“Well done, Cyrilo, well done!” cried Don Juan.
Yet all that could be seen was the commotion of the water where the struggle was going on; a few minutes more and Cyrilo came up, this time alone, breathing hard, covered with mud, and swimming towards us. I stretched out my hand to help him in, but he leaped into the boat without assistance and sat down quite still for one minute.
“_Este can me cortò el dedo_—this dog broke my finger,” he said, holding up his hand, of which the first joint of the forefinger was hanging down. “_Però me lo pagò_—but I paid him out, and I reckon we’ll soon see his ugly mug. But if not I’ll be after him again.”
Don Juan winked at me. The man was preparing to plunge once more into the murky water when Don Juan exclaimed:
“There he is belly upmost, his breast seamed by four thrusts.”
We secured and towed him to the village. He measured 14 feet 4 inches. I gave the man two piastras instead of one, and twenty francs for his dagger, in commemoration of his feat.
But to return. We plough along the swollen canal, we lose our way, and in a short time find ourselves among shrubs and towering trees; with some difficulty we get back to the lagoon and reach Las Playas de Catasaja late in the evening, when we take possession of an empty house in which to dispose of our party and our numerous packages.
Our next destination is S. Domingo, eight miles distant, but no carriers to convey our luggage are to be found for love or money; our plight might have been awkward had not the mayor offered to send to Palenque to procure as many men as can be had. Meanwhile, we find enough to engage our attention in the place. Don Rodriguez, a Government Inspector of Mines, has lately had the central stone cross which stood in the temple bearing the same name at Palenque, brought here. This tablet, now so well known, has had a chequered existence.
Some thirty years ago, it was taken from its place, and left lying in a forest adjoining the town by the thief, who was unable to carry it further. It was unbroken in 1858, when I found it covered with moss, and took a rather good photograph. A squeeze of the entire monument, composed of three pieces, is to be seen in the Trocadéro. Curiously enough, these pieces are scattered in different countries: one is still _in situ_, the second at Las Playas, whilst the third is in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. We give a drawing of this interesting cross, crowned by a symbolic bird, to which a man standing presents an offering. Since the cross was a symbol of Tlaloc, the temple in which it stood must have been dedicated to him, and perhaps Quetzalcoatl also, and it is clear that it was of the same origin as the sepulchral cross at Teotihuacan; but contrary to some writers, who make the latter proceed from the former, we make the first proceed from the second, for in everything we must go from the simple to the complex, and the primitive style, the simplicity, the archaic aspect of the cross at Teotihuacan, make it an ascendant and not a descendant of the imaged cross at Palenque, covered with ornamentation denoting an advanced period.