talent now invading Asia and Africa. The Indian race, on the contrary, has arrived at a decrepit old age; it has passed through the stages of youth, manhood, and even decay. The new governments of late Spanish America incorporate the Indians into their political associations, and endeavour to make them participate in the benefits of civilization; but this policy, however honorable to its authors, is fruitless; the Indian race is in the last centuries of its existence, and must soon disappear from the earth. Power and civilization travelling westward, China, the most eastern and most ancient nation of the Transpacific hemisphere, is about to expire. The Indian race, predecessor in civilization of the Chinese, is even more than they in an old age incapable of regeneration; nowhere is this more palpable than in Central America. The Mosquito shore, though inhabited by Indians free from any foreign yoke, and surrounded by civilized commonwealths and colonies, while the neighbouring British authorities have constantly provided for the education of their principal men, still remains in a degrading state of barbarity. To the primeval civilization of America, we must assign a great and indefinite antiquity; of course, no palpable remains or monuments of that epoch now exist. Its destruction may be ascribed to some convulsion of the earth, to plague, to famine, to an invasion of barbarians, or perhaps to an insurrection of slaves; the colonies or remnants of these anciently enlightened people, passing to the eastern coasts of Asia, commenced the civilization of Japan and China. Savage darkness spread over America, till about a century after the destruction of the western Roman empire by northern barbarians; the Tultecos appear coming from our northern regions, bringing a certain degree of civilization, probably deduced from the traces left by the primitive Americans in their emigration to the northwest. The Tultecos found an empire in Mexico, and advance their colonies to the more contiguous parts of Central America; while the Incas in Peru endeavour likewise to revive the ancient civilization of this hemisphere. Copan was a colony of Tultecos; its king held dominion over the country extending to the eastward from that of the Mayas or Yucatan, and reaching from the Bay of Honduras nearly to the Pacific, containing on an average ten thousand square miles, now included in the modern states of Honduras, Guatemala, and Salvador, and possessing several populous and thriving towns and villages. The aborigines of this kingdom still use the Chorti language, being a mixture of the Tulteco, with some dialect still more ancient in these parts. The city of Copan was built on the right or northern bank of the stream of the same name, a tributary to the large and navigable river Motagua, which falls into the bottom of the Bay of Honduras. Following upwards the navigation of this river, from the sea to the junction of the Copan, is a distance of sixty-five leagues, and from thence to this spot it is twenty leagues more; the Copan below here is partly navigable for canoes, during the winter or rainy season, though rapids impede its course before it joins the Motagua. The city of Copan extended along the bank of its river a length of two miles, as evidenced by the remains of its fallen edifices. The principal of these was the temple, standing at the eastern extremity of the city, and built perpendicularly from the bank of the river, to a height, as it at present exists, of more than forty yards. The temple is two hundred and fifty yards long from north to south, and two hundred yards broad from east to west; stone steps, which in some parts are in a state of ruin, lead from the land sides to the elevations above, and again descend to a square in the centre of the edifice, twenty yards above the level of the river; through a gallery, scarcely four feet high and two and a half broad, one can crawl from this square through a more elevated part of the temple overhanging the river, and have from the face of the precipice an interesting view. Among many excavations, I have made one at the point where this gallery comes out into the square. I first opened into the entrance of the gallery itself, and digging lower down I broke into a sepulchral vault, the floor of which is twelve feet below the level of the square. It is more than six feet high, ten feet long, and five and a half broad, and lies due north and south, according to the compass, which here varies nine degrees east; it has two niches on each side, and both these and the floor of the vault, were full of red earthenware dishes and pots. I found more than fifty, many of them full of human bones packed with lime; also several sharp-edged and pointed knives of chaya (a brittle stone called itzli by the Mexicans): a small head, apparently representing death, its eyes being nearly shut, and the lower features distorted; the back of the head is symmetrically perforated by holes; the whole is of most exquisite workmanship, and cut out or cast from a fine stone covered with green enamel, as are also two heads I found in the vault: with