# A Glimpse at Guatemala/Chapter 20

CHAPTER XX.
THE RUINS OF IXKUN AND THE PINE RIDGE.
On the 9th of March we set out again and lunched at midday under the shade of the first pine-trees that we had seen since leaving the valley of the Cajabon River, and two leagues further on we left the shade of the forest for the open savannah of Poctum, a level plain covered with beautiful pasture and dotted over with conical limestone hills and clumps of pine-trees. The next day we crossed the Rio Machaquilá, a swift and sparkling stream which bounds the savannah towards the north, and then had a dreary ride along a forest-track, where the mules plunged up to their girths in mud-holes, to the village of Dolores.
For the next fortnight Dolores was our headquarters while we explored the ruins of Ixkun. I had heard of the existence of these ruins some years before from the Jefe Politico of Peten, but none of the villagers in Dolores seemed to know anything about them. The Alcalde was inclined to resent our inquiries, and clearly looked on us as suspicious characters, until the perusal of my letter from the President calmed his fears; he then promised to make inquiries himself and find a "práctico" to guide us. There was really some difficulty in discovering anyone who knew the way, but at last a "práctico" was found who was sent off next morning in company with Gorgonio and Carlos. They returned in the evening to report that the ruins had been found buried in the forest about six miles to the N.N.W. of the village; not only, they reported, were the mounds and carved monoliths completely hidden from view by the rank vegetation, but over a great part of the site the thick tangle of woody lianes was almost impenetrable. However we had a force of twenty mozos, and next day they were set to work with axes and machetes to clear away the undergrowth and smaller trees, and as several cargoes of totoposte and frijoles arrived from Cajabon in the course of the first week, there was no lack of food and the men worked fairly well.
The small plain on which the ruins stand is almost surrounded by low rough limestone hills, and although the forest is too thick to enable one to speak with anything like certainty, I do not think the buildings extend beyond the area of the plain. The plan of the ruins is given on the opposite page. It could not have been a town of very great importance, as the buildings are small and the masonry is of an inferior class, but the sculptured monoliths and hieroglyphic inscriptions show that it must have belonged to a good period.
I made an excavation on the summit of the mound marked X in the plan, that disclosed the remains of a house or temple, of which a ground-plan is given. Only two walls could be found, but there was almost certainly an outer chamber, which is shown in dotted lines. Near the middle doorway a rough unworked slab of stone was lying, which had probably served as a lintel. The doorway in the back wall had been blocked up after the house was built. The walls still standing are about five feet high, and, from the position of the stone lintel above the blocked-up doorway, I should estimate the original height of the walls at a little over six feet. The cement floor of the house is still in fair condition, and there are traces of a cement-covered platform which ran round the outside of it. Some fragments of rough pottery were found inside the house. No roofing-stones of the type used in Copan, Tikál, and the other great ruins could be found, and I am inclined to think that the very narrow chambers were roofed with flat slabs, and some slabs which would have answered the purpose were found among the debris. There are several carved monoliths which formerly stood on the level ground in front of the buildings, but most of them are overturned and partly destroyed. The only one in a fair state of preservation is shown in the accompanying Plate; but this is one of great importance, and we made a careful mould of it, from which a plaster-cast has been made; this is now in the South Kensington Museum.
Two Maya priests or chieftains with elaborate head-dresses and ornaments stand facing each other above a hieroglyphic inscription, which commences with what I have called an "Initial Sequence," which Mr. Goodman has proved to be a date. In the lower panels are two unadorned crouching human figures, with their necks and arms bound with ropes, evidently meant to represent prisoners trodden under foot by the two gorgeously arrayed figures who stand above them. The marked difference in physiognomy between the Mayas and their captives is clearly shown, and this monument ​may celebrate the conquest of the aboriginal inhabitants of the land or the defeat of some of those barbarous invaders from the north whom some writers believe to have finally caused the overthrow of the Maya civilization. It is also worth noting that the Mayas carry only ornamented staves in their hands and make no show of weapons of war. In one of the other partly destroyed monuments a figure is represented carrying in his hand one of the "Manakin sceptres," of which so many examples occur on the sculptures at Quiriguá.
For the first few days after setting the men to work I made only occasional visits to the ruins, and spent most of my time in Dolores working out the observations taken on the route; but as soon as the clearing was sufficiently advanced to enable me to commence measurements, I took up my quarters in the ruins under a rough shed of palm-leaves, and remained there until our work was finished.
