PREFACE

This book is primarily an attempt to recount the many thrilling experiences of Edward Herbert Thompson in his lifelong quest for archæological treasures in the ancient and abandoned city of Chi-chen Itza, for centuries buried beneath the jungle of Yucatan.

As a boy Mr. Thompson—or Don Eduardo, as he is affectionately known to the natives about the Sacred City—sat in his snug New England home and read of the adventures of Stephens in Yucatan, descriptions of the old Maya civilization, and the legends concerning the Sacred Well at Chi-chen Itza. Then and there he determined that his life-work should be the uncovering of the age-old secrets of the ancient city.

When still a mere youth he was appointed by the President of the United States as the first American Consul to Yucatan, the appointment having been urged by the American Antiquarian Society and the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, both of which were anxious to have a trained investigator on the peninsula.

Enthusiastically Mr. Thompson undertook his double mission. For over twenty-five years he remained at his post as consul. During this long period, sometimes at the head of regularly organized expeditions under the auspices of American archæological institutions, at other times with only his faithful native followers, he discovered ruined cities until then unknown to the world and carried on exhaustive researches among those already discovered.

At last Mr. Thompson resigned the consular office, in order to carry on the various scientific undertakings that required all his time and energy. Chief among these was the search for relics that for hundreds of years had lain buried in the mud at the bottom of the Sacred Well.

Many and many a night, under the gorgeous moonlight of Yucatan or by some cozy fireside in the States, I have listened entranced, as the hours glided by, to the true tales Don Eduardo tells of his experiences or of the customs and the folk-lore of the country. I know intimately this lovable, modest, blue-eyed six-footer, this dreamer and adventurer, gray-haired now but still with the heart of a boy. I know him better, perhaps, than does any other man, and if I do not write down the things he has told me they will never be written, for Don Eduardo will not do it. Therefore I have asked and received his permission to write, from memory and from his notes and my own, this book, which he has read and corrected.

It is a faithful account of the many valuable archæological finds he has made, but, though written as if Don Eduardo himself were speaking, it inevitably lacks the color and fire of his word-of-mouth narrative. It contains, further, such description of the Maya culture and history as may help the reader to understand this ancient civilization. The writer hopes that it may be acceptable to the avid reader of travel and adventure, and there is also the timid hope that it may be of some little educational value to the serious-minded reader, to the end that he may feel that he has not wasted time on a mere “yarn.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author is indebted, for information and assistance, to many good friends in Yucatan, but chiefly to Señor Juan Martinez H., to the late Teoberto Maler, and to Mr. and Mrs. William James for their timely hospitality.

The books and writings of the old priests, as well as current books on the Maya era, also have been of much aid.