CHAPTER XIV

Innovations

AS I had agreed to do, I told Nohul Voh and taught him much in exchange for what he told me. And I have no doubt that he felt he had much the best of the bargain. He was fascinated, intensely interested in my descriptions of other lands upon the earth, of the great oceans, of other races and of our civilizations. Of course there was much of this that he could not grasp, because so many of our everyday affairs are based upon principles, mechanics and forces of which he was entirely ignorant. Not until I tried to explain matters to him did I fully realize this fact. I could not of course make him understand steam, electricity, the simplest forms of chemistry. I could not describe anything that depended upon iron or steel, for there were no words in his language for these common substances unknown to the Mayas. And I could not describe or make him understand our means of travel, our industries, our daily life, because all depended upon the principle of the wheel, and the wheel was unknown to him and his race. I drew sketches of various things--at which he was immensely delighted, for he, like all his race, was an excellent artist and could grasp the meaning, could visualize the reality of an object by means of a drawing. But though he thus acquired a perfect idea of the appearance of our houses, our people, our dress; our trains, boats, aircraft, motor cars and innumerable other objects, yet to him they were more than incomprehensible, more than impossible, because of the ever-present wheel.

The only way in which I could make matters clear was to give him a demonstration of this simple but most important of man’s inventions, and I set about doing so. It sounds like a simple matter to make a wheel; but let my readers try to do so without the aid of a steel or iron tool--aside from a pocket knife--and see how simple it is! Here however, I must digress to call attention to the wonder that my knife had excited. My pistol, of course had been regarded with awe and terror; to the minds of the people it was the abode of a caged or captive god of thunder and lightning, and realizing fully the power it gave me and the fear it inspired, I had kept it hidden from sight in its holster. But my knife was a necessity. I used it constantly, and the people never tired of watching me use it, gazing with fascinated eyes as I cut a stick or pared my nails with the keen blade. Hence it had been a fairly simple matter to demonstrate the properties of steel to Nohul Voh.

But the wheel was a very different affair. Had I possessed a watch, I could have done so easily, but my watch had been lost somewhere in my wanderings--probably in my tumble down the crater as I fled from the man-eating dinosaur--and my entire possessions consisted of my knife, my pistol, my cartridges, my pipe and a lead pencil. Why I had not discarded my pipe, I cannot say. My tobacco had been exhausted weeks before I reached the valley, but still I had retained it. And I had been very glad that I had done so. The people of Mictolan were inveterate users of tobacco; they smoked both cigars and pipes, and only an old pipe smoker can appreciate the satisfaction, the enjoyment that I felt when, after weeks of forced abstinence, I again puffed away at my seasoned old briar.

But I am getting away from my story and the difficulties I met in trying to make the first wheel ever seen in Mictolan. The simplest method, I decided, was to cut a section of a log and fit an axle in its centre, a method used by many primitive and even civilized people. Even to cut a section of a log by means of stone and copper tools, or by burning it off, was a laborious and slow operation. However, I decided that a model on a small scale would serve just as well, and selecting a stick of soft wood, I began whittling at it with my knife. I had cut about half-way through when a woman passed. As she stopped to look at me, gazing as always at my knife, I noticed that she was spinning cotton. The next instant I dropped my work and fairly roared with laughter. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? The spindle she was using--the spindles every woman used--was a short, round stick with a hook at one end and a metal disk at the other. Here was a miniature wheel ready-made, even fitted to an axle! Telling the woman to bring me two of the spindles, I hurried her off, and as I waited for her return, I pondered on the strangeness of it all. For centuries--thousands of years, these people--as well as all other cultured American aboriginal races--had been using similar spindles--veritable wheels upon axles--and yet never in all those centuries, those tens of centuries, had anyone realized that the most important, the most basic of mechanical inventions was in daily use. It seemed almost incredible that the wheel should not have been discovered by accident; that sometime, someone dropping a spindle, should not have seen it roll and should not have grasped the principle. But I myself had failed utterly to grasp the possibilities of the spindles, even though I were familiar with wheels and had been cudgelling my brain as to how to make them. How many great and epochal discoveries might still remain, undreamed of, unrecognized, under our very eyes? Certainly, there seemed to me an endless supply.