On the 24th of March we resumed our journey, and set out for Yaxché, a small village about sixteen miles to the north-west of Dolores. After travelling through forest for some hours along the divide between the Pasion and Belize Rivers, we emerged on a savannah country studded with innumerable low timber-covered hills. As we approached the village the trees became scarcer, and both plain and hills were clothed with rough grass. Here we stayed until the 5th of April, examining the ruins in the neighbourhood and sending out expeditions to hunt for others, of which reports had reached us, but our efforts at discovery were not altogether successful.
About two miles to the north-west of Yaxché, on the banks of a streamlet which runs to join the Rio San Juan, stand the remains of a town of considerable size; but, as no signs of sculptured stones could be found among the foundation mounds, we did not attempt to clear away the thick undergrowth, but turned our attention to two conical hills of natural formation standing up conspicuously about eight hundred yards apart on either side of the stream. Both hills were overgrown with grass, and each was crowned with a mound which we thought must contain the remains of a building.
SCULPTURED MONOLITH AT IXKUN
1 in. = 8 ft. PLAN OF TEMPLE. The entrance-passage and interior of the chamber were lined with small well-wrought blocks of stone, but the material is so soft that it could easily be cut with a knife. The floor had a covering of cement, which was in good condition, and the outside of the walls appears to have had a thick coating of the same material. A stone lintel and a few slabs, which may have been used for roofing, and some fragments of rough pottery were met with in digging out the debris. Along the back of the chamber was a raised bench about two feet high, and in the face of it was a niche about twenty inches by eighteen, which was much smoke-stained and had probably been used for burning offerings of copal. We also dug into the mound on the summit of the northern hill, and with some difficulty were able to trace the walls of a building which must have closely resembled its companion facing it on the opposite side of the valley. On the broken floor of the chamber we discovered portions of three earthen pots and some fragments of a good-sized stucco figure. We were able to piece together two fragments of a well-modelled face, which must have been about ten inches in breadth, and to ascertain that the eyes had been made of obsidian.
Almost all round the ruined town there are numberless limestone hills between fifty and three hundred feet in height, and at the top of nearly every one of them are foundation-mounds or tumuli. In some cases these foundations are merely outlined in rough stones, in others they are flat oblong mounds, which may have supported buildings of a perishable material. A common arrangement of the remains on these hilltops is given in the accompanying sketch. I opened one set thus arranged. The monnd A had probably supported a small "cue" or shrine; a terrace ran in front of it, which was reached by a short flight of ​ steps. The total height of the mound was about sixteen feet, and the level space on the top of it did not measure more than six feet by four. We dug a trench right through this mound, and found traces of interments and broken pottery within a few feet of the top, and below this nothing but a mass of rough stones and earth. B, C, and D may have been the foundations of small houses, but they also served as places of sepulture, as we found in them traces of bones and broken pottery. The four smaller mounds were tombs only. The vessels buried with the bodies appear to have consisted of a flat dish and a round pot. The body was probably seated with its knees doubled up, for we found the fragments of bones all close together, and portions of the skull in the midst of them. In one instance the skull, or rather the earthen impression of it, was actually resting in the dish and the bones lying around it, as though the body had been seated in the dish, and as the skeleton had decayed the skull had sunk down through them. We found three or four chipped stone lance-heads, a good deal of unworked flint, but only two obsidian flakes. There were also a few pieces of mealing-stones and a considerable quantity of potsherds showing traces of yellow and black and red colouring. A little trickling stream at the foot of the hills had evidently formed part of the water-supply of the ancient inhabitants, for it was enclosed in a wall forming an irregular, oval about twenty-five by forty feet. On the level ground between the hills we found several round holes about eighteen inches in diameter, faced with plaster or stone, forming the mouths of small underground chambers, which may have been intended for storage, or possibly were used for vapour-baths.
On the whole our excavations were unsatisfactory, and the hard work of digging was rendered all the more unpleasant by a change in the weather, which now became intensely hot and oppressive. We were tormented when at work in the open ground by myriads of small black flies, which crawled all over us and bit viciously. Great heaps of the long grass were collected and set on fire in the hope that the smoke would drive the flies away; but the smoke seemed only to attract fresh swarms, and they danced in it in great columns, following it round whenever the wind changed its direction.
