It

Tins. pe.ni'nsu.1 3 of
I

frcnm J}u~lletin of the.
R rmerican geographical 5ocie.t
V- 4-4-, no. ill JSIZ. .

BULLETIN OF THE
American Geographical Society
Vol. XLIV 1912 No. I I
THE PENINSULA OF YUCATAN
EY
ELLSWORTH HUNTINGTON
The flat peninsula of Yucatan, projecting northward like a thumb
at the southern entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, is full of problems
for the geographer. Some of these, such as the numerous "cenotes,"
or caverns which contain the only natural sources of permanent
water, have been well described in the Bulletin and elsewhere.
Others, such as the peculiar "storms" of minute earthquakes which
at times shake the peninsula for days, are not yet understood nor are
they widely known. And still others, such as the cause of the loca
tion in this region of the highest civilization which ever developed in
America before the coming of Columbus, have been discussed for
years, but have never been satisfactorily explained. A visit of two
weeks to the peninsula during a journey to Mexico, on behalf of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the spring of 1912, intro
duced the author to some of the chief problems, and has led him to
write this paper for the purpose of briefly calling attention to them,
without trying to describe the country as a whole, or to enter into
elaborate discussions.
The position of Yucatan with respect to the rest of the world is
highly isolated. Toward the south and east it is bounded by dense
tropical forests which even in our day are penetrated neither by rail
way nor road. They can be traversed only along Indian trails, wind
ing and crooked, and often coming blindly to an end. Even these
poor apologies for paths are impassable except with the help of a
party of natives armed with big machetes for cutting the young trees
801

802

The Peninsula of Yucatan

and lianas, which grow with astounding rapidity. The inhabitants
of the forests are limited to a few scattered bands of Indians in the
lowest stages of civilization. Often the traveler may go for days
without seeing a village or even a camp. On the north, east and
west Yucatan is surrounded by water, but that does not make it
accessible. The harbors on the east coast are said to be fairly good,
but the country back of them is covered with dense forests like those
on the south, and hence they are almost useless as means of getting
at the important portions of the country. On the north the coast is

Fig. i— Yucat;

wl JJi " alm°St COntinuous line of sand bars and lagoons
W dun the lagoons the water is quiet and small boats can sail easT
^S^wl", T posfble t0 g0 any great distance ^
meeting barners which force the navigator to take to the open sea
JroLt "r raiS6d ^ th£ Plwailin* trade winds blowin/reshlv
from the northeast are so high as to make long voyages too dan" e
ous to be commonly undertaken. As far as modern steamers are"
concerned conditions are no better. Like all newly ^S
Plains Yucatan is bordered by very shallow seas. Ve st amers o

The Peninsula of Yucatan

803

the Ward Line, the only one plying regularly to the country, are
forced to anchor three miles or more from land, and to send their
freight and passengers ashore in a tug which pitches most dis-
¦quietingly even in comparatively good weather. In bad weather it
is often impossible to make a landing. On the west coast, known as
Campeche, conditions are somewhat better because of less exposure
to the winds, but the difficulties due to shallow water are not much
different. Altogether the peninsula of Yucatan is a decidedly inac
cessible region. No great trade routes touch it, its near neighbors

Fig. 2 — The moiuh of a u cenote."

on every side are backward, and there is little in its geographical
position or in its degree of accessibility to permit of the stimulation
which comes by contact with people of other ideas and habits.
Physiographically, as has already been implied, the northern part
of Yucatan is a coastal plain newly uplifted from the sea. For
scores of miles the general aspect of the country is absolutely flat.
Near the center, low hills rise to a height of 300 or 400 feet, and
farther south the relief becomes greater. The most noticeable
ridge, so far as the inhabited portions of the country are concerned,

