EEPORT OF EXPLOHATIONS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 



By Dr. C. II. Beuexdt. 



New York, December 24, 1867. 



Altliougli my labors in exploring tlie northern part of Guatemala and sontli- 

 eastern Mexico are not fiuislietl, and though I intend to return to the work after 

 a short visit to the United States, I deem it my duty to lay before you a report 

 of the results Avhich have thus far been obtained under the ausiiices of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



Having occupied myself in former travels and during several years of resi- 

 dence in Tabasco with researches relative to the geographical and ethnological 

 features of this almost unknown part of America, I resolved to complete my 

 observations by a visit to the belt extending from the Caribbean sea through 

 Belize, Peten, and Chiapas to the F .cific ocean. This region, scarcely ever 

 visited by modern travellers, presents objects of high interest in all branches of 

 ethnology and natural history as an important centre of ancient civilization and 

 a region abounding in the productions of both the vegetable and animal king- 

 doms. The Institution furnished the instruments for meteorological observations 

 and part of the outfit required for collecting specimens of natural history. It 

 also procured letters of recommendation from the diplomatic agents of England, 

 Guatemala and Honduras to the governments and local attthorities of the dif- 

 ferent districts to be visited, and secured the co-operation of several learned 

 societies and private gentlemen interested in pursuits of this character, in con- 

 tributing to the expenses of the expedition, with a view to obtain a share of the 

 specimens collected. 



I left the United States in the bark Pallas the 2d day of December, 1865, 

 and arrived in Belize the 21st of the same month. My letters of introduction 

 procured me a very friendly reception from the governor of the colony. He 

 introduced me to all the prominent officials and leading merchants, from wliom I 

 could obtain the necessary information as to topography and resources of the 

 country, and in particular of that almost uninhabited region through which I 

 had to pass on my way to Peten. The crown engineer, Mr. Faber, and two 

 civil engineers kindly communicated to ine what they knew relative to the regions 

 which had been surveyed or visited by them, and I was permitted to copy a 

 number of ancient and modern manuscript maps of the colony. With the chief 

 magistrate of the police court. Judge S. Cockburn, a member and meteorologi- 

 cal correspondent of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, I arranged 

 cotemporaneous observations for the pm-poso of computing with more accuracy 

 the absolute height of the principal points included in my tour. I foinid in 

 the possession of Mr. Parson, an American merchant, a valuable collection of 

 specimens of natural history, and was so fortunate as to secure it for the Smith- 

 sonian previous to the death of Mr. Parson, v»hich took place a few months 

 afterwards. I also made a very agreeable and useful acquaintance in the per- 

 son of the Rev. Alexander Henderson, a distinguished linguist,* whom I found 



*^ The Eev. A. Henderson, Baptist missionary in Belize since the year 1834, has written a 

 grammar of the Moskito language, printed in New York in ld46; a Gospel by Luke and a 

 vocabulary, MSS. ; the G(»spel according to Matthew, in the Caribbean language of Hon- 

 duras, printed Edinburgh, 1847; a grammar and enlarged vocabulary of the same, MSS., 

 since lb55 in the hands of the Ethnological Society, London ; a translation into English of 

 Beltran's Arte dc el Idiuma Maya; a translation into Maya of the book of Genesis and the 

 book of Psalms, MSS.; a Maya primer, printed in Birmingham, 1863, and two tracts In the 

 same language, published by the American Tract Society. 



