Читать книгу The City of the Sacred Well онлайн

3 страница из 66

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.”