“I fancy if the grim old Rain God, Noh-och Yum Chac, the Indra of the Mayas, was enraged when the dredge first began to rob him of his long-held treasures, the presence of this clumsy craft, as it tipped and yawed on its slow seventy-foot descent to the water, must surely have excited him to frenzy. Yet inexorably we continued our quest, undaunted by the thought of the god’s wrath and determined to strip him of every secret. We moored the craft, by a long rope, to a projecting stone knob on the sheer wall of the well, so that it was directly over the area where the dredge had been working. Our system was to lower the bucket, raise it, and pour its dripping contents upon the scow, and this we continued to do until we had heaped upon the boat ten buckets of bottom mud. Loaded to its capacity, the scow was drawn to a narrow sandy shelf or beach which had formed at one side of the well. Then we transferred and examined the load, handling ten buckets from the dredge in about the same length of time it had taken us previously to dispose of one. And thus, for a while, the dredge was made to work profitably even under the increasing scarcity of ‘pay dirt.’
“During this phase of our labor we accumulated a great quantity of potsherds, copal, and rubber nodules. Each time the filled scow came to the little beach, the big toads retreated into their rocky cavities amidst the roots and the myriad eyes that usually shone in these twilight depths became invisible. Only the iguanas and the lizards in the branches of the cork-trees that shadowed the tiny beach remained sleepily undisturbed, while the little painted tortoises on the half-submerged logs or branches floating near by became so accustomed to the sight of the scow that they stayed brazenly in their places and eyed the proceedings without fear.
“As the work went on, the tailing or discard from our dredge began to spread out and extend our little beach until it became a solid peninsula jutting out into the well and making our labors easier by providing much-needed footing and elbow-room.
“Long hours I spent gazing over the side of the scow, waiting for the dredge to come up with its load, and while I waited I glimpsed fascinating highlights of a hitherto unknown world—a world with its tragedies, grotesqueries, and surprises; a world in which humans took no part; one unseen until then by human eyes. Drifting past on the turgid waters were curious jelly-like formless creatures and tiny water-insects, some moving slowly as with effort, others like an arrow in shape and speed. Here was a plethora of twisting, darting, gyrating forms of life, all intent on the one object of preserving life—that bitter jest of Nature who instils in us each, great or small, the belief that our own particular and individual existence is of amazing import when she herself values it so lightly.
“Floating on the water were many small red worms no larger round than a pin and perhaps a quarter of an inch long. As one floated lazily by, a small red ant, blown or fallen from the land above, struck the water and instantly was attacked by the worm. The struggle was titanic but brief and the worm, which was more slender than its victim, simply swallowed the ant—body, struggling legs, and all. As the swallowing continued the body of the worm became almost transparent and I could easily follow the journey of his dinner inside, until diner and dinner drifted out of sight.
“Close by the cliff-like wall of the pool was a school of tiny jet-black catfish—pouts, we used to call them in New England when I was a lad. They were but a few days beyond the egg state and were carefully herded by a portly, motherly old catfish. Her inclination evidently was toward dignified, unhurried movement, well tempered with complete repose, but the erratic and swift excursions of her hundred or more infants kept her on the qui vive to head off their ceaseless turnings and dashes, for they seemed possessed to venture into the outer and unknown world, even as other infants since time began. To add to her trials, the whole school was more or less surrounded by tadpoles just as black and even more lively than the baby fishes. They seemed not to have nor to require any motherly care and, like impudent street gamins, they delighted in teasing and leading astray the more tenderly nurtured youngsters. Slyly they tried to swallow the little fishes, tail first, in their sucker-like mouths, and were dissuaded only by the wrathful dash of Mother Catfish.
“It was during this time, which I call the intermediate stage of the work, that many of our specimens of lighter weight were obtained. Among them are pieces of gourds, copal fragments, parts of wooden objects, and bones, all wonderfully preserved in this colossal silo—for the Sacred Well is in many respects like a silo. Some of the potsherds and wooden objects, and even a few of the gourds, had been covered with a thick white paint, almost as hard as enamel, and upon the surface of this the artists of old had worked and drawn figures and hieroglyphs similar to those found in the Codices. Some of the finest pieces of ancient fabrics were recovered at this time. The gradual caving in of the mud about the cavity we had scooped out permitted these fabrics to slip gently into the hole and to be brought up unharmed by the steel lips of our dredge. They are all carefully preserved and are the only authentic specimens of their kind known to archæological science. I deem them among the most important of my treasures from the well.
“There came up ropes and cords, both of bark and fiber, and curiously knotted masses of copal; images carved from light wood and covered with rubber and copal; and always bones and more bones, of maidens and warriors.
“At last the dredge bit only on rock and boulders, against which the steel jaws made no headway. Again and again the bucket came up empty and with its jaws twisted and bent.
“If the first stage—the beginning of the work, when the steel bucket first plunged into the still water of the pit—was exciting, I found myself now laboring under a still greater emotion, for the time had come which I had long foreseen, when the dredge unaided by human hands could accomplish nothing more. There must be hands at the bottom of the well—not the dead hands of pitiful maidens, but live hands of sturdy men to explore every inch of the uneven rocky bottom. From dredging with windlass and bucket, we must pass to a season of deep-sea diving with all the paraphernalia of diving-suits and hose and air-pumps.