quantities of oyster and periwinkle shells, brought from the sea-shore in fulfilment of some superstition; as also there were stalactites, taken from some cave. All the bottom of the vault was strewed with fragments of bones, and beneath these a coat of lime on a solid stone floor. There are seven obelisks still standing and entire, in the temple and its immediate vicinity; and there are numerous others, fallen and destroyed, throughout the ruins of the city. These stone columns are ten or eleven feet high, and about three broad, with a less thickness; on one side were worked, in basso-rilievo, human figures, standing square to the front, with their hands resting on their breast; they are dressed with caps on their heads, and sandals on their feet, and clothed in highly adorned garments, generally reaching half way down the thigh, but sometimes in long pantaloons. Opposite this figure, at a distance of three or four yards, was commonly placed a stone table or altar. The back and sides of the obelisk generally contain phonetic hieroglyphics in squares. Hard and fine stones are inserted in many obelisks, as they, as well as the rest of the works in the ruins, are of a species of soft stone, which is found in a neighbouring and most extensive quarry. There is one very remarkable stone table in the temple, two feet four inches high, and four feet ten inches square its top contains forty-nine square tablets of hieroglyphics; and its four sides are occupied by sixteen human figures in bassorilievo, sitting cross-legged on cushions carved in the stone, and bearing each in their hands something like a fan or flapper. Monstrous figures are found amongst the ruins; one represents the colossal head of an alligator, having in its jaws a figure with a human face, but the paws of an animal; another monster has the appearance of a gigantic toad in an erect posture, with human arms and tiger's claws. On neighbouring hills stand, one to the east and the other to the west of the city, two obelisks, containing hieroglyphics alone in squares; these obelisks (like the generality of those in the city) are painted red, and are thicker and broader at the top than at the bottom. Mounts of stone, formed by fallen edifices, are found throughout the neighbouring country. In comparing these ruins with those of Palenque, I am struck with a similarity indicating a common origin (the Tulteca); however, they differ in very essential points. Palenque was abandoned, and the memory of its existence appears to have been obliterated before the conquest; whereas the Spaniards found Copan inhabited, and in the summit of its perfection; notwithstanding which, the edifices and other monuments in Palenque are in a better state of preservation than here, owing to their superior architecture. There is no building here standing, while numerous ones are still so in Palenque; the stones for building were different, since those of that city are not more than two inches thick, while these were cut into blocks; here the roofs were formed of inclined stones, there they were always placed horizontally. There is much more perfection in the human figures there, and they mostly stand in profile; these are generally placed with a full front. I saw no obelisks or sculptured tables in Palenque. ; Circular stones are found in both places of various sizes some like those of a mill, with a hole in the centre, and some without; and neither having any inscription, mark, or apparent utility. The writing, or hieroglyphics (which are phonetic), is very similar in both cities, always inscribed in tablets either perfectly square or nearly so, and containing faces, hands, and various identical characters. A small Spanish force, with a considerable number of auxiliary Indians, despatched from Guatemala, captured this place, though they met with great opposition on their march, and a resistance here worthy of better means and success. This place remained long celebrated for the superior quality of its tobacco; but the cultivation of this plant being removed, as royal property, to the Llanos de Santa Rosa, towards the east, seventy-five years ago, Copan has gradually fallen into decay; and is now reduced to a small hamlet, standing near where the brook of Sesesmil falls into the Copan river, in the western suburb of the ancient city. This spot is within the modern State of Honduras, being four leagues to the eastward of the boundary with Guatemala, in latitude 14° 45′ north, and longitude 90° 52′ west from Greenwich. The water is good, and the climate moderate and delightful. The cave of Cutilca, nearly two leagues distant, has nothing very remarkable, but its vicinity to this place, and the fabulous. account given of it (under the name of Tibulca) by the Rev. Domingo Juarros in his History of Guatemala. The cave is entirely the work of nature, and extends about eighty paces into the interior of the mountain of Cutilca. With much consideration, I have the honor to be, Sir, Your very obedient humble servant, JUAN GALINDO, Member of the Royal Geographical and Horticultural Societies of London, and of the Sociedad Economica of Guatemala, |