422 REPORT OF EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL AMERICA 



In San Pedro Buenavista I found waiting for mo mules and muleteers, wliicli 

 the corregidor of Peten had sent on at my request. For the transportation of 

 smaller articles I had counted upon Indian earners from the villages near this 

 place, who generally serve in that capacity in the trade between Belize and 

 Peten, But the recently received news of a revolution which had broken out 

 in Peten made those Indians unwilling to go to that place, and I was obliged 

 to stop in San Pedro until messengers, sent through the wilderness, could pro- 

 cure from the con-egidor of Peten the necessary number of can-iers. ]\Iore than 

 a month passed before they arrived, a month lost for explorations, as the neces- 

 sary vigilance over my baggage in an unclosed hut, among thieving negroes, 

 forbade my being absent from the place. Some few reptiles, fishes, coleoptera, 

 and molluscs were, however, collected. The vllages in the neighborhood of 

 this farm are of late origin, peopled by Indians from Yucatan, almost every one 

 of them formerly engaged in the war of races which for the last twenty years 

 has desolated tliat unhappy country. From my host, who kept some merchan- 

 dise for trading with them, and who employed some of their men as laborers on 

 his farm, I had opportunity to become acquainted witli many of them, and 

 obtained interesting information as to their social and political condition. They 

 are by no means hostile to the white man in general; their hatred is directed 

 against the Mexican and Spaniard only, while they are friendly to other foreign- 

 ers, and are remarkably frank and outspoken with such strangers as speak their 

 language and know how to gain their confidence. The insurrection of the Yuca- 

 tanlndians broke out in 1S47, and spread in tlie following year almost over the 

 whole peninsula, approaching as near as sixteen miles to Merida and three to 

 Campeche. A Catholic priest, sent as commissioner by the Meriden government 

 among the insurgents, caused a division among them which still continues. 

 Those of the south and east, known by the whites of Yucatan as the Huithcs,* 

 but Avho call themselves Cruzoob,t or Oruzes, have continued an uninterrupted 

 w^ar against the Meriden government, while those of the west have remained in 

 peace with the whites, and even acknowledged a certain depen<lency on the gov- 

 ernment of Campeche. They are called Pacific Indians. In the year 1S57 the 

 Cruzes invaded the Pacific Indians of the district of Chichanja. Since that time 

 the Pacific Indians of that disi -ict have settled in the formerly uninhabited ))ion- 

 tam (forest-plains) around the frontier between Yucatan, Peten, and Belize, and 

 their number has been increased by numerous deserters from the ranks of the 

 Cruzes. They all, threatened by their common enemy, the Cruzes, retain cer- 

 tain connections with each other, although those on Belize or Peten territory 

 have formed villages under the authority of the English and Guatemalean gov- 

 ernments, while those in Yucatan and in the region of doubtful pertinency t 

 remain subject to the chiefs of the Pacific Indians. To those Avho only know 

 about the insurgent and independent Maya Indians from the reports of their bar- 

 baroufct warfare against the whites of Yucatan, it is highly surprising to see these 

 ferocious warriors organizing themselves Avithout any external influence as quiet 

 settlem, laborious ami orderly, submitting to their self-elected local authorities, 



* Hu'tli is the breech-cloth. 



t Ths Spanish word cruz (cross) with the Maya plural termination ooh. They worship 

 the croi,i, in whoso name the Tat-ich (their bead cbiet) and twelve governors (miUtary chiefs, 

 priests, and counsellors) govern. 



t Tlo limits between these three countries are most uncertain. A decree of the Spanish 

 govovTffient fixed in 1787 the boundary line between the iutendencies of Yucatan and Gua- 

 tema':'; on the parallel 17^ 49' north latitude, but it has never been ascertained where this 

 parallel runs. A treaty between England and Guatemala has adjusted a boundary Hue 

 between the colony and the republic, running from Gracias a Dios on the Sarstoon river 

 to Garbutt falls on the Belize river, and hence northwards. The map of the colony (pub- 

 lishi-d s. L ct a. but London, 1664) runs it to the IHth degree, into the undoubted teiritory 

 of Yucatfin. The actual jurisdiction of Peten comprises all the villages on and near the road 

 from FeU»n to Yucatan, up to Becanchop, ten miles north from Nojbecan, near the "JOth 

 degree, while the country to both sides is subject to Mexico, and the census of tho State ot 

 CainjaecLj (18(11) includes all these villages into its territory 



