Palenque

“ Like Teotihuacan, Izamal, and Cozumel, Palenque was a holy place, an important religious centre, a city which was resortedPg 246 to as a place of pilgrimage, teeming with shrines and temples, a vast and much-sought burial-place. In this and in no other way can be explained the silence surrounding this great city, which was probably peopled by a floating population dispersed at the first alarm of the Conquest.
This important city is apparently without civic architecture; no public buildings are found, there seems to have been nothing but temples and tombs. ”

“ From time immemorial it had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popogan and Cundinamarca. [347:6]
The ruined city of Palenque is in the depths of the forests of Central America. It was not inhabited at the time of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. They discovered the temples and palaces of Chiapa, but of Palenque they knew nothing. According to tradition it was founded by Votan in the ninth century before the Christian era. The principal building in this ruined city is the palace. ”

“ It can be seen clearly that the beginning of this old civilization was much older than the earliest great cities, and, also, that these were much more ancient than the time when any of the later built or reconstructed cities whose relics still exist, were left to decay. If we suppose Palenque to have been deserted some six hundred years previous to the Spanish Conquest, this date will carry us back only to the last days of its history as an inhabited city. ”

“ The ruined city of Palenque had temples, palaces, baths, and aqueducts. It was twenty miles long, and must have had an enormous population. It is said that there is not a record left. Cortes and his gang took care of what the Toltecs and Aztecs left."
"It is a wonderful country." Nestor said, "but it needs stability in population. Just now, however, we need rest. It is evident that the outlaws are headed for the plain below, and we must catch up with them when they camp for the night."
"I wonder what Fremont will think?" observed Jimmie. ”

“ On this mountain range, every one unites in declaring that the runaway negroes have established a large settlement."
Such collections of wild Indians or negroes are called Palenques, and the men composing it are known as Apalencados. When more than seven are congregated, it is a Palenque. The pursuit and suppression of these is under the superintendence of an official, appointed for the purpose, and of a tribunal called a consulate. ”

“ As the ruins of Palenque are the first which awakened attention to the existence of ancient and unknown cities in America, and as, on that account, they are perhaps more interesting to the public, it may not be amiss to state the circumstances of their first discovery. ”

“ At a turn of the road, the men carrying our baggage admonish us to look at the palace, which we should never have spied out owing to the luxuriant vegetation which completely hides it. But before we describe the ruins, we will say a few words respecting Cortez’ march through Acala and Honduras. Some writers, thinking the former a city, have attempted to identify it with Palenque, an error which we hope to be able to dispel. ”

“ Among the mountainous piles of stone ruins which are to be seen in the country round about, no very great difference is observable in the style of workmanship or of architecture, so far as could be observed, from that noticed among the relics at Palenque. This similarity is a striking feature, and is calculated at once to induce the opinion, as we have before suggested, that the first inhabitants of this city were colonists of the Tultiques, or that they fled thence on the fall of their metropolis. ”

“ In the monarchical states which still maintain their independence among the Gallas of Eastern Africa, the king sacrifices on the mountain tops and regulates the immolation of human victims; and the dim light of tradition reveals a similar union of temporal and spiritual power, of royal and priestly duties, in the kings of that delightful region of Central America whose ancient capital, now buried under the rank growth of the tropical forest, is marked by the stately and mysterious ruins of Palenque. ”

“ In the neighbourhood of Menché a further group of ruins, those of Piedras Negras, show abundant signs of the high level of culture which is associated with Palenque and Menché, as will be seen by the photograph which we are able to reproduce through the courtesy of the accomplished and indefatigable field-worker and scholar, Herr Teobert Maler, to whom, we believe, belongs the honour of being the first to make known the extent and treasures of this group. ”

“ But what has become of Izancanac? Where are the great buildings which could accommodate hundreds of people? The very site is unknown, whilst Palenque is still to be seen.94 Although it is so difficult to determine the route held by Cortez, it affords, nevertheless, the best account we have relating to the organisation of the regions he traversed. ”

