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Mastering JavaFX 10 Build Advanced and Visually
Stunning Java Applications 1st Edition Sergey Grinev
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Sergey Grinev
ISBN(s): 9781788293822, 1788293827
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 7.41 MB
Year: 2018
Language: english
Mastering JavaFX 10

Build advanced and visually stunning Java applications

Sergey Grinev

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Mastering JavaFX 10
Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented.
However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the
author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to
have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

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mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy
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First published: May 2018

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-78829-382-2

www.packtpub.com
To my mom, Raisa, and my wife, Irina, without whom this book would have never happened.
To my son, Alexander, who'll learn to read way after this book becomes obsolete.
mapt.io

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 Contributors

About the author

Sergey Grinev is an experienced software engineer focused on building reliable, quality
processes for Java platforms. He started working in this area during his employment with
Oracle, where he was responsible for JavaFX testing. For the last few years, Sergey has
worked for Azul Systems, assuring the quality of their custom JVMs.

Sergey enjoys sharing his experience: he regularly presents Java conferences, gives lessons,
and solves questions on Stack Overflow.

Writing a book is way harder than I thought, and I'm deeply grateful to the people who
helped me.

Thanks to my mother, Raisa, who made me study English from the age of 5.
Thanks to my beloved family, Irina and Alexander, for always inspiring me and coping
with a half-absent father.

Thanks to my English teacher and friend, April, for the support and inspiration.

Also, great thanks to my editor, Gauri, and the whole Packt team.
About the reviewer
Naman Nigam is a philomath currently working as a software developer with Flipkart. He
is heavily involved in gamification and personalization platforms to develop services and
features that are responsible for customer engagement at Flipkart. He keeps up to date with
the technological upgrades available and their usages, while helping with code reviews,
ensuring a consistent performance alongside.

The Flipkart tech team has been extremely helpful during the review process by providing
environments where Naman was able to experiment with some of the latest Java releases.

I would like to thank my wife, Neha, who stood by me heedfully whenever I'd take out
some time reviewing the book, and my friends who persistently encouraged me to be a part
of it.

Packt is searching for authors like you

If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please visit authors.packtpub.com
and apply today. We have worked with thousands of developers and tech professionals,
just like you, to help them share their insight with the global tech community. You can
make a general application, apply for a specific hot topic that we are recruiting an author
for, or submit your own idea.
 Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Stages, Scenes, and Layout 6
Application and JavaFX subsystems 7
Components of the JavaFX toolkit 7
Glass toolkit 7
Prism and Quantum Toolkit 8
Media 8
WebView/WebEngine 8
Working with JavaFX Application Thread 8
Application class 9
Using the Application.launch() method 11
Managing command-line parameters 11
Closing the JavaFX application 12
Stage – a JavaFX term for the window 13
Working with Stage modality options 13
Using Stage styles 14
Setting fullscreen and other window options 15
Scene and SceneGraph 15
Organizing the Scene content with Layout Managers 18
Free layout 18
The most basic layout manager – Group 18
Region and Pane layout managers 19
Behavioral layout 19
Positional layout 20
TilePane and FlowPane 21
BorderPane layout manager 22
AnchorPane layout manager 23
GridPane layout manager 24
Clock demo 25
Summary 26
Chapter 2: Building Blocks – Shapes, Text, and Controls 27
Shapes and their properties 27
JavaFX shapes overview 28
Closed shapes 28
Lines 29
Curves 30
Paths 33
Adding Text to the JavaFX scene 34
Controlling Shape's color 36
Table of Contents

Paint 36
ImagePattern 37
Gradients 38
Customizing lines with Stroke API 39
Basic Stroke 39
Dashed lines 40
Connecting line designs using Line Join 41
Working with the Shape operations 41
Transformations 42
Coordinates and bounds 44
Working with Bounds Demo 44
Using the ScenicView tool to study JavaFX scenegraph 45
Basic Controls 47
Button and Event Handlers 48
Size of the Controls 49
Clock demo 50
Summary 54
Chapter 3: Connecting Pieces – Binding 55
Working with the Property API 55
Using the Observable API 56
Introducing the Binding API 57
Rules of binding 59
Read-only properties 59
Binding is a one-to-many relation 60
Binding blocks setters 60
Bidirectional binding 60
Using binding for visual help 61
The role of listeners 62
Using binding operations 62
String operations 63
Arithmetic operations 65
Boolean operations 67
Working with bidirectional binding and converters 69
Creating custom bindings 71
Implementing base binding classes 71
Bindings helper function 72
Understanding binding collections 73
Summary 75
Chapter 4: FXML 76
Introduction to FXML 76
Basics of FXML 76
Benefits of FXML 78
Limitations of FXML 79
Working with FXML loaders 79

[ ii ]
Table of Contents

Working with resources 79

Using the FXMLLoader API 80
Working with the fx:root attribute and custom components 81
Working with Controllers 83
Enhancing Controllers 83
Using a preconstructed Controller 84
Working with data 84
Syntax details of FXML 85
Reviewing the basics of FXML 85
Importing packages 86
Including other FXML files 86
Using FXML defines 88
Default properties 89
Referring to resources from FXML 90
Adding business logic to FXML 90
Using static methods in FXML 91
SceneBuilder 92
Working with a WYSIWYG editor 93
Features 94
Specifying CSS files through the Preview menu 96
Localization in Preview 97
Summary 98
Chapter 5: Animation 99
What is an animation? 99
Animation example 100
Understanding KeyFrame and KeyValue 101
Adding handlers and timers 102
Working with the Timeline API 103
Adding cue points 104
Using the Interpolator API 104
Predefined interpolators 105
Using transitions – the predefined animations 106
Using movement and resize transitions 106
Using TranslateTransition 107
Using PathTransition 107
Using RotateTransition 108
Using ScaleTransition 109
Working with color transitions 109
Combining transitions 110
Building an animated application 111
Summary 112
Chapter 6: Styling Applications with CSS 113
Introduction to CSS 113
FirstStyles demonstration 114

[ iii ]
Table of Contents

Matching JavaFX nodes using selectors 116

Understanding naming convention for style classes and properties 116
Using type selectors 117
Styling specific objects using ID selectors 117
Loading CSS files from the JavaFX code 117
Applying styles to JavaFX nodes 118
Having several CSS files in one JavaFX application 118
Using the setStyle() method 119
Calling a corresponding API method 121
Referring to CSS styles from FXML 121
Using global JavaFX style sheets 121
Understanding cascading – the priority scheme for different styling methods 122
Working with advanced CSS syntax 122
Using pseudo-classes 122
Working with descendant selectors 124
Working with imports, fonts, and URLs 126
Working with constants and the inherit keyword 126
Why use CSS? 128
Using the CSS API 128
Introducing ClockControl 128
Adding a new style class 130
Using the new CSS property 132
Summary 133
Chapter 7: Building a Dynamic UI 134
Tuning min and max size properties 134
Controlling node location with AnchorPane 136
Planning node size behavior with grow priorities 139
Fluid layouts 140
Enhancing applications with scrolling 142
Summary 143
Chapter 8: Effects 144
Applying basic effects 144
Adding shadow effects 144
Using DropShadow 145
Using InnerShadow 146
Understanding the base Shadow effect 147
Adding reflections 148
Combining effects 149
Distorting using blur effects 151
Adding color effects 152
Using ColorAdjust 152
Using ColorInput 153
Using SepiaTone 154

