Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II.

by John L. Stephens

From the point at which we left the island, the opposite coast of Yucatan was dimly visible, and I would remark, that, from our own observation and from information given to us by others, it is the only point from which the opposite coast can be seen at all, whence it is a conclusion almost unquestionable that it was from this same point Grijalva steered for Yucatan. The wind was high, the sea rough, and a strong current was sweeping us down toward the point of Cape Catoche. About an hour before dark we got across the current, and stood up along the coast, passing three low, square buildings, apparently in a good state of preservation, but the sea was so rough that we could not land to examine them. The account of the expedition of Grijalva says, "After leaving the island of Cozumel we saw three large villages, separated two miles from each other. They contained a great number of stone houses, with high towers, and covered with straw." This must have been the very part of the coast where these villages were seen. The whole is now covered with forest, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the stone buildings visible on the shore are tokens of the buried towns in the interior. We ran on till after dark, and came to anchor under a projecting point, behind a reef of rocks. In the edge of the water was a square enclosure for turtle and on the shore a deserted fisherman's hut.

At daylight we were again under way. We passed three more square buildings; but as the coast was rocky we could not land without endangering the safety of our precious canoa; and far off, on a high cliff, stood the Castillo of Tuloom, the extreme point at which we were aiming. At twelve o'clock we turned a point, and came upon a long, sandy beach, forming a bay, at the head of which was a small collection of huts, composing the rancho of Tancar. The entrance was difficult, being hemmed in by sunken reefs and rocks. Two women were standing in the doorway of one of the huts, except the old fisherman the only persons we had seen along this desolate coast.

It was this point which we expected to reach by land direct from Chemax. The reader will see the circuit it has cost us to make it, but the first glance satisfied us of our good fortune in not going to it direct, for we saw the frame of the sloop we had heard of still on the stocks, which probably is not yet finished. We should not have been able to get a canoa, and should have been obliged to return by the same road. The moment the stone was thrown out we were in the water, wading ashore. The sun was intensely hot, and the sand burning. In front of the principal hut, beside the sloop, was a thatched arbour to protect the carpenter who occasionally worked upon it. Near by was a ruined hut, which we had cleared out, and for the third time took up our abode in a habitation erected by Molas. On leaving the island of Cozumel it was only to this desolate point on the coast that he dared venture. It was a situation that again suited his proscribed life, and having no fear of pursuit from the interior, his energy and industry did not desert him. He again cultivated his milpa, and again laid the keel of a sloop, being the same which we then saw unfinished. But, finding himself growing old, in a measure forgotten and afflicted by illness, he ventured to appear in the village of Chemax, on returning from which, as before mentioned, with a single Indian, while yet eight leagues from Tancar he died in the road; as our informant expressed it, he died like a dog, without aid either human or divine. We had heard so much of Molas, of his long succession of calamities, and of the heavy retribution that had been poured upon his aged head, and we had seen so much of his unbroken energy, that, in spite of the violence and crimes imputed to him, our sympathies were excited; and having heard afterward from other sources the opinion expressed strongly, that during these long years of proscription he was the victim of an iniquitous and unrelenting persecution, I draw a veil over his history. It was but a year since he died, and his two sons were in possession of the rancho, both young men, who paid us a visit soon after our arrival. When the old man died the Indian left the body in the road, and came on to the rancho, whence these young men went up and buried it on the spot. Afterward they went again, dug it up, put it in a box, brought it to the rancho, and embarked with it in a canoa for San Fernando, where some of their kinsmen lived. On the way they were overtaken by a storm, threw the body overboard, and, said our informant, that was the last of poor old Molas. The elder son was said to have been implicated with his father, and the curse seemed entailed upon him. He had lost entirely the use of one eye, and the other rolled feebly and lustreless in a watery orbit. Probably by this time he is perfectly blind.

Our first inquiries were upon the subject of ruins. A short path through the woods leads to a milpa, in which are numerous remains of ancient buildings standing on terraces, but all small and dilapidated. These buildings once stood erect in full view from the sea, but now the stranger sails along the coast unconscious that among the trees lie shrouded the ruins of an aboriginal town.

