REPORT OF EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 425 



natural kindness and hospitality of the people. Durini^ a month which I remained 

 on the island, I made some excursions on the lake and to the mainland, collcct- 

 \u<x S])ecimens and examining some points of special interest to arclueology. 

 The difficulty of movements from this place, however, decided me to choose anftther 

 centre for my further explorations, and I changed to the village Sacluk, about 

 20 miles to the southwest of Flores, situated in the savanna region, half way 

 between the lake and the Passion river. The prairie lands, bordered at the north 

 by the forest hills surrounding the Chaltuna lake, and to the south and west by 

 the woods along the l^assion river and its tributaries, are of a peculiar foniiation. 

 An alluvium of red clay,* covered with a stratum of humus forar thieo to eight 

 inches thick, on which graminea; of great variety and only a few species of small 

 trees grow, is intersected by numerous groups and chains of low conical hills 

 I'rom 30 to 1:^0 i'eet high, formed by large calcareous rocks (some with caves) and 

 boulders. In the northern part these hills are covered with wood and forest trees ; 

 in the southern jiart they are, like the plain, covered only with grass and small 

 prairie herbs. The country, divided into numberless smaller and larger valleys, 

 many of them adorned with lakes, around which the cattle feed, forms a beauti- 

 i'ully varied and picturesque landscape. From this point I made numerous excur- 

 sions in all directions ; I surveyed part of the liio de la Pasion and a numV>er of 

 its tributary rivers and lagoons, all of them located erroneously and with false 

 iiames in the existing maps, thus collecting the material for the completion of a 

 map of southeastern Mexico, which has occupied my leisure liours during a num- 

 ber of years. Among the Peten Indians and the Lacandones of the Passion 

 river, who both speak dialects of the Maya language, I found favoi'able oppor- 

 tunity to continue my ethnological and linguistical studies, and was enabled also, 

 by occasional meetings with Indians from Cahabon and CaV)an, to add the Qneccbi 

 to my Collection of vocal )ularies of languages belonging to the region between 

 the isthnms of Tehuantepec and the other of Honduras. 



Of all the Indians of this part of Central America none are of so great interest 

 as the Lacandones. Once a numerous and powerful nation, which, united with 

 the Manchcs and Acalanes, (both now extinct,) gave so much trouble to the con- 

 querors, and, in fact, have never been fully subjugated, they are reduced to-day 

 to a very iusignilicaut number, living on and near the Passion river and its tribu- 

 taries. Some old authors distinguish the eastern from the western Lacandones, 

 and it seems that they were, in fact, as well as those of the west, of difiereut 

 tribes, living on the borders of the Jlexican state of Chiapas, speaking u differ- 

 ent language, called Piitum or Chol^ which belongs to the family of languages 

 connected with the Maya. To these western Lacandones are referred the stories 

 of a large inaccessible city mentioned by Stephens. They live far from the set- 

 tlements of the whites and do not trade with them, nor do they entertain any 

 relations with the eastern Lacandones, who fear and avoid them. The eastern 

 Lacandones are a harmless tribe, who live in small palm huts, consisting of lit- 

 tle more than a roof, and grouped into little hamlets of a few families, often 

 changing their locality. They cultivate the field, plant fruit-trees, sugar-cane, 

 and Sisal hemj) ; search the woods for wild ct)coa, beeswax, honey, and other 

 ]iroducts of the forest; hunt with bows and stone-headed arrows, and navigate, 

 by means of their small canoes, the lagoons and rivers from which they obtain 

 plenty of fish and turtles. Although occasionally l)aptized by Catholic mission- 

 aries and fond of saying their prayers, they still adhere to their old heathen wor- 

 ship, and indulge in polygamy, keeping as many wives as they are able to pur- 

 chase or to steal. They visit the villages of the whites and settled Indians to 

 sell their produce. Having adopted a little orphan boy of this tribe, and speak- 

 ing their language, I soon won their friendship. They have, in my excursions 

 on the water and in the woods, been of the greatest utility to me, as also to the 



* On occasion of the excavation of a, well in Sacluk I saw the clay reaching a depth of 

 50 I'eet, intersected al about 3U feet from the surface by a small layer of pebbles. 