We were now in the country where the Peten turkey (Meleagris ocellata) abounds, and, as I wished to obtain a few good skins, I sent out some of my men to shoot the birds, which can be most easily done near the time of the full moon. There was no sport in the process, which is as follows:—Setting ​out an hour before sunset the hunter will post himself on the edge of one of the numerous thickets of trees and shrubs which are scattered over the savannah and listen for the cry made by the cock bird as he goes to roost; with good luck he may be able to mark two or three of the roosting-places, and then, after waiting, a prey to mosquitos and ticks, until the moon rises, he creeps round to the trees from which the sound has come and takes a potshot at the sleeping bird, whose body looms black against the moonlit sky. In the daytime these birds are very shy, but I have several times come upon them unexpectedly and have got a shot, and once succeeded in getting two, right and left, both young birds and very good to eat. As the hens do not call when going to roost, their skins are much more difficult to obtain. Several attempts have been made to bring these beautiful birds to England, but they have never survived the change of climate for more than a few months. They are easily tamed and cross freely with the domestic turkey, and some hybrids which have been raised by Mr. Blancaneaux in British Honduras are extremely handsome, having both the beautiful plumage of the wild bird and the conspicuous wattles of the tame one. During our stay at Yaxché my men brought in five cock birds, four of them with good skins, and we feasted sumptuously on their bodies.
Before leaving the village we had an addition made to our party; one of the Indians, when returning from work, shot a monkey, which fell from the tree dead, and was found to have a baby clinging to its breast. The poor little beast was uninjured, and was brought home to me howling piteously; for the second time I had to be nurse to an infant monkey, and I don't think any human child could have demanded more attention. My first experience of nursing had occurred at the ruins of Quiriguá, where a baby monkey had been brought to me in much the same way. It was so young that I had to feed it through a short piece of india-rubber tubing cut from a photographic drop-shutter; however it throve well, and, when not asleep in its box, it would spend hour after hour clinging on to the upper part of my left arm with a firm grip of its tail, and its little hands and feet buried in the folds of my flannel shirt; but for its occasional demands for a caress, I could go on with my work in the forest hardly conscious of its presence. At the end of three weeks I had occasion to make a long journey in search of more labourers, and I took my baby with me, intending to leave it at the village of Quiriguá in charge of a friendly old negress, whose unfailing kindness to my men when they were ill had endeared her to us all, and whose love for pet birds and animals was well known. Half an hour after leaving the shelter of the forest on our way to the village, I felt the little monkey suddenly relax his hold on my arm, and only just managed to catch him ​as he fell. It had never occurred to me that a monkey might suffer from sunstroke, but such was evidently the case. He partly recovered consciousness before we arrived at the village, where my kindly old friend Saturnina Alvarez made a comfortable little nest for him, and he seemed to be on a fair way to recovery. Saturnina brought him to the door the next morning when I was starting on my journey; as I rode away he stretched out his thin little arms and cried for me to take him. This was the last I saw of him, for I learnt on my return that he had died within a few hours.
The new baby was a little older than my Quiriguá pet, and could take its food from a spoon, but unluckily there was not much food to be had which suited him. However, I had heard that there was a company of mahogany-cutters in the neighbourhood, and sent one of my mozos to their temporary headquarters or "Monteria," which was distant two days' journey, to try and buy a tin of condensed milk from their stores. Running after ruins and sculptured stones was a sufficiently incomprehensible proceeding to the Indian mind, but journeying for four days to buy a tin of food for a juvenile monkey must have seemed an act of sheer madness; when the order was given an expression of incredulous surprise was visible on the usually stolid faces of my mozos, and I believe that in their eyes it was the wildest eccentricity in which I was ever known to indulge. The little beast soon became devotedly fond of me, and my sympathy with mothers who have to bring up naughty and querulous children has vastly increased. My baby gave me no rest; he cried when he should have been quiet, and refused to be comforted unless I nursed him to sleep in my arms; and he woke up at unseemly hours in the night and demanded food. When we started on our journey again there was some difficulty in knowing what to do with him, and he protested strongly against the position assigned to him on the top of the Indian's pack; whenever his bearer came within sight of me during the journey the little fellow would hold out his tiny arms and clamour for me to take him. I usually had to give in to him before the day's journey was over, and then he would sit contentedly on my shoulder with his tail round my neck crooning to himself; or if he were sleepy would find his way inside my flannel shirt, as though he took me for an organ-grinder. During one night, however, we had a serious difference of opinion, and actually came to blows. He had been put to sleep in his basket as usual, with his mosquito-curtain carefully arranged over him, but he became uncomfortably restless and awoke again and again, demanding food and attention, and tried to howl as though he were grown up and had a fully developed thyroid cartilage through which to trumpet. At last I determined to take no further notice of him, in hope that he would tire himself out; but he turned the tables on me, and finally, ​to ensure some sleep for myself, I had to take him into my bed. By this time he was in a towering rage, and instead of going to sleep where I placed him under the blanket, he dashed out and danced a sort of war-dance on my chest, gesticulating fiercely. Then, after the manner of nurses, I had finally to give him a good spanking, which only made him angrier than ever; but he knew that he was beaten, he gave up his war-dance and went to the bottom of the cot, covering his head with the rug; then, like a naughty child, every few minutes he would raise his head to boo-o at me, and then hide it again under the rug, until at last, tired out, he fell asleep. It was a moonlight night, and for some time longer I lay awake listening to the sound of the alligators clashing their teeth—which sounds like a traveller's tale, but it is not fiction. The river literally swarmed with these hideous creatures, and they have a queer habit of a night of opening their mouths wide and bringing their teeth together with a snapping sound which can be heard for a long distance.
