[Illustration: MOULDINGS IN THE TEMPLE OF THE CROSS NO. 1.]
Meanwhile, the men from Palenque have arrived, and our freight is transported in three days to S. Domingo, whither we follow by the last train. After Las Playas, the landscape opens out into a noble perspective of fields and shady groves; now the eye wanders over the rich flora of the savanna, now it plunges into the unfathomable depths of the forest, through which the road is a succession of triumphal arches, sometimes so closed in as to seem impassable from a short distance. We start hares and peccaries innumerable; we hear the shrill cries of aras, mingled with the howling of _zaraguatos_, gravely regarding us from their leafy bowers, whilst on the outskirts of the wood, a timid deer gives an astonished look as we approach, ere he betakes himself to green and deeper retreats. To crown the enjoyment of this charming ride, we found a plentiful luncheon awaiting us at the Pulente rancho; bananas and oranges, which we plucked ourselves from the trees, composed our dessert.
The evening found us at S. Domingo, where we took up our quarters with one of two European families settled here. Again the delay caused by the carriers gave us time to take an impression of two slabs, which were formerly inlaid in the pillars supporting the altar in the Temple of the Cross No. 1. In 1840 Stephens found them in the house of two elderly spinsters, who refused to part with them; but after their death the Municipality declared them public property, and had them put up in the church façade, where they are now to be seen; one of them, however, is broken into three pieces. Their dimensions are 6 feet by about 3 feet. The left slab represents a young man magnificently arrayed; he wears a richly-embroidered cape, a collar and medallion round his neck, a beautiful girdle to his waist; the ends of the maxtli are hanging down front and back, cothurni cover his feet and legs up to the knee. On the upper end of his head-dress is the head of a stork, having a fish in his bill, whilst others are ranged below it.
SCULPTURED STONES, TEMPLE OF THE CROSS NO. 1.]
The cross on the altar justifies our seeing in this gorgeously-attired young man another personification of the god of rain, of spring, of verdure and water, symbolised by the fishes and the stork’s head, attributes which are found also on the basement of the Tlaloc of Tacubaya. The other slab represents an old man, clothed in a tiger’s skin, blowing out air, with a serpent round his waist, whose tail curls up behind and coils in front, the well-ascertained attributes of Quetzalcoatl, god of wisdom. Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl are often seen side by side; and we shall meet them in the Temple of the Cross, when we shall be in a position to advance with some show of truth that the same was dedicated to both deities.[91]