The first accounts we heard of these ruins date back to the time of my first visit to Nohpat. Among the Indians there at work was one who, while we were lunching, sitting apart under a tree, mentioned these ruins in exaggerated terms, particularly a row of painted soldiers, as he called them, which, from his imperfect description, I supposed might bear some resemblance to the stuccoed figures on the fronts of the buildings at Palenque; but, on pushing my inquiries, he said these figures carried muskets, and was so pertinacious on this point that I concluded he was either talking entirely at random, or of the remains of old Spanish structures. I noted the place in my memorandum-book, and having had it for a long time upon our minds, and received more different accounts of it than of any other, none proved more unlike what we expected to find. We looked for few remains, but these distinguished for their beauty and ornament, and high state of preservation, instead of which we found an immense field, grand, imposing, and interesting from its vastness, but all so ruined that, with the exception of this one building, little of the detail could be discovered.
Back of this building, or, rather, on the other front, was a thriving tobacco patch, the only thriving thing we saw at Iturbide; and on the border another ancient well, now, as in ages past, furnishing water, and from which the Indian attending the tobacco patch gave us to drink. Beyond were towering mounds and vestiges, indicating the existence of a greater city than any we had yet encountered. In wandering among them Dr. Cabot and myself counted thirty-three, all of which had once held buildings aloft. The field was so open that they were all comparatively easy of access, but the mounds themselves were overgrown. I clambered up them till the work became tiresome and unprofitable; they were all, as the Indians said, puras piedras, pure stones; no buildings were left; all had fallen; and though, perhaps, more than at any other place, happy that it was our fortune to wander among these crumbling memorials of a once powerful and mysterious people, we almost mourned that our lot had not been cast a century sooner, when, as we believed, all these edifices were entire.
[CHAPTER XI.]
End of Journey in this Direction.—Lake of Peten.—Probable Existence of Ruins in the Wilderness.—Islands in the Lake of Peten.—Peten Grande.—Mission of two Monks.—Great Idol of the Figure of a Horse.—Broken by the Monks, who in Consequence are obliged to leave the Island.—Second Mission of the Monks.—Sent away by the Indians.—Expedition of Don Martin Ursua.—Arrival at the Island.—Attacked by the Indians, who are defeated.—Don Martin takes Possession of Itza.—Temples and Idols of the Indians.—Destroyed by the Spaniards.—Flight of the Indians into the Wilderness.—Preparations.—Illness of Mr. Catherwood.—Effects of Gambling.—From the Church to the Gaming-table.—How People live at Iturbide.—Departure.—Rancho of Noyaxche.
Our journey in this direction is now ended. We were on the frontier of the inhabited part of Yucatan, and within a few leagues of the last village. Beyond was a wilderness, stretching off to the Lake of Peten, and that region of Lacandones or unbaptized Indians, in which, according to the suggestion made in my previous volumes, lay that mysterious city never reached by a white man, but still occupied by Indians precisely in the same state as before the discovery of America. During my sojourn in Yucatan, my account of this city was published in one of the Merida papers, and among intelligent persons there was a universal belief that beyond the Lake of Peten there was a region of unconverted Indians of whom nothing was known. We had been moving on in the track of ruined cities. A venerable ecclesiastic in Merida had furnished me with an itinerary of the journey through the wilderness to the Lake of Peten, and I had some hope of being led on from place to place until we should reach a point which might unravel all mystery, and establish a connecting link between the past and present; but this hope was accompanied by a fear, and, perhaps fortunately for us, we did not hear of ruins beyond. If we had, we should not have attempted to go in search of them, and it would have been painful to turn back. I am far from believing, however, that because we did not hear of them none exist. On the contrary, it may well be that wrecks of cities lie buried but a few leagues farther on, the existence of which is entirely unknown at the village of Iturbide, for at that place there was not a single individual who had ever heard of the ruins at Labphak, which we had visited just before, until they heard of them from us.