[ iv ]
Table of Contents

Bloom and Glow 154

Applying lighting effects 155
Understanding the types of light 156
Using Distant light 157
Using Spot light 158
Using Point light 159
Using BumpInput 160
Transformation effects 161
Setting up PerspectiveTransform 161
Distorting an image with DisplacementMap 163
Using blend effects 164
Cutting out with the SRC_ATOP blend mode 165
Calculating the difference between images 165
Lightening and darkening 167
Other blend modes 168
Summary 168
Chapter 9: Media and WebView 169
Working with web content 169
Presenting web content with WebView 170
Context menu 171
Accessibility features 171
Web engine 172
Handling page loading progress with LoadWorker 172
Loading content and user interface callbacks 174
Using Document Object Model 176
Running JavaScript on a page 176
Calling JavaFX code from JavaScript 179
Incorporating media into a JavaFX application 181
Adding audio clips 182
Working with the MediaPlayer and Media classes 182
Adding video through MediaView 184
Summary 187
Chapter 10: Advanced Controls and Charts 188
Advanced controls 188
ListView 189
Managing ListView items 189
Using Selection and Focus API 189
Editable lists 190
Creating the TextFieldListCell 191
Editing through a ChoiceBox/ComboBox 192
Using CheckBox 193
Creating custom cells 195
Using TableView 197
TableModel 197
Creating and combining columns to form tables 198

[v]
Table of Contents

Sorting 199
Observable Model 199
Making a table editable 201
Working with JavaFX charts 202
Creating a Pie chart 202
Creating a Line chart 204
Review of other XY charts 205
Custom controls 208
Skins 209
ClockControl demo 209
Java 9 and 10 API for skins 214
Summary 215
Chapter 11: Packaging with Java9 Jigsaw 216
Handmaking JAR files 216
Running the demo project 217
Basic commands of the javapackager tool 219
Creating self-contained applications 219
Preparing OS-native installers with javapackager 220
Working with Jigsaw modules 221
Making our own module 222
Summary 224
Chapter 12: 3D at a Glance 225
Introduction to the JavaFX 3D API 225
Basic 3D elements 225
Adding Camera to the Scene 226
Lighting the Scene 228
Using Materials 229
Using Bump Map 229
Working with the Diffuse and Self-Illumination maps 230
Summary 232
Chapter 13: What's Next? 233
Other materials 233
Official documentation of JavaFX 233
Stackoverflow.com 234
Working with JavaFX source code 234
Beyond the official API 234
Frameworks and libraries 234
Blogs 235
Future of JavaFX 235
Summary 236
Other Books You May Enjoy 237
Index 240

[ vi ]
 Preface
JavaFX is a set of libraries added to Java in order to provide capabilities to build a modern
UI. It was added to Java a few releases ago, as old libraries—Swing and AWT—proved to
be outdated and too burdened with backward compatibility issues.

JavaFX was designed and developed from scratch to provide Java developers with the
capabilities to build modern, rich UI applications with a large set of shapes, controls, and
charts. It was designed with performance in mind, is capable of using graphics cards, and is
based on the new graphical engine.

In this book, we will study many aspects of JavaFX and go through a large set of examples
based on these topics.

Who this book is for

Developers who already use Java and want to add JavaFX to their skill set, students who
study Java or computer science and want to use JavaFX to improve their projects,
programmers familiar with JavaFX who want to enrich their experience and learn about the
new features of the JavaFX 9 and 10 releases.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Stages, Scenes, and Layout, starts from the essential basis of the JavaFX
application—Stage, Scene, JavaFX Event Thread, and the layout graph concept.

Chapter 2, Building Blocks – Shapes, Text, and Controls, fills the window we created in the
previous chapter with various building blocks provided by the JavaFX API.

Chapter 3, Connecting Pieces – Binding, explains that binding is a new method to greatly
simplify communication between components.

Chapter 4, FXML, introduces FXML is a powerful tool for building a complex JavaFX UI
and separating business logic from UI design. We will design an FXML application and try
SceneBuilder—an FXML-based UI designer tool.

Chapter 5, Animation, demonstrates how to use the JavaFX Animation API to create
various types of dynamic content.
Preface

Chapter 6, Styling Applications with CSS, outlines that JavaFX supports Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS) to style applications similar to web pages.

Chapter 7, Building a Dynamic UI, reviews several JavaFX practices to build a modern
adaptive UI.

Chapter 8, Effects, explains that effects such as a reflection or shadow are an essential part
of modern applications.

Chapter 9, Media and WebView, showcases how JavaFX provides special controls dedicated
to video, audio, and web content.

Chapter 10, Advanced Controls and Charts, reviews complex controls such as tables and
charts.

Chapter 11, Packaging with Java9 Jigsaw, goes through the next step after writing an
application—deploying it to end users. We will review JavaFX app building, packaging,
and Jigsaw modularization options.

Chapter 12, 3D at a Glance, teaches us to create several small 3D applications and study
JavaFX's 3D capabilities.

Chapter 13, What's Next?, looks at further options for mastering JavaFX.

To get the most out of this book

I hope you agree that we really need to write actual code to study programming. This book
is built around code samples. Every section in the book is accompanied by a corresponding
code sample and, if applicable, screenshots.

Before starting to read this book, I strongly encourage you to get a Git and download the
accompanying GitHub repository, which you can find at https:/​/​github.​com/​sgrinev/
mastering-​javafx-​9-​10-​book.

There are about 130 code samples, grouped by chapters numbers. For your convenience,
each chapter is a NetBeans project, but almost every code sample is self-sufficient and can
be run separately without the help of an IDE. If you opt for the latter approach, you can
find the guidelines for running JavaFX apps from the command line in Chapter
11, Packaging with Java9 Jigsaw.

[2]
Preface

At the time of writing, you need the latest in-development version of

Netbeans to work with Java 9 and 10. You can find it at http:/​/​bits.
netbeans.​org/​download/​trunk/​nightly/​latest/​.

While you can get a good grasp of the topics described by just reading the book and
looking at the screenshots, toying with the code samples and seeing the results of your
changes will give you a much better understanding of JavaFX APIs.

Also, although the book has been released once and for all, I plan to update and fix these
samples if any issues are found later on. Refer to GitHub's README.md for a history of
changes.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at
www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit
www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.

2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen
instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the
latest version of:

WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows

Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https:/​/​github.​com/
PacktPublishing/​Mastering-​JavaFX-​10. In case there's an update to the code, it will be
updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available
at https:/​/​github.​com/​PacktPublishing/​. Check them out!

[3]
Preface

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this
book. You can download it here: https:/​/​www.​packtpub.​com/​sites/​default/​files/
downloads/​MasteringJavaFX10_​ColorImages.​pdf

Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames,
file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an
example: "You can import one CSS from another using the @import keyword."