g04 The Peninsula of Yucatan
runs southwestward from a point about thirty miles inland from the
northwestern corner of the peninsula. Its rounded hills are a
prominent feature in the landscape as looked at from the plain to
the east, but they are nowhere difficult to cross. Nevertheless they
form a genuine barrier to civilization, largely because of the.r rela
tion to water-supply, rainfall and vegetation.
Practically all of Yucatan is composed of soluble limestone. This
has cdven rise to one of the most widely known features of the coun
try, that is its underground drainage and "cenotes" or caves. The
topography is almost universally of the type known as "karst. I he
karst however, is not of the kind most commonly known, for_ in
Yucatan we have to deal with a level plain instead of with a region
of considerable relief. Because of the flatness of the country and
the porous nature of the soluble limestone such a thing as a river is
unknown. Not even a brook is found in the whole region, and
naturally there are no valleys either. The only break in the flat
monotony is afforded by innumerable little hillocks five to fifteen feet
high. They lie in no regular order, being merely the remnants
which happen to have been left between depressions in which a little
water gathers in the rainy season. The water stands in pools for a
while, and by so doing tends to dissolve the hollows to a deeper
level. Only rarely does the water of one hollow run over into an
other, and even then not in sufficient amounts to make real running
streams. Such being the case, the drainage of the country is natur
ally confined to underground channels. Often the concealed waters
dissolve large caves, whose tops sometimes have fallen in, exposing
the water at a depth of anywhere from twenty to a hundred feet,
and thus giving rise to the "cenotes." These broken-down caves
are of great importance to the inhabitants, for, as has already been
said, they are the only places where a permanent supply of water is
obtainable naturally throughout the year. At the time of the coming
of the Spaniards all the native inhabitants, the Maya Indians, are
said to have been clustered around them. Having no iron tools the
primitive Mayas were unable to dig wells. To-day wells can be dug
almost everywhere with full assurance of striking an abundant and
unfailing supply of water. The only difficulty is that in the hilly
regions the wells have to be sunk to a depth of from ioo to 200 feet,
and the labor involved is sufficient in many cases to prevent the
inefficient people of the tropics from making the attempt. Where
ground water lies at a depth of only twenty or thirty feet, as in most
parts of the plain, wells are numerous. In many cases the water is

The Peninsula of Yucatan 805
raised by windmills which seem to rise like a forest when one looks
from a distance at such a town as Merida, the capital. During
recent years, when Yucatan has grown rich from the henequen or
sisal fiber industry, pumps run by gasoline or steam have in many
places appeared.
Climatically, as well as in other ways, Yucatan is relatively simple.
It lies in the trade wind belt from about i8°io' to 21 "30' N. In
winter the brisk winds from the ocean pass over the land without
giving up much moisture. The sky is clear a large part of the time,
and although some rain falls in every month the amount in the north
ern parts is insignificant. Farther south, however, where the hills
begin to rise, the rainfall increases rapidly, and showers are quite
frequent even in the dry season. The temperature in winter is agree
able, being rarely extremely warm and never cold according to the
ideas of people from the north. There is, however, considerable
variety, especially when the so-called northers blow. These ap
pear to be connected with the cyclonic storms of the United States.
The winds blow violently from the north and reduce the temperature
to the lowest points ever reached. The minimum, however, is rarely
below io° C. (50° F.), while the maximum, even in winter is usu
ally above 30° C. (86° F.), and may rise above 40° C. by the end
of March. In summer, as might be expected in this latitude, the
maximum temperature is scarcely higher than in winter, although
the minimum does not fall so low. The zone of subtropical rains
exerts its accustomed influence and gives rise to heavy tropical show
ers. How greatly the summer rainfall exceeds that of winter may
be seen from the accompanying table which gives the average monthly
rainfall for the 15 years from 1896 to 1910 inclusive at Merida:
RAINFALL RAINFALL
MONTH IN INCHES MONTH IN INCHES
January  0.88 August  8.48
February  0.68 September  4-46
March  0.58 October  3-°4
Apr;i  0.74 November  i-94

May  i-7°
June  5-61
July  4-9°

December  1-36
Total  34-37

The seasonal variation of rainfall is no more striking than its
variation from region to region. In the north the rainfall is slight,
being at a minimum on the coast in the neighborhood of Progreso.
Here in 1911, the only year for which statistics are at hand, the pre
cipitation amounted to 13.5 inches. From 15 to 20 miles inland, at

806

The Peninsula of Yucatan

such places as Merida, or Motul and Temax (Temash), which lie
farther east, the precipitation for the same year was 35.7, 37.6, and
34.8 inches respectively. Still farther inland at places varying from
thirty to ninety miles from the coast the figures are : Izamal, forty
miles due east of Merida 49.2 inches, Espita, nearly as much again
to the east 48.7 inches, Tekax, fifty miles south-south-east of Merida
53-3 niches, and Peto about thirty miles southeast of Tekax, but not
so close to the hills, 47.7 inches. Finally to the east and south of
the places already mentioned we find an area of still larger rainfall,
exemplified by Valladolid, which lies a hundred miles east-southeast

