Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II.

by John L. Stephens

Leaving this, we continued again upon a plain. Albino had not come up with us, and passing through one Indian rancho, we came to another, in which were many paths, and we were at a loss which to take. The men were all away, and we were obliged to chase the women into their very huts to ask directions. At the last hut we cornered two, who were weaving cotton, and came upon them with our great effort in the Maya language, "Tush y am bé—" "Is this the way to—" adding Yakatzib, the name of the rancho at which we were told there were ruins. We had acquired great facility in asking this question, but if the answer went beyond "yes" or "no," or an indication with the hand, as was the case on this occasion, it was entirely beyond our attainments. The women gave us a very long, and probably a very civil answer, but we could not understand a word of it; and finding it impossible to bring them to monosyllables, we asked for a draught of water and rode on.

When we had gone some distance beyond the rancho, it occurred to us that this might be Yakatzib itself and we turned back. Before reaching it, however, we turned off into a grove of large orange trees at one side of the road, dismounted, and tied our horses under the shade to wait for Albino. The trees were loaded and the ground covered with fruit, but the oranges were all of the sour kind. We could not sit down under the trees, for the ground was teeming with garrapatas, ants, and other insects, and while standing we were obliged to switch them off with our riding whips. Soon Albino came thundering along on the trotter, and we learned that we had really passed Yakatzib, as the women had no doubt told us. While we were mounting to go back, a boy passed on a miserable old horse, his bare body perched between two water-kegs with which he was going to the aguada. For a medio he slipped off, tied his horse to a bush, and ran before us as our guide through the rancho, beyond which, turning off to the right, we soon reached a ruined edifice.

It was small, and the whole front was gone; the door had been ornamented with pillars which had fallen, and lay on the ground. The boy told us that there were ruined mounds, but no other remains of buildings. We turned back without dismounting and continued our journey.

At two o'clock we reached the foot of a stony sierra, or mountain range, toilsome and laborious for the horses, but Mr. Catherwood remarked that his pricked up his ears and trod lightly, as if just beginning a journey. From the top of the same sierra we saw at its foot, on the other side, the village of Becanchen, where, on arriving, we rode through the plaza, and up to a large house, the front of which was adorned with a large red painting of a major domo on horseback, leading a bull into the ring. We inquired for the casa real, and were directed to a miserable thatched house, where a gentleman stepped out and recognised Mr. Catherwood's horse, which had belonged to Don Simon Peon, and through the horse he recognised me, having seen me with Don Simon at the fair at Jalacho, on the strength of which he immediately offered his house for a posada, or inn, which offer, on looking at the casa real, we did not hesitate to accept.

We were still on the great burial-ground of ruined cities. In the corridor of the house were sculptured stones, which our host told us were taken from the ancient buildings in the neighbourhood; they had also furnished materials for the foundation of every house on the plaza; and besides these there were other memorials. In the plaza were eight wells, then furnishing an abundant supply of water, and bearing that stamp which could not be mistaken, of the hand of the ancient builders. Below the plaza, on the declivity of the hill, was water gushing from the rocks, filling a clear basin beneath, and running off till it was lost in the woods. It was the first time in our whole journey that we had seen anything like a running stream, and after the parched regions through which we had passed, of almost inaccessible caves, muddy aguadas, and little pools in the hollows of rocks, it was a refreshing and delightful spectacle. Our Indian carriers had taken up their quarters under a brush fence, in sight and within reach of the stream, and to them and the muleteers it was like the fountain to the Arab in the desert, or the rivers of sweet water promised to the faithful in the paradise of Mohammed.

The history of this village has all the wildness of romance, and, indeed, throughout this land of sepulchred cities the genius of romance sits enthroned. Its name is derived from this stream of water, being compounded of the Maya words Becan, running, and chen, a well. Twenty years ago the country round about was a wilderness of forest. A solitary Indian came into it and made a clearing for his milpa. In doing so he struck upon the running stream, followed it until he found the water gushing from the rock, and the whole surface now occupied by the plaza pierced with ancient wells. The Indians gathered round the wells, and a village grew up, which now contains six thousand inhabitants; a growth, having regard to the difference in the resources of the country and the character of the people, equal in rapidity to that of the most prosperous towns in ours.

These wells are all mere excavations throng a stratum of limestone rock, varying in depth according to the irregularity of the bed, and in general not exceeding four or five feet. The source of the water is considered a mystery by the inhabitants, but it seems manifest that it is derived from the floods of the rainy season. The village is encompassed on three sides by hills. On the upper side of the plaza, near the corner of a street running back to the elevated range, is a large hole or natural opening in the rock, and during the whole of the rainy season a torrent of water collects into a channel, pours down this street, and empties into this hole. As we were told, the body of water is so great that for a week or ten days after the last rains the stream continues to run; and at the time of our visit it was eighteen inches in diameter. The water in the wells is always at the same level with that in the hole. They rise and fall together; and there is another conclusive proof of direct connexion, for, as we were told, a small dog that had been swept into the hole appeared some days afterward dead in one of the most distant wells.

Doctor Cabot and I descended into one of the wells, and found it a rude, irregular cavern, about twenty-five feet in diameter; the roof had some degree of regularity, and perhaps, to a certain extent, was artificial. Directly under the mouth the water was not more than eighteen inches deep, but the bottom was uneven, and a step or two beyond the water was so deep that we could not examine it thoroughly. By the light of a candle we could see no channel of communication with the other wells, but on one side the water ran deep under a shelving of the rock, and here there were probably some crevices through which it passed; indeed, this must have been the case, for this was the well in which the dog had come to light.

When we emerged from this well other business offered. Having little or no intercourse with the capital, this village was the first which Doctor Cabot's fame had not reached, and our host took me aside to ask me in confidence whether Doctor Cabot was a real medico; which fact being easily established by my evidence, he wanted the medico to visit a young Indian whose hand had been mangled by a sugar-mill. Doctor Cabot made some inquiries, the answers to which led to the conclusion that it would be necessary to cut off the hand; but, unluckily, at the last reduction of our luggage he had left his amputating instruments behind. He had a hand-saw for miscellaneous uses, which would serve in part, and Mr. Catherwood had a large spring-knife of admirable temper, which Doctor Cabot said would do, but the former flatly objected to its conversion into a surgical instrument. It had been purchased at Rome twenty years before, and in all his journeyings had been his travelling companion; but after such an operation he would never be able to use it again. Strong arguments were urged on both sides, and it became tolerably manifest that, unless amputation was necessary to save the boy from dying, the doctor would not get the knife.