A block of code is set as follows:

public static void main(String[] args) {
// you custom code
Application.launch(MyApplication.class, args);
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines
or items are set in bold:
@DefaultProperty("children")
public class Pane
extends Region

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

> javac FXApplication.java
> java FXApplication

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For
example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example:
"For example, we see that the area under the mouse cursor is a DIV, as shown in the
following screenshot."

[4]
Preface

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: Email feedback@packtpub.com and mention the book title in the
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For more information about Packt, please visit packtpub.com.

[5]
 1
Stages, Scenes, and Layout
During the last decade, user interfaces have evolved beyond the capabilities of the old Java
technologies. Modern users want to work with visually appealing applications and are
used to the rich user interfaces brought by Web 2.0 and smartphones.

To address that, JavaFX was envisioned and added to Java a few releases ago. It was
created from scratch to avoid any backward compatibility issues, and with a great
understanding of the needs of modern user interfaces.

In this book, we will review the most important JavaFX APIs and will look into resolving
some of the most common problems that JavaFX developers face, based on my
development experience and over 500 questions I've answered in the JavaFX section of
stackoverflow.com.

In the first chapter, we will start with the backstage of a JavaFX application, including its
windows and content area, and see which API is responsible for each of these main
building blocks:

Application: This handles the application workflow, initialization, and

command-line parameters
Stage: The JavaFX term for the window
Scene: This is the place for the window's content
SceneGraph: The content of the Scene

At the end of the chapter, we will create a clock demo that will demonstrate the concepts
from this chapter.
Stages, Scenes, and Layout Chapter 1

Application and JavaFX subsystems

The very first API, javafx.application.Application, represents the program itself. It
prepares everything for us to start using JavaFX and is an entry point for all standalone
JavaFX applications. It does the following:

Initializes JavaFX toolkit (subsystems and native libraries required to run JavaFX)
Starts JavaFX Application Thread (a thread where all UI work happens) and all
working threads
Constructs the Application instance (which provides a starting point for your
program) and calls the user-overridden methods
Handles application command line parameters
Handles all cleanup and shutdown once the application ends

Let's look closely at each of these steps.

Components of the JavaFX toolkit

JavaFX toolkit is the stuff hidden under the hood of the JavaFX. It's a set of native and Java
libraries that handles all the complexity of the drawing UI objects, managing events, and
working with various hardware. Luckily, they are well-shielded by the API from the user.
We will have a brief overview of the major components. It can be useful, for example,
during debugging your application; by knowing these component names, you will be able
to identify potential problems from stack traces or error messages.

Glass toolkit
This toolkit is responsible for low-level interaction with operating systems. It uses native
system calls to manage windows, handle system events, timers, and other components.

Note that Glass is written from scratch; it doesn't use AWT or Swing libraries. So, it's better
to not mix old Swing/AWT components and JavaFX ones for the sake of performance.

[7]
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
are called by the compound names of father and mother, in which the name
of the father is the given name and that of the mother the surname. Thus the
son of Chel and Chan would be Na-Chan-Chel, which means son of Chel by
his wife Chan. A stranger coming to a village, especially if he be poor, will be
received in all kindness by any family of his name. Men and women of the
same name do not marry, for this is considered very wrong.
 CHAPTER II
THE CHURCH OF SAN ISIDRO AND ITS FRAGRANT LEGEND

