the silent fury of Canek and his fighting men?

Never again did Chichen Itza know its Lord Canek, nor any of his band of fighting men. In the passing of a night. they vanished, the Lord Canek and the soft-eyed maiden, the stolen bride of the drunken one.

Time passed. The lord who won a bride, but did not learn to keep her, lived his life, died, and was forgotten.

The memory of Lord Canek lived on in song and story and became a part of the legends of Chichen Itza.

THE LOST IS FOUND

One day, long after, a hunting band from Chichen Itza went toward the south-some days' journey. Young men they were and full of rashness, so they kept on the chase until the lane grew hilly and higher, and at last rose into the very clouds. Wonderingly, they turned homeward, journeying over a strange country, until they reached a lake of shining water, and in the lake an island city, with houses and temples and the carved fronts of many buildings like their own Chichen Itza.

From this island city warriors came and met them and led them to the waiting ruler and his aged wise men.

"Who are you, presumptuous ones, that you dare to come unbidden on our land and unwanted to our city?" asked the Batab in stern menace.

The young man spoke bravely, coolly: "We came from our home, Chichen Itza, and have wandered here unbidden because in the chasing of the deer we went farther than we knew; and, finding pathways right before us, we kept on, thinking to find old friends or make new ones.

The ruler turned and took counsel with his wise men, then said to the waiting hunters: "If your tale be true, that you are of Chichen Itza and not of another province, you will indeed find here old friends new made-old friends and new as well.

"This is the city of Tayasal, whose lord is Canek, who once was lord of your own Chichen Itza, the City of the Sacred Well."

This is the legend. The substance is

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as told by the good old, but very dry, chronicler, Padre Cogolucco. I confess to have taken this skeleton and put a little flesh on here and there, just to round out the form a little brown and red, just to give a local coloring, and so produce the true general effect; that is all. But perhaps I had better have left it as the ancient priestly scribe tells it; "quien sabe"-who knows?

Not all of the tales of Chichen Itza are prehistoric or legendary.

Far later, chronologically, than the legend of Canek, a proven fact, with only a small portion of "information" embedded in it, is furnished us, and brings us down to the historic times of the early Spanish conquerors, when they were in deadly struggle with the fearless Mayas.

MONTEJO WELCOMED

In 1525-1526 Montejo was weary with his long and seemingly fruitless struggles against the native Mayas. Constantly buffeted by his countless enemies and having no place of refuge, he found himself in imminent danger.

The overlords of the provinces near the coast, known by the name of Cheles (bluebirds), were in a way friendly to the Spaniards, and Montejo found his way toward them. The other Indians, seeing that the Spaniards were headed coastward and thinking that they were seeking to return from whence they came, did not seek to fight or in any way annoy them; thus the Spaniards arrived safely at the home of the Batabs Cheles.

These received them hospitably and, in response to the petition of Montejo, allowed them to find a safe asylum at Chichen Itza, then governed by a vassal chief, Cupul.

Upon their arrival, Cupul, according to a native document, "The Narrative of Nahum Peck," said to them:

"Stranger lords, take your rest in these halls," and they did; they made themselves very much at home, after the manner of the Spanish conquerors of those days, even before they had fairly earned the proud title.

For a time the Indians bore the burdens that their guests put upon them with meekness, but at last they rebelled at

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having to be the providers and burdenbearers 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 deceive the Indians. One by one they deserted the edifice used as their garrison and stole away in the darkness, to unite and make for a more friendly Laven.

DOG, ROPE, AND BELL

It is said that to deceive the Mavas 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 constant 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 eyes 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 eyelid, 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 SILENCE

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 desiring to see what there was to see. As these great, lonely monuments loomed before their vision, he has up noted the quick, surprised intake of the breath, the change of color even, and then a speaking silence far more eloquent than any words could be.

The American people should awaken to the fact that they have right at home, at their very doors, architecture essentially American, as it were, ruined structures every whit as interesting, as massive, and possibly as old as those of other lands, whose boast it is that the Americans must come to them, for "America has no ruins.'

Within these mysterious ruins-American ruins are great books, with pages of stone, writ 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.