.SiS*?*

Fig. 3-An Indian hut on the edge of the jungle.
rHenklaf ^ab°f fifty mileS fr°m the CaHbbean Sea> and had a
rainfall of 66.8 inches in ion. Beyond this point, to judge from
he vegetation, the precipitation becomes still greater. The eau e
or the variation in rainfall is two-fold. In the first place the preS!
ence of hills in the south and southwest on the one hand, and the
proximit of th coast tQ th£ Qpen Car.bbean gea > th
eas winds on the other, give those regions more rain than haT the
north coast and northern interior. In the second place we are here

The Peninsula of Yucatan

807

near the edge of the area reached by the zone of subequatorial rains.
Hence the amount of these rains increases rapidly toward the
equator. With such marked changes in the amount of rainfall from place
to place, it is evident that the vegetation must vary greatly, and this
in turn must profoundly affect the conditions of human life. In
works on botany it is common to emphasize the distinction between

Fig. 4 — The tropical forest.

tropical jungle and tropical forest. Nevertheless in the mind of the
average geographer, if I may judge from my own experience, and
still more in the mind of the layman, the distinction between the two
often lacks sharpness. There is a still greater lack of appreciation
-of the significance of the two in reference to man. In Yucatan
jungle and forest lie close together in such a fashion that they can

808 The Peninsula of Yucatan
readily be compared. In the center of Yucatan lies a long narrow
lake called Chichankanab, one of several which occupy hollows in
the limestone of the southerly, more hilly portion of the peninsula.
It is about a hundred miles east of Campeche, a hundred west of the
Caribbean Sea, and a hundred south of the northern shore of the
peninsula. If lines be drawn northeastward and northwestward
from the lake to the corners of the peninsula they will include ap
proximately the entire area of the Mexican administrative province
of Yucatan, comprising about one-fifth of the whole peninsula. This
small area, together with a strip of the west coast reaching ^ down
toward Campeche, comprises the jungle-covered portion, while the
rest is covered with genuine tropical forest. The western boundary
of Yucatan proper is nearly coincident with the small range of hills
already mentioned as the most noticeable feature of the relief. The
eastern boundary appears to be less distinct, although I have not
seen it and cannot speak with assurance. Where jungle prevails
the rainfall seems not to exceed fifty inches, while in the forested
area it rises far higher. How great it is we do not know, for Valla-
dolid, with nearly 67 inches in 191 1, is the only station whose figures
I can find, and it lies on the relatively dry edge of the forest, not in
its moist interior.
The distinction between jungle and forest is simple. Large trees
demand that the soil in which they stand shall not be dry for any
great length of time during the growing season. Inasmuch as the
growing season lasts almost the entire year in the tropics, large trees
will not flourish in such a way as to form dense forests unless
abundant rain falls at most seasons, although they may grow sporadi
cally here and there. Smaller, more drought-resistant species, how
ever, as well as bushes, are much less exacting in their demands for
moisture. Some of them will grow almost anywhere if the ground is
well moistened for two or three months during some portion of the
year. In regions like Progreso, where the rainfall is only from ten
to fifteen inches and is concentrated largely in the summer, the long
dry period of winter prevents the growth of anything except small
bushes six or eight feet high. These, however, thrive in abundance
so that the country is well covered with vegetation and is every
where bright green in summer. In the dry winter, however, the
leaves fall off and the landscape would be quite like that of a thick
bushy pasture in the United States were it not that in March or
April some of the bushes bear brilliant red, yellow or white flowers.
As one goes inland from the north coast to regions of greater rain-