“O NE particularly lovely Sunday morning, some time after taking

up my abode at Chi-chen Itza,” says Don Eduardo, “I was
awakened, as on other occasions, by the softly melodious chiming of
the bells in my little church on the hill. As I lay in my hammock, idly
listening to the pleasant sound, I could distinguish the different
tones of the several bells and it was a pleasant thought to me to
know that I had equipped the little church with bells having a
superior quality of tone. The sound of them was indeed delightful
because while church bells in Yucatan are as plentiful as millionaires
in Pittsburgh, they are usually cracked and raucous.
“It was still early when I stood before my manor and turned my
gaze eastward toward the little stone church perched cozily on a
near-by gently sloping hillside. Both my manor and the little church
had for many years been in ruins, unused. Extensive repairs had just
been completed on both, to make them habitable. Here and there
one of my Indians, or a whole family, dressed in their Sunday best,
were already churchward bound, and the chimes continued softly to
remind the laggard of his duty. The red rim of the sun was just
peeping over the horizon behind the church, while the birds in every
tree and thicket were voicing their welcome to this glorious new day.
A lazy, blissful breeze laden with the mingled scents of a thousand
tropic blossoms ruffled the tree-tops. Before me stretched a vista of
wildly beautiful country-side with no sign of the handiwork of man
other than the little church. No towering peaks, no gushing streams,
no bottomless cañons greeted my eye; merely a terrain that is just
saved from being flat. Yet it is all divinely lovely—a study in green
and blue with here and there a spot of flaming color. The cloudless
sky was of so clear and vivid a blue that I was tempted to stand on
tiptoe and take down a handful. Foliage of some sort covered every
inch of ground and was of every imaginable shade of green, from
the shadowed purple-green where the rising sun had not
penetrated, to the pale green of some of the tree-tops, turned
golden in the first slanting rays. A gorgeous parrot flashed from tree
to tree and disappeared and by his flight brought my eye to rest on
a riot of flame-flower high up in a distant tree.
“The sudden silence of the bells warned me that if I too intended
to go to church there was no time to lose. My little stone church is
not without fame, for in its then-abandoned sacristy that remarkable
traveler and historian John L. Stephens made his abode when he
visited my City of the Sacred Well. It was here that he wrote his
notes on ‘The Ruined City of Chi-chen Itza.’ Though it has been
repaired, it looks almost as he left it one cloudy Sunday morning
nearly eighty years ago. Its cut-stone walls and bell-tower are the
same, but its old roof, bowed with age, has been replaced with a
fine new thatch of palm.
“San Isidro is the patron saint of the plantation—for no well-
organized plantation is without its patron saint, whose image is
venerated by all the natives there employed. The image of San
Isidro in this little church on the hill at Chi-chen Itza is of unknown
antiquity and is believed to be possessed of miraculous powers
which are constantly manifested. Veneration for the image, together
with the attraction of the three-belled chimes swinging in their
places in the tiny tower, makes the little church a sacred spot not
only to the people of my hacienda but likewise to the inhabitants of
the near-by village of Pisté and the region for many miles around.
Has not the sacred image and the big stone baptismal font been
used by the archbishop himself? Was not Mat-Ek healed, who was
blinded for many months by the vapor from the ikeban plant, blown
into his eyes by the wind while he was gathering his crops? Was he
not given back his sight in less than a week after he had prayed for
aid and kissed the feet of San Isidro? And did not Mat-Ek, in token of
his gratitude, have made an eye of pure silver and give it to the
sainted image—an eye which now hangs over the altar for all to see?
What more can you ask?
 “The church was filled to overflowing in token of a great and
special day, for it is only occasionally that the regularly ordained
priest comes all the way from Valladolid, and confessions,
christenings, and marriage bans await his coming.
“As the congregation slowly drifts into place, the gentle rustling of
the unstarched huipiles and pics of the women and the louder
rustling of the stiffly starched trousers and jackets of the men sound
remarkably like the lapping of summer wavelets upon a sandy
beach. The soft laughter of the children outside the building,
mingled with the restrained voices of admonishing Indian elders, all
combine to create an atmosphere in perfect accord with the
surroundings and the low-toned service. Within the chapel many
candles of wild beeswax give forth soft lights and heavy odors
which, mingling with the fragrant smoke of incense, fall with
pleasant, soporific effect upon the congregation.
“The chimes ring their tuneful, familiar message—a message come
down the centuries since the Child of Bethlehem was born in a
manger; a message brought across the seas to this little stone
church, by some unknown, long-departed padre. The solemn peals
roll out and up to those gray old temples of another faith, wherein
the sacred music of the ancient Mayas, the sound of tunkul, or
priestly drum, and dzacatan, once beat in pulsing chorus. These
sound symbols of the Sacred Cross are wafted to the altars, still
standing, of the Sacred Serpent, whose creed once reigned supreme
over this land.
“The beloved priest begins the age-old intoned creed and as the
service lengthens through the chants, singing, and sermon, there
comes a penetrating, strangely sweet odor. Stronger and stronger it
grows, filling the church and floating out into the morning air. The
worshipers nod their heads. ‘The xmehen macales have blossomed;
God is good to us,’ they murmur. Six graceful, big-leafed plants like
large calla-lilies had been placed upon the altar, among other
flowering plants. And as I look, the six white buds of these lilies,
each slenderly sheathed in green, open slowly to the light, revealing
blooms of creamy white. They open in unison, as if at the bidding of
an unheard voice. To me it is startling, uncanny. And here is the
story about them that met my eager questions at the close of the
service:
“Francisco Tata de las Fuentas, caballero of Castile, blue-eyed and
yellow-haired, was fair of skin as a Saxon. In his youth he was as
hot of blood and of head as a Gascon and traveled the pace with the
best and worst of Castile and all the adjoining provinces. His
offerings to Venus, to Bacchus, and to the little gods of chance were
so fervid and frequent that they soon caused his real castle in Castile
to become as those common ones of the air. And his broad lands on
the banks of the Guadiana passed to more careful guardians. When
nothing remained to him but his horse, Selim, he betook himself
with Hernan Cortes to New Spain. Here, under Cortes, he learned
discretion bought by hard experience, so that he acquired some
wealth. With Francisco de Montejo, trusted friend and lieutenant of
Cortes, he came to Yucatan, received a royal grant of land with
many natives, and took to himself a wife, the lovely and virtuous
daughter of a native chief or batab.
“Time passed and he was gathered to his fathers, leaving an only
child, a son named for him. The second Francisco Fuentes inherited
the father’s fair skin and bold blue eyes, as well as the gorgeous
gold-and-silver trappings of the once fiery Selim, not to mention half
a dozen big plantations, houses and lands in Valladolid and Mérida,
and scores of minor holdings in several other towns and villages.
“This Francisco Fuentes, or Pancho as his friends called him, had
two sons and a daughter. The sons were stalwart, upstanding
fellows, recalling in their stature and temper their Spanish ancestry,
but showing in their brown skins the admixture of native blood of
mother and grandmother.
“Maria, the one beloved daughter, had the plump figure and the
sweet temper of her mother, but her proud little head was covered
with a wealth of yellow hair and her eyes were of clearest blue, the
dauntless eyes of the first Francisco. And now Maria, the idol of her
father and worshiped by her brothers, darling of the whole village,
was slowly dying; wasting away with a strange fever that could not
be abated. By day her body was cool and her brain clear, but with
the setting sun came the fever that defied all skill of physicians and
nurses. At midnight her frail, fair form was shaken with ague and
burned with a fever almost to sear the hands of those who
ministered to her as she tossed in delirium. Wasted to a shadow,
Maria seemed beckoned by the Grim Reaper.
“The sun again touched the western horizon. The sorrowing
family, father and brothers, were at her bedside. Friends and
neighbors gathered to watch over the last hours of the helpless little
sufferer, for there seemed no hope. A knock sounded at the door,
hesitant, timid, as of supplication.
“‘It is but one of the beggars who constantly impose on Maria,’
said a sharp-tongued watcher, peering through the window into the
dusk.
“Maria, restlessly turning in her hammock in an inner room, heard
the knocking and the words of the watcher.
“‘I think,’ whispered she, ‘it is old X-Euan, come for some milk I
promised her for her orphan grandchild. Fill with milk the clean flask
which is on the shelf behind the door and give it to her.’
“Old X-Euan took the flask of milk, but from her lips did not come
the whining thanks of the mendicant. Instead, from beneath the
tattered folds of her shawl, she brought forth a vase of strange
antique make, in which was growing a broad-leafed plant with a
single swelling bud at its center. Handing the plant to the watcher,
the old Maya woman said:
“‘Take this to Maria; place it close by her with the blessing of one
to whom she has done as her kind heart, guided by God, has told
her to do.’ In her voice was a note of command which brought
obedience from those who heard. Old X-Euan departed, but some—
those who were nearest and so should have seen clearest—insisted
that a faint glow like a halo enveloped her head.
 “The hour of twilight had passed. The dreaded time of the
quickened pulse and panting delirium had come. Maria lay tossing in
her hammock. Close by her the virgin petals of the flower began
slowly to unfold. A fragrance, at first almost imperceptible, was
wafted through the room. As the blossom opened to full bloom and
its perfume permeated the sick-room, the restless turnings, the
feverish mutterings grew less and less and at last ceased altogether.
A dewy moisture appeared on Maria’s pallid forehead and she sank
into deep, refreshing slumber.
“Amid the rejoicing there was a note of awed wonder, for in the
very center of the flower the beautiful calyx seemed to have taken
the fever heat that was Maria’s, and as her fever abated the heat in
the heart of the flower increased, until at midnight it was almost
incandescent.
“A week passed. Each night, so the watchers told, the flower took
to itself the heat of the fever, while Maria, feverless, slept soundly.
And on the morning of the eighth day she was convalescent. But the
beautiful blossom was but a withered, brown, shapeless nothing.
“‘La flor de la calentura has performed its task,’ exclaimed the
joyful natives, but Maria, lovely once more with returning strength,
said, ‘Alas! La flor de la calentura, the flower that saved my life, is
dead.’
“And thus it was told by Maria to her grandchildren and retold by
them to their grandchildren and is now known by every one in the
region. Surely it must be true! Why shouldn’t it be? At any rate, it is
accepted as literally by my Indians as the less pleasing story of
Jonah and the whale.”
 CHAPTER III
THE FIRST AMERICANS

