The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-03-05
YUCATAN AND CHIAPAs
Continued from Page /

blood-from six to ten ounces-while its victim all
the time remains in profound sleep. never heard
of anyone waking while the vampire sucked him,
indeed so gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw
the blood that the patient by mysterious pro-
cess, is lulled into profound sleep. The vampire
measures about two feet from wing tip to wing tip
has very sharp teeth, not unlike those of rat, and
attacks sleeping animals well as human beings.
If he in1icts wound with his teeth, one would
think that the pain would cause the person who is
sucked to awake, but it does not. When the victim
rises in the morning he is languid and weak, and
it is only when he sees the blood IN his hammock
that he realizes the vampire with him
during the night. There two species of the
vampire in the forests of Yucatan and Guatemala
and both suck living animals One is larger than
the common bat, the other measures about two feet
from wing to wing extended. We left Paencia in
the early morning, passed through a matted and
tangled forest, overgrown with vines and creep
ers. When emerged from this dense tropical
bush the ruins of Palenque were in sight. Before
us rose mass of buildings of such vastness and
such majestic design that at first glance the mind
refused to accept the ruined city a reality.
looked for it to dissolve, and, "ike the baseless
fabric of a vision leave not wreck behind"
Buried in dense tropical Jungle intensely hot,
swarming with mosquitoes, scorpions, snakes and
centipedes, Palenque Of Yucatan is fascinating
study for the antiquarian and archaeologist. One
who has never visited the matted forests which
round the prehistoric and dsmantled cities of
Guatemala and Yucatan cannot imagine the mex
trcabe confusion of gnarled roots overturned tree
trunks climbing vines and decaying vegetation that
bury everything in gloomy, seething, deceptive
covering. One step forward may land you a
fallen column, and the next bury you wast-deep in
the rotting trunk of a fallen forest giant among
scorpions, centipedes and ants In the
midst of immense tropical wilderness of rapid
growth and decay, in desolation of solitude, srik
ing by its isolation from human homes, lie buried
for unnumbered years the ruined cities of Central
America-Chichan liza, Uxmal, Tlalpan, Palenque
Who built them? When enter their gloomy but
imposing halls enter as infinity whose limits
cannot measure.
Every explorer ethnologist and antiquarian who
has visited and written on these marvellous remains
of an unknown race claim that these ruins present
problems which cannot be solved From the days of
Alvaredo, who conquered Central America, to the
young Harvard student whom / met wandering
among the ithic halls of the Royal palace at Uxma,
these forest cities are mystery. Desire Charnay
writes that these great cities were built by the
Mayas, who dwelt in these lands in pre-Spanish
times. But the Mayas were in Yucatan when the
! Spaniards entered it, Alvaredo learned to his
| cost, and they knew nothing of the builders
| Dupaix, who plunged into these painless forests
! in 1906, claimed to have found proofs that these
cities raised by the Clutches, a race antedating
by many generations the Nahuas, Mayas and Yucca
tecas. And so it goes, from Pedro de la Laguna
who in 1902 sent report to Madrid of his Journey to
Palenque down to Adolf Bandelier who wrote a
Report of Archaeological Tour in Central
America" there is no agreement of opinion, and
no solution of the problem.
1t is impossible to contemplate these mystic
monuments of lost civilization without expert
encing sense of awe and bewilderment Scattered
around the bases of the imposing palaces and halls
still standing huge blocks of diorte or serpen-
| tine that the eternal onslaught of time or the re-
peated shakings of earthquakes have hurled from
| the tops of the towers on lofty walls
At Uxmal l entered the Hall of Rain It stands
| on pyramid measuring at its base one hundred
and fifty by three hundred feet. Within the build
| ing was PATIO court, one hundred feet square
| The floors are concreted the walls covered with
stucco, and the eornices and settings moulded and
carved into weird and grotesque figures. From the
floor OF the building, stairways of stone lead to
towers thirty feet high. There are miles of ruins
here some structures almost entirely dismantled
others still standing in fairly good condition
Ihe Palace of the Priests the Arch of Triumph
| the House of the Soothsayers, and building called
the kabah are still almost intact and furnish Won
derful examples of arabesques fret-work and
grecques. At Palenque many of the buildings are
oVergrown with vines and bush ropes and are hard
to explore. The Temple of the Sun huge struc
ture, IS covered and filled with sculptured figures
OF elephants dragons, serpents and monstrous crea
lures like the ogres and gargoyles of medieval
churches. The imagination of the designer ran
rlotous over the temple. Here carved in stone are
toucans, parrots, Macaws doube-headed and featb-
cred snakes, monsters of the deep and the creep
ing and flying species of the land" The Temple of
the Gross has been stripped of its statues of MANY
of its weird and uncanny figures, and of it's won
derful cross and hieroglyphics. Fortunately these
are all preserved in the National Museum of Mex-
leo may add that it is doubtful if the mysterious
writing on the cross will ever be deciphered for the
key to the characters is lost and the ancient dwell
| ers OF Yucatan are gone forever
The Royal Quetzzazl, the wonderfully colored
bird represented on the cross is extinct. 7 saw
| mounted specimen in the museum in Mexico Citv
marvel of beauty and plumage 1t is scarcely
possible Tor the imagination to conceive anvtbino
more rich and gorgeous than the golden green color
which adorned the plumage of this splendid bird
OF more elegant than the plumes which swent from
the lower part of the back forming long tail Of
metallic bri!Iancy. The wings and back were Of
the most brilliant emerald and gold, the breast Of
merry red, while the marvellously colored plumes
when full grown, attained length of three and .
half feet The quetzel still exists in the forests Of
Guatemala, the most beautiful of living birds b,,t