“ While sculpture among the Maya never again reached so high a degree of perfection, architecture steadily developed, almost to the last. Judging from the dates inscribed upon their monuments, all the great cities of the south flourished during this period: Palenque and Yaxchilan in what is now southern Mexico; Piedras Negras, Seibal, Tikal, Naranjo, and Quirigua in the present Guatemala ”

“ Painting practised by Mound-builders, 65. Palæolithic age in America, 23. Palenque art compared with Egyptian, 418. Palenque, centre of the earliest American civilization, 204, 208–9. Palenque, situation, 340; antiquities, 340; palace, 342; architectural features of, 343; Tau at, 343; roofs, 344; arch, 345–6; tower, 345; sculpture at, 384–92; statue, 391. Panuco (Panco, Panutla or Panoaia, Pantlan) Mexican port, 242. Papantla, pyramid of, 367. Patton, Dr., on Indiana mounds, 57, n. 2. Pecos, New Mexico Pueblo, 331. Pentateuch, true chronology of, 199. Peresianus Codex, 427. ”

“ Warden; avec un discours préliminaire par. M. Charles Farcy, et des notes explicatives, et autres documents par MM. Baradère, de St. Priest [etc.] . (Paris 1834, texte et atlas.) [1054] The plates of this edition [193] are superior to those in Kingsborough and in Rio; and are indeed improved in the engraving over Castañeda’s drawings. The book as a whole is one of the most important on Palenqué which we have. The investigations were made on his third expedition (1807-8) . A tablet taken from the ruins by him is in the Museo Nacional, and a cast of it is figured in the Numis. and Antiq. Soc. ”

“ Parnell had a great love of sea-storms, and when there {240} was a gale blowing from the west, and rough weather assured, he loved to get me out to Birling Gap to listen to the roar of the sea and the screaming of the wind as it blew around us, nearly carrying us off our feet. He would tie his coat about me, and hold me firmly against the wind as it tore about us, and while we gazed out at the raging waves he would exclaim: "Isn't this glorious, my Queen? Isn't it alive?" ”

“ I saw Pannell glower at the pure white skin that covered great muscles as big and hard as his own, while, after unhooking a leather apron from where it hung, the lever was touched, the fire roared, and at last Uncle Jack brought out a piece of white-hot steel, banged it on the anvil, and rapidly beat it into shape. ”

“ The second danger is that, if we go on land and meet some people with whom perchance we ought not to fight without your aid, and if the sea is in such a state that you cannot reach the shore, what shall we do?" And as you see that where many men are, their opinions differ, so whilst Pallenço was listening to the reasons these men gave, others went apart and would not hear any part of that counsel, but suddenly appeared naked before Pallenço, prepared to throw themselves into the water. ”

“ Parnell in America. In the view of the conspirators scattered throughout the States, Mr. Parnell had given himself over, body and soul, to the chiefs of the Clan-na-Gael. At every point, under every circumstance, without a single exception, well-known and trusted men of the secret councils were by his side and at his elbow, pushing him forward into prominence here, bespeaking a welcome for him there, and answering for his thorough fealty to the grand old cause at all manner of times. ”

“ It was impossible to drive near the place, so we had to leave Dictator and the phaeton far off on the last bit possible to drive upon. Parnell had an easy method of "hitching" a horse to something, in the firm faith that he would find it there on return a few hours later, and this made me very uneasy where my far from patient Dictator was concerned. Parnell would settle the horse with a feed, in charge of his groom, well sheltered behind a hill, and take a fantastic pleasure in observing the sulky gloom of the young man's face after an hour or so of this isolated meditation. ”

“ Let it be at once conceded that Parnell's lieutenants were men whose gifts and talents would have in any circumstances carried them to eminent heights, but it might be said also they lost nothing from their early association with so great a personality and from the fact that he brought them into the gladiatorial arena, where their mental muscles were, so to speak, trained and tested and extended in combat with some of the finest minds of the age. ”