I T has been said that civilization is but a layer-cake of eras—a

building up of strata, with the brute state at the bottom. Layer
upon layer, each succeeding generation adds its small bit of culture
or knowledge, until a golden age is finally reached. And, sadly
enough, from that age of enlightenment, the hope of the world,
there has always been a rapid decline, until centuries later, perhaps,
again begins the tedious gradual uplift.
And the story of man’s rise and fall, in the passing of the ages,
usually is buried in the earth, to be laid bare to our eyes if we have
but the patience to find and the ability to understand. Just as a good
woodsman can read from a scratch on a tree or a faint footprint on
the ground things not obvious to the untrained observer, our men of
science have developed remarkable expertness in divining the
history of bygone eras from the scanty traces that remain. From a
skull, centuries buried in a cave, they reconstruct the Neanderthal
man. The fragments of an earthen pot tell them the degree of
culture and the period of him who once supped from the vessel.
Wherever there are caves there is the likelihood of uncovering
vestiges of aboriginal life, for primitive men everywhere used
caverns, either as temporary shelters or as permanent abodes.
Beneath the cave floor may be the evidence of many generations of
men—the relics buried in layers one upon another as the discarded
and broken implements of one generation were trampled underfoot
and submerged under the charred embers and rubbish of the
succeeding one.
The written record of the Mayas gives but little clue to their origin
and no indication at all of their descent from more barbarous
ancestors. Did these people, already of a high state of culture,
immigrate from some other land? If so, were they the first comers or
did they find the country even then inhabited? Or were their
ancestors natives of this region for hundreds of centuries before
them?
Yucatan is a land of caverns, veritably a honeycomb of caves, and
eagerly the paleontologist rolled up his sleeves, shouldered his
shovel, and set out to find the answer to these vexing questions.
The answer was found and is conclusive but disappointing. Beyond
the question of a doubt, the Mayas brought with them their culture,
and they were the first inhabitants of this country. Whence they
came, or how, or why; from what race they sprang, we know not
and probably never shall know. A few conflicting legends of their
arrival as recorded in some old Maya writings constitute the sum
total of our knowledge on this point.
Many intricately derived meanings of the name Maya have been
offered. The most obvious, however, is the direct translation. Ma
means “not” and ya means “emotion,” “grief,” “tiresome,” or
“difficult.” The combination means, “not arduous,” “not severe.” We
know that the Mayas frequently alluded to their country as the Land
of the Deer and the Land of the Wild Turkey— U-Lumil-Ceh, U-Lumil-
Cutz. “Maya,” therefore, may quite likely have been descriptive of the
region as a pleasant, comfortable place of residence. Juan Martinez,
who knows the Indian and the language, present and past, as no
one else, once said to me: “Work and grief are synonymous to the
native mind. Work is grief to the Indian; therefore a land of no grief
and no sorrow may well mean a land of no work.” However, any
explanation of the derivation of so ancient a name is little more than
surmise.
According to one myth, the Mayas came over the sea from the
east, under the leadership of a hero-deity, Itzamna; hence the name
“Itzas” as applied to a part, at least, of the Mayas. In the Maya
books Itzamna is represented as an old man with one tooth and a
sunken jaw. His glyph or sign is his pictured profile, together with a
sign of night, the sign of food, and two or three feathers.
 The more credible legend refers to an immigration from the west
or north, under a chieftain named Kukul Can. There are reasons for
believing that this legend may be founded upon fact. It is mentioned
in several of the most ancient of the surviving Maya records and in
the testimony of a number of well-versed natives at the time of the
Conquest. Farther up the coast, north of Vera Cruz, is another
branch of the Maya family called the Huastecs, while in Central
America, through Honduras, Guatemala, and even in Costa Rica, are
present-day Maya tribes and ruins of ancient Maya civilization. Also,
there is a close similarity between the Kukul Can legend and the
Aztec annals, indicating a common origin. Everything points to the
probability of a remote great migration of their common ancestors
from the north.
The Aztec tradition is particularly interesting and describes the
arrival by boat of several different tribes at the mouth of the Panuco
River, which spot the Aztecs called Panatolan, meaning “where one
arrives by sea.” The expedition was headed by the supreme leader,
Mexitl, chief of the Mexicans, with whom were other chieftains and
their followers. They traveled on down the coast as far as
Guatemala, and some turned back and settled at various places
along the shore. On this journey an intoxicating drink was originated
by one Mayanel, whose name means “clever woman.”[1] There is a
possibility that “Maya” is derived from her name. At any rate, one
tribal chief, Huastecatl, imbibed too freely and cast aside his
garments while intoxicated. His shame was so great when he
realized what he had done that he gathered his tribe, the Huastecas,
and returned with them to Panatolan and settled there.
Landa says in his book that some old men of Yucatan related to
him the story, handed down for many generations, that the first
settlers had come from the east by water. These voyagers were ones
“whom God had freed, opening for them twelve roads to the sea.” If
there is any truth in this tradition, these progenitors may have been
one of the lost tribes of Israel. An interesting side light on this
hypothesis is the distinctly Semitic cast of countenance of some of
the ancient sculptures and murals found at Chi-chen Itza and in
other old Maya cities. The dignity of face and serene poise of these
carved or painted likenesses is strikingly Hebraic.[2]
While we are in the field of conjecture, we may as well consider
the old Greek myth of the lost continent of Atlantis. From the
geological point of view, it is not impossible. The whole of Yucatan is
low and was once the bottom of the sea, as is indicated by its
surface rock and sand. Furthermore, the stretching out of the
Antilles as though to form a bridge with the Azores, and the
shallowness of the intervening Atlantic Ocean, lends plausibility to
the idea that there may have been a cataclysmic upheaval of the
ocean-bed during some past era, and not long ago, geologically
speaking—an upheaval which created the land of Yucatan and
caused what was land to the eastward to sink beneath the level of
the Atlantic. What is more natural to suppose than that in some
prehistoric period the lost continent of Atlantis did exist and proved
an easy means of passage between Europe and America?
The mist-enshrouded history of the migrations of ancient people,
the crossing and recrossing of their pilgrimages and of their blood, is
a fascinating study, but one which tells us comparatively little that
may be crystallized into fact. And so, in these various speculations as
to the origin of the Mayas, no theory contains enough weight of
evidence to warrant the assumption that it is the right one. It is,
however, pretty clearly established from the ancient Maya writings
and legends that there were two main immigrations, the greater one
coming from the west or north and the lesser one from the east.
Emerging at last from the purely legendary, we reach the middle
ground where the history of the Mayas is still unrecorded but where
the word of mouth, as handed down from father to son, is more
precise and has some relation to definite dates. Then we suddenly
step over the threshold into the historical era.
The first recorded date, which corresponds to 113 b.c., is on a
statuette from the ancient city of Tuxtla, and there is some doubt as
to whether our reading of this date is correct. The next inscription
corresponds to 47 a.d., and here we are on sure ground. A
monument in northern Guatemala contains a date prior to 160 a.d.,
at which point the ancient Maya Codices take up the history of the
race and carry it on to the time of the Conquest. And even at this
early time, the Mayas had hieroglyphic writings and were skilled in
stone-carving and the erection of massive works of architecture.
With the written Chronicles, the many hieroglyphed stones,
—“precious stones,” I like to call them,—and the history of progress
as indicated by the different periods of architecture and sculpture,
we are able to verify and correlate most of the subsequent dates.
The written Maya records, without which our task of piecing
together anything of their history would be almost impossible, are
among the most interesting and valuable remains of this bygone
civilization. The records are of two kinds. The first, the Codices, are
the original texts, written in hieroglyphics. The second, the Chilan
Balam, are written in the Maya language but with Spanish
characters, and are chiefly transcripts from the more ancient
records.
Only three hieroglyphic Codices have survived, and they are
known respectively as the Dresden Codex, the Perez Codex, and the
Tro-Cortesianus. All are in European museums and many facsimile
reproductions have been made of them for use in other museums
and libraries. These manuscripts are painstakingly illuminated by
hand, in colors, and were done with some sort of brush, possibly of
hair or feathers. They are done on paper or, rather, a sort of
cardboard which has been given a smooth white surface through the
application of a coating of fine lime. The body of the paper is made
of the fiber of the maguey plant. The manuscript is folded like a
Japanese screen or a railway time-table. According to early
accounts, some of these records were also made on tanned or
otherwise prepared deerskin and upon bark. None of the hide or
bark records has ever been found by present-day explorations. It is
known that the Mayas had many records concerning religious
history, religious rites and ceremonies, medicine, and astronomy.
The Spanish priests caused all of the Maya writings they could find
to be gathered together and burned, in the fanatical belief that they
were serving the church by so doing.
If only their bigotry had vented itself in some other way, how
much these old manuscripts might have told us! Apropos of the
burning of the priceless documents Landa says, “We collected all the
native books we could find and burned them, much to the sorrow of
the people, and caused them pain.”
 A PAGE FROM THE PEREZ CODEX, DESCRIBING AN ECLIPSE OF THE
SUN. THIS ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT ILLUMINATED IN COLOR IS NOW IN
THE LIBRARY OF PARIS