* * * * *

MY thoughts were interrupted by the woman, who returned with the two spindles. I called to Nohul Voh, who was, as usual, busy among his herbs, and fitting both spindles on one stick, set the affair upon the ground and rolled it along. For a brief instant he and the woman stared at it with utter amazement. The next second they burst into shouts of delight, and, falling on his knees, the white-headed old sorcerer examined, rolled, turned and played with the thing like a child with a new toy.

But I was not finished. Two more spindles were secured; I attached a bit of wood to the axles, placed some stones upon it, and pushed the laden vehicle along. Never have I seen human beings more excited. They fairly shrieked with delight, trundled the crude thing back and forth, pushed each other aside in their eagerness to use it, and gabbled and chattered like magpies. Several passers-by stopped, people in nearby fields came hurrying to see what the excitement was about, and in a few minutes Nohul Voh’s house was surrounded by a crowd of excited, jabbering, laughing, marveling people.

However, once they had grasped the idea of the wheel, they lost no time in putting it into use.

Within twenty-four hours there was scarcely a man or woman or even a child--in the whole of Mictolan--who did not have a wheeled vehicle of some sort. At first they made only miniatures, copying precisely the crude thing I had made, but with a little aid and instruction they learned that size had nothing to do with the new wonder, and carts and wheeled barrows of useful, practical size began to appear. And never have I found greater interest or greater amusement and pleasure than in teaching the people the innumerable useful purposes which the wheel would serve. I showed them how to pivot the front axle of four-wheeled carts, how to grease the axles, how to use mill-wheels or arastras for grinding their giant maize, and I even taught them the principle of the block and tackle and of the windlass. And always they showed the greatest interest.

* * * * *

THEN came my greatest triumph--a wind-mill. To be sure, my first was a mere model set up on a post close to Nohul Voh’s home, and it called upon all my patience and ingenuity to make this. It was merely a toy, but to Nohul Voh and his people it was the most astonishing thing ever seen. For hours at a time they would stand entranced, watching it whirl in the breeze, swinging from side to side as the wind veered; wrapt in silent wonder at the thing. The old sorcerer, moreover, was the most fascinated of all. He could make nothing of it; the source, or rather the principle of its motion was as inexplicable to him as his green sphere had been to me, and I marveled that a man of such superior intelligence and wisdom should not be able to reason out the puzzle. But it was in perfect accord with all matters pertaining to these people.

Probably no race in the world’s history presented more contradictory, paradoxical and mysterious features than the Mayas. How or why did the race develop the most perfect arithmetical system the world has ever known, invent and perfect a calendar by means of which any date could be definitely fixed within a space of more than five million years, and devise a written language, perhaps the most remarkable in the world, and yet fail utterly to discover the most elemental facts of chemistry, mechanics and other sciences? The Mayas of Mictolan had of course gone a great deal farther. They had learned to use the radium ores; Nohul Voh had created a marvelous miniature solar system; they--or their priest rather--had, as I had reason to believe, learned the secret of that amazing Bridge of Light, and Nohul Voh could either read one’s thoughts or could actually look into the past and future. But, as far as I could see, not one of these strange and truly marvelous things was of the least practical value to the people. They still tilled their field with crooked sticks and stone-tipped implements, they still wove their cotton on crude hand looms, they still performed all labor by hand and, aside from the nobles, the priests and the favored few, not a man nor woman in the valley could either write or read their races’ characters. But I intended--provided I was forced to remain long enough in Mictolan--to change all this. I would erect windmills, would make water-wheels, would manage to build simple machinery and would see what happened. And in doing this, I would enlist the cooperation of Nohul Voh and of Azcopil.

