigue and heat, they held down their torches, and rendered obeisance to the blood of the white man. Descending the next ladder, both above and below us were torches gleaming in the darkness. We had still another ladder to descend, and the whole perpendicular depth of this hole was perhaps two hundred feet.

From the foot of this ladder there was an opening to the right, and from it we soon entered a low, narrow passage, through which we crawled on our hands and knees. With the toil and the smoke of the torches the heat was almost beyond endurance. The passage enlarged and again contracted, descending steeply, and so low that the shoulders almost touched the roof. This opened upon a great chasm at one side, and beyond we came to another perpendicular hole, which we descended by steps cut in the rock. From this there was another low, crawling passage, and, almost stifled with heat and smoke, we came out into a small opening, in which was a basin of water, being the well. The place was crowded with Indians filling their calabashes, and they started at the sight of our smoky white faces as if El Demonio had descended among them. It was, doubtless, the first time that the feet of a white man had ever reached this well.

On returning we measured the distance. Doctor Cabot going before with a line of about a hundred feet, in the wild and broken passages being soon out of sight, and sometimes out of hearing. I followed, with an Indian winding up the line, while I made notes. I had two Indians with long bundles of lighted sticks, who, whenever I stopped to write, either held them so far off as to be of no use, or else thrust them into my face, blinding the eyes with smoke and scorching the skin. I was dripping as if in a vapour-bath; my face and hands were black with smoke and incrusted with dirt; large drops of sweat fell upon my book, which, with the dirt from my hands, matted the leaves together, so that my notes are almost useless. They were, no doubt, imperfect, but I do not believe that, with the most accurate details, it is possible to convey a true idea of the character of this cave, with its deep holes and passages through a bed of solid rock, and the strange scene presented by the Indians, with torches and calabashes, unmurmuring and uncomplaining, at their daily task of seeking, deep in the bowels of the earth, one of the great elements of life.

The distance, as we traversed it, with its ladders, ascents and descents, winding and crawling passages, seemed a full half league, as represented by the Indians. By measurement it was not quite fifteen hundred feet, which is about equal to the length of the Park fronting on Broadway. The perpendicular depth to the water I am not able to give, but some idea may be formed of these passages from the fact that the Indians did not carry their calabashes on their shoulders, because, with the body bent, they would strike against the roof or roll over the head; but the straps across the forehead were let out so long that the calabashes rested below the hips, and in crawling on the hands and feet their loads did not rise above the line of the back.

And this well was not, as at Xcoch, the occasional resort of a straggling Indian, nor the mere traditionary watering-place of an ancient city. It was the regular and only supply of a living population. The whole rancho of Chack was entirely dependant upon it, and in the dry season the rancho of Schawill, three miles distant.

The patient industry of such a people may well be supposed to have reared the immense mounds and the great stone structures scattered all over the country. We consumed a calabash of water in washing and quenching our thirst, and as we rode back to the rancho of Schawill, came to the conclusion that an admission into the community of this exclusive people was no great privilege, when it would entail upon the applicant, for six months in the year, a daily descent into this subterraneous well.

We arrived at the rancho in good season. Mr. Catherwood had finished his drawing, and Bernaldo was ready with his dinner. We had nothing to detain us, ordered carriers forthwith for our luggage, and at half past two we were in the saddle again in search of ruined cities.

The reader has some idea of the caminos reales of this country, and they were all like English turnpikes compared with that upon which we entered on leaving this rancho. In fact, it was a mere path through the woods, the branches of the trees being trimmed away to a height barely sufficient to admit of an Indian passing under with a load of maize on his back. We were advised that it would be very difficult to get through on horseback, and were obliged to keep dodging the head and bending the body to avoid the branches, and at times we were brought to a stand by some overhanging arm of a tree, and obliged to dismount.