The Peninsula of Yucatan 809
fall the size of the bushes gradually increases and small trees ap
pear. Even at the southern limit of jungle, however, at places like
Tekax and Peto the diminutive limestone hillocks or the larger hills
of the range bordering the administrative province of Yucatan are
covered with a low scrubby growth. Some trees rise thirty or
forty feet, and many twenty feet. There is nothing, however, to
suggest the deep, somber forest. Small growths not over twenty
feet high and with stems only three or four inches in diameter pre
dominate. The aspect is like that of a second growth of timber in
the northern United States fifteen or twenty years after the cutting
of the original forest. A few bushes and even an occasional tree
of some special species may remain green throughout the year, but
most become as bare as northern trees.
From the jungle to the forest the transition is rapid. A day's
ride on horseback is sometimes sufficient to take one from a well
developed sample of one to an almost equally well developed sample
of the other. The forest is of the kind whose descriptions are so
familiar. Many trees remain green throughout the year. The
trunks rise to heights of fifty or sixty feet even on the borders of their
province, and at the top the leaves form a canopy so that the ground
is usually shady. Until 9 or 10 a. m., the rays of the sun, even in the
-drier months when a portion of the leaves have fallen, scarcely reach
the ground. Even at high noon the sunlight straggles through only
in small patches. Long, sinuous lianas, often queerly braided, hang
down from the trees; epiphytes and various other parasitic growths
add their strange greens and reds to the varied complex of plants.
Young palms grow up almost in a night, and block a trail which was
passable a few days before. Wherever the death of old trees forms
an opening, hundreds of seedlings begin a fierce race to reach the
light and strangle their competitors. Everywhere the dominant
note is intensely vigorous life, rapid growth, and quick decay, as
befits the warm moist air which rarely varies and never is so cold
or dry as seriously to interfere with the development of the most
sensitive types of plants.
Before discussing the effect of the vegetation and of other condi
tions on man, a word as to the relation of the karst to the vegetation.
It is sometimes stated that the paucity, or rather the small size and
xerophilous character of the vegetation of northern Yucatan is largely
due to the dryness of the soil occasioned by the draining away of the
water through the caves and underground channels. Undoubt
edly this is an important factor, but I doubt whether it is so im-

810

The Peninsula of Yucatan

portant as the rainfall. In no country where the growing season
is at all warm can a rainfall of ten or fifteen inches support anything
except a xerophilous type of vegetation. In a country so warm as
Yucatan thirty or forty inches is by no means a large rainfall, and
even if none of it were lost in the karst the country would still be
relatively dry because of the great evaporation and long dry season
from November or December to May. In the southern half of
Yucatan not only on the edges but actually within the limits of the
genuine forest, karst phenomena seem to be as marked as near

Fig. s— A house in a Yucatan village.

the northern coast, but this does not prevent the growth of the rank
est kind of vegetation. It seems, therefore, that while the karsted
character of the country plays a part in limiting the growth of vege
tation, it is by no means so important as the relatively small amount
of precipitation.The people of Yucatan consist of every gradation from pure In
dians to pure Spaniards. The forests and the remoter villages are
occupied by Indians of the Maya stock; the small towns and
the less remote villages are peopled by a mixed race of Mestizoes in

The Peninsula of Yucatan

811

which the Indian element predominates, while in the larger towns
and their environs the proportion of Spanish blood steadily rises.
The degree of energy and initiative is almost directly in proportion
to the amount of Spanish blood. The pure Indian is a quiet, slow
being, inoffensive and retiring unless abused. He never seems to
work unless compelled. As for storing up anything for the future,
the thought seems never to enter his head. If he has enough to eat,
he simply sits still and enjoys life until hunger again arouses him to
activity. His wants are few and easily supplied. His agriculture

i i-JJjf .*"

Fig. 6 — An Indian seated beside the sleeping platform at his cornfield. Pumpkins on
the right and corn cobs on the left.
begins by cutting the smaller trees of the jungle, girdling the few
larger ones, leaving the brush to dry during the season of little rain,
and finally burning it off. Then, with a pointed stick he makes holes
into which he drops corn, beans, and the seeds of the pumpkin, or of
one or two other vegetables. The corn is his chief reliance. When
the crop is ripe, he never thinks of gathering it all at once, or of
storing it away safely, perhaps in the form of flour. His method is
to go out to the field in the early part of the dry season after the
corn is well ripe, and bend down each stalk so that the ears point

