Yucatán Peninsula

“ All creation rejoices because a few tears of mother Nature have brought joy and happiness to all living beings, from the smallest blade of grass to the majestic palm; from the creeping worm to man, who proudly titles himself the lord of creation.
Yucatan has no rich metallic mines, but its wealth of vegetable productions is immense. Large forests of mahogany, cedar, zapotillo trees cover vast extents of land in the eastern and southern portions of the peninsula; whilst patches of logwood and mora, many miles in length, grow near the coast. ”

“ The whole of the population, excepting a few straggling natives, are in their hammocks. Midnight is on us in pantomime, without its darkness. In fifteen minutes more, all Yucatan, literally, may be said to be asleep—even my José now is looking at me with a drowsy eye, and wondering, no doubt, why I do not follow the example. The climate is really enervating, and I have determined to swing a while, if it be only to learn not to condemn the habits of others. ”

“ Yucatan possesses very few streams and none of importance that are known or explored. On the west of the peninsula, debouching into the Gulf of Mexico, there are the rivers or rivulets of Escatalto, Chen, Champoton;—the San Francisco falls into the Bay of Campeché; in the north there are the Silan, the Cedros, and the Conil ”

“ In Yucatan there are very few rivers of any consequence, but springs are numerous, especially on the north side, and in digging for their wells, in which they always find water at a little depth, shells are usually found, from which, with the shallowness of the sea near the coast, it has been supposed that the greater part of the peninsula was once submerged. ”

“ A map of the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico showing localities referred to in the text.
Pueblo Nuevo X-can.—Lat. 21° 52′ N, long. 87° 26′ W, elevation 10 meters. A village five kilometers east of X-can, Yucatán, in rainforest with dense underbrush. Specimens were obtained from the immediate vicinity of the village.
Puerto Juárez.—Lat. 21° 10′ N, long. 86° 49′ W, sea level. A small port on the Caribbean Coast with alternating sand beach and limestone shore. Mangrove swamps extend a short distance inland at various points. ”

“ The Indians of Yucatan and the neighboring provinces have been seen in conversation with persons from this district; they, however, appear to know as little of the people of whom I speak as others. Could a friendly intercourse, by any possibility, be established with this surprising country, there is scarcely a doubt that a complete knowledge of the former inhabitants of the immense ruins scattered throughout the provinces would be revealed. That their temples and records remain in safety, and are capable of speaking to posterity, there can scarcely be a question. ”

“ Its resources are very limited; its capital small; its soil by no means fertile; it possesses neither good roads to any extent, nor a single navigable river; manufactures are almost unknown, and agriculture is in the most neglected state. How then can Yucatan sustain itself alone, or ever figure as an independent nation? ”

“ Mounds, tumuli, pyramidal structures, and ruins of cities, have been seen from the southern extremity of South America even to the western side of the Rocky mountains—from Florida to the western lakes. There is every reason to presume that the interior of Yucatan, and other portions of Mexico, contain remains of even a more striking character 199than those it has been my province to describe. The Ohio valley and its vicinage are supposed to have been covered with more than five thousand villages, the largest of which stood near the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. ”

“ The whole of Yucatan may, by reason of its temperature and elevation above the sea, be included in the tierra caliente, but its climate is one of the most healthful in all tropical America. The whole north and west of the peninsula are of fossil shell formation, showing that at no very distant date this region was covered by the waters of the sea. ”

“ The manner of doing business is simple. Nothing of that stir and bustle is seen that is to be observed in cities and towns of the United States; nor do you find the care-worn and anxious look that is so often to be noticed with us. Speculation, kite-flying, lame ducks, bulls and bears, and all those curses with which large mercantile communities are usually visited, are entirely unknown in the province of Yucatan.
During my stay in the city of Merida, a ball was given at the Governor’s house, apropos of some political event, which I did not esteem of moment enough to remember. ”

“ The field whereon occurred the events which this paper chronicles is the whole Peninsula of Yucatan. The chief actors in these events are the descendants of the indomitable Maya race, that once made this peninsula the centre of a civilization, the descendants of the invading Spaniards who cut short the life of that civilization, and a band of strangers from the North. These last were the type of men that first tamed the wilds of Canada, made known the virgin richness of New England, settled Kentucky, and later drove the wedge of civilization into the unknown West. ”

“ I decided that it would be worth while to try and compile a list of all the early maps of Yucatan. It would be folly for me to claim that the list I give here is complete; it is, however, at least as complete as any such list now existing. No attempt has been made to list all the modern maps of the area; neither has there been any attempt to include maps of limited portions of the peninsula. ”

“ The top commanded a view of a great plain, covered by an almost boundless forest, extending on one side to the sea, and on the other to the sierra which crosses the peninsula of Yucatan, and runs back to the great traversing range in Guatimala, broken only by a high mound, which at three leagues' distance towered above the plain, a mourning monument of the ruins of Mayapan, the capital of the fallen kingdom of Maya. ”

“ It has no mines, for which reason it is not much settled by the whites, the chief part of its inhabitants being Indians, who are employed in making salt in Campeachy Bay, and are subject to the Spaniards. On the coasts of Yucatan, large pieces of amber are frequently found. There is a ridge of considerable mountains pervades the whole extent of this province, which extends from the eastern side at Merida to the western extremity of the peninsula; on this range of mountains, the climate is very fine, and it is asserted that the natives live to a great age. ”

“ The Atlantic is Alanticum, and the Pacific Mar del Sur. Yucatan is an island. It is difficult to tell where Mexico ends and Asia begins. Temistitan is just south of Catay, and Mexican and Asiatic names promiscuously occur. Grynæus, in 1532, gives America in two parts, divided by a strait at the Isthmus; the western end of the northern continent is called Terra de Cuba. Map vi., Munich Atlas, 1532-40, shows the Pacific coast from Peru to California, which is represented as a peninsula. The gulf of California is called the Red Sea. Yucatan is an island. ”

