GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 363 



other incidental allusions to occupation and history. One of these 

 dates reaches back as far as 1606, and there are a number of others 

 of this and the succeeding century. It is not at all improbable that 

 these inscriptions may be found of value in the suggestion or estab- 

 lishment of some point or points of history, and as such are to be re- 

 garded with attention and interest. Fac-similes of all these inscriptions 

 I have had taken, as well as drawings made of every important object 

 of natural curiosity, and plans and drawings made of all the principal 

 ruins which have come under our observation." 



ANTIQUITIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 



MR. SQUIER, our Minister to Central America, has been engaged 

 in pursuing his antiquarian researches in that interesting country, 

 though he has not as yet had time to make much progress. He 

 writes : " The Indians of Subtiava have dug up for me a number of 

 their buried idols, and are now exhuming more. They impose but 

 one condition, that I shall have no Spaniard with me when I go to 

 see them, and shall keep the localities secret. These idols, though 

 much smaller, closely resemble those of Copan in workmanship, and 

 were no doubt dedicated to the same or very similar purposes. I have 

 eight in iny possession, ranging from five and a half to eight feet in 

 height, and from four to five in circumference. The faces of most are 

 mutilated, an evidence of the fanatical zeal of the early Spaniards, 

 who waged a war of extermination upon the superstitions of the abo- 

 rigines. 



" Some of the statues have the same elaborate head-dresses with 

 others of Copan ; one bears a shield upon his arm; another has a gir- 

 dle, to which is suspended a head ; and still another has rising above 

 its head the sculptured jaws of an alligator. 



" All are very ancient, and the places of their deposit have been 

 handed down from one generation to another. The fragments of many 

 are to be found within a few miles of Leon, and there must originally 

 have been a great number scattered over the country. Perhaps the 

 most remarkable locality, with the exception of the island of Ometepe, 

 in Lake Nicaragua, is the island of Momotombita, in the Lake of Mona- 

 gua. Many of the statues have been removed, some, I believe, having 

 been sent abroad. Many still remain, but the largest of all I brought 

 a\vay with me, and shall send it to Washington. It seems that there 

 were originally some thirty or forty of these statues, of various sizes, 

 and more or less elaborately carved, arranged in one place, in the 

 form of a square, all looking inward. The dimensions of the square 

 cannot now be ascertained, but the few remaining figures and frag- 

 ments show that the statement is correct. It is a singular fact, and 

 another evidence of the prevalence in America of the doctrine of the 

 two reciprocal principles of nature (the active and passive, male and 

 female), that these figures were represented, some as male, and some 

 as female. 



" I must not forget to mention that there has lately been discovered, 

 in the province of Vera Paz, 150 miles northeast of Guatemala, buried 