I tried to explain my ideas to the old sorcerer, and I was amazed to find how quickly he grasped the matter. Once the mechanical side of his brain was aroused, he was as apt a pupil as one could wish. He might have puzzled his brains for years before he discovered how the windmill worked, but it didn’t take him three minutes to master the principle once I explained it to him. And he was an excellent mechanic, as was Azcopil. Indeed, like most Indians, the Mayas of Mictolan were born artizans and most painstaking workers. Moreover they could perform wonders and produce miracles with their crude, inefficient, primitive tools.

Very rapidly a six-foot windmill grew into being under my guidance, and while a vast amount of patience and perseverance was needed before I succeeded in getting the rods, cranks and other portions of its mechanism made from copper, silver and even gold, yet the final result was beyond my expectations.

I had given no little thought to what sort of a machine I would install for a demonstration of wind power. A pump was the simplest, of course, but on the other hand a mill of some sort--a pair of roller crushers for corn and cane or a pair of stones for grinding maize, would be more impressive and useful. But there were serious obstacles in the way of constructing these. They would require gear-wheels and gears were out of the question. I finally decided that the pump was the only feasible apparatus.

To be sure a pump was not greatly needed. The stream ran past the town, and ollas or pots on the women’s backs had served every purpose for transporting water for centuries. Still a town pump was not a bad scheme, and as the breeze blew continually across the valley, it would seldom fail. So the wind-mill was set up near the stream, the pump--a crude affair that would have brought roars of laughter from any real mechanic--was rigged up, and as the last connection was made and the big wheel began to revolve, the entire population fell upon their faces and made obeisance to what to them seemed actuated by the gods. And when, a few moments later, a stream of water began to gush from the pump’s spout, pandemonium broke loose. Pushing, shoving, struggling, laughing, splashed with water, the women milled and crowded to fill ollas and jars at the miraculous stream brought by the power of the God of Air from the river to their doors. Like children they filled their vessels, emptied them and refilled them for the mere delight of watching the water come gurgling into the earthenware jars. But in a few hours the novelty wore off, the pump became as much a part of their everyday life as anything else, and though the windmill was always spoken of as Mulac, or the God of Wind, and although offerings of flowers and fruits were placed at its base each day, yet apparently the people never actually regarded it as a god or deity.

* * * * *

THE windmill was such an immense success that I determined to build a water-wheel. This was a far more ambitious undertaking, but I was glad indeed to have something to occupy my time and mind, for the weeks and months were passing, and I seemed no nearer making my escape from the valley than when I entered it, and I was getting more and more impatient to have Itza as my bride. Moreover, the old priest troubled me not a little. Frequently he asked, a crafty expression in his wicked eyes, when I planned to lead the people forth as provided in the prophecy. But I put an end to this query by suggesting that, if he was so anxious to have the prophecy fulfilled, he should ask his gods to restore the Bridge of Light so that they might pass out of the valley. I saw him give a start when I said this. Evidently he feared that I had guessed that he controlled the bridge, but he quickly recovered himself and promised to ask his god. But I was now thoroughly convinced that, from the first, he had feared I might lead the people from the valley and had cut off the bridge to prevent my doing so. I could scarcely believe that he wished to prevent _me_ from leaving by myself. He had every reason to want to be rid of me. But I did not know the old rascal, had no conception of his mental processes, and never suspected the lengths to which he would go to attain something which compared to other things would seem a matter of little importance.

But by keeping myself occupied with my mechanical work, I managed to forget other troubles, to put the old priest’s hateful presence from my thoughts, and to make time pass more quickly. Moreover, I had Itza with me constantly, for at my suggestion, Azcopil had taken up his residence with his wife and sister in the palace; Itza and the Princess Mitchi Ina had become inseparable, and we were a happy and intimate household.

But to return to the water-wheel. As there was an abundance of water and a natural fall where the stream tumbled over a six-foot ledge, I decided to construct a back-pitch wheel as being the simplest. Nearly two weeks were consumed in the construction of the wheel itself, but in the end I had the satisfaction of looking upon a water wheel such as no human eyes had ever before seen. Its metal fastenings, the heavy bands about its wooden axle, the collars that secured the spokes in place, were of solid silver and its thirty-five buckets or paddles were of gold!

