File:The American Egypt - a record of travel in Yucatan (1909) (14797536513).jpg

Identifier: americanegyptrec00arno (find matches)
Title: The American Egypt : a record of travel in Yucatan
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Arnold, Channing Frost, Frederick J. Tabor
Subjects: Mayas Yucatán (Mexico : State) -- Description and travel Yucatán (Mexico : State) -- Antiquities
Publisher: London Hutchinson & Co.
Contributing Library: Brown University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brown University

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ase, now ruined. Wescrambled up, clinging on to the gnarled roots and branchesof trees growing from it, and once on the top a refreshing seabreeze greeted us, for the time driving our persecutors away.To make anything like accurate measurements the denseovergrowth had to be first cut away, and we stripped off ourcoats and revolver belts and set to with a will. The building,which our energetic assault on the vegetation disclosed, wasnow roofless. It had consisted of two rectangular roomsrunning north and south. At the top of the stairs on theeast, forming the doorway of the first chamber, stood twopillars 18 inches in diameter. The inner room had two stoneplatforms about 4 feet high, probably altars : for there isno doubt that all the strictly pyramidal buildings of CentralAmerica were religious in character. We say strictlypyramidal to differentiate these temples from the otherbuildings of Yucatan which are, almost without exception,erected on mounds. While making our measurements one
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EL MECO TO PUERTO MORELOS 145 of us, tape in hand, nearly touched a snake which was hidingin a crevice in the wall. He was quite small, of a ringedblack and brown colour, but Lucio declared him one of thedeadliest of all snakes. He called it calom. We tickled thereptiles tail with a machete, and he squirmed deeper intothe wall and disappeared. A queerer occupant of this ancient temple was a hugehermit crab, which by a miracle of persistence had climbedthe pyramid and was hidden under a tree-root. These un-canny creatures are everywhere on the islands and along thecoast of Yucatan. They live in large whelk-shells, movingfrom one to another as their growth demands a larger tenement.All you can see of them is a great red hairy claw, which isused to close the entrance of the shell. When disturbedthey make a shrill noise like the faint chirping of a bird—by rubbing, it is said, the ridged surface of the last jointof the right great claw against the sharp edge of the secondjoint. The wood

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