812 The Peninsula of Yucatan
downward and shed the occasional rains. Of course he uses what
corn he needs day by day, and his wife grinds a little each morning
for the day's tortillas, but beyond this he attempts little. Week by
week he picks what ears he needs, caring nothing that insects, birds
and beasts are eating what they need also. He knows that a quarter
or a third of the ears may be spoiled, but so long as some are left, he
cares little. The only thing that ultimately stirs him up to gather
the remainder of the crop is the end of the dry season. Before the
rains come he knows that he must burn over his field and plant more
seed or else he will starve. Therefore he arouses himself for a period
of effort at least once during the year. He is hardly to be blamed
for his apparent laziness. He certainly is lazy according to our
standards, but he has little to stimulate him, and it is easy to get a
living without much work. In good qualities, however, he is by no
means lacking. He is extremely courteous, and according to all
accounts he excels in both honesty and morality.
As the amount of Spanish blood in the people of Yucatan in
creases, their energy and resourcefulness also increase. They also
become more light-hearted and gay than the silent, sober Indians,
but at the same time the degree of honesty and morality is said to
decrease markedly. All classes of people are slow compared to
Americans. During two weeks in Yucatan the only persons whom
I remember to have seen running were Mr. E. H. Thompson, for
many years United States Consul, and myself. Landing in New
York, without having seen any other country in the interim, I con
fess to having felt almost bewildered by the rush. It was between
five and six o'clock in the evening, and by comparison with Yucatan
it seemed as if at that hour when people were hastening homeward,
about one in ten actually ran. Even though I had been away but
seven weeks I had to make a distinct effort to keep up with the
crowd, although in Yucatan I had walked faster than almost anyone
else. In this connection a fact as to the Spaniards is worth record
ing. In Yucatan, as well as in other parts of Mexico there is a sur
prisingly large number of recent Spanish immigrants. According
to the almost universal testimony of the numerous people with whom
I talked, these immigrants are better workers than the corresponding
class of natives, no matter whether the natives are Indians, Mestizoes,
or Spaniards who have been in the country a generation or two.
Something in the new environment seems to make people slow. In
part, this may be due to contact with an inferior race, but more
probably it is a matter of climate. Possibly the heat has something

The Peninsula of Yucatan 813
to do with it, but there seems ground for believing that it is the
uniformity of the temperature quite as much as its degree. Almost
everyone agrees that the natives work hardest on "fresh" days, which
may be either because the temperature is lower, or because there has
has been a sudden change. When I asked Mr. Thompson about the
matter he gave the same testimony as others. Then he went out and
asked some of his old Indian friends about it. They agreed with the
others, but added, "People work hardest the morning after a norther,
after the wind has ceased, and while it is cool. On such days the
women bake the tortillas much more quickly than usual, and we get
away to work early." The men have to wait each morning until
the women grind some flour and bake the universal thin cakes of
corn meal known as tortillas. Flence the husbands are apt to take
special notice of the days when the tortillas are ready early. Per
haps if Yucatan had a norther every three days instead of only at
rare intervals the tortillas might even be baked the evening before.
The human inhabitants of Yucatan are distributed very unequally.
Practically all of the 400,000 people of the peninsula live in
the jungle region of Yucatan proper and the coastal strip north of
Campeche, an area smaller than that of Massachusetts. The rest of
the country, comprising most of the province of Campeche and the
Federal District known as Quintana Roo, contains only a few wild
Indians estimated at 4,000 or 5,000 in number. The reason is not
far to seek; the tropical forest has hitherto proved unconquerable.
I want to emphasize this matter a little, for it seems to be more im
portant than is generally realized. Descriptions of tropical forests
are usually couched in such indefinite terms that it is hard to tell
whether a given area in its pristine condition would be covered with
jungle or forest. So far as I can ascertain, however, practically all
of the tropical regions where the natives have risen to such a state
of relative civilization that they live permanently in good-sized
villages and depend primarily upon agriculture for a living are lo
cated where the prevalent natural growth is of the type which we
have defined as jungle. In such a region it is possible for people
possessed of even the moderate efficiency of the tropics to get a
living by agriculture. The small trees or bushes with a diameter of
five inches or less may readily be hacked down with almost any kind
of heavy knife ; while the occasional larger ones may be girdled by
cutting off the bark near the base, and will soon die. If this is done
during the earlier part of the dry season, which is characteristic of
all tropical regions where jungle prevails, the bushes and perhaps

814

The Peninsula of Yucatan

some of the girdled trees will be dry enough to burn before the rains
come again. Hence it is a comparatively simple matter to clear a
tract and plant it ; moreover, if some of the few larger trees remain
standing no harm is done.
In the true forest the case is quite different. In the first place the
trees are large, the majority having trunks at least a foot in diameter
and many of them much more. Moreover, they are chiefly species
whose wood is hard. Hence it is difficult to cut them down. Only
persons of great energy are capable of doing much of it. If

ir '.¦:->:

Fig. 7— A well in an Indian village.

