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In the picture-writings of the Aztecs, the men sit doubled up, with their chins almost touching their knees; while the women have their legs tucked under them, and their feet sticking out on the left side. On the other hand, this attitude is quite characteristic of the Yucatan sculptures.
If we are to judge by the great number of ruined cities scattered everywhere through the forests of the peninsula; by the architectural beauty of the monuments still extant, the specimens of their artistic attainments in drawing and sculpture which have reached us in the bas-reliefs, statues and mural paintings of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza; by their knowledge in mathematical and astronomical sciences, as manifested in the construction of the gnomon found by me in the ruins of Mayapan; by the complexity of the grammatical form and syntaxis of their language, still spoken to-day by the majority of the inhabitants of Yucatan; by their mode of expressing their thoughts on paper, made from the bark of certain trees, with alphabetical and phonetical characters, we must of necessity believe that, at some time or other, the country was not only densely populated, but that the inhabitants had reached a high degree of civilization.
Its edifices were finished in a different style, and show fewer inscriptions. Round pillars, somewhat in the Doric style, are found at Uxmal, but none like the square, richly-carved pillars, bearing inscriptions, discovered in some of the other ruins. Copan and Palenque, and even Kabah, in Yucatan, may have been very old cities, if not already old ruins, when Uxmal was built.
We're in a stuffy little boarding house, and it is not the place for Dad. He's helped other persons all his life, and now is the time to help him. He didn't play ducks and drakes in Yucatan. I was with him, and I know. He dropped all he had there, and he was robbed. He can't play the business game against New Yorkers. That explains it all, and I am proud he can't.
"Yes," said Uncle Dick, quietly. "And you're going to let me take you in to Belize?" "Indeed I'm not," said my uncle quietly. "I made all my plans before I started, and explained to you before we sailed from Port Royal what I wished you to do." "Well, yes, you did say something about it." "The something was that you should drop me where I wished somewhere in Yucatan or on Mosquito Coast."
But its ruins are presumed to be contemporary with those better known in Yucatan, which they resemble in many important particulars. One other notable plant grows wild hereabouts, less pleasing to the senses, but well known as an important drug in our medical practice, namely, jalap, which takes its name from the locality, or the place is named after the plant.
Think of those buried cities in Yucatan lost in the forest, temples and gods and everything. Men and women there, once upon a time, thinking they were a fine people, the only great people, with a king and princesses and priests who made out they knew the mysteries, and what God was up to. And there were processions of girls with fruit and flowers on feast-days, and soldiers in gold armour.
Their origin is unknown: but their customs were so similar to those of the inhabitants of Yucatan at the time even of the Spanish conquest and their names CAR, Carib or Carians, so extensively spread over the western continent, that we might well surmise, that, navigators as they were, they came from those parts of the world; particularly when we are told by the Greek poets and historians, that the goddess MAIA was the daughter of Atlantis.
Charnay found “the country covered with them from north to south.” Stephens states, in the Preface to his work on Yucatan, that he visited “forty-four ruined cities or places” in which such remains are still found, most of which were unknown to white men, even to those inhabiting the country; and he adds that “time and the elements are hastening them to utter destruction.”
Many French writers have maintained that the Indians procured their golden ornaments from Yucatan and other points of the main-land, by way of traffic. But they had nothing to barter, and their ornaments were numerous. Besides, the Spaniards found in various places near the rivers the holes and slight diggings whence the gold had been procured.
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