The group of books called the Chilan Balam, which are chiefly
ideographic transcripts of the more ancient works, written in the
Maya tongue but in Spanish characters, probably were made
surreptitiously by some of the educated natives soon after the
Conquest. There are sixteen of these books still extant. The meaning
of this Maya name, Chilan Balam, is interesting. Chi means “mouth”;
lan indicates action. Therefore Chilan is “mouth action,” or “speech.”
Balam is synonymous for either “tiger” or “ferocity.” But the tiger
was worshiped as a deity and the combination of the words, Chilan
Balam, means “Speech of the Gods.” The Maya priests were
sometimes called by the name, indicating that they were the
mouthpieces of the gods, and doubtless these records took their
name from the priestly appellation.
The individual books of the Chilan Balam are known by the names
of the villages in which they were found, and in a few cases the
name of the village may have been derived from the presence of the
book. The most important of these books are Nabula, Chun-may-el
(which means “something of the first” or “original”), Kua, Man, X-
kutz-cab, Ixil, Tihosuco, and Tixcocob.
Just when these books were written is not known, but there is
evidence that the book of Mani was written prior to 1595 and the
book of Nabula tells of an epidemic which occurred in 1663. While
teaching the natives to write the Maya language in Spanish
characters, Bishop Landa employed a rather original method, which
is our only key to reading these writings and which serves as our
only clue to the more ancient hieroglyphs. The ancient Maya writings
were purely picture writings, but to some extent the hieroglyphs had
lost their original picture significance and had come to have a
somewhat symbolic meaning.
In arranging the so-called Maya alphabet (which was first used by
the priests in writing out the prayers for the Mayas), Landa
employed a very ingenious method and one that was practical at the
time. He took the Spanish alphabet and beginning with “A” he asked
the educated Indian to draw the character for him in which the
sound of “A” was predominant. Naturally, after many attempts by the
Indian to furnish such a character he finally selected the hieroglyph
ac, which is a picture of a turtle’s head and which in Maya means
“turtle” or “dwarf” or something having a slow movement. Next he
took the letter “B” and eventually chose the character be, which
means “road,” “walk,” “run,” and consists of the picture of a
footprint. Therefore—not to go into a lengthy description of the
system—he had “A” from ac, “B” from be, etc. With this
extemporized alphabet the priests were able to write out the
Catholic prayers in such a way that the Indian could repeat them in
Spanish by using the sound of the first part of his hieroglyph for the
sound of each Spanish letter.
It may be seen from the foregoing that Landa’s alphabet cannot
be used for translating Maya, for when the hieroglyphs are made to
represent the sounds of the Spanish alphabet the result does not
indicate the original connection of a Maya word with its glyph. This
fact was a great disappointment among archæologists, who at first
expected to translate the Maya Codices by the use of the Landa
alphabet. Their hopes, however, were short-lived and they even
pronounced Landa an impostor. On the contrary, he has
unintentionally given us what is almost a Rosetta Stone.
The Codices, I fear, will never yield a connected story, as they are
written in a stenographic or shorthand style consisting of
disconnected sentences.
Many of the stones, or stelæ, may contain history, and as soon as
we know the meanings of, possibly, a thousand glyphs we shall be
able to make a decided advance in the art of reading the books.
Landa in his book explains not the Maya glyphs but the way the
priests used these Maya characters for religious purposes. For
example, he says Ma-in-kati means “I do not want,” represented in
the ancient Maya by three simple glyphs. Written as the priests had
arranged, with a glyph for each sound of a Spanish letter, the result
is a combination of five glyphs, which, if given their original Maya
pictured meanings, leads to the rather surprising knowledge that “no
dead animal was seen at this place,” or, literally, “not see tail
[animal] death place.”
 Besides the Codices and the Chilan Balam, which together are
frequently alluded to as the Maya Chronicles, there are some other
documents such as titles to land, records of surveys, etc. There is a
unique history of the Conquest, written by a contemporary native
chief called Na Kuk Pech, whose name means “house of the
feathered wood-tick.” The story was written in the native language,
by means of Spanish characters, and has been translated recently by
Señor Juan Martinez, whose profound knowledge of the Maya
language has eminently fitted him for this task.
The history of Chi-chen Itza is of especial interest because this
was the Holy City, the Mecca of all the ancient Maya people.
According to the Maya Chronicles, one or several tribes set out from
a place called Nonual, in 160 a.d., and apparently spent many years
in aimless wandering, arriving finally, in 241 a.d., at a place they
named Chac Nouitan. Then follows a gap in our knowledge and the
next we learn of these people is that in 445 a.d., while they were
residing at a place called Bak-Halal, they heard of Chi-chen Itza. It is
clear that Chi-chen Itza was already an inhabited city at that time.
Soon after this, these tribes moved to Chi-chen Itza, where they
lived until about 600 a.d., when, for some unaccountable reason,
they abandoned it utterly and migrated to the land of Chan Kan
Putun. And this residence was in turn abandoned two hundred and
sixty years later, because of some calamity; one Chronicle speaks of
a great fire.
For nearly a hundred years, to quote from the Chronicles, “the
Itzas lived in exile and great distress under the trees and under the
branches.” Then, some of them reëstablished Chi-chen Itza in 950
a.d., while others founded the city of Uxmal or went to Mayapan.
The second residence lasted for some two hundred years. About
1200 a.d., the Itzas, under the ruler Ulumil, invaded the city of
Mayapan and at about this same time Chi-chen Itza was attacked
and depopulated by foreigners—in all probability the Nahuas
(Mexicans), who came down from the north. The last event alluded
to in the Chronicles is the coming of the Spaniards under Montejo,
who found the Mayas already decadent and their cities long ruined
and abandoned.
We have no authentic description of the actual condition of Chi-
chen Itza when the Spaniards came, but it is known with certainty
that Tiho (place of the five temples), one of the ancient cities, the
site of the modern city of Mérida, was in ruins. The temples were
dilapidated and overgrown with vegetation and great trees were
rooted in the walls. The few inhabitants living around these ruins
knew virtually nothing of the founders of the city, nor of those who
had lived there when it was in its prime.
At the coming of the Spaniards to Chi-chen Itza, about 1541, the
city was inhabited by a few people who were, I think, nothing more
than campers—inferior people using as shelters the buildings which
they had found there and of whose history they were quite ignorant.
While it has no place in this book, the last known migration of
some of the Mayas is interesting and it is certain that a considerable
number emigrated between the years 1450 and 1451 southward to
Lake Peten,[3] where they built a city on an island and there they
survived, together with their ancient culture, until conquered in 1697
by the Spaniards, who destroyed all their temples and books and
perforce made either good Christians or “good Indians” of all the
inhabitants.
Landa says, under the heading, “Various Misfortunes Experienced
in Yucatan in the Century before the Conquest”:
These people had over twenty years of abundance and health and
multiplied greatly. All of the land looked like one town and they built many
temples which can be seen to-day in all parts; and crossing the mountains,
one can see through the leaves of the trees sides of houses and buildings
wonderfully constructed. After all this happiness, one evening in the winter a
wind arose about six o’clock and increased until it became a hurricane of the
Four Winds.[4] This wind tore out the large trees, made a great slaughter of
all kinds of game, tore down all the high houses, which, as they were
thatched with straw and had fire inside against the cold, caught fire. Great
numbers of people were burned and those that escaped were torn to pieces
by falling trees.
 This hurricane lasted until noon of the next day. Some who lived in small
houses escaped—the young people who were just married, who were
accustomed to build small houses in front of those of their parents or parents-
in-law, where they lived the first years.
Thus this land then lost its name, which was U-Lumil-Ceh, U-Lumil-Cutz,
Land of the Deer, Land of the Wild Turkey, and was without trees. The trees
now seen all appear to have been planted at the same time, as they are all of
the same height, and, looking at this land from some spot, it seems as though
it had been trimmed off with shears.
Those who escaped felt encouraged to rebuild and cultivate the land and
they again multiplied greatly, having fifteen years of health and good weather
and the last year was the most fruitful of all. At the time of harvest, there
came upon the land some contagious fevers which lasted twenty-four hours.
After the fever the victim would swell up and burst open, being full of worms,
and of this pestilence many people died leaving the fruit ungathered.
After this pestilence there was another sixteen good years in which they
renewed their passions and ravagings. In this way one hundred and fifty
thousand men died in battle. After this massacre they were more calm and
made peace and rested for twenty years. Then came another pestilence.
Large pimples formed and they rotted the body and emitted offensive odors in
a way that the members fell off by pieces within four or five days.
This plague has passed more than fifty years ago, the massacres of the
wars twenty years before that; the pestilence of the swelling and worms
sixteen years before the wars; and the hurricane another sixteen years before
that and twenty-two years after the destruction of Mayapan, which, according
to this record, makes one hundred twenty-five years since the destruction.
Thus by the wars and other punishments which God sent, it is a wonder there
are as many people as are now living, although there are not many.