the easier process of girdling is employed, the trees will die in
course of time, and it would seem as though even the inefficient peo
ple of the tropics might thus clear large areas. Unfortunately an
other difficulty arises, which is serious where the trees are actually
cut, and more so where they are girdled. The climate of the true
tropical forests is so uniformly moist that even when trees have been
felled, it takes a long time for them to become dry enough to burn.
While they are drying, however, new vegetation begins to sprout,
and by the time the trees are ready to burn the new growth is so

The Peninsula of Yucatan

815

large that it prevents the fire from spreading from tree to tree.
That this is so is evident from the fact that even in the j ungle region
the fires which are lighted every year in the spring to burn off the
corn stalks appear practically never to spread any great distance into
the uncut jungle. The rapid growth of plants in the tropics is far
greater than we commonly realize. One day as I was riding on the
southern edge of the jungle, near the forest but well out of it, my
guide remarked that the land over which we were passing had been
cultivated three years before. Already the bushes were fifteen feet

-A " volon " or carriage suspended on straps at a sugar estate in Yucatan.- The roads
are so rocky that carriages with ordinary springs cannot be used.

high. In the heart of the forest the growth is even faster. Hence
the very rankness of the growth of plants is one of the primary rea
sons why man has never yet really mastered any considerable area
where genuine tropical forests prevail.
Other reasons for this also exist. For example, in the forest it
is well known that malarial fevers are much worse than in the drier
jungle. The natives are said to be immune to such fevers, but mod
ern research throws doubt on this. The adults are immune, but

816 The Peninsula of Yucatan
how about the children ? The researches of Sir Ronald Ross and of
the Tropical School of Medicine at Liverpool have shown that in
Greece, for instance, adults do not suffer much from malaria, but
that at least half of the children have it badly during childhood and
a large number bear its marks through life in the form of enlarged
spleens and other injurious alterations of the organs. Every genera
tion is apparently distinctly weakened by the diseases through which
it passes in childhood. Similarly, in places such as Merida, where
yellow fever is endemic, it is said that the natives never suffer, and
that epidemics break out only when newcomers arrive from outside.
Many physicians now think, however, that many of the children
have the fever in infancy. Those who die are supposed to have
suffered from other infant complaints, while those who recover are
of course immune. In the case of yellow fever the after effects are
generally not serious, but in the case of malarial fevers, especially
the worse forms such as prevail in the tropics, the debilitating results
often last through life. Thus it may be that the severe fevers of the
forests, attacking the children and killing many of them, leave the
remainder permanently weakened and incapacitated for the work of
forwarding civilization in their hard surroundings.
So far as the indirect effects of climate upon human character are
concerned there seems to be a curious contradiction between tropical
and non-tropical regions. In the one case a relative lack of rain
seems to be beneficial, while in the other it is in general detrimental.
At least we seem to be safe in saying that the most progressive parts
of the tropics are comparatively dry, while the most progressive
countries of the temperate zone are usually in regions of comparative
moisture. Aridity in the tropics is more favorable than moisture
partly because the period for which man must make provision in
order to tide over the months when no wild food can be obtained is
much longer than in the moister regions. Where rain is sufficiently
abundant, tropical fruits of some kind ripen at almost all seasons,
and wild animals exist in great profusion. In the drier regions, that
is where jungle prevails, fruits and seeds ripen chiefly at particular
seasons determined by the advent of the rainy season. Moreover,
the number of wild animals and birds is less than in the forests, and
thus the supply of food is relatively deficient. This seems to force
the man who would live, or who is obliged to live in the jungle to
make provision for his needs beforehand, a necessity which must be
of great value in developing him mentally. Or rather the portion of
the community which is not brainy enough to make provision for the

