ered with herbage that it was difficult to ascertain their exact form. One of them is round, and situated on a small elevation within a circle formed by a wall of stones. In the centre of the circle, reached by descending very narrow steps, is a large round stone, with the sides sculptured in hieroglyphics, covered with vegetation, and supported on what seemed to be two colossal heads.

"These are all at the foot of a pyramidal wall, near each other, and in the vicinity of a creek which empties into the Motagua. Besides these they counted thirteen fragments, and doubtless many others may yet be discovered.

"At some distance from them is another monument, nine feet out of ground, and probably two or three under, with the figure of a woman on the front and back, and the two sides richly ornamented but without hieroglyphics."— Vol. 11. pp. 121, 122.

"The general character of these ruins is the same as at Copan. The monuments are much larger, but they are sculptured in lower relief, less rich in design, and more faded and worn, probably being of a much older date."

This is the first published account of the existence of these ruins. Dupaix had before visited those near Ocosingo, a town which, as laid down on the map, is only about thirty miles from Palenque, though the road between them, through the mountains, is so difficult as to require a journey of five days or more. Here the travellers found four buildings, which, in their position upon the summit of a pyramid, and also in their internal structure (if the engraved ground-plan of one may be taken as a sample of the rest), resemble those at Palenque. The slope of the first of these substructions, which they examined, was broken at intervals by "five spacious terraces," which had all been faced with stone and stuccoed, but in many places they were broken and overgrown with grass and shrubs." The building which crowns it

"is fifty feet front and thirty-five feet deep; it is constructed of stone and lime, and the whole front was once covered with stucco, of which part of the cornice and mouldings still remain. The entrance is by a doorway ten feet wide, which leads into a sort of antechamber, on each side of which is a small doorway leading into an apartment ten feet square. The walls of these apartments were once covered with stucco,

which had fallen down; part of the roof had given way, and the floor was covered with ruins. In one of them was the same pitchy substance we had noticed in the sepulchre at Copan. The roof was formed of stones, lapping over in the usual style, and forming as near an approach to the arch as was made by the architects of the Old World.

"In the back wall of the centre chamber was a doorway of the same size with that in front, which led to an apartment without any partitions, but in the centre was an oblong enclosure eighteen feet by eleven, which was manifestly intended as the most important part of the edifice. The door was choked up with ruins to within a few feet of the top, but over it, and extending along the whole front of the structure, was a large stucco ornament, which at first impressed us most forcibly by its striking resemblance to the winged globe over the doors of Egyptian temples. Part of this ornament had fallen down, and striking the heap of rubbish underneath, had rolled beyond the door of entrance. We endeavoured to roll it back and restore it to its place, but it proved too heavy for the strength of four men and a boy. The part which remains differs in detail from the winged globe. The wings are reversed; there is a fragment of a circular ornament which may have been intended for a globe, but there are no remains of serpents entwining it."-Ibid. pp. 258, 259.

In one of the side apartments (according to a memorandum on the ground-plan) were stucco bas-reliefs of human figures and apes, painted, and in good preservation. We regret to find no drawings of them.

The remains visited by Mr. Stephens and his companion, at Patinamit, or Tecpan Guatemala, (near the city of Guatemala,) at Utatlan, (Santa Cruz del Quiché,) on the fifteenth parallel of latitude, and at Gueguetenango, about forty miles further north, appeared to belong to a more recent age. At the first of these places they found nothing worthy of particular remark. At Utatlan, no statues, carved figures, or hieroglyphics were to be seen, nor could they learn that any had ever been found there.

"The most important part remaining of these ruins is called El Sacrificatorio, or the place of sacrifice. It is a quadrangular stone structure, sixty-six feet on each side at the base, and rising in a pyramidal form to the height, in its present condition, of thirty-three feet. On three sides there is a range of steps in the middle, each step seventeen inches high, and but eight inches on the upper surface, which makes the range so steep

that in descending some caution is necessary. At the corners are four buttresses of cut stone, diminishing in size from the line of the square, and apparently intended to support the structure. On the side facing the west there are no steps, but the surface is smooth and covered with stucco, gray from long exposure. By breaking a little at the corners, we saw that there were different layers of stucco, doubtless put on at different times, and all had been ornamented with painted figures. In one place we made out part of the body of a leopard, well drawn and colored.". - Ibid. pp. 183, 184.

At Gueguetenango,

"The general character of the ruins is the same as at Quiché, but the hand of destruction has fallen upon it more heavily. The whole is a confused heap of grass-grown fragments. The principal remains are two pyramidal structures. One of them measures at the base one hundred and two feet; the steps are four feet high and seven feet deep, making the whole height twenty-eight feet. They are not of cut stone as at Copan, but of rough pieces cemented with lime, and the whole exterior was formerly coated with stucco and painted. On the top is a small square platform, and at the base lies a long slab of rough stone, apparently hurled down from the top."

