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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



having to be the providers and burden- 

 bearers for such lusty feeders and poor 

 paymasters, and then their actions soon 

 put the Spaniards in a serious plight. 



Finally, besieged and almost without 

 provisions, they took advantage of a 

 stormy night after a brave sortie to de- 

 ceive the Indians. One by one they de- 

 serted the edifice used as their garrison 

 and stole away in the darkness, to unite 

 and make for a more friendly haven. 



DOG, ROPK, AND BEDD 



It is said that to deceive the Mayas into 

 thinking that they were there they tied a 

 dog to the rope of a bell and placed food 

 in front, just beyond his reach. His 

 frantic efforts to get at the food rang the 

 bell at frequent intervals, while the con- 

 stant bark aided the supposed deception 

 of the Mayas, and when at last the ruse 

 was discovered the little band of Spanish 

 soldiery was nearly out of the enemy's 

 reach. 



Thus runs the chronicle, and the story 

 may be true ; but, knowing, as the writer 

 does, the character and customs of the 

 direct descendants of these same old 

 Maya warriors, he does not believe it. It 

 is far more probable that these Mayas, 

 desiring to be quickly and peacefully rid 

 of their burdensome guests, shut their 

 eves to the going of the Spaniards and 

 would have been the more obliged to them 

 if they had taken the bell and the dog 

 along with them as well, and so left the 

 besiegers to enjoy their early slumbers 

 undisturbed. The discreetly dropped eye- 

 lid, that is almost a wink, and quickly 

 changes into a blindness, is an artful act 

 as ancient as the human race. In many 



respects the logic of the native Maya is 

 peculiarly his own, but in many other 

 ways his acts and artifices are as old as 

 man himself. 



ELOQUENT SIEENCE 



The writer has often been asked, "After 

 one has visited the ruins of the Old 

 World, is it worth while to visit those of 

 the New World?" 



He has had as visiting guests scientists 

 of other lands, men with the wonders of 

 Italy, of Egypt, and India fresh in their 

 memory, inquisitive, incredulous, but de- 

 siring to see what there was to see. 



As these great, lonely monuments 

 loomed up before their vision, he has 

 noted the quick, surprised intake of the 

 breath, the change of color even, and 

 then — a speaking silence far more elo- 

 quent than any words could be. 



The American people should awaken 

 to the fact that they have right at home, 

 at their very doors, architecture essen- 

 tially American, as it were, ruined struc- 

 tures every whit as interesting, as mass- 

 ive, and possibly as old as those of other 

 lands, whose boast it is that the Ameri- 

 cans must come to them, for "America 

 has no ruins." 



Within these mysterious ruins — Ameri- 

 can ruins — are great books, with pages of 

 stone, wr.it in characters that no man may 

 yet read. Are the mysteries they hold, 

 the wonderful facts, that certainly lie 

 sealed and mute within them, hidden from 

 us, less interesting to Americans than are 

 the tales of Egyptian dynasties, the rites 

 of Druids, Roman campings, or Saxon 

 raidings? I think not. 



