Ck III.] STOXE-HATCEETS. 41 



living on roots and fruits, and had nearly died from star- 

 vation. He had an intelligent, sharp, and independent 

 look about him, and kept continually talking in his own 

 language, apparently surprised that the people around 

 him did not understand what he was saying. He was 

 taken to Castillo, and met there the woman who had 

 heen captured a year before, and had learnt to speak a 

 little Spanish. Through her as an interpreter, he tried 

 to get permission to return to the Rio Frio, saying that 

 if they would let him go he would come back and bring 

 his father and mother with him ; but this simple artifice 

 of the poor boy was, of course, ineffectual. He was 

 afterwards taken to Granada, for the purpose, they said, 

 of being educated, that he might become the means of 

 opening up communication with his tribe. 



The rubber-men bring down many little articles that 

 they pillage from the Indians. They consist of cordage, 

 made from the fibre of Bromeliaceous plants, bone hooks, 

 and stone implements. Amongst the latter, I was fortu- 

 nate enough to obtain a rude stone hatchet, set in a 

 stone-cut wooden handle : it was firmly fixed in a hole 

 made in the thick end of the handle. It is a singular 

 fact, and one showing the persistence of particular ways 

 of doing things through long ages amongst people be- 

 longing to the same race that, in the ancient Mexican, 

 Uxmal, and Palenque picture-writings, bronze axes are 

 represented fixed in this identical manner in holes at the 

 thick ends of the handles. 



We slept on board one of the steamers of the Ameri- 

 can Transit Company. It was too dark when we arrived 

 at San Carlos to see anything that night of the great 

 lake, but we heard the waves breaking on the beach like 