The journey from Yaxché to Benque Viejo took us from the 5th to the 11th of April, and was of no particular interest. We passed two ruins on the way the first, near Salísipuede, was of the Ixkun type, but without sculptured stelæ; the second, near Takinsakún, was probably of late date, as parts of some of the stone-roofed houses were still standing, and the plaster covering the walls was in good condition. These houses are of remarkable size—one measured 118 feet in length, and contained two long parallel chambers running the whole length of the house, each 9 feet wide and 16 feet 9 inches high.
Takinsakún is a name with a good Indian sound about it, but I have sometimes seen it written in the Colonial Reports as "Take in Second." With regard to Salísipuede (get out if you can), there is a local tradition that the name marks the site of a "Monteria," which had to be abandoned on account of the difficulty met with in floating the mahogany logs down a small streamlet to the Mopan River. But the most puzzling of all these frontier names is one within British territory the German map gives it as Arinchuak (Ar-in-chu-ak), which sounds like a good enough Indian name, although I have not the slightest idea whether it would have any meaning in an Indian dialect. On the other hand, it is precisely the pronunciation given by the Creole negroes to "Orange Walk," a village on the Belize River, and it is possibly a repetition of that name; but whether the negro has Anglicized an Indian name or the learned German has made a good-sounding Indian name out of the negro pronunciation of Orange Walk, must be left to a philologist to decide. Benque Viejo (Old Bank: this name again is a mixture, as Banco and not Benque is the Spanish for Bank) is the frontier village on the ​British side, and was an insignificant place when I passed through it in 1882, but has now risen to considerable importance, owing to the influx of Ladinos and Indians from the Guatemala side of the boundary-line. Not far from the village on the left bank of the river, within the Guatemala frontier, there is an important group of ruined buildings, and several carved stelæ, but, unfortunately, all the monuments are broken and much weather-worn. I was only able to give a few hours to the examination of these ruins, and could not attempt to make any plan of the many-chambered buildings, which I feel sure would well repay further exploration. The next day we rode into the Cayo, where I was hospitably received by Mr. Milson, the resident English magistrate.
From the Cayo I sent off Carlos and José Domingo Lopez, with five or six mozos, on an expedition to the ruins of Tikal (which lie hidden in the forest about twenty miles to the N.E. of the Lake of Peten, four or five days' march from the Cayo), with instructions to make paper-moulds of the carvings on some small stelæ, of which I possessed no plaster copies, although I had taken photographs of them during my visit to those ruins in 1881 and 1882. I myself set about making arrangements for a short journey into the unknown interior of British Honduras, through what is called the Great Southern Pine Ridge.
