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Bere and There Yucatan* Mboellanfo*. ByAlice J. IieBkmgeou. J* W* Bdatom, 1887.*-This little book may be deemed Bapplemfinfc ofpersonal narrative and chatty disquisitioa, appended to the writer’s more important work onc Yucatan: Its An dent Palaces and Modem Cities.’ It is a collection of articles which have» ’ *been contributed to various periodicalaby the ac«oomplisbed authorees, and which she has been induced by “the request of friends ” to bring together for preservation. It must be said that the request has fceen better Justified than la usual in such demonstrations of friendly partiality. The sketches,, though slight, have the merit of conveying much interesting information in a sprightlyand attractive style. They relate, for the most part, not to the mainland of the peninsula, but to the outlying islands, which Dr. and Mt3. BePlongeon visited in the course of their indefatigable researches. We learn much about the torfcle-eatehers* the salt-gatherers, the tobacco-gro wers,and other occupants of the picturesque islands of Mogeres and Cozumel, oft the eastern coast of Yucatan. There are some descriptions of ancient buildings and other monuments of the former Indian civilization, and some curious narratives of piratical adventures and searches forhidden treasures.A brief but striking account is given of the Ca-ribs of British Honduras, who still, it is said, retain the habit of sacrificing and, perhaps, of devouring a child in their religious orgies, and, nevertheless, have the repute of being “ very hopesfc and harmless, but great drunkards.” We are also told of a pigmy people who formerly dwelt along the western coast of the peninsula, andwhose existence seems to be proved by the discovery of houses and temples suited for occupantsand worshippers less than four feet high. Borneof these diminutive creatures are said still to livein the recesses of British Honduras; and the authoress had from an old woodcutter a precise andseemingly truthful account of a visit made byhimself and others in 182o to their place of abode,and the actual capture of one of them, a girl•» +about eighteen years old and not quite- three feet high, who afterwards escaped from her captor3., There is a chapter on “ the lost literature of the Mayas,” repeating the well-known story of thedestruction by the fanatical Spanish ‘priests of the many books in which the natives had embodied, in their hieroglyphics—perhaps partly alphabetical—what they had retained of tk learning and wisdom of their ancestors. While the narrative, as here told, will renew the reader’sregret at tbis irreparable loss, it cannot f#il tq in spire Mm with some alarm at the attempt which is to be made to partly supply it A few of theMaya books, or codices, as they are now termed, have been rescued, and one of them, the celebrated Codex Troano, is undergoing translationby Dr. Le Plongeon, whose superiority to allother investigators in this line is naturally andlaudably assumed by the faithful partner of his labors. The wild vagai ies of interpretation with which that other estimable and untiring archre logist, the Abbt* .Brasseur de Bourbourg, dis-figured his otherwise valuable works on CentralAmerica, are to be repeated, and perhaps evenexaggerated.Dr. Le Plongeon, we are told, finds that this“Troano manuscript” 13 mainly “a work on geology and ethnology.” Its author u appears to have bad a knowledge of the various strata of which the crust of our planet is composed, for he has painted them of different colors.” There arealso records of cataclysms bv which the face of the earth has more than once been changed.” And we are farther assured that “ tho story ofthe disappearance of a great island, Plato’s Atlantis, in the Atlantic Ocean,” is confirmed bythis amazing authority. The news will be a do-'light to Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, and a source of dismay to other students of American archaeology, who had hoped that we were well rid of this preposterous cataclysmic nonsense. It would be unfair, however, to judge either the writings of Mrs. Le Plongeon or the researches of the learned and worthy Doctor by these unlucky attempts at the unriddling of mysteries in which the best intellects are apt to bo muddled.The present work, saving perhaps a few rather flimsy disquisitions near the end, will be found a thoroughly readable volume, with much in it ofnovel and instructive, and with some stories ofexploring trials and hardships, stoutly borne,which add not a little to our respect for the heroine and hero of the narrative. *
Newspaper Details
New York Evening Post
New York, New York, US
Wed, Jul 27, 1887
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Stephan M.
DE 11 Jan 2021
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