[Illustration: PLAN OF THE RUINS OF MENCHÉ TINAMIT.]
Many if not all of the other houses and temples had been similarly decorated, and, although the area covered by them is not of great extent, there can be little doubt the groups of highly ornamented and richly-coloured buildings raised above the rushing waters of the river on gleaming slopes of stucco-covered masonry must have formed a picture both beautiful and strikingly impressive.
When we had been some days at work at the ruins I sent three of my men in a canoe up-stream to the "caribal" to get the supply of totoposte I had ordered from the Lacandones; they returned the next day without much food, but handed me something they had brought with them, carefully wrapped up in paper, which, much to my surprise, proved to be a card from M. Desiré Charnay, the head of a Franco-American scientific exploring expedition, who for two years had been at work examining the antiquities of Mexico and Yucatan. M. Charnay had come up the Usumacinta from Frontera to the head of the navigable water at Tenosique, and had thence ridden through the forest to a spot on the river-bank within a short distance of the "caribal" described earlier in this chapter, known to the canoemen as the Paso de Yalchilan. Having no canoes in which to convey his party down the river he had been brought to a halt and was making arrangements for the passage of himself and his secretary in two small cayucos borrowed from the Lacandones, when to his great surprise my canoe appeared on the scene. The next day I sent my canoes back for him, and leaving his men camped at Yalchilan, he arrived with his secretary at the ruins and occupied a house which had been cleared for him, and he very kindly added his ample supply of provisions to my somewhat meagre stock.
M. Charnay has published an interesting account of his journeys in a book entitled 'Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde,' and the collection of casts made from moulds taken during his two years' wanderings, which is now exhibited at the Trocadero Museum in Paris, and in other museums in Europe and America, has formed the basis of much modern research.
In one of the half-ruined buildings we found a beautifully carved lintel, fallen from its place and resting face downwards against the side of the doorway. This excellent example of Maya art I determined to carry home with me, and at once set my men to work to reduce the weight of the stone, which must have exceeded half a ton, by cutting off the undecorated ends of the slab and reducing it in thickness. This was no easy matter, as we had not come provided with tools for such work, but shift was made with the end of a broken pickaxe and some carpenter's chisels; by keeping mozos at work at it, three at a time, in continual rotation, at the end of a week the weight of the stone had been reduced by half, and we were able to move it to the river-bank and pack it in the bottom of our largest canoe.