It was not until the 23rd of April that I was ready to start with Gorgonio and eight mozos, and accompanied by Mr. Blancaneaux, a Frenchman, who, after fighting through the German war, had come out to Belize, where he had for some time served as an inspector of the Colonial Police, and had finally settled at the Cayo, where he occupied his time in collecting natural-history specimens. Our first day's journey took us up the Makal branch of the Belize River as far as Monkey Fall, where we crossed the stream, and, leaving it on our right, walked through the forest along an old Truck-path (as the temporary roads in the forest are called along which the mahogany logs are dragged to the river-bank), until we arrived at the little village of San Antonio, where we passed the night. The next morning, continuing our march in a S.S.E. direction for a little more than an hour, we passed from the forest into a more open country, with occasional clumps of oak and pine-trees; in front of us we could see a great stretch of undulating country clothed with coarse grass, and for the most part sparsely covered with pine-trees, which here and there formed clumps and protected a scrubby undergrowth. During this and the next day we crossed numerous clear and rapid rivulets which ran through narrow strips of forest and thickets of "Camalote" (high reeds), or, as we gradually rose to higher ground, spread over broad stony beds, where the shrunken streams were half hidden amongst great ​granite boulders. On the third day we reached the top of a range of hills known as the Blue Mountains, and found that, by a very gradual ascent,we had reached a height of 2600 feet. Here we found the air fresh and invigorating, and we obtained an extensive view over the Pine Ridge, which stretched away for about twenty miles to the north of us. From the southern side of the hills we could see the Cockscomb Mountains, about twenty-five miles to the S.S.E. We camped for the night on the southern slope of the hills, about two hundred feet below our highest point, and at 11 p.m. the thermometer stood at 65° Fahrenheit. The Pine Ridge came to an end at the distance of two or three miles to the south of our camp, and we could see the main branch of the Rio Makal issuing from between the forest-clad hills which bounded our view in that direction. These hills form the watersheds of the rivers San Ramon and Machaquilá, as well as of some streams flowing into the Gulf of Honduras, and are probably identical with the "Sierra de los Pedernales," whose recesses have never been penetrated since Cortez and his army lost their way among them in 1526, on the celebrated march from Mexico to Honduras.
I spent the morning of the 27th taking bearings and examining the surrounding country through a field-glass. In the afternoon we set out for the river which ran below us, scrambling down the hill-side, and cutting our way through patches of forest and camalote. The river proved to be about fifty yards wide, and the water slowly flowed through a succession of long pools with shallow rapids
ON THE PINE RIDGE.
During the next few days we passed the time in a way that a school-boy fresh from Robinson Crusoe would have considered almost perfect, for we attempted to make a raft and float our baggage down the stream, whilst the mozos unencumbered with loads should cut their way through the thickets that lined the banks. However, it was not a success, as the following extracts from my scrappy journal will show:—"29th April. The Pine Ridge is still burning to the N.E. of us. Have seen many tracks of tapir and deer, but cannot catch sight of the animals themselves. Started with the raft in the afternoon. Hard work hauling it over a shallow rapid before putting the luggage on board. Rapids rather close together. At the last rapid the raft caught on a snag and the food-box went overboard: recovered with difficulty biscuits all sodden.—30th April. Lashed more cross pieces to the raft, and then gave each mozo a small load to carry so as to lighten the cargo, but after a hard day's work only succeeded in rafting about a mile and a half, and had to unload the raft once in that short distance. Very hard work in the shallow rapids: determined to abandon the raft. Shot many large ​iguanas for the men to eat, and shot two large alligators, but could not get them."
We found an alligator's nest on a small island in the river and the mozos had a glorious supper off the thirty eggs we took out of it. The nest consisted of a great pile of dry sticks, leaves, grass, and sand, which the animal had scraped together to cover up the eggs, leaving the ground swept bare for some yards around. Each egg had apparently been covered up as soon as it was laid, and the last egg we took out of the nest was buried an arm's length from the top of the pile. We again came across the owner of the despoiled nest the next day, and I got a shot at her; but although two rifle-bullets seemed to be well placed she managed to get to the water and we had an exciting chase after her, but in her dying struggles she sank into the water too deep for us to fathom with our punting-poles, and we saw her no more. On the bank of the river I found some traces of an ancient Indian settlement, raised terraces, and the foundation mounds of houses, but the houses themselves had disappeared and there were no monuments or sculptured stones to be seen.
As our provisions were running short we turned northwards again on the 1st of May. The fire, which had run for many miles over the Pine Ridge, had cleared off the high grass and made the walking easier; but we had to be careful to avoid treading on the smouldering pine-logs which here and there strewed the ground, and sometimes to give a wide berth to a half-burnt tree which was likely to come down with a crash at the first gust of wind. By the afternoon of the 4th of May we were back again at the Cayo, and there I found Carlos Lopez and his party awaiting our arrival, with a doleful story to tell me of their expedition to Tikal. They had reached Tikal safely, but had met with no water to drink during the latter part of their journey, and when they arrived at the small lagoon near the ruins which had afforded us a supply during our former visits, it was only to find that it was completely dried up. There was nothing to do but to make the best of their way back again; and their sufferings must have been severe, as for three whole days they had nothing to drink but the driblets from the water lianes which they could find along their track.
