The City of the Sacred Well

IMAGINE yourself the sole owner of a plantation within which lies a city more than twelve square miles in area; a city of palaces and temples and mausoleums; a city of untold treasures, rich in sculptures and paintings. Would you not feel shamefully wealthy? And does it not seem strange that Don Eduardo, the master of such a plantation, takes the fact of his ownership with apparent calmness? And does it not seem strange that Don Eduardo, the master of such a plantation, takes the fact of his ownership with apparent calmness?

But, before your fancy carries you too far, let me tell you a little more about this remarkable city, which may dampen your ardor for ownership, but which only increases its value in Don Eduardo’s eyes. It is a dead city. Its thousands of inhabitants perished or abandoned it nobody knows how long ago—probably before Columbus first saw the shores of America. And it is in the heart of Yucatan, where Mexico, ending like the upflung tail of a huge fish, juts into the gulf, while Cuba serves as a sentinel a hundred and fifty miles to the eastward.

The Treasure City, the City of the Sacred Well, with the queer-sounding name of the Chi-chen Itza (pronounce it Chee´chen Eet-za´), is for the most part overgrown with tropical jungle. Its treasures are valuable only to the antiquarian.

Early in our conversations about the City of the Sacred Well, Don Eduardo told me that because at the time of his purchase the plantation was well within the territory dominated by the dreaded Sublevados, the rebellious Maya Indians, no planter dared live in or even visit the region for long, and so he was able to secure the land from its absentee owners cheap, as plantation prices run in Yucatan.