The Peninsula of Yucatan 817
future is in clanger of starving, and is gradually eliminated by the
weakness and disease arising from its own improvidence. To be
sure, the mental stimulus and selection due to relatively arid condi
tions in the tropics is very small compared with that arising from
climatic conditions farther north, but nevertheless it is important.
One evidence of relatively high civilization in Yucatan is the
cleanliness of the inhabitants. Not only is Merida, with its beauti
fully asphalted streets, one of the cleanest cities in the world, but the
people themselves are extraordinarily clean. They are more com
pletely and universally clothed than most tropical peoples, and their
clothes, which are almost universally white, are kept immaculate by
daily washing. The common custom is to take a bath and put on
clean clothes at the end of the day's work, and then to wear the
clean clothes the next day. Even the poor little newsboys come out
each morning in undershirts and drawers which may be ragged but
are always freshly washed. The dress of the ordinary men is no
more than that of the boys, save that a sort of apron, like a towel,
striped in pale blue, is wound around the waist and falls to the knees.
The upper classes wear European dress, but white clothes greatly
predominate, and are always clean. So common is cleanliness that
one of the chief sources of matrimonial difficulties is said to be the
failure of the wife to have the tepid water ready for her husband's
bath on his return from work.
In the matter of cleanliness two other nations may be put in the
same class with the Yucatecos, although it is doubtful whether they
rival them. These are the Malays and the Japanese. In certain
other countries, such as Cuba and the Philippines, the houses and
streets may be dirty, but there is a high degree of personal cleanli
ness. So, too, in India the upper classes, the Brahmins and others,
are notable for the amount of washing that they do. Outside of the
tropics it is doubtful whether any nation is so generally clean in per
son as are those that have just been mentioned. The English boast
of their cold tubs, but these are the luxury of the rich, not the every
day necessity of the poor. A crowd of English laborers under ordi
nary circumstances would seem to the Yucatecos very dirty and
odoriferous. The reason for the cleanliness of these people seems
to be their ;climate. They and the other races who are noted for
their proneness to bathe live in regions where the atmosphere is prac
tically always warm and where the rains fall heavily during the
summer season, making the air extremely humid. If a nation be
gins to rise in the scale of civilization and adopts the practice of

°1° The Peninsula of Yucatan
wearing clothes all the time, it is essential that the custom of bathing
become common. The savages who go naked never need a bath,
but the civilized people who wear clothes must wash both themselves
and their clothes or else the perspiration which cannot evaporate into
the moist air will soon render their skins and their clothing un-
endurably foul. Not only will they become obnoxious to themselves
and to others, but they will be liable, apparently, to disease. Thus
it would appear that the part of a community which dwells in a hot,
damp climate and attempts to wear clothing but does not bathe will

T

IIM lit iff

Fig. 9— Ruins of the temple of Sayi.
gradually tend to be eliminated by disease. Those who remain will
have thoroughly learned the habit of cleanliness. The extreme ex
cellence of the Yucatecos in this respect may be due to the fact that
the Maya Indians have lived so long, for unknown milleniums per
haps, m the same environment. The newcomers who have invaded
the country from Europe have followed the example of the natives
in part, but "dirty as a Spaniard" is still a common saying. How
far cleanliness is associated with other virtues such as strict sexual

The Peninsula of Yucatan

819

morality it is hard to say, but it seems as if there must be some con
nection. Among all the problems of Yucatan, as far as the geographer is
concerned, perhaps the most interesting is that of the civilization of
the past as compared with that of the present. To-day, in spite of
the slowness and inefficiency of the inhabitants as compared with
European races, the country compares most favorably with other
tropical lands. Indeed it is so wealthy that some travelers have sup
posed Merida to be the richest city in the world in proportion to its

~. ft* *-

. mm .Virr
-¦***«? - — „*v3^S

Fig. io — Detail of the walls of a ruin at Kabah.

size. Whether this be true or not there can be no doubt that the
¦country is rich, and that signs of poverty are hard to find. Pos
sibly this apparent prosperity is partly due to the excessive neatness
of the people, for neatness is in most countries the luxury of the
well-to-do. Perhaps, too, their neatness in itself is a help against
poverty. However that may be, there is at the present time a dis
tinct and special reason why Yucatan has an extraordinarily pros
perous air, and impresses the casual traveler as quite different from
most tropical countries. This reason is the henequen or sisal fiber

820

Tlie Peninsula of Yucatan

industry. Henequen, as is well known, is a species of yucca which
grows well in the relatively dry portions of Yucatan. The fiber is
the strongest and most durable known, its only rival being Manilla
hemp. The growth of the demand for strong fibers, occasioned
especially by the expansion of the grain fields in America and else
where, has for many years tended to increase the value of henequen,
and has led to the planting of many square miles of the yucca in
long, montonous rows extending across the hillocky plain between
uncompromisingly angular stone walls. This, too, has led to the

Fig. ii — The henequen or sisal plant.
building of a large number of narrow-gauge railroads in the dry
northern part of Yucatan, and to the construction of hundreds of
miles of diminutive tram lines leading off from the railroad stations
to the larger henequen "fincas." At the time of the Spanish War
in 1898 the supply of Manila hemp was cut off for a few years and
the price of henequen began to soar. Now it has fallen a good deal,
but the fiber is still a highly valuable export and makes the country
much more prosperous than it could be without the aid of some such
highly specialized product. The whole aspect of the country shows