“ From Palenque, the last town northward in the province of Ciudad Real de Chiapa, taking a southwesterly direction, and ascending a ridge of high land that divides the kingdom of Guatemala from Yucatan, at the distance of six miles, is the little river Micol, whose waters flow in a westerly direction, and unite with the great river Tulija, which bends its course towards the province of Tabasco. Having passed Micol, the ascent begins; and at half a league, or a mile and a half, the traveller crosses a little stream called Otolum ”

“ If we should be right in this assumption the 20–year period must be regarded as the most ancient ever used in Yucatan.
We cannot fully agree with Señor Perez and his countrymen that the author intended to designate the peninsula of Yucatan when he speaks of the Island of Chacnouitan. This name appears for the first and only time in this manuscript. It is generally acknowledged that the name had never previously been heard of. [44] We should state that the words of the text are always nay ti petene Chacnouitan. If in Maya peten meant only a peninsula, we should take no exceptions. ”

“ Of real savage tribes there are none in Yucatan. After the greater part of the peninsula, cities as well as villages, had been reconquered from the possession of the Indians who had taken them during their insurrection in 1847, which was general, the most tenacious and unruly ones among them settled in the eastern part of the peninsula, where they have built several towns, the principal one being Chan-Santacruz. From these fastnessess they frequently sally forth to attack and even to raze our absolutely defenseless villages. ”

“ With the peninsula of Yucatan went down the splendid cities of Palenque, whose sites are now in the ocean bed as well as the bones of the inhabitants, and the continent has since risen sufficiently to restore the sites of a number of the ancient cities, but the people were blotted from the face of the earth. ”

“ There is little doubt that this map is misdated for the following reasons: 1. The information contained in the map is so full that it cannot have been earlier than 1520. 2. The nomenclature is mainly “sailor names” and therefore inconclusive. 3. The alleged Yucatan runs from its nearest point to Cuba northwardly, not southwardly. It is my belief that the peninsula in question is meant for Florida, and that it is too far west. 4. The whole style of the map is comparable to that of the following well-known ones: Turin-Spanish, 1523-25 ”

“ There are no rivers in the interior. The inhabitants are supplied with water from sonatos, or natural wells, which are liberally distributed throughout the country by the formation of supposed subterraneous rivers.
19Yucatan was formerly a part of the Mexican confederacy, but having recently declared her independence, she has her own President and Congress of legislators, elected by a limited class of qualified electors. ”

“ Yucatan shown as an island. 1548 PTOLEMY, VENICE (Nord.) .
Yucatan shown as an island, not named. 1551 APPIANUS.
Has Yucatan as a peninsula. 1554 GASTALDI, MAPPAMUNDI, VENICE (Müller Coll.) .
Has Yucatan a peninsula, but has no names save Cozumel and Catoche. 1556 HIERONIMO GIRAVA, MILAN (Nord.) .
Yucatan is a peninsula, but much too small. 1560 FERRANDO BERTELI (Müller Coll.) .
Yucatan (called Lucātan) is an island close to the mainland. 1562 MARTINES, JOAN, MAP OF THE WORLD (in Stevenson, 1911) .
Yucatan is shown as a peninsula. The isthmus is too narrow. 1566? LANDA (see Plate IV) . ”

“ A sea of greengage green, broken by scarce a ripple save where a shark's fin curves up shiny black in the blazing sun; a semicircle of pale sand, fringed by brown and mahogany-red boarded barns of warehouses, with here and there a gaunt brick chimney; a thin belt of palm trees; three wooden jetties, and beyond, houses stuccoed white and salmon-pink: this is our first sight of Yucatan's only port, Progreso. There is no harbour, for the shallows stretch far seaward, and steamers of any draught dare not come within five miles of the coast. ”

“ But even in these unfavourable surroundings tropic Nature beautifies with the greeny-gold leaf of the banana and the heavy-hanging greener crown of the cocoanut palm. Over all rises a strange vista. Merida might well be called the "City of Windmills." On each side of the train you see the horizon literally crowded with air motors for pumping water from the limestone, and you hear it whispered in a tone of pride by a Yucatecan to his neighbour that there are in Yucatan's capital 6,000 of these eyesores. ”

“ As the little train jolts through the outskirts of the town, ringing its bell, the dust it raises blending with the resinous smoke from the wood fire of its engine, naked yellow babies look up from their play in the dirt and scamper into shelter, while female faces peer out between the iron bars which do duty for glass windows in the one-storeyed-high flat-roofed houses. Northern Yucatan is as level as an Essex marsh, and the line runs through miles of country at first glance quite English with its dense covering of small trees like nut bushes and silver birches. ”

“ WE OUTWIT THE ENEMY
In the gray of the morning I stood with my friends beside the rail, peering anxiously at a dim black line that marked the Yucatan coast. In order to avoid the islands and settled coast districts of the north-east we had approached Yucatan by way of the Mosquito Coast and British Honduras, expecting to sight the country in its wildest and most barbarous district.
Chaka, who had resided as a boy in the interior but had made several trips to the sea, was uncertain whether he would recognize the Bay of Mopa from the water or not. ”

“ From this time forward the dominion of the Spaniards over the northern and western portions of Yucatan remained undisturbed, but they never succeeded in subduing the natives in the central and eastern part of the province, and the Santa Cruz Indians maintain their independence of the Mexican Government to the present day.
The northern part of Yucatan is little better than a coral-reef raised a few feet above sea-level, covered with a thin coating of earth which supports a scrubby growth not worthy of the name of forest. ”