176 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



One of the first things that strikes the geographer when he faces the ancient greatness 

 of Yucatan is the fact that the country is highly isolated, a condition which tends notably 

 to retard rather than advance the growth of civilization. Toward the south and east 

 the habitable portion of the peninsula is bounded by dense tropical forests which even in 

 our day are penetrated neither by railroad nor road. The only way to traverse them is 

 by means of Indian trails, winding and crooked, and often coming blindly to an end. Even 

 these poor apologies for paths are impassable except with the help of a party of natives 

 armed with big machetes for cutting the young trees and lianas which grow up with astound- 

 ing rapidity. The inhabitants of the forests are limited to a few scattered bands of Indians 

 in the lowest stages of civilization. Often the traveler may go for days without seeing a 

 village or even a camp. On the other sides Yucatan is surrounded by water, but that 

 does not make it accessible. The harbors on the east coast are said to be fairly good, but 

 the country back of them is covered with the same kind of dense forest as the south, and 

 hence they are almost useless as a means of getting at the important portions of the country. 

 On the north the coast is bordered by an almost continuous line of sand bars and lagoons. 

 Within the lagoons the water is cjuiet, and small boats can sail easily, but unfortunately 

 it is not possible to go any great distance without meeting barriers which force the navigator 

 to take to the opeii sea. There the waves raised by the prevailing trade winds, blowing 

 freshly from the northeast, are so high as to make long voyages too dangerous to be com- 

 monly undertaken. So far as modern steamers are concerned conditions are no better. 

 Like all newly uplifted coastal plains Yucatan is bordered by very shallow seas. The 

 steamers of the Ward Line, the only one plying regularly to the country, are forced to 

 anchor 3 miles or more from land and to send their freight and passengers ashore in a tug 

 which pitches most disquietingly, even in comparatively good weather. In bad weather 

 it is often impossible to make any landing whatever. On the west coast, known as Cam- 

 peche, conditions are somewhat better because of less exposure to the winds, but the 

 difficulties due to shallow water are not much different. Altogether the peninsula of 

 Yucatan is a decidedly inaccessible region, and there seems to be nothing in its position to 

 account for its past greatness. No great trade routes touch it, its near neighbors on 

 every side are backward, and there seems to be little opportunity for the stimulation which 

 comes by contact with people of other ideas and habits. 



The form of the land in Yucatan is not any more favorable than is its location. As 

 has already been implied, the northern part is a coastal plain newly uphfted from the 

 sea. For scores of miles the general aspect of the country is absolutely flat. Near the 

 center low hills rise to a height of 300 to 400 feet, and farther south the reUef becomes 

 greater. The most noticeable ridge, so far as the inhabited portions of the country are 

 concerned, runs southwestward from a point about 30 miles inland from the northwestern 

 corner of the peninsula. Its rounded hills are a prominent feature in the landscape as 

 looked at from the plain to the east, but are nowhere difficult to cross; nevertheless they 

 form a genuine barrier to civilization, largely because of their relation to water-supply, 

 rainfall, and vegetation. 



Practically all of Yucatan is composed of soluble limestone. This has given rise to 

 one of the most widely known features of the country, that is, its underground drainage 

 and "cenotes" or caves. The topography is almost universally of the unpropitious kind 

 known as "karst." The karst, however, is not of the most common type, for in Yucatan 

 we have to deal with a level plain instead of with a region of considerable rehef. Because 

 of the flatness and the porous nature of the soluble limestone such a thing as a river is 

 absolutely unknown. Not even a brook is found in the whole country, and naturally there 

 are no valleys. The only break in the flat monotony is afforded by innumerable little 

 hillocks 5 to 15 feet high. They he in no regular order, being merely the remnants which 

 happen to have been left between depressions in which a little water gathers in the rainy 



