PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 823" 



towards Sardinal country, of the same wretched character. Next day, 

 about uoon, after touching- the coast west of Cape Vela, we struck the 

 barrio of Sardinal, and were at once in a different country. Evidences 

 of greater prosperity were apparent on every side, and besides, at the 



first house a specimen in green stone, argillite No. , was obtained. 



Proceeding along the valley the houses became more frequent until near 

 that of Bon Pizarro; it was rather after the order of a scattered village. 

 Here nearly two days were spent riding from house to house, and rarely 

 inquiring in vain for antiquedades. Some objects in stone, usually, if not 

 always, gorgets, were secured, besides a pretty collection of pottery. 



The afternoon of the 28th we crossed the ridge between Sardinal and 

 the bay of Culebra to a place called Panama, near the mouth of the bay. 



Here at the house of Pizarro* we got JSTos . Xear 



the road from that house to the beach were lying two fine images in the 

 Zapaterra stylet about 6 feet high, with the head of a serpent for a head- 

 dress. The head of one was broken off. It was the finest specimen of 

 that class that I had ever seen. Nearer the beach in the bank of a 

 stream was a lot of pottery fragments, as in the Buena Vista, and near 

 by a section of a shell heap which had been covered by alluvium. 



Staying at the house of Espiuosa that night, next morning we 



visited the huaca of Panama, on a hill overlooking the bay. At the 

 edge of a mangrove swamp near the foot of this hill was a bank about 

 8 feet high and 30 by 50 yards surface, composed, as at Buena Vista, 

 almost entirely of shards. On this bank stood a pochate tree 6 feet in 

 diameter, at 10 feet above the surface. There was another near by, the 

 two forming islands occasionally in very high tides. On the beach near 

 by were some Chiriqui Indian women in bivouac, the mates of some pearl 

 fishermen, and they, on a small scale, were building their shell-heap, 

 and furnishing an illustration of how these immense banks of pottery 

 and others of shell may have grown in the old times. Shells were not 

 mixed with the shards in the large banks. The fragments, as at Buena 

 Vista, were almost all of unpainted ware, or that which was only painted 

 solid red; but there were a few pieces in yellow ornamentation, or in 

 bands of black or dark brown. The most ordinary pieces were well 

 burned. 



Just south of these banks the hill of the huacas rises some 150 or 200 

 feet, culminating in a point which overlooks sea and land for miles 

 around. The valley of Panama runs off" inland, and to the north stretches 

 the beautiful bay of Culebra, the hacknda of Culebra bearing north 10° 

 east. On the top of this hill was the finest huaca yet seen. The graves 

 had on them stones in pieces about a foot in diameter. Many of these 

 had been opened, and a great many objects were reported to have been 

 obtained. The burials were shallow, the excavations being only about 

 3 feet in depth. Scattered around were bones, fragments of handsome 



* I mention the names of these houses to facilitate the work of other investij^^atora. 

 t Squier. 



