Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/484

406 effect upon the Indians, who had probably never heard such cannonade before, and almost, like their ancestors in the time of Cortez, regarded our weapons as instruments which spit lightning. All who, we knew, would make such a report in the village as would keep any of their respectable friends from paying us a visit at night.

We had reached the end of our long and toilsome journey, and at first glance indemnified us for our toil. For the first time we were at a building erected by the aboriginal inhabitants, standing before it. Europeans knew of the existence of this continent, and we prepared to take up our abode under its roof. We selected the front corridor for our dwelling, turned turkey and fowls loose in the courtyard, which was so overgrown with trees that we could barely see across it; and as there was no pasture for the mules except the leaves of the trees, and we could not turn them loose into the woods, we brought them up the steps through the palace, and turned them into the courtyard also. At one end of the corridor Juan built a kitchen, which operation consisted in laying three stones anglewise, so as to have room for a fire between them. Our luggage was stowed away or hung on pole reaching across the corridor. Pawling mounted a stone about four feet long on stone legs for a table, and with the Indians cut a number of poles, which they fastened together with bark strings, and laid them on stones at the head and foot for beds. We cut down the branches that entered the palace, and some of the trees on the terrace, and from the floor of the palace overlooked the top of an immense forest stretching off to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Indians had superstitious fears about remaining at night among the ruins, and left us alone, the sole tenants of the palace of unknown kings. Little did they who built it think that in a few years their royal line would perish and their race be extinct, their city a ruin, and Mr. Catherwood, Pawling, and I and Juan its sole tenants. Other strangers had been there, wondering like ourselves. Their names were written on the walls, with comments and figures; and even here were marks of those low, grovelling spirits which delight in profaning holy places. Among the names, but not of the latter class, were those of acquaintances: Captain Caddy and Mr. Walker; and one was that of a countryman, Noah O. Platt, New York. He had gone out to Tobasco as supercargo of a vessel, ascended one of the rivers for log-wood, and while his vessel was loading visited the ruins. His account of them had given me a strong desire to visit them long before the opportunity of doing so presented itself.

High up on one side of the corridor was the name of William Beauham, and under it was a stanza written in lead-pencil. By means of