ART. III.-Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. By JOHN T. STEPHENS, Author of Incidents of Travel in Egypt. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1841. MR R STEPHENS informs us that he was entrusted by President Van Buren with a special and confidential mission to 'Central America;' but whatever his diplomatic duties may have been, they do not appear to have engrossed much of his time or attention. Immediately after receiving his appointment, he appears to have engaged Mr Catherwood, who had passed more than ten years of his life in diligently studying the anti'quities of the old world,' as one familiar with the remains of ancient architecture, to assist him in exploring the ruins of Central America. It is to that part of the work before us which regards these ruins, and which, indeed, forms its only attraction, that we mean to attend. The information that has been laid before the world respecting the antiquities in question, is scanty and scattered; but even with the little that exists, and is easily accessible, Mr Stephens had not taken the trouble to make himself thoroughly acquainted. His ambition seemingly was not to know all that could be known of these crumbling monuments of a now extinct civilization; but, as he on one occasion somewhat curiously expressses it, to try whether a city might not be transported bodily and set up in New York.' And he proclaims the hope, that the nations of the Old World will respect the rights of discovery, and leave the field of American antiqui'ties to the United States; that they will not deprive a destitute country of its only chance of contributing to the cause of science, but rather encourage it in the work of bringing together, from remote and almost inaccessible places, and retaining on its own 'soil, the architectural remains of its aboriginal inhabitants.' 6 6 The information which Mr Stephens supplies regarding these antiquities, is rather of a nature to stimulate than to gratify curiosity. But it is but justice to say, that this was in great part owing to the wretchedly unsettled state of the country at the time of his visit, which rendered a deliberate and complete examination of the ruins out of the question. It is, however, no more than truth to add, that it seems questionable whether he, under the most favourable circumstances, would have shown himself possessed of the necessary previous acquirements, or the necessary powers of patient investigation and clear exposition, to give au entirely satisfactory and intelligible account of them. Of the eight ruined cities of Central America which he visited, only four-Copan, Ocosingo, the ruins near Palenque, and Uxmal-appear to have afforded much to examine; and it was only at Palenque and Copan that circumstances admitted of his considering the remains with minute attention. The dif ficulties with which he had to contend, even where time was allowed him, and no disturbance occasioned by the natives, will best appear from his own account of the condition of those ruins when he first approached them. The sketch has considerable interest, though not executed in the correctest taste. At Copan, says he, "Our guide cleared a way with his machete, (cutlass,) and we passed, as it lay half buried in the earth, a large fragment of stone elaborately sculptured, and came to the angle of a structure with steps on the sides, in form and appearance, so far as the trees would enable us to make it out, like the sides of a pyramid. Diverging from the base, and working our way through the thick woods, we came upon a square stone column about fourteen feet high, and three feet on each side, sculptured in very bold relief, and on all four of the sides, from the base to the top. The front was the figure of a man curiously and richly dressed, and the face evidently a portrait, solemn, stern, and well fitted to excite terror. The back was of a different design, unlike any thing we had ever seen before, and the sides were covered with hieroglyphics. This our guide called an idol;' and before it, at a distance of three feet, was a large block of stone, also sculptured with figures and emblematical devices, which he called an altar. The sight of this unexpected monument put at rest, at once and for ever in our minds, all uncertainty in regard to the character of American antiquities; and gave us the assurance that the objects we were in search of were interesting, not only as the remains of an unknown people, but as works of art-proving, like newly discovered historical records, that the people who once occupied the continent of America were not savages. With an interest perhaps stronger than we had ever felt in wandering among the ruins of Egypt, we followed our guide, who, sometimes missing his way, with a constant and vigorous use of his machete conducted us through the thick forest, among half buried fragments, to fourteen monuments of the same character and appearance; some with more elegant designs, and some in workmanship equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians; one displaced from its pedestals by enormous roots; another locked in the close embrace of branches of trees, and almost lifted out of the earth; another hurled to the ground and bound down by huge vines and creepers; and one standing with its altar before it, in a grove of trees which grew around it, seemingly to shade and shroud it as a sacred thing in the solemn stillness of the woods it seemed a divinity mourning over a fallen people. The only sounds that disturbed the quiet of this buried city, were the noise of monkeys moving among the tops of the trees, and the cracking of dry branches broken by their weight. They moved over our heads in long and swift processions, forty or fifty at a time, some with little ones wound in their long arms, walking out to the end of boughs, and, holding on with their hind feet or a curl of : the tail, sprang to a branch of the next tree, and with a noise like a current of wind, passed on into the depths of the forest. It was the first time we had seen these mockeries of humanity; and with the strange monuments around us, they seemed like wandering spirits of the departed race, guarding the ruins of their former habitations. "We returned to the base of the pyramidical structure, and ascended by regular stone steps, in some places forced apart by bushes and saplings, and in others thrown down by the growth of large trees, while some remained entire. In parts they were ornamented with sculptured figures and rows of death's heads. Climbing over the ruined top, wè reached a terrace overgrown with trees, and crossing it, descended by stone steps into an area so covered with trees that at first we could not make out its form; but which, on clearing the way with the machete, we ascertained to be a square, and with steps on all the sides, almost as perfect as those of the Roman amphitheatre. The steps were ornamented with sculpture; and on the south side, about halfway up, forced out of its place by roots, was a colossal head, evidently a portrait. We ascended these steps, and reached a broad terrace a hundred feet high, overlooking the river, and supported by the wall which we had seen from the opposite bank. The whole terrace was covered with trees, and even at this height from the ground were two gigantic ceibas, or wild cotton trees of India, above twenty feet in