Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-24
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM

THE CITY OF THE SACRED WELL
ia. willard. The Century co.

Summer playtime by motor snip
| ,r1 train Ia about over. Even Vacd-
| tion travel by way of the pleasant
| hook route Is bound to give way soon
| to the sober business of meeting ever
Tom. Dick and Harry of an author
whose novel. or poem, or pay VI
whatnot is already perched upon tne
| long bookshelves eager for the RAJ,
| campaign of reading to set IN, eiau
| of a good luck wave of the hano from
almost any sort of well Wisher. How
| ever. the Summer is not quite gone
| by. There is time yet for at least
| another journey, this one to the
| strangest place of all. A week by
| sea in the good company of t. A.
l. Willard and we are there. Sklrtlng
Z; the Atlantic out from New YORK.
| touching the rim of the Caribbean
! sailing the Mexican Gulf. we come
| upon Progreso, the only port of Yucca
tan. our journeys end. Old geog-
raphy lessons wake up enough to re-
mind us that Yucatan is a tropical
jungle growing rare and enduring
woods that commerce claims. growing
| henequen, too, source of sisal hemp
| and cordage. AS for the people, the
! old lessons name them Indians. clearly
| the relic Of an older race. much more
| advanced in the arts of life than the
! simple Mayas of the present. Not
! greatly alluring prospect for adven-
| ture, this region of Jungle, forest and
decadent natives. Let US see.
| Down In Yucatan there has lived and
worked for more than 80 years a man
| who, as boy, commenced the pursuit
of his dream of Yucatan. In his New
| England home the lad, Edward
| Thompson, read many stories and ac-
| counts of lost cities and ancient peo-
pie that once lived upon this out
| flung arm of Mexico. All that he
| could find upon the subject he de-
| voured. The more he read the more
! he dreamed of himself going in quest
! of those buried cities of so long ago.
| He made his dream come true. This
| is a part of the marvel of the whole
! thing. BY hook and by crook he
, finally made his way into Yucatan,
| where's in his visions he had already
| lived so long. There he bought up a
| whole city. To be sure, it looked like
| anything tut city. BY courtesy it
| might have been called an overgrown
and abandoned plantation. In fact,
! There were no bidders against this
| man, for nobody else wanted the place.
And there Don Eduardo, as the ma
| tives came to call him. took off his
| coat and went to work with shovel
and spade. Later more efficient help
| was added to such primitive method
| of excavation. Finally, after 80 years
| of passionate endeavor on the part of
this working dreamer. there stood
| uncovered Chi-chen liza (Chee chen
| Eetza), the city Of the sacred well.
A city of clear definition has
emerged here from the concealing
| overgrowths Of many centuries of de-
cay and ruin. Temples, dwellings.
| marts and highways embody the re-
ligious and social life Of these ancient
Mayas in something the same fash
| ion as these features objectify the
| collective life of the present. Vicis-
| STUDIES, yet undiscovered in nature
| and scope hold back much of this old
| story, even though much of absorb
| ing interest has been revealed and is
| still being brought out. Lifted high
| upon enduring pyramids, great tenn
| pies stand In their construction and
| carved upon their walls the religion
| of this people and its ritual wait for a
| fuller reading. Dwellings, in their
| structure and equipment, are un-
| folding the domestic life of the old
| Mayas. The contents of burial places
add other chapters to the Magyar
l
| warfares are depicted and symbolized
! in stone carvings and in the old
| weapons now being found and woven
| into the slowly growing story Of this
| lost civilization. The long story is
! taking on light, and at many points
| confederation also, through the leg
| ends that out of far past the rela-
| lively degraded Mayas of the present
! tell and retell among them
! selves Many times these leg
ends and the carved stories of the
| buried city stand together as es-
| sential fact, not as myth and fable.
| Don Eduardo's exploration of The
| Sacred Well itself has already opened
| an amazing story of old Magyar life
| Here is an enormous artificial poo
whose drainage has brought to light
| skeletons of young girls, a hundred
| or more, and innumerable articles
| beautifully fashioned and carved
| Clearly a place of sacrifice. the Sacred
Well-a place to which in both plea
and Precipitation this people did hom-
age.
! Let us look at a picture constructed
out of this old past by the author of
the book in hand: "On my eminence
l turned slowly and gazed out over
the dead city. Here and there, some
nearby and some at a distance, We're
a dozen other pyramids surmounted
by buildings. A few seemed well pre-
served, others were in picturesque
ruins, all ghostly white in the moon
light. Then my eyes We're caught
and held by a broad raised roadway
leading straight away from the temple
toward a vast black pool overgrown
with trees. In a binding flash
realized that l was gazing at the
Sacred Way and at it's end the Sacred
| Well, in whose murky depths ever
then might lie the pitiful bones of
many once lovely maidens, sacrificed
to appease a. grim god. :. walked
along the Sacred Way. I thought of
the thousands, millions perhaps, of
times this worn thoroughfare had
been trodden in bygone ages where
all was now so desolate. AT the brink
Of the we'll I peered into the black.
ness, picturing The awesome cere-
monies it had witnessed. The
chant of death begins, swelling softly
lover the slow pulsing of the drums
The solemn procession leaves the holy
temple Of Kukul Can and the funeral
cortege advances toward the Sacred
Well, dwelling place Of Yum Chac
the terrible Rain God, who must be
placated by human sacrifice. The
corn in the fields is whitening, cry
ing for rain. If the anger of Yum
Chac be not appeased, famine will fol
low and the dread Lord of Death will
walk abroad in the land. b. For
weeks and weeks thousand priests
have sought the faiRest flower OF
Maya maidenhood, she who is soon
to become the bride of the Rain God
|. Two powerful nacons, or lesser
priests, lift the maiden, their muscu
lar brown arms forming a sling in
which she lies as light as a leaf or
the bosom Of a. stream. They advance
with her to the edge of the well.
Slowly the nacons swing the feather
| LIGHT h0dxr ho aY.d nd fnHsx1ra I'D fc