We were looking at some photographs exhibited by Mr. Maudslay, who had lately returned from Palenque, and the question of the method of carving the outlines of the figures on the stone slabs of the courts came under consideration. Mr. Woolner thought that the subject was very difficult, but that it was possible that the figures had been previously traced and then worked with acid as he had already suggested.
When I heard of this Indian practice my thoughts went far away from the forests of Palenque. Memories of the Eton playing fields were recalled and an old Eton Latin grammar, and the familiar line, “Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque turres.” With Indians, as with others, the fatal footstep cannot be turned aside.
For a description of this ceremony see Landa, chap. xxvi. “Manner of baptism in Yucatan. How it was celebrated.”
See “Historia de la Guerra de Castas de Yucatan,” p. 77. Merida, 1866.
As the little Aguinaga was timidly seeking for an anchorage, I remembered a far different scene in which I had taken part in 1853, seventeen years earlier.
The Vestal, a twenty-six gun frigate in which I was then serving, had captured three slavers off the north coast of Cuba. One of them was a fast sailing vessel called the Venus. She had become notorious for her success in evading our cruisers and landing large cargoes of slaves.