circumference, extending their halfnaked roots fifty or a hundred feet around, biuding down the ruins, and shading them with their wide-spreading branches. We sat down on the very edge of the wall, and strove in vain to penetrate the mystery by which we were surrounded. * * There were no associations conthe city was desolate. No remnant nected with the place; * * * of this race hangs round the ruins, with traditions handed down from father to son, and from generation to generation. It lay before us like a shattered bark in the midst of the ocean, her masts gone, her name effaced, her crew perished, and none to tell whence she came, how long on her voyage, or what caused her destruction; her lost people to be traced only by some fancied resemblance in the construction of the vessel, and perhaps never to be known at all." Palenque was equally overgrown and obscured. Yet, notwithstanding the difficulties interposed in the way of a minute examination of these two heaps of ruins, by the astonishing power of vegetation within the tropics, where ruined or deserted structures, and even cities-instead of dying insensibly away from human 'thoughts and purposes,' like Mr Wordsworth's Westmoreland tower-have the appearance of being broken up and overwhelmed by a volcanic eruption of roots, branches, and leaves, Mr Stephens, or more properly speaking Mr Catherwood, his attendant artist, has contrived to present us with faithful representations of the remains of the buildings and carvings-for sculpture is almost too ambitious a word to apply to them. The accuracy of Mr Catherwood's drawings is vouched by various circumstances. In general character they correspond with the drawings made by Dupaix, (1805-7,) and are evidently copies of the same originals; although Mr Catherwood had not seen Dupaix's work at the time he made them. The mechanical processes by which the drawings of Mr Catherwood were made, and reduced and transferred to the steel or stone from which the illustrations of Mr Stephens' book are printed, were such as to ensure a high degree of accuracy. And, not to waste time by dwelling upon other corroborative circumstances, we have examined a beautiful set of drawings from the ruins of Palenque, by Captain Caddy of the Royal Artillery, who visited them a few weeks before the present travellers; and which correspond so exactly as to leave no doubt on our minds of the perfect fidelity of Mr Catherwood's pencil. This relates merely to Palenque; for no other artist has visited Copan; but the presumption is, that he who has succeeded so well as to one place, cannot have erred materially as to the other. The descriptions and drawings of Copan and Palenque challenge more attention than those of any other towns visited by our travellers; not only because they are the most complete, but because these clusters of ruins may be considered as the types of two classes into which the Indian cities they examined be may divided. Copan and Quirigua are situate in the valley of the Motagua, which falls into the bay of Honduras; Palenque, Ocosingo, Quezaltenango, stand upon tributaries of the Usumasinta, which falls into the gulf of Mexico; and Patinamit, or Tecpan Quatimala, although situated on the upper waters of the Motagua, is more accessible from the Usumasinta than from the na vigable parts of the river in whose drainage basin it stands. The remains found in each of these groups differ decidedly in their character a difference which seems to be attributable in part to the materials which offered themselves to the workmen; in part to the circumstance of the constructors of the edifices in the Palenque group having advanced further than those of the other in taste and capacity for producing works of art. rial employed in the works at Copan is a solid and massive stone; and the predominating features of the ruins are huge blocks, chiselled into something intermediate between statues and rude columns, loaded with festoons and quaint carving. At Palenque a rock of slaty and crumbling structure denied the inhabitants the power of erecting monolithic monuments; but, on the other hand, these rocks being chiefly limestone, supplied the material of an excellent cement, with which the buildings have been coated over; and which being from its softness easily wrought, enabled them to make more rapid progress in imitating the characteristic details and graceful forms of the The mate objects they saw in nature, than those who had only a refractory stone to work upon. The ruins at Uxmal, near the north-western angle of Yutacan, differ in a considerable degree from those of the two groups mentioned above; but though they are more easy of access, and not so encumbered with vegetation as the others, Mr Catherwood was prevented from doing them the same justice by the infirm state of his health, which had broken down under his labours in the interior. The ruins of Copan stand on the east bank of a small river of that name, which, some distance below, falls into the Motagua from the south. The greater part of them are contained within a paralellogram, which does not much exceed 600 by 800 feet. Nearly in the centre of the ruins is what Mr Stephens calls a 'court yard,'-a rectangular area, a hundred and forty feet long and ninety broad, inclosed on all sides by ranges of broad steps. The entry to this inclosure is from the north, along a passage thirty feet wide, and about three hundred feet long. On the right hand, on entering this passage, is a high range of steps rising to the terrace of the river wall, at the foot of which are circular stones from eighteen inches to three feet in diameter. On the left side is a pyramidical structure with steps six feet high, and nine feet broad, and one hundred and twenty-two feet high on the slope. The inner area is thus described by Mr Stephens : : There was no idol or altar, nor were there any vestiges of them. On the left, standing alone, two-thirds of the way up the steps, is a gigantic head; it is moved a little from its place, and a portion of the ornament on one side has been thrown down some distance by the expansion of the trunk of a large tree. The head is about six feet high, and the style good. Like many of the others, with the great expansion of the eyes, it seems intended to inspire awe. On either side of it, distant about thirty or forty feet, and rather lower down, are other fragments of sculpture of colossal dimensions, and good design; and at the foot are two colossal heads, turned over and partly buried, well worthy the attention of future travellers and artists. The whole area is overgrown with trees, and encumbered with decayed vegetable matter, with fragments of curious sculpture protruding above the surface, which probably, with many others completely buried, would be brought to light by digging. On the opposite side, parallel with the river, is a range of fifteen steps to a terrace twelve feet wide, and then fifteen steps more to a terrace twenty feet wide, extending to the river wall. On each side of the centre of the steps [by this expression Mr S. appears to wish to indicate the middle of the terrace halfway up the ascent] is a mound of ruins, apparently of a circular tower. About halfway up the steps on this side [judging by the annexed plan, this seems to mean halfway up the lower flight of fifteen steps] is a pit five feet square, and seventeen feet deep, cased with |