This quaint account by Landa sheds some light upon the condition
of the Mayas during the century preceding the Spanish invasion and
indicates that the golden age of the race had occurred not many
centuries before.
The legendary history of the coming of the Mayas to Chi-chen Itza
is alluded to by Landa in several passages. He states:
It is the opinion among the Indians that with the Itzas who populated Chi-
chen Itza, there reigned a great man called Kukul Can, and the principal
temple of the city is called Kukul Can. They say he entered from the west,
that he was very genteel, and that he had neither wife nor children. After he
 left Chi-chen Itza he was considered in Mexico one of their gods and called
Quetzal Coatl and in Yucatan they also had him for a god.

In another place Landa says:

The ancient Indians say that in Chi-chen Itza reigned three brothers. This
was told to them by their ancestors. The three brothers came from the west
and they reigned for some years in peace and justice. They honored their god
very much and thus built many buildings and beautiful, especially one. These
men, they say, lived without wives and in great honesty and virtue, and
during this time they were much esteemed and obeyed by all. After a time
one of them failed, who had to die, although some of the Indians said he
went to Bak-halal. The absence of this one, no matter how he went, was felt
so much by those who reigned after him that they began to be licentious and
formed habits dishonorable and ungovernable, and the people began to hate
them in such a way that they killed them, one after the other, and destroyed
and abandoned the city.

Virtually the same stories are contained in a document found at

Valladolid and dated 1618, which goes on to state that the newer
part of Chi-chen Itza was built about 1200 a.d.
The ancient city consists of two parts, the southern, which is
ruined to such as extent that it contains almost no standing edifices,
and the newer city built to the north, which contains many buildings
—some of them almost perfectly preserved. I believe that much of
the older city was built at least a thousand years prior to most of the
buildings in the newer city, and there is ample evidence to
substantiate the belief that the old city was ruthlessly robbed of its
carvings and cut stones for use in the construction of the new.
The Nahuatl influence is seen in the newer buildings. It is thought
that Chi-chen Itza reached the height of its civil power, though not
its artistic supremacy, after it had been conquered by the Aztec
warriors from the north, and the native inhabitants were reduced to
slavery and driven by their masters to the speedy building of many
temples—an undertaking which they would have gone about in
much more leisurely fashion had there been no compulsion.
Don Pedro Aguilar, one of the earliest historians of Yucatan, states
that six hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards the Mayas
were the vassals of the Aztecs and were forced by them to construct
remarkable edifices such as those found at Chi-chen Itza and Uxmal.
Herbert Spinden, in his admirable little book “Ancient Civilizations
of Mexico,” has most happily drawn an analogy between the traits of
the Mayas and Aztecs and the similar traits of the old Greeks and
Romans. The Mayas were like the Greeks, the creative race, while
the Aztecs were primarily warriors, as were the Romans.
Just what was the impulse which led these people to undertake
the mighty works they accomplished,—whether it was religious
fervor or plain fear,—we do not know. We do know that their age of
greatest progress was within the era of verifiable history. We know
that they built many large cities; and that there was a large
population; Chi-chen Itza was a city of at least two hundred
thousand inhabitants, and some archæologists believe that at one
time its population numbered no less than a million.
During their supreme period they built great pyramids and
marvelous temples. They wrote books and set up intricately carved
record-stones. They brought the whole of Yucatan into a federation
of government that held the people together in a unity which has
few parallels in the history of the human race. They evolved a
calendar which is ingenious, complicated, and amazingly correct.
They read the heavens and knew the planets and their seasons and
changes. They displayed in all they did a genius to invent and an
ability to execute which cause us to rate their culture very high; and
this culture is all the more wonderful because it was purely original
and cut off by an ocean on each side from any contact with the rest
of the world.
 CHAPTER IV
DON EDUARDO’S FIRST VIEW OF THE CITY OF THE SACRED WELL

