Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/617

Rh their Ears bor'd with Rings in them. Their Faces were generally good, and not very brown, but without Beards, for they scorched them when young, that they might not grow. Their Hair was long like Women, and in Tresses, with which they made a Garland about the Head, and a little Tail hung behind." "The prime Men wore a Rowler eight Fingers broad round about them instead of Breeches, and going several times round the Waist, so that one end of it hung before and the other behind, with fine Feather-work, and had large square Mantles knotted on their Shoulders, and Sandals or Buskins made of Deer's Skins." The reader almost sees here, in the flatted heads and costumes of the natives, a picture of the sculptured and stuccoed figures at Palenque, which, though a little beyond the present territorial borders of Yucatan, was perhaps once a part of that province.

Besides the glowing and familiar descriptions given by Cortez of the splendour exhibited in the buildings of Mexico, I have within my reach the authority of but one eye-witness. It is that of Bernal Diaz de Castillo, a follower and sharer in all the expeditions attending the conquest of Mexico.

Beginning with the first expedition, he says, "On approaching Yucatan, we perceived a large town at the distance of two leagues from the coast, which, from its size, it exceeding any town in Cuba, we named Grand Cairo." Upon the invitation of a chief, who came off in a canoe, they went ashore, and set out to march to the town, but on their way were surprised by the natives, whom, however, they repulsed, killing fifteen. "Near the place of this ambuscade," he says, "where three buildings of lime and stone, wherein were idols of clay with diabolical countenances, &c. "The buildings of lime and stone, and the gold, gave us a high idea of the country we had discovered."

In fifteen days' farther sailing, they discovered from the ships a large town, with an inlet, and went ashore for water. While filling their casks they were accosted by fifty Indians, "dressed in cotton mantles," who "by signs invited us to their town." Proceeding thither, they "arrived at some large and very well-constructed buildings of lime and stone, with figures of serpents and of idols painted upon the walls."

In the second expedition, sailing along the coast, they passed a low island, about three leagues from the main, where, on going ashore, they found "two buildings of lime and stone, well constructed, each with steps, and an altar placed before certain hideous figures, the representations of the gods of these Indians."

His third expedition was under Cortez, and in this his regard for truth and the reliance that may be placed upon him are happily