Meanwhile work on the wooden gears and the massive stone rollers had been going on, and by the time the heavy, cumbersome wheel was set up, the various units of the mill itself were complete. I had no intention of using wooden gear-wheels, but meant merely to employ the wooden ones as patterns with which to make moulds for casting metal gears. For this purpose I used an alloy of copper and silver--a sort of bronze--which was used by the natives for many purposes, and which was the hardest metal obtainable in the valley.

All went well and when, the sluice-way having been opened, the great wheel commenced ponderously to revolve and the gears meshed and rumbled and I fed a bundle of cane stalks into the rollers and the juice streamed out into the waiting trough, the ovation accorded the seeming miracle exceeded my wildest expectations. The people seemed actually to have gone mad. They fought merely to bathe in the water that flowed from below the wheel, they struggled for the privilege of sipping the muddy juice that flowed from the rollers; they cast flowers, fruits, even their most prized possessions into the sluice-way. Even the prince and Itza, who knew it was nothing more than a thing of wood and metal, were awed and made obeisance to it, while old Nohul Voh, who had had a hand in its construction and understood it perfectly, held up his arms, threw back his leonine mane and shouted praises and thanks to Chac-Mool, the God of Waters, for so manifesting his favor to the people of Mictolan.

Even old Kinchi Haman had come to witness the new marvel, but no pleasure, no delight, no surprise showed upon his horrible features. His eyes burned, I saw his hands clench and unclench, and I knew that my success had only added to his hatred and his jealousy. But Kinchi Haman was no longer of any great importance to anyone. The people who had formerly feared him seemed no longer in dread of him. His temple was almost deserted when he held his ceremonies, few even made obeisance to him. Ever since I had humiliated him at the temple of Kukulcan, he had lost prestige, respect, the power to instill fear or obedience. I could not blame him for detesting me, for feeling jealous, and I rather pitied him. But it was his own fault. Had he been reasonable, decent, existing conditions never would have occurred. From the first he had been tyrannical, overbearing, threatening and jealous.

But neither the people nor myself had time to bother our heads over the priest. The people had gone mechanics mad. Wonderful imitators that they were, they worked like beavers making windmills and water-wheels for themselves, and in an incredibly short time, the valley was dotted with windmills; at every available point on the river and its tributaries a water-wheel rumbled and ground; hand-carts and barrows were trundled through the streets and across the fields, and I was besieged with requests, prayers and supplications to show new wonders to the people. As I gazed across the valley and saw these signs of a dawning use of laborsaving devices, I chuckled at my own thoughts.

* * * * *

WHAT an incongruous, paradoxical situation it was, to be sure. Here were the people, going mad with excitement over the most primitive forms of utilizing the most obvious forces of nature, while all about them, unnoticed, undeveloped, were forces ten thousand times more powerful, more economical, and which would have caused as much excitement in the outside world as did the crude wind and water engines in this hidden valley. Would these people, I wondered, ever learn to adapt the strange unknown forces of radium to mechanical needs? In years to come, would they go through the long, slow evolution of wind, water, steam, electricity, and in the end discover the terrific forces so long neglected? Would some future Mictolanian rediscover the inventions of old Nohul Voh and resurrect his name and immortalize the ancient sorcerer as the greatest scientist of his race? Would his discoveries be lost and forgotten? Or would some brilliant genius stumble upon the natural forces of the valley, solve the problem of controlling and using them and, in a single day--figuratively speaking--jump his people ages ahead of all other races?

Who could say? Who could foretell what might happen? Possibly old Nohul Voh. But when I half-jokingly asked him if his Book of the Future had foretold the wheels and the mills he shook his head and admitted it had not.

“The Book of the Future holds only those things to do with the race of the Kitche Maya,” he said. “These things are of another race. As I could read nothing of your past ere you spoke with Katchilcan, as I could read nothing of the future beyond the end of the road of the symbols, neither could I read of these things that dwelt within the mind of a man of another race.”

