CHAPTER XXI.
CONQUEST OP YUCATAN.
1527-1549.
Aboriginal Yucatan — Francisco de Montejo Appointed Governor — Battle of Aké — The Spaniards March on Chichen Itza — Alonso de Ávila and his Band in Quest of Gold — His Message to the Lord of Chetumal — The Chieftain's Reply — Avila's Command Besieged — Their Escape and Departure for Honduras — Montejo Defeated — The Canine Bell-ringer — Flight of the Spaniards — The Adelantado's Narrow Escape — Gallantry of Blas Gonzalez — The Governor Departs for Tabasco — The Spaniards Driven into the Sea — Montejo Transfers his Rights to his Son — The Spaniards Again Besieged — Torture of Diego and Juan Cansino — Santillan Takes Montejo's Residencia — Missionary Labors.
Nowhere on the continent of North America are the traces of a by-gone civilization more distinctly marked than in the peninsula of Yucatan. Here are found pyramids resembling in mathematical outline the vast structures in which the Pharaohs lie entombed. Here also the traditions of the early inhabitants carry the mind back to the days when the Israelites fled from their pursuers through the sundered waters of the Red Sea,[1] and when the great law-giver lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness.[2]
Into the Antillean sea the peninsula juts out a vast and arid promontory, risen from the ocean perhaps when Atlantis sank. Broken by undulating hills and low ranges, it extends in a series of irregular plains,
- ↑ As related in their traditions, a path through the sea was opened for the first inhabitants of Yucatan, as they fled from their enemies. Herrera, dec. iv. lib. X. cap. ii.; Landa, Relacion, 28.
- ↑ The worship of the god Cukulcan, seemingly identical with Quetzalcoatl, a name signifying feathered serpent, was common among the Itzas Cocomes.
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