D ON EDUARDO has described to me his first trip to Chi-chen Itza,

and his impressions, which are somewhat as follows if my notes
and memory do not err:
“I had traveled all of a hot and dusty day, on horseback, through
the jungle and over animal trails. In many places my Indian guide,
who went afoot, had to lead my horse over or around the huge
stones that blocked our path. After the first few miles I was painfully
aware that running blithely from my city into Mérida, for forgotten
trifles or even for sorely needed supplies, was another of my
pleasant fancies thoroughly punctured.
“Darkness overtook us ere we reached our journey’s end, and the
ensuing coolness was delightfully refreshing even though the dark
slowed our already snail-like progress. Just when I had abandoned
all hope of making further headway, the moon sailed majestically
into view—a gorgeous full moon in a perfect Yucatan night, lighting
every object softly, gently, with a caressing touch so lacking in the
masculine directness of Old Sol. A more lovely silver and black-velvet
night I have never seen. Truly, the moon magic of Yucatan is no less
than divine stage-craft which subtly wafts one completely away from
the Land of Things as They Are and into the Realm of Enchantment.
I should not have been surprised to meet the March Hare, Lancelot,
Gulliver, Scheherezade, or Helen of Troy. In fact, I was prepared to
stop and chat with any of them and offer a bite from the one
remaining cake of chocolate in my pocket.
“Sometime, and most reluctantly, I suppose I must go the way of
all flesh. If so, then by all means let it be in the full glory of a
Yucatan moon and the going will not be unpleasant.
 “For days I had been traveling, first by train, then by volan,—that
satanic contrivance which leaves one bruised and bumped from head
to foot,—and finally in the saddle, dozing over the head of a
somnambulant horse.
“Even the witchery of the moonlight could not long hold alert my
fatigued body and mind. On and on we plodded, hour after hour.
Midnight passed and how many more hours I do not know, when I
heard an exclamation in the vernacular, from my guide. Startled out
of a half-conscious dream I came erect in the saddle.
“My Indian was earnestly pointing up and ahead. I raised my eyes
and became electrically, tinglingly awake. There, high up, wraith-like
in the waning moonlight, loomed what seemed a Grecian temple of
colossal proportions, atop a great steep hill. So massive did it seem
in the half-light of the approaching morning that I could think of it
only as an impregnable fortress high above the sea, on some rocky,
wave-dashed promontory. As this mass took clearer shape before me
with each succeeding hoof-beat of my weary steed, it grew more
and more huge. I felt an actual physical pain, as if my heart skipped
a few beats and then raced to make up the loss.
“Thus for the first time I viewed the Great Pyramid of Kukul Can,
now called El Castillo—the Castle. And I shall always be glad that I
had the good fortune to get my first glimpse of it in this fashion.
Times without number I have since passed and repassed this grand
old structure, yet never have I walked in its shadow without a
quickening of the pulse or without recalling undimmed the vision of
that moonlit night. And, as I look back through my years of intimate
companionship with my City of the Sacred Well, it seems to me that
moonlit nights are linked inextricably with nearly all the important
events that have there befallen me—or, at least, with those which
are pleasant in retrospect.
“By the time I had dismounted and unsaddled my horse my Indian
was already curled up and fast asleep. The poor horse was, I think,
in sound slumber the minute his feet came to a halt. But for me,
weary as I was, sleep was out of the question. I must see more of
this magic city. Reaching the foot of the steep ascent, I crawled
painfully up what had obviously once been a tremendous stairway,
now overgrown with small trees and shrubs. At the end of a
breathless climb I reached a narrow, level stone ledge eighty feet
above the ground and faced the north door of the temple—the
temple of the great god Kukul Can. This sheer pile of perfectly joined
masonry pierced by a forty-foot doorway within whose sides I could
dimly discern intricate and fantastically carved bas-reliefs; this time-
grayed temple of a forgotten faith, viewed there in the silence and
solitude of eerie moonlight—is it to be wondered at if my knees
shook just a little and if I glanced apprehensively over my shoulder
awaiting the terrible, majestic wrath of the god whose temple was
profaned by the eyes of an unbeliever?
“On my eminence I turned slowly and gazed out over the dead
city. Here and there, some near by and some at a distance, were a
dozen other pyramids surmounted by buildings. A few seemed well
preserved, others were in picturesque ruins, all ghostly white in the
moonlight, except where a doorway or a shadow stood out in inky
blackness. I could see the long shadow of that old temple we call
the ‘Nunnery.’ The stillness was broken only by the monotonous hum
of hidden cicadas; or was it the distant beat of phantom tunkuls, or
sacred drums, warning that the ancient God of the Feathered
Serpent did but sleep and might at any moment awake?
“And then my eyes were caught and held by a broad raised
roadway leading straight away from the temple toward a vast black
pool overgrown with trees. Breathless, frozen to the spot, I could
only look and look, for in a blinding flash I realized that I was gazing
at the Sacred Way, and at its end the Sacred Well in whose murky
depths even then might lie the pitiful bones of many once lovely
maidens sacrificed to appease a grim god. What untold treasures
this grisly well might hide! What tragedies had been enacted at its
brink!
“I descended and as I walked along the Sacred Way I thought of
the thousands, millions perhaps, of times this worn thoroughfare
had been trodden in bygone ages where all was now desolate. Here
was I, a grain of dust moving where kings and nobles of countless
centuries before had trod, and where, for all I know, kings and
nobles may again tread long years after I am still a grain of dust but
moveless.
“At the brink of the well I peered into the blackness and continued
to gaze into its depths, picturing in my mind’s eye the awesome
ceremonies it had witnessed. The chant of death begins, swelling
softly over the slow pulsing of the drums. The solemn procession
leaves the holy temple of Kukul Can and the funeral cortège
advances along the broad raised avenue of the Sacred Way, toward
the Sacred Well, the dwelling-place of Noh-och Yum Chac, the
terrible Rain God who must be placated by human sacrifice. The
corn in the fields is withering, crying for rain. If the anger of Yum
Chac be not appeased famine will follow and the dread Lord of
Death, Ah Puch—he of the grinning, sightless skull—will walk abroad
in the land.
“Slowly, slowly the cortège draws near. At its head is the high
priest, clad in ceremonial vestments and elaborate feathered head-
dress, as befits the pontiff of the Feathered Serpent. And what is
this embroidered bower borne so reverently by sturdy, sun-browned
lesser priests? Is it a bier, a stately catafalque? Is the pitiful victim
already dead? Ah, no! she moves, beautiful, flawless—the most
lovely maiden to be found in the land. Through every city and village
and country-side, for weeks and weeks, a thousand priests have
sought her, this fairest flower of Maya maidenhood. Her face is pale.
She knows the supreme honor that is hers—she who is to become
so soon the bride of the Rain God. But there is terror in those lovely
eyes, a benumbing, cold fear of the Unknown.
“And behind them, filling the whole of the Sacred Way, come the
king, the nobles, the great warriors and many priests. Already on the
far side of the Sacred Well is gathered a silent, grave-faced
multitude, the whole populace of the city and pilgrims from afar.
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