As yet, however, our face is still set toward the Lake of Peten. In this lake are numerous islands, one of which is called Peten Grande, Peten itself being a Maya word, signifying an island; and before turning back I wish to present this island for one moment to the reader. It now belongs to the government of Guatimala, and is under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Yucatan. Formerly it was the principal place of the province of Itza, which province, for one hundred and fifty years after the subjugation of Yucatan, maintained its fierce and native independence. In the year 1608, sixty-six years after the conquest, two Franciscan monks, alone, without arms, and in the spirit of peace, set out to conquer this province by converting the natives to Christianity. The limits of these pages will not permit me to accompany them in their toilsome and dangerous journey, but, according to the account of one of them as given by Cogolludo, at ten o'clock at night they landed on the island, were provided with a house by the king, and the next day preached to the Indians; but the latter told them that the time had not yet come for them to become Christians, and advised the monks to go away and return at some other day. Nevertheless, they carried them round to see the town, and in the middle of one of the temples they saw a great idol of the figure of a horse, made of lime and stone, seated on the ground on his haunches, with his hind legs bent, and raised on his fore feet, being intended as an image of the horse which Cortez left at that place on his great journey from Mexico to Honduras. On that occasion the Indians had seen the Spaniards fire their muskets from the backs of the horses, and supposing that the fire and noise were caused by the animals, they called this image Tzimin Chac, and adored it as the god of thunder and lightning. As the monks saw it, one of them, says the author of the account, seemed as if the Spirit of the Lord had descended upon him; and, carried away by zealous fervour, seized the foot of the horse with his hand, mounted upon the statue, and broke it in pieces. The Indians immediately cried out to kill them; but the king saved them, though they were obliged to leave the island.
In the beginning of October, 1619, the same two monks, undaunted by their previous ill success, again appeared on the island; but the people rose up against them. One of the padres remonstrated; an Indian seized him by the hair, twisted his neck, and hurled him to the ground, tearing out his hair by the roots, and throwing it away. He was picked up senseless, and, with his companion and the accompanying Indians, put on board a bad canoe, without anything to eat, and again sent away. With all their fanaticism and occasional cruelty, there is something soul-stirring in the devotion of these early monks to the business of converting the souls of the Indians.
In the year 1695, Don Martin Ursua obtained the government of Yucatan, and, in pursuance of a proposal previously submitted by him to the king, and approved by the council of the Indies, undertook the great work of opening a road across the whole continent from Campeachy to Guatimala. The opening of this road led to the conquest of Itza, and we have a full and detailed account of this conquest, written by the licenciado, or lawyer, Don Juan Villagutierres, a native of Yucatan. It is entitled, "A History of the Conquest of Itza, reduction and progress of that of Lacandon, and other barbarous Nations of Gentile Indians in the Mediacion of Yucatan and Guatimala." It was published at Madrid in the year 1701, and, what gives it great value, within four years after the events referred to took place.
The work of opening the road was begun in 1695. In prosecuting it, the Spaniards encountered vestiges of ancient buildings raised on terraces, deserted and overgrown, and apparently very ancient. These, it is true, may have been abandoned long before the conquest; but, as the Spaniards had now been in the country one hundred and fifty years, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the terror of their name may have made desolate many places which their arms never reached.
On the twenty-first of January, 1697, Don Martin de Ursua set out from Campeachy to take command of the expedition in person, with a vicar-general and assistant, already nominated by the bishop, for the province of Itza. On the last day of February he had timber cut on the borders of Peten for the construction of vessels which should convey them to the island. He sent before a proclamation, giving notice that the time had come when they should have one cup and one plate with the Spaniards. "If not," says the proclamation, "I will do what the king commands me, but which it is not necessary now to express." The thirteenth of March was appointed for the day of embarcation. Some of the Spaniards, knowing the immense number of Indians on the island, and the difficulty of conquering it, represented to the general the rashness of his undertaking; but, says the historian, carried away by his zeal, faith, and courage, he answered that, having in view the service of God and the king, and the drawing of miserable souls from the darkness of heathenism, under the favour and protection of the Virgin Mary, whose image he carried on the royal standard, and engraven on his heart, he alone was sufficient for this conquest, even if it were much more difficult.