Obviously it was pointless to address an audience in a speech which none of them would understand; so, without arguing about the matter, Adam submissively allowed Father Lopez to coach him in modern Maya, repeated the speech sentence by sentence after him three times, and agreed to have another session with him the following morning.
Next day, as there was nothing whatever to do at Uxmal except laze in the hotel or walk round the ruins, Adam and Chela made a second visit to the ancient temple city before the sun became too hot. Rambling about there aroused in Adam many vague memories of people and ceremonies. He described them to Chela, but she reluctantly admitted that, like Chichen Itza, Uxmal recalled nothing to her, so it was unlikely that she had ever lived in either.
On returning to the hotel they found Father Lopez impatiently awaiting them. By then the sun was well up in the heavens, in the garden there were no great trees that would give shade to several people, and he was naturally reluctant to give Adam further instruction in the pronunciation of his speech anywhere where they might be overheard. In consequence, the garden it had to be. As Adam had practised the speech several times early that morning with Chela, after a few minor corrections the pink faced priest said he thought it would pass; but they must have another session after dinner that evening.
Adam and Chela swam, lunched, had their siesta together, swam again and, in due course, went in to dinner. Several times during the day he had been worried by the thought that he really ought to let Ramon know what was going on, but he was never out of Chela's sight for more than a few minutes. For his continued failure to contact Ramon he comforted himself with the thought
that the first ceremony was to be one only of `Recognition'. There must then elapse a period of at least ten days, possibly a fortnight or three weeks, before he was to make another appearance somewhere else that would trigger off the rebellion. When they had returned to Mexico City with, he expected, many days to go it seemed certain that plenty of chances would occur for him to get in touch with Ramon and put him in the picture.
After they had dined, Father Lopez invited them to have coffee and liqueurs with him. Adam once more recited his speech and it was finally approved; then they settled themselves at a table in a corner of the bar and talked of a variety of subjects.
It emerged that the little priest was an authority on Mexico’s ancient civilizations. Adam, owing to his visions, had a considerable knowledge of a people whom he had recently realised were the Toltecs and some knowledge of the Mayas, but only during the tenth century AD. Apart from that, he knew only what he had acquired from books; so he asked:
`Can you explain the cause of the Maya migrations? From what I have read, over a period of two thousand years they developed four separate capitals, many hundreds of miles apart, all having great pyramids and other buildings; here, at Palenque, in Honduras and in Guatemala. Yet there is no evidence that they were driven from one to another by war. Every five hundred years or so they just abandoned everything, made a great trek and started somewhere else from scratch.'
Father Lopez nodded. `That is so, and it is most unlikely that they were forced by enemies to abandon their cities. When Cortes landed, the Maya civilisation had existed for over three thousand years, yet they had not become decadent and showed greater courage than any of the other Indian nations. Cortes destroyed the Aztec Empire in two years; it took his lieutenants, the de Montejos, fifteen to defeat the Mayas, and another half century was to elapse before the Spaniards were fully masters of Yucatan. No; the only possible explanation for the Maya migrations is the poverty of Mexico 's soil.
`The Indians lived almost entirely on maize, fruit and vegetables, as indeed the majority of our people still do today. And the cultivation of maize spells death to the land. The earth here is a thin layer of decomposed limestone. After two years' cropping, its fertility is exhausted, then the peasants must clear new areas of jungle. As time went on, these milpas, as they are called, had to be further and further from the centre of the civilisation; and, at last, so distant from it that the time and labour given to bringing the maize to the capital did not leave long enough for the peasants to cultivate their plots. Famine must have ensued and year after year become worse until eventually the Maya rulers were forced to order the whole nation to march out into he wilderness in search of another great area of virgin land.' `Then that would account for Mexico 's having, for its size, so little land suitable for raising crops.'
`That is the main cause, but it was unwittingly aggravated by the Spaniards. Before their arrival, the Indians used a pointed stick to make holes in which they planted each grain separately. By that method the subsoil was not disturbed; but the Spaniards introduced the plough. That resulted in the destruction of the root fibers which held the earth together. When the heavy rains came there was nothing to prevent the soil from being washed away, or, in the long, dry season, strong winds whipping it up end whirling it off.'
`I see. So that is the explanation for the dust storms that plague Mexico City and other places. I have been told that the Spaniards also did an immense amount of damage to the land by cutting down the forests in order to make the thousands of beams they needed for building their towns and churches.'
`True,' the priest agreed. `But it should not be forgotten that the Spaniards brought great benefits to Mexico; first and foremost, the Christian Faith. Then they imported sheep and bred them in vast numbers, so that the export of wool became second only to that of silver as Mexico’s source of wealth. For that, the establishment of a sugar industry and many other profitable ventures, the great Cortes was responsible.'
`Yet I gather that today his name is hated here.'
`You are right. They even carry their hatred to Dona Marina the clever young woman who was given to him as a slave and remained for many years his devoted mistress. She spoke two Indian languages and quickly learned Spanish; so as an interpreter she was invaluable to him. The Aztecs gave her the name of “Malinche”, which means “the Tongue”. Now that word has a double meaning. If you wish to say that a person is a traitor you term him a “Malinche”.'
Father Lopez paused to sip his brandy, then went on, `But this abuse of Cortes is most unjust. He was not only a great soldier end shrewd statesman. After the conquest he became a great administrator and adopted a wise policy of conciliation towards the conquered. He resettled the Indians who had been dispossessed of their lands, relieved the caciques of all taxes and made them magistrates over their own communities, appointed many Indians to high office and, as far as he possibly could, protected the lower
orders from being exploited by unscrupulous fortune hunters. So beloved was he that they christened him “Mighty Father” and, when he at last retired to Spain, the whole populace was stricken by a great grief.'
`You surprise me,' Adam remarked. `I had no idea that Mexico owed so much to him.'
Chela frowned. `Perhaps to him; but think of the brutal way in which most of the other Conquistadores treated the people.'
`More is made of that now than the facts justify, my child,' Father Lopez said mildly. `From the beginning the great Dominican, Fra Bartolome de las Casas took up the cudgels on behalf of the Indians. His furious diatribes to the Council of the Indies in Seville, denouncing those Conquistadores who despoiled the Indians, soon resulted in Holy Mother Church intervening on their behalf.'
Adam smiled. `Yes, I've read his work, and Bernal Diaz's wonderful descriptions of the marvels of art and architecture here that, in their different way, could rival anything produced by the Renaissance. But I must say, Las Casas struck me as prejudiced. He seemed a little too vitriolic against the soldiers to be painting quite a true picture.'