COZUMEL.— THE INDEPENDENT MATAS. 169 



the early navigators. The architecture of the Tulum buildings presents some 

 peculiar features, which seem to point at a mingling of cultures in this remote 

 region of Mayaland. Some of the temples cause surprise by the Lilliputian 

 dimensions ; pierced by a narrow opening scarcely wide enough for a single man 

 to creep in, they would seem to have been made for a race of dwarfs. The part of 

 the seaboard where Tulum is situated belongs at present to the free Indians, and 

 in the same district stands a " holy rood," where they gather on solemn occasions 

 to hear the " voice of God," which issues from the cross, appointing the chiefs, 

 declaring peace or war, condemning or pardoning the guilty. A Catholic priest 

 who had ventured to penetrate into the country was brought before this cross, 

 which sentenced him to death. 



Mujeres, like all the other islands fringing the coast, has remained in pos- 

 session of the Yucatecs. Its very name of " Women's Island " recalls the 

 special part played by it in the religion of the Mayas at a time when crowds 

 flocked to its temple to worship the female deities of Yucatan. At present it is 

 inhabited by a few hundred black and half-caste fishers, who trade directly with 

 Havana. 



Cozumel, a much larger island lying farther south, some twelve miles ofp the 

 coast, was also a much-frequented place of pilgrimage. It is the ancient 

 Ahcuzamil, or " Swallow Island," whose temple contained the image of a god with 

 swallow feet. Cozumsl, which is densely wooded, has not yet been explored, 

 although the Spaniards had occupied it even before the conquest of Yucatan, and 

 had built a church whose ruins are still to be seen. AYhen these ruins were 

 rediscovered, with the altar and cross in the midst of the bush, it was supposed that 

 they represented a Christian civilisation dating from pre-Columbian times. There 

 still remain some traces of the paved highway, crossed by other routes, which 

 traversed the island from north to south. 



The southern part of the coast between Tulum and Chetumal Bay is sparsely 

 peopled by a few full-blood Indians, who have preserved their language, customs, 

 and independence. The territory of these free Mayas is bounded on the north by 

 the so-called " Southern Line," that is, the chain of fortified posts which extends 

 nearly along 20° north latitude through Pcto, Ixmul, and Tihosuco. Formerly they 

 frequently crossed this " pale," and wasted the land as far as Yalladolid and 

 Tekax, and were even reported to have hacked to pieces two thousand persons in 

 the latter place with the manchette* At present the civilised Yucatecs are 

 separated by a kind of march or borderland from their independent kindred, who 

 no longer dare to cross over. 



These independent Mayas are usually called " barbarians," although scarcely 

 less civilised than the others. They till the land in the same way, and keep their 

 roads in good repair; they make their own manchettes, shaped like short scimitars, 

 with iron imported from Belize, and procure their rifles from the same British 

 settlement. Some of them being well-made stalwart men, they make good soldiers, 



* Manchette is the French-Creole form of the Spanish machete, a kind of hooked knife used in tropical 

 America for clearinp' the bush. 