The Peninsula of Yucatan 821
this, for it is the cause not only of the abundant railroads and train
lines, the almost imposing houses at some of the estates, and the fine
dwellings of Merida, but also of the excellent public buildings and
finely paved streets which make such an impression upon the traveler
when he first arrives.
The prosperity of to-day is apparently but a slight incident com
pared with that of the past. The present prosperity is in danger of
proving ephemeral. It will vanish if another equally good fiber
should be discovered in places where it can be raised more cheaply
than in Yucatan. Even if it should last, it is an extraneous matter. It
is due to the demands of the United States and other countries, it is
fostered by their steamship lines, and its benefits are chiefly reaped
not by the Indians and Mestizoes, but by people of Spanish blood,
many of whom have not been in the country more than a generation
or two. In the past, on the contrary, Yucatan had a high and long-
enduring civilization which arose indigenously. I know that many
people think that the seeds of Yucatecan culture in the hoary past
were derived from Egypt or China or some other part of the Old
World. I make no attempt to controvert this view, although I think
that it is far from proven. This much, however, will be admitted by
all : the connection between the Old World and the New, if any ever
existed, was brief and one might say almost accidental. There was
quite surely no such thing as any prolonged intercourse whereby for
centuries ideas and methods of thought and action were transferred
across the water. Moreover, the wonderful ruins of Yucatan, those
great temples which arouse one's admiration just as do the monu
ments of Egypt, are distinctly Yucatecan in style. Whatever may
have been imported from other parts of the world had remained
long in Yucatan and had been remodelled to fit the genius of the old
American race before it became fixed in the great structures which
now excite our wonder. Yucatecan ideas in art, Yucatecan methods
of supplying water in a land where there is none on the surface,
and Yucatecan peculiarities of religion and taste had become strongly
developed. Therefore we must conclude that even if some race
from abroad did originally come to the land, — which many of the
best authorities deny, — they did not stagnate and deteriorate as seems
to be the case with modern immigrants after a generation or two.
They did not imbibe the tropical languor which ultimately seems to
check progress unless there is a continual stimulus from without.
Thev kept on working, and developing new ideas. They had the in
dustry to make some of the world's finest ruins, fashioned of care-

822 The Peninsula of Yucatan
fully hewn stones and ornamented with wonderful carvings. And
they did it all without the aid of iron. To develop so far must have
required centuries, and so we may safely say that Yucatan once
stimulated its people to an activity of mind and body comparable to
that of any part of the world. Were the people capable of stimula
tion because of something in the fiber of the original race, or was the
stimulus due to something in their environment ?

AMUNDSEN'S EXPEDITION TO THE
SOUTH POLE*
The plan of the third From expedition was twofold : first, the
attainment of the South Pole and, second, the exploration of the
North Polar regions. This evening I have the honor to report to you
on the accomplishment of the first part of this plan.
I can only mention briefly here the expeditions which have worked
in the region which we had selected for our starting point. As we
wished to reach the South Pole our first problem was to go south as
far as possible with our ship and there establish our station. Even
so, the sled journeys would be long enough. I knew that the English
expedition would again choose their old winter quarters in McMurdo
Sound, South Victoria Land, as their starting point. From news
paper report it was known that the Japanese had selected King
Edward VII Land. In order to avoid these two expeditions' we had
to establish our station on the Great Ice Barrier as far as possible
from the starting points of the two other expeditions.
The Great Ice Barrier, also called the Ross Barrier, lies between
South Victoria Land and King Edward VII Land and has an extent
of about 515 milesf The first to reach this mighty ice formation
was Sir James Clark Ross in 1841. He did not dare approach the
great ice wall, 100 feet high, with his two sailing ships, the Erebus
and the Terror, whose progress southward was impeded by this
mighty obstacle. He examined the ice wall from a distance, how
ever, as far as possible. His observations showed that the Barrier is
not a continuous, abrupt ice wall, but is interrupted by bays and
* Lecture delivered in German by Roald Amundsen before the Berlin Geographical Society on
Oct. 9, 1912. Translated and reprinted from the Zeitschr. der Cesell. fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin,
1912, No. 7, pp. 481-498.
t All values have been changed from the metric system to English equivalents.

08837 1886