I smiled. “You draw a fine line, O, Nohul Voh,” I said. “Though these things are, as you say, of my race, yet now they have to do with your people, so they should have been told to you in your Book of the Future.” “Who can say,” he replied. “It is the will of the gods.” And he admitted freely that he could not foretell what I next planned to do.

I had noticed that there was iron ore in the valley and there was also lime. I had no doubt I could build a furnace and smelt the ore, but there was a simpler method. The natives had smelted copper, gold and silver for countless ages. Whenever they had done so, they had of necessity smelted a small quantity of iron at the same time, for all their ores contained iron. In the bottom of every crucible of the other metals, there must have been a tiny iron button, and why or how they had overlooked these bits of the much harder and more useful metal was a puzzle I could not explain. But that the iron was there I felt sure, and an examination of the broken clay crucibles and slag that had accumulated, confirmed my suspicions.

It was slow work picking over the heaps and separating the iron nodules, but I employed boys to do it, and so greatly were they impressed with everything I had done, that they looked upon the tedious work as the greatest privilege and vied with one another to secure the greatest quantities of the desired metal. Once I had obtained a fairly adequate supply, the rest was simple. The iron was easily refined, welded and forged, and to my surprise and delight I discovered that, due to the presence of some other metal, no doubt--the resultant was an excellent steel capable of taking a good temper and edge.

But I was bitterly disappointed at the reception the new metal received. Gold, silver and copper had answered every need of the people for countless generations. They had not lived long enough in a mechanical age to appreciate the value of a harder metal. They had long ago given up sculpturing rocks and had substituted painted decorations, and though the new iron tools were immeasurably superior to anything they had known for cutting wood, yet they did not impress the people as either remarkable or wonderful. To be sure they took to them readily enough, but they looked upon them as a matter of course. No doubt this was largely because they realized that the iron, like the other metals, was a natural product of the earth, whereas the mills and wheels were the product of man. But at any rate I felt I had done the people a good turn, and moreover, I made good use of the iron myself.

I had, of course, been planning and preparing for my escape. I had accumulated torches and a store of parched corn to serve Itza and myself on our journey, and now, with iron at my disposal, I could provide myself with efficient weapons. My pistol must be reserved for emergencies--I had only a dozen extra cartridges left--and I busied myself making iron arrow-heads, spear-heads, a couple of light axes or hatchets and a machete or sword. Bows and arrows were in universal use and I had learned to use them as well as the Indians, so I felt that I was well equipped. But my hardest job was to fashion fish-hooks. I had always looked upon fish-hooks as simple things and had never given a thought as to how they were made. But when I came to try my hand at it, I realized that a fish-hook is, in its way, a masterpiece. Of course, if I had possessed wire, my task would have been much simpler, but with bar steel I had my work cut out for me. However, in the end, I managed to make some barbed objects that might have passed for fish-hooks, and having tested them out in the stream and found them efficient, I felt perfectly satisfied.

* * * * *

FOR the first time in my life I began fully to realize what a vast advance had been made when man stepped from the bronze to the iron age, and how each step in man’s progress had made the next step easier and greater. When at last I had made steel, I could foresee machinery, steam engines, yes, even electricity, and in my day dreams I could visualize the valley humming with industry, with mills, factories, perhaps a railway and even motor propelled vehicles. Anything seemed within the bounds of possibility, and only patience and time were needed to make such visions come true. But time was what I most sincerely hoped I would _not_ have.

And, after all, I wondered, would such things really be a blessing or a curse to the people? Were they any better off, any happier with their wheeled vehicles, their wind and water power than they had been before? I could not see that they were. Their every need, every want had been fully satisfied; their lives had been busy, happy, content, and I could not for the life of me see whereby I had in the least degree added to their happiness and well-being by teaching them what I had. But I must qualify that.