“ Parnell rented some stables fairly near my house for his horses, and took much interest in their welfare. He was not a man who had very much knowledge of horses, but he was a fine horseman, and on his hunter President, a beautiful horse of sixteen hands and a weight-carrier, {232} he looked remarkably well. He took a scientific interest in the shoeing of the horses and, to the great annoyance of his grooms, would constantly try new methods of shoeing in order to deaden the "jar" of the contact of the road. ”

“ In 1884 we ran down to Hastings for a few days in the middle of the Session, when my aunt's old friend came to stay with her and gave me freedom. Parnell delighted in these sudden "run-away" visits to the sea when the House was in full swing of business, and said they braced and freshened him up more than anything else could do. We stayed at the Queen's Hotel, and Parnell revelled in the sudden freedom from politics—casting all thought and care from him as we walked by the sea and gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the fresh salt air. ”

“ And here's a final reason,
He was of such a kind
Every man that sings a song
Keeps Parnell in his mind.
For Parnell was a proud man,
No prouder trod the ground,
And a proud man's a lovely man,
So pass the bottle round. ”

“ Lying full length in palanquin or "dooly," the gentle motion caused by the bearers, the soft patter of their bare feet as they shuffle along, their steady grunting chorus, the song of birds, the hum of insects, the slowly moving landscape, all combine to produce a feeling of complete rest to both mind and body which must be experienced to be appreciated. And so the miles gradually and serenely pass until a break occurs—truly a break—for one of the palanquin poles, which has evidently been rotting in idleness during the rains, shows distinct signs of giving way. ”

“ One starts to speak of Paine's experiences in Paris, and brings up in New Rochelle; one endeavours to anchor him in Greenwich, only to find oneself trailing his weary but stubborn footsteps in the war! And always and forever, Paine himself persists in crowding out the legitimate sequence of his adventures. No one can soberly write the story of his life; one can, at best, only achieve a diatribe or an apotheosis!
Said he:
"The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness." ”

“ Parnell all I knew of astronomy, and opened up to him a new world of absorbing interest.
Friends of my brother Evelyn frequently stayed at Rivenhall, and one of them, a colonel of Light Dragoons, was engaged to one of my elder sisters. This gentleman appealed to my youthful mind as being all that a hero should be, and I used to stick a red fez on my golden curls and gallop my pony past the dining-room windows so that he might see and admire the intrepid maiden, as the prince in my fairy book did! ”

“ The name of one Juan Planillos became a terror in every household; yet one by one the younger men stole away to strengthen the number of his followers and share the wild excitement of the bandit life, rather than to wait patiently at home to be drafted into the ranks of some political chieftain whose career raised little enthusiasm, and whose political creed was as obscure as his origin. ”

“ Through the whole of 1880 Parnell was determinedly organizing the Land League throughout Ireland, and during the winter, doubtless encouraged by the enormous distress that prevailed over the whole country, the force and power of the League grew with a rapidity that surpassed even the expectations of Parnell and his party. ”

“ So I made him agree to my staying in my sitting-room, where from the open window I could hear for miles the regular trotting of the cab-horse bringing him home.
He only stipulated that I should not go out along the roads to meet him at night. In March, 1887, I thought my King was looking tired and worried. There had been various annoying happenings owing to new reports of his life at Eltham having been put about. I had had unpleasant letters from Willie, and the latter and I were not now on speaking terms. With this and his hard work Parnell was looking fagged and worn. ”

“ All through 1881 Parnell was constantly paying flying visits to Ireland, and also to various parts of England, working up the "League," addressing meetings and privately ascertaining for himself how far the temper of the "reactionaries" could be trusted to do the work he wished without becoming too greatly involved in the tactics of the "Invincibles" proper. ”