I paid off the mozos who had been to Tikal as soon as I reached the Cayo, and that same evening they set off on their long journey home. The next morning I told the remaining mozos, those who had been with me in the Pine Ridge, to go to Benque Viejo, only about four leagues distant, and bring back some baggage which we had left there, and that on their return in the evening they should receive their wages and be free to start for their homes. A considerable sum of money was owing to them, for in addition to ​their back wages, by an agreement which I had made with them, they were to receive double pay for the journey into the Pine Ridge and the conveyance of the baggage from Benque Viejo. However, they had seen their companions set off for Cajabon the night before, and that sudden home-sickness to which they are subject came over them, so they told me that they must start for their homes at once. No verbal remonstrance was of any avail, so I arranged each man's wages in a little pile and said that as soon as his load had been brought to the house—which could easily be done before night—he might take his pay and go; otherwise he would forfeit his wages, as he had not fulfilled his contract. The men made little or no reply, but filed sullenly out of the room and loafed about round the house until the afternoon; then each man made a little bundle of his rug, hammock, and other belongings and started off for home, leaving his hard-earned wages behind him.
I was really in a very awkward fix, for rrangements had been made to send all my baggage from the Cayo to Belize by water, but how to get it from Benque Viejo to the Cayo was a question difficult to answer; there were no other cargadores in the neighbourhood and no mules available, and even if mules had been forthcoming the loads would have needed careful repacking before they could have been fastened on pack-saddles. However, through the kind offices of Mr. Milson, who was untiring in his efforts to help me, I did succeed in getting hold of some of the more important packages before starting for Belize, and made arrangements for the disposition of the remainder.
But to return to the mozos. I had no intention of letting them go unpaid, and although hoping to the last that they might change their minds I had taken the precaution of posting a look-out on the road beyond the edge of the village, and there they were stopped and brought back to me, and each man was told to take the pile of dollars set out for him on the table. I don't think there had been any misapprehension on their part; the terms of the agreement had been fully explained to them and had received their assent before we started for the Pine Ridge, and they never even suggested that an injustice was being done to them; it was merely the sudden longing for home which had come over them on seeing their companions set out on the previous night which had led them to risk the forfeit of two months' wages rather than endure a day's delay.
On the 8th May I left the Cayo in a "pit-pan," a craft like an elongated Thames punt, propelled by six paddlers, who sit right in the square bow to ply their paddles, and in four days we arrived in Belize. In 1882 I made the journey from the Cayo to Belize by land, a journey which presents no difficulty to the traveller; but as in those days the path was not too clearly ​defined, I engaged a local guide, my other companions being Gorgonio and two Coban Indian carriers. One of our two mules broke down during the first day's march, and as we had only a short time in which to accomplish the journey we usually walked on until midnight and then rolling our rugs round us lay down in the path for a few hours' sleep. Both Gorgonio and I were in splendid condition and felt little fatigue, and had our guide known the way we should have finished the journey with time to spare, but he was always leading us astray. On the last day, at nine o'clock in the morning, we were lost in a mangrove-swamp within a few miles of the town of Belize, hunting for the long trestle-bridge by which alone the swamp can be crossed, and conscious that the steamer for New Orleans would leave Belize that afternoon at three o'clock punctually. By good luck we at last stumbled on the bridge, and mounting the sound mule I made the best of my way to Government House. My old friend, Sir Frederick Barlee, whom I had visited on my way to Guatemala, had had faith in my determination to turn up in time for the steamer, and with a hearty welcome I found a
ON THE BELIZE RIVER.