In the afternoon we set out for the ruins of Tuloom, a league distant on the coast, and with the Castillo on a high cliff in full sight. Our road lay for a mile and a half along the shore. The beach was sandy, and in some places so yielding that we sank above the ankles, and found it a relief to take off our shoes and stockings, and wade in the edge of the water. At the end of the beach was a high rocky promontory, standing out into the sea, and cutting off all progress along the shore. This we ascended, and continued along the cliff, which sloped toward the sea, in some places forming a perpendicular wall, and on our right rose great masses of rock, cutting off entirely the view of the Castillo. In half an hour we came unexpectedly upon a low building, apparently an adoratorio, or altar, climbing to the top of which, we again saw the Castillo. Beyond the cliff became more rugged and barren, reminding us of the witches' gathering-place in the Hartz Mountains, as described in the Faust of Goethe; and, amid all its barrenness, from the crevices of the rocks sprang a thick growth of scrubby wild palm called tshike, covering the whole surface of the cliff. Toiling through this, we reached another low building, from the top of which we again saw El Castillo, but with a great chasm between, apparently cutting off all hope of access. By this time it was late, and, afraid of being overtaken by darkness on this wild range, we turned back. Night was upon us when we again reached the shore. The sandy beach was now a welcome relief, and at a late hour we again reached the hut, having come to a rapid conclusion that a frequent repetition of this walk would be neither pleasant nor profitable, and that, in order to get through our work with the celerity we aimed at, it would be necessary again to take up our abode among the ruins.

The next, morning we set out for that purpose, escorted by the younger Molas, a fine lad of about twenty, who considered our arrival the greatest incident that had ever occurred at Tancar, and before we reached the end of the beach he wanted to go travelling with us. Ascending the cliff, and passing beyond the two buildings we had seen the day before, we descended from the rear of the last to the head of the chasm which had seemed to cut us off from the principal object of our visit; ascending again at the other end of the ravine, we entered a gloomy forest, and, passing a building on the left, with "old walls" visible in different places indistinctly through the trees, reached the grand staircase of the Castillo. The steps, the platform of the building, and the whole area in front were overgrown with trees, large and principally ramon, which, with their deep green foliage and the mysterious buildings around, presented an image of a grove sacred to Druidical worship.

Our boatmen and Molas cut a path up the steps, and, carrying up their loads, in an hour we were domesticated in the Castillo. We had undertaken our long journey to this place in utter uncertainty as to what we should meet with; impediments and difficulties had accumulated upon us, but already we felt indemnified for all our labour. We were amid the wildest scenery we had yet found in Yucatan; and, besides the deep and exciting interest of the ruins themselves, we had around us what we wanted at all the other places, the magnificence of nature. Clearing away the platform in front, we looked over an immense forest; walking around the moulding of the wall, we looked out upon the boundless ocean, and deep in the clear water at the foot of the cliff we saw gliding quietly by a great, fish eight or ten feet long.

The plate opposite represents the front of the Castillo. A few of the trees which grew around it appear in the engraving, and one is left growing on the top of the lower range, with its gnarled roots binding the front wall and obstructing the doorway, but no words and no drawing could convey a true idea of the solemnity of its living shroud, or of the impression made upon us when the ring of the axe first broke the stillness that had so long prevailed around. The building, including the wings, measures at its base one hundred feet in length. The grand staircase is thirty feet wide, with twenty-four steps, and a substantial balustrade on each side, still in good preservation, gives it an unusually imposing character. In the doorway are two columns, making three entrances, with square recesses above them, all of which once contained ornaments, and in the centre one fragments of a statue still remain. The interior is divided into two corridors, each twenty-six feet long; the one in front is six feet six inches wide, and had at each end a stone bench, or divan; and again on the walls we found the mysterious prints of the red hand.[⁴]

A single doorway leads to the back corridor, which is nine feet wide, and has a stone bench extending along the foot of the wall. On each side of the doorway are stone rings, intended for the support of the door, and in the back wall are oblong openings, which admit breezes from the sea. Both apartments have the triangular-arched ceiling, and both had a convenience and pleasantness of arrangement that suited us well as tenants.