One thing I had shown them--perhaps the simplest of all--had undoubtedly benefited them. This was the means of making fire by flint and steel. Hitherto their only means of kindling fire had been by patiently rubbing two sticks together by means of a bow-drill, and the primitive flint and steel was a veritable godsend to them.

I had thought, when I first demonstrated the method, that they would regard it as a divine or supernatural thing, but I was vastly mistaken. The stone and the metal were natural products, and while they marveled at my ability or superior knowledge in knowing how to produce fire by striking the two together, they accepted it much as they had accepted iron.

It must not be thought that I devoted all my time and energies to my experiments and mechanical contrivances. I had my religious duties to attend to, I explored the valley--and in so doing proved to my satisfaction that there was no egress other than by the Bridge of Light; I visited and talked with the people, I spent many hours with Nohul Voh, and, of course, I devoted much of my time to Itza. She was very anxious to learn my language, and she, like all her race, being a born linguist and exceedingly quick to learn anything, proved a most apt pupil and rapidly learned to speak, read and write English. Very delightful were the hours I devoted to teaching her, reproving her for her mistakes by kisses, laughing merrily with her over her funny efforts to pronounce the new sounds, guiding her little fingers as she tried to form the various strange characters.

It was a wonderful satisfaction, too, to be able to converse with Itza in a dialect that no one else could understand; to be able to exchange our thoughts, our hopes, our desires and to make love without others overhearing us. Moreover, the fact that she could understand and converse in the strange language, which the people implicitly believed was the secret dialect of the Tutul Zius, raised Itza tremendously in the estimation of her people. To them, she was now semi-divine. She was the chosen mate of the son of Kukulcan, she conversed in the language of the gods, she could read the magic, sacred writing of Itzimin Chac, and she was accorded the homage, the respect and the reverence due a queen and a goddess. We wanted for nothing, there was no earthly reason why I should not have been happy, content, willing to remain forever in the lovely valley with Itza.

I had no kith or kin in the outside world; among my own people I would be forced to struggle, to work in order to maintain even a modest existence; I would be but a rather obscure unit among millions of my fellows; I could never hope for great wealth, position or prominence. Here in Mictolan my life was easy, work was rather a recreation than a necessity; I had everything man could ask--wealth, position, power, and, most precious of all, a loving devoted and most beautiful companion. Why could I not be content, satisfied to remain here, to accept conditions as they were, to forget the outside world, to resign myself to remaining the virtual ruler of these lovable, peaceful, simple people? It was not that I lacked anything, that I was not happy, that I could not marry Itza. I had long since cast the obstacle of that formality aside as an unreasonable, nonsensical and illogical impediment to our happiness. The ceremony of the priest--even had he been willing to go through with it--would have had no true significance to me or to my people; even had we been married according to the rites of the Mictolan faith, I should have wanted a Christian wedding if we ever escaped from the valley. Arguing to myself along these lines, I scrapped all my obsolete, old, narrow-minded, puritanical ideas aside and took Itza for my bride by the simple Scotch custom of declaring her my wife in the presence of the prince and the princesses, and subsequently announced it from the temple.

So I had no valid reason, no excuse for wishing to leave the valley. Indeed, strive as I might to analyze my mind, to psychoanalyze myself, I could not discover why I still longed to return to my own people, my own country. And yet I did. I was uneasy, discontented, and chafed at my enforced stay in the valley. But such is human nature. I had gone through hardships, sufferings, dangers, to find Mictolan. I had succeeded. I had found love, happiness--everything man longs for, strives for and holds dear--and yet I was as anxious to get away from the place as I had been to reach it. Possibly it was merely the inherited, ineradicable homing instinct of human beings. Perhaps some sixth sense warned me of impending disaster, or it may be that my scientific instinct, my desire to give the world the benefit of my discoveries was at the bottom of my unrest. However that may be, always, at the back of my brain, was the desire, the longing to escape, and not an hour passed that I did not glance, expectantly, at the temple, hoping each time to see the lambent fire that would mark the time for my safe escape with Itza.

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