The journey from the Cayo to Belize by the river presents no features of interest; the scenery is monotonous and the rapids are not dangerous. Although the river is navigable for canoes and pit-pans at almost all times of the year, and supplies can thus be carried in small quantities to the mahogany-cutters and other settlers on its banks, a more satisfactory highway must be established if the colony is to advance and prosper. There would be no great difficulty in constructing a light railway from Belize to the Cayo, and I have shown, in the account of my excursion into the great Southern Pine Ridge, that a considerable elevation in an open and well-watered country could easily be reached from the Cayo by a road which could be cheaply made, and there can be no doubt that a sanatorium in such a situation would be of inestimable value to residents in the colony. It cannot be contended that Belize could ever become a pleasant place of residence; the town is commonly said to be built on a foundation of sand and mahogany chips, and the saying is almost true. A shallow sea lies in front of it, and at the back it is cut off from the more solid earth by a belt of half-drained mangrove-swamps; the streets are bordered by broad ditches or canals and the ubiquitous cat-fish is the principal scavenger, and in truth no more generally approved sanitary arrangements are possible. Yet with all these disadvantages the town is well ordered, clean, and healthy and although it has been from time to time visited by the terrible scourge of yellow fever, this can generally be traced to some indiscretion on the part of the inhabitants, such as the recent attempt to deepen the foreshore. Creole negroes form the bulk of the population, and next in number are the so-called Caribs, who have already been mentioned in connection with Livingston. In British Honduras they have come under the influence of the Jesuit Missions, and I believe that the whole race now profess some sort of Christianity, although it is closely mixed with much of their old heathen superstition; they still make periodic excursions to the depths of the forests, there to celebrate certain rites on which none but a Carib's eye is allowed to gaze. They are generally polygamists, and when a man has built a house and cleared sufficient ground for a plantation he leaves a wife in charge to look after its cultivation, considering himself free to visit his other wives whom he has similarly established on other parts of the coast, and to give his attention to fishing and canoe-building and other forms of man's work. Their beautifully-shaped ​doreys are to be seen all along the coast from Yucatan to Nicaragua, and although not such bold deep-sea sailors as the Creole negroes, they handle their canoes and doreys most skilfully and are well acquainted with every reef, island, and inlet on the coast. It is most curious to note how distinct they have kept from the Creole negroes, no Carib woman ever being known (unless a change has quite recently been made) to cohabit with a negro of another race. It has always seemed to me that the exclusiveness of the Caribs and their excellence as coasting sailors may be due to their having originally been brought to the coast of Africa as prisoners of war from the banks of some of the great lakes in the far interior, and to their thus having no kinship with the tribes from whom the slaves were usually captured, rather than to their supposed mixture with the Carib Indians of the Island of St. Vincent.
Belize as a British Colony has rather a curious history. The mouth of the Belize River was originally a haunt of buccaneers, and the very name itself is said to be a corruption of Wallace or Wallis, one of the most formidable of those pirates. Later on, as buccaneering was abandoned, a settlement was formed there by wood-cutters, and the little colony literally fought its way into recognition. Although the Spaniards were loth to give up their claim to sovereignty in any part of the New World, the Colony of British Honduras became an established fact, and its boundaries have since been recognized by treaty with Guatemala and Mexico. The Spaniards had never effectively occupied the eastern side of the peninsula of Yucatan, and although from time to time they established stations at Bacalar and even further south, the Indians of those parts always regained their independence, and beyond the British border they have kept it up to the present day. The Yucatec newspapers never the of writing about the "Guerra de Castas," the war of races, and inveighing against the iniquity of the English colonists who trade with the Indians, and are alleged to supply them with munitions of war. In reality these barbarous Santa Cruz Indians have been as great a nuisance to the British as to the Yucatecans, and both countries have suffered severely from their bloodthirsty raids. I cannot help thinking that in recent years it has not been the fighting strength of the Indians which has prevented the Mexicans from conquering them once for all, and putting an end to the raids and to the desultory warfare which—although there are really long intervals of rest—is supposed never to cease. There may be truth in the suggestion that the Mexican authorities found the war of races a convenient excuse for keeping Federal troops in Yucatan, with one eye turned to the frontier and the other on the Yucatecans themselves; for Yucatan has not always been a very loyal member of the Mexican federation. However, that ​has all changed now, for the very good reason that the governing class in Yucatan has become rich and is not likely to risk its wealth for the sake of independence, and general improvements in communication have somewhat deprived Yucatan of the safety derived from its isolated position. Meanwhile Mexico has become better organized and infinitely more powerful, and it is to be hoped that under the enlightened government of Porfirio Diaz an end may finally be put to the "Guerra de Castas," and the Indians be brought to submission and fair terms granted to them.
In the year 1881 I met the Santa Cruz chiefs in Belize, where they had come to make their annual purchases of foreign goods. In a conversation with them through an interpreter, I explained to them that the purpose of my visit to Central America was to study the works of art of their forefathers, and they very courteously asked me to visit them in their own country, an invitation which I greatly regretted my arrangements did not permit me to accept. When I passed through Belize again on my way to Guatemala in 1883, I asked the Governor if the Indians were still peaceably disposed, and if there was still a chance of visiting them; and thereon hangs a tale. He replied that he thought everything was favourable for such an expedition and that a very pleasant and learned ethnologist, whom I will call Dr. X, had just been to see him on the same subject, and no doubt it would be agreeable for us to travel together.
