CHAPTER XXIV.

DEPARTMENT OF VERA PAZ-DISTRICT OF PETEN LAKE OF

THE Department of Vera Paz is much the largest of the political divisions of Guatemala, comprising nearly half of the territory of the state. It is least known of any portion of Central America, and for this reason, as equally for containing in its midst the cele brated yet mysterious Lake of Itza, or Peten, it has the interest of an unsolved problem to geographers. Nor has it fewer claims upon the ethnologist and antiquary. Within its fastnesses, with habits, religion, and laws unchanged, still exist the remnants of the indomitable Lacandones, who figure so largely in the story of the Spanish Conquest, the cruel Itzæs, and the warlike Chols and Manches. Its forests hide numberless monuments of ancient art and superstition, and within their depths, far off on some unknown tributary of the Usumasinta, the popular tradition of Guatemala and Chiapa places that great aboriginal city, with its white temples shining like silver in the sun, which the Cura of Quiché affirmed to Mr. Stephens he had seen with his own eyes from the summits of the mountains of Quesaltenango.*

* There is no good reason for supposing that any city of this kind exists; but it is not improbable that considerable towns, of ordinary Indian construction, may be found in the more secluded districts. The notion of a great city is, nevertheless, very widely entertained by the populace of Guatemala and Chiapa. I may mention, in illustration, that on the 3d of August, 1849, the Secretary of

Vera Paz has three natural divisions. The southern division is a comparatively narrow belt, lying to the south of the mountains of Cajabon and Chisec (extending nearly east and west), and is drained by the Polochoc and its affluents, and by the Rio Lacandon, which, flowing northward for a great distance, unites with Rio de la Pasion, and forms the Usumasinta. This division is best known, and in general features and population differs but little from the adjacent portions of the state. Here are Cajabon, Coban, Rabinal, Tactic, and other considerable towns, the inhabitants of which are almost wholly Indian.

Passing the mountains of Chisec and Cajabon, however, which are of great elevation and intricacy, the traveler comes to a high and level table-land, in which the Rio de la Pasion takes its rise and collects its waters, flowing to the northwest, while on its eastern borders, deeply seaming its edges with their swift currents, the numerous rivers take their rise which flow eastward, through the territories of Belize, into the Bay of Honduras. Near the streams which flow through it this table-land is densely wooded, but elsewhere it spreads out in broad savannas, filled with numberless broad but shallow lakes, and traversed here and there by low ridges covered with pines and oaks. Large districts are so flat, and the drainage so slight, that during the rainy seasons the lakes spread out and join each

State of Chiapa addressed an official letter to the Prefect of the Department of Chilon, stating that he had been informed that in the vicinity of San Carlos Nacarlan, beyond the Sierra de la Pimienta, a great city had been discovered in the distance, with large edifices, and many cattle in its pastures; and that, although there appeared to be no road to it, yet that it was supposed it could not be more than two days' distant. He therefore orders the Prefect to make all possible efforts to reach the city, and to report the result to his office in San Christoval. As nothing further was ever heard of the discovery, it is to be presumed the city could not be found by the Prefect.

other in immense expanses of still water, across which it takes the Indians two or three days to pass in their

canoes.

The Rio de la Pasion flows off to the northwest, uniting far down with the Lacandon, thus forming the Usumasinta, which runs nearly north into the Gulf of Mexico. The vast region through which it passes, filled with mountains, and involved in unexplored forests, comprises a district more than a hund red and fifty miles broad, by upward of two hundred in length, having an area of not less than thirty thousand square miles. It embraces nearly one third of Guatemala, and a large part of Chiapa and Tabasco. Within it the Lacandones, the Chols, Manches, etc., have their abodes. The magnificent Usumasinta is their natural highway, down which their canoes sometimes descend to the Spanish settlements of Tabasco, carrying tobacco, cocoa, or sarsaparilla, which they sullenly and silently exchange for instruments of steel, and then disappear again in the forests. No adventurer has yet penetrated to their fastnesses; and every attempt to ascend the river, beyond certain points, has been met with such demonstrations of hostility as to discourage all further efforts. The most that we know of the country and its character is derived from the account of M. Morelet, who in 1846 ascended the River Usumasinta upward of two hundred miles, following its windings from the Laguna de Terminos, or Xicalanco, to a place called Tenosique, where he struck through the wilderness nearly due east to the lake of Peten.

Tenosique is the frontier town of the Christianized or tame Indians (Indios mansos) of Tabasco, and consists of about a hundred huts, situated on the right

bank of the river, in the midst of a vast forest, which, owing to the peculiarities of a climate neither too wet nor too dry, is clothed in eternal green. From Tenosique to Peten the distance was computed by the Indians at eighty leagues. It was nevertheless accomplished by M. Morelet in thirteen days, over a path which it seems is traveled several times a year by little caravans from Peten, bringing down cheese and tobacco to exchange for salt, cotton, etc., in Tabasco. M. Morelet describes the country as firm and rocky, densely covered with trees bound together with vines. The forest, however, does not possess the magnificence of those on the better-watered alluvions of Tabasco, but still far surpasses in luxuriance and the size of its trees any of those of Europe. Its monotonous aspect of heavy trunks and dark foliage, beneath which few flowers bloom, is nevertheless occasionally relieved by that gigantic flower, the Aristolochia grandiflora, which is never less than from eighteen to twenty inches in diameter. The calice at first resembles a swan suspended by the neck, the wings of which afterward spread themselves, and, bending upward, form a kind of violet helmet over the glowing leaves and petals of the flower beneath. With the exception of the mamey, the sapote, and the limoncillo, M. Morelet found no fruittrees in the forest. Among the birds and animals, the only one remarkable is the pavo del monte, probably the most magnificent variety of the gallina.

The dense forest prevented M. Morelet from making very satisfactory observations in the country between Tenosique and Peten. He describes it, however, as falling off rapidly to the northwest, which is the general direction of the water-courses, and dotted over with an infinite number of isolated conical hills, rising

from a uniform surface. On the eleventh day of his journey he reached Sacluc, the first village of the district of Peten. Here he emerged from the forest upon a grand plateau, covered with savannas, alternating with clumps of trees, and circled round by blue hills in the distance. A day's travel over this great plain brought him to the borders of Lake Itza or Peten, "a body of blue water smooth as a mirror, in which was a little rocky island, purple in the setting sun, rising by a gentle slope, covered with the picturesque huts of its inhabitants, to the height of fifteen hundred feet, its top crowned with a church, in a thicket of graceful palmtrees." This is Flores, the capital of the district, containing about 1200 inhabitants.

From the account of M. Morelet, it would appear that Flores differs but little from the other towns of Guatemala, inhabited by Christianized Indians, except perhaps that from their isolation the people are more simple and confiding in their character. It is irregularly built, the houses being apparently placed at a venture. They nevertheless form two principal streets, one following the perimeter of the island, and the other ascending to its summit, which, as already said, is crowned by the church and cabildo, or house of the municipality. The dwellings are rude cottages, some simple huts, with rarely any opening except the doorway. A few are plastered on the outside, and all are thatched with palm leaves. Chimneys, as well as glazed windows, are unknown. A few fruit-trees, calabash-trees, and palms, planted without order, give a partial shade to the huts, and somewhat relieve the glare of the sun on the naked

* Flores derives its name from Don Cerilio Flores, an eminent Liberal leader of Guatemala and vice-chief of that state, who was murdered by the Indians of Quesaltenango in 1826, under the instigation of the monarchical faction.