"At the foot of this structure was a vault, faced with cut stone, in which were found a collection of bones and a terra cotta vase. The vault was not long enough for the body of a man extended, and the bones must have been separated before they were placed there."— Ibid. pp. 229, 230.

Mr. Stephens undertook an excavation for his own benefit.

The

In the afternoon we opened one of the mounds. The interior was a rough coat of stones and lime, and after an hour's digging we came to fragments of bones and two vases. first of the two was entire when we discovered it, but, unfortunately, was broken in getting it out, though we obtained all the pieces. It is graceful in design, the surface is polished, and the workmanship very good. The last was already broken, and though more complicated, the surface is not polished. The tripod is a copy of the vase before referred to, found in the tomb, which I procured from the owner of the land. It is twelve inches in diameter, and the surface is polished."— Ibid. pp. 231, 232.

At Utatlan, Mr. Stephens fell in with a living human curiosity; a discovery, which there appears to be danger

may eventually be of no service to him. It was a clerical original, with a figure and dress as extraordinary as the adventures he related, the intelligence he gave, and the merriment he practised and excited. "He laughed at their coming to see the ruins, and said that he laughed prodigiously himself when he first saw them." In short, he laughed with an irresistible hilarity at every thing, the battles, revolutions, and other calamities he had passed through, all included. We are not sure but he was laughing, when he gave Mr. Stephens the Lord's prayer in the Quiché language; certainly the translation looks somewhat longer than the current Pater Noster. But he did something serious, when he talked as follows;

"He told us that four leagues from Copan was another eminent city, as large as Santa Cruz del Quiché, deserted and desolate, and almost as perfect as when evacuated by its inhabitants. He had wandered through its silent streets and over its gigantic buildings. . . . . . With all our inquiries, we had heard nothing of it, and now the information really grieved us. Going to the place would add eight hundred miles to our journey.

"But the padre told us more; something that increased our excitement to the highest pitch; . . . . that, four days on the road to Mexico, on the other side of the great sierra, was a living city, large and populous, occupied by Indians, precisely in the same state as before the discovery of America. He had heard of it many years before at the village of Chajul, and was told by the villagers that from the topmost ridge of the sierra this city was distinctly visible. He was then young, and with much labor, climbed to the naked summit of the sierra, from which at the height of ten or twelve thousand feet, he looked over an immense plain extending to Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw at a great distance a large city spread over a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun. The traditionary account of the Indians of Chajul is, that no white man has ever reached this city; that the inhabitants speak the Maya language, are aware that a race of strangers has conquered the whole country around, and murder any white man who attempts to enter their territory. They have no coin or other circulating medium; no horses, cattle, mules, or other domestic animals except fowls, and the cocks they keep under ground to prevent their crowing being heard.

"There was a wild novelty, something that touched the imagination, in every step of the journey in that country; the old padre, in the deep stillness of the dimly-lighted convent,

with his long black coat like a robe, and his flashing eye, called up an image of the bold and resolute priests who accompanied the armies of the conquerors; and as he drew a map on the table, and pointed out the sierra to the top of which he had climbed, and the position of the mysterious city, the interest awakened in us was the most thrilling I ever experienced. One look at that city was worth ten years of an everyday life. If he is right, a place is left where Indians and an Indian city exist as Cortez and Alvarado found them; where are living men who can solve the mystery that hangs over the ruined cities of America; perhaps who can go to Copan and read the inscriptions on its monuments. No subject more exciting and attractive presents itself to my mind, and the deep impression of that night will never be effaced.

"Can it be true? Being now in my sober senses, I do verily believe there is much ground to suppose that what the padre told us is authentic," &c. - Ibid. pp. 195, 196.

Now we beg a thousand pardons of Mr. Stephens, whose sagacity, it is little to say, we rate higher than our own ; but, if he will take a fool's advice, he will not put himself on the quest of that mysterious capital, seen by the padre of Quiché from the topmost ridge of the Cordilleras, to the thought of which he afterwards (pp. 262, 457) recurs with such an impulsive enthusiasm. He may rely upon it, that the pleasant friar was amusing himself at his new friend's cost. Without having done any thing to provoke it, Mr. Stephens suffered, in this instance, the frequent unhappiness of Miss Martineau. Did no suspicion cross his mind, when that facetious churchman told him that "thirty years before, when he first saw it, the palace of Utatlan was entire to the garden; he was then fresh from the palaces of Spain, and it seemed as if he was again among them"?-nor, when "coming close, he said, with a laugh, that in the village, the Indians stood at swords' points with the Mestitzoes, ready to cut their throats, and with all his exertions, he could barely keep down a general rising and massacre"? - nor, when he alleged "what requires confirmation, and what we were very curious to judge of for ourselves, that, in a cave near a neighbouring village, were sculls much larger than the natural size, and regarded with superstitious veneration by the Indians; he had seen them, and vouched for their gigantic dimensions"?-nor when, finding them inclined to verify this wonder, he bowed them so speedily away? "The padre did not give us any encouragement; in fact, he opposed our remaining another