Dr. X had gone out of town for a few days, so I was not able to see him before my steamer sailed for Livingston; but I learnt that he did not intend starting for the Santa Cruz country before April, and I promised to write to the Governor should there be a prospect of my getting through my work in Guatemala by that date, so that arrangements could be made for Dr. X and myself to travel to Santa Cruz together. However, later on, I had to write and say there was no chance of my reaching Belize until the middle of May, and the expedition to Santa Cruz must be given up. Earlier in this chapter I have told how hurried was my return to Belize, and how nearly I lost the steamer, and it was not until we were walking to the boat which was to convey me on board that I asked the Governor how Dr. X had fared in his expedition to Santa Cruz. He replied "Thank God, I have got rid of that fellow! I found out that he had been concerned in the most abominable practices." At that moment my baggage came up and I had no time to ask any further questions even had it been discreet to do so, and although I was rather mystified the matter passed out of my mind. On my return home, one of my first visits was paid to my old friend Mr. Bates, then Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, and in the midst of his kindly greeting he stopped short and said, "By the way, did you come across Dr. X?" I said no, ​that he had already left Belize. "Thank God for that!" he said, and then rapidly changed the subject. But now my curiosity was fully aroused, and I wanted to know why everyone thanked God when Dr. X departed; I told Bates how mystified I had been at the Governor's last words to me and how nearly Dr. X and I were becoming travelling companions. He shook me by the hand again and said, "Well you have had a lucky escape; perhaps I had better tell you the whole story," which he did as follows:—Not long ago Dr. X came to me with good introductions, and said he intended to visit Belize; he asked my advice and assistance, and as he seemed a very well-informed and pleasant man I gave him a note to the Governor. A few months later I had a visit from the Colonial Office clerk, who asked me if I knew anything of the whereabouts of Dr. X; and when he heard what I had to tell him, he informed me that a Foreign Embassy in London had been in correspondence with our Foreign Office regarding Dr. X's career. It appeared that he had been travelling for some years in different parts of the world, and as a cultivated and pleasant companion had been well received in South America and elsewhere, but it had been noticed that his progress was followed by most unaccountable deaths in the families or amongst the households of his hosts, and although no actual evidence was forthcoming against him, suspicion had grown so strong that he had more than once to flee the country he was visiting. No sufficient motive for crime could be adduced; for although it was said that he occasionally borrowed money, or some article of which he had need, from his newly-made friends and acquaintances, the sums were so small, and the articles so insignificant, that his need of them might easily have been the result of carlessness on his part, and could never have afforded adequate motive for a series of cold-blooded murders. The theory put forward by those who had known him was that he had discovered the secret of some subtle and insidious poison with which he took a maniacal delight in making experiments on his unfortunate companions. However, the lack of tangible evidence and insufficient motive combined prevented any proceedings being taken against him, but suspicion was so overwhelmingly strong that it was a matter of urgent necessity to watch his movements and future career. He had been lost sight of for a time, but he was known to have expressed his intention of visiting some of the English Colonies, and the Embassy wished to put the Colonial Office on its guard. Poor Mr. Bates's feelings on learning that inadvertently he had been assisting a possible fiend may be more easily imagined than described, and he was greatly relieved at my news that Dr. X had left the Colony before any evil had been done. I heard nothing more of Dr. X and his doings until a year or two later, when the following incident occurred:—I was sitting one morning in the verandah of the house of a ​consular officer in Guatemala when the foreign mail came in, and my host, leaving me to read the newly-arrived newspapers, went off to look through his correspondence; presently he returned, and after some remarks about the news of the day, casually produced a photograph from amongst some papers he held in his hand, and said, "Do you know this man?" I looked at the rather indifferent photograph and said, "No, I don't think I have ever seen him; who is he?" He said it was the portrait of a foreigner who was travelling about here some time ago, and changing the subject he turned to walk away towards his room. Then with a sudden memory I called after him, "Oh! that is a portrait of Dr. X, isn't it? is he in this country?" Of course explanations followed, and I learnt that the Doctor was still on his travels, and that as there was some idea that he might visit Guatemala, directions had been sent to ensure a careful watch on his movements. From that day to this I have heard nothing of Dr. X, and can only hope that if he had been trying more interesting experiments he may have tried them successfully on himself.
CARIB WOMEN.