After four years of toil and exposure to danger, and after a large expenditure of money paid for services in opening roads, clearing ruins, and making excavations, Dr. Le Plongeon finds himself deprived of all the material results of his labors and sacrifices which could secure him an adequate return. We hope that he may soon receive just and satisfactory treatment from the government, and a fitting recognition and remuneration from the scientific world.
In judging of the subject here presented, the reader will bear in mind that facts substantiated should not be rejected, even if the theories founded on them advance beyond the light of present information.
In August, Dr. Le Plongeon sent the following letter with the request that it should be published in a form which would allow of its presentation to the Congrès International des Américanistes, which would be held at Luxembourg in the month of September. It was printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, in the issues of Sept. 3d and 4th, and is now repeated in the same type in this connection. The spelling of the name Chac-Mool in the letter was changed by the writer from that employed in the text by Dr. Le Plongeon, which is invariably Chaacmol; a liberty taken in consequence of the unanimous preference in favor of the spelling Chac-Mool shown in all the written or printed articles from Yucatan relating to this discovery, which have come to our observation. Copies of the letter were sent to Luxembourg, and also to the Bureau of the Société des Américanistes at Paris.
Letter from Dr. Le Plongeon.
| Island of Cozumel, Yucatan, June 15, 1877. | } |
Stephen Salisbury, jr., esq., Worcester, Mass.:—
Dear Sir,— ... The London Times of Wednesday, January 3, 1877, contains views on the projected congress of the so-called Americanists, that is expected to be held at Luxembourg in September next. Was the writing intended for a damper? If so, it did not miss its aim. It must have frozen to the very core the enthusiasm of the many dreamers and speculators on the prehistoric nations that inhabited this western continent. As for me, I felt its chill even under the burning rays of the tropical sun of Yucatan, notwithstanding I am, or ought to be, well inured to them during the four years that my wife and myself are rambling among the ruined cities of the Mayas.
True, I am but a cool searcher of the stupendous monuments of the mighty races that are no more, but have left the history of their passage on earth written on the stones of the palaces of their rulers, upon the temples of their gods. The glowing fires of enthusiasm do not overheat my imagination, even if the handiwork of the ancient artists and architects—if the science of the Itza H-Menes—wise men, fill my heart with a surprise akin to admiration. Since four years we ask the stones to disclose the secrets they conceal. The portraits of the ancient kings, those of the men with long beards, who seem to have held high offices among these people, have become familiarized with us, and we with them. At times they appear to our eyes to be not quite devoid of life, not entirely deaf to our voice. Not unfrequently the meaning of some sculpture, of some character, of some painting,—till then obscure, unintelligible, puzzling,—all of a sudden becomes clear, easy to understand, full of meaning.
Many a strange story of human greatness and pride, of human, petty and degrading passions, weakness and imperfections, has thus been divulged to us;—while we were also told of the customs of the people; of the scientific acquirements of the H-Menes; of the religious rites observed by the kins (priests); of their impostures, and of the superstition they inculcated to the masses; of the communication held by the merchants of Chichen with the traders from Asia and Africa; of the politeness of courtiers and gracefulness of the queen; of the refinement of the court; of the funeral ceremonies, and of the ways they disposed of the dead; of the terrible invasions of barbarous Nahua tribes; of the destruction, at their hands, of the beautiful metropolis Chichen-Itza, the centre of civilization, the emporium of the countries comprised between the eastern shores of Mayapan and the western of Xibalba; of the subsequent decadence of the nations; of their internal strife during long ages. For here, in reckoning time, we must not count by centuries but millenaries. We do not, in thus speaking, indulge in conjectures—for, verily, the study of the walls leaves no room for supposition to him who quietly investigates and compares.
How far Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself have been able to interpret the mural paintings, bas-reliefs, sculptures and hieroglyphics, the results of our labors show. (Some of them have been lately published in the “Illustration Hispano-Americana” of Madrid.) The excavating of the magnificent statue of the Itza king, Chac-Mool, buried about five thousand years ago by his wife, the queen of Chichen, at eight metres under ground (that statue has just been wrenched from our hands by the Mexican government, without even an apology, but the photographs may be seen at the residence of Mr. Henry Dixon, No. 112 Albany street, Regent park, London, and the engravings of it in the “Ilustracion Hispano-Americana”); the knowledge of the place where lies that of Huuncay, the elder brother of Chac-Mool, interred at twelve metres under the surface—of the site where the H-Menes hid their libraries containing the history of their nation—the knowledge and sciences they had attained, would of itself be an answer to Professor Mommsen’s ridiculous assertion, that we are anxious to find what cannot be known, or what would be useless if discovered. It is not the place here to refute the learned professor’s sayings; nor is it worth while. Yet I should like to know if he would refuse as useless the treasures of King Priam because made of gold that belongs to the archaic times—what gold does not? Or, if he would turn up his nose at the wealth of Agamemnon because he knows that the gold and precious stones that compose it were wrought by artificers who lived four thousand years ago, should Dr. Schliemann feel inclined to offer them to him. What says Mr. Mommsen?