242 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



against the natives and to exploit the rich silver and gold mines in 

 that district, which at present are not worked for lack of labor. The 

 country is very rough, with grand mountain ranges. This city was 

 deserted after a few days on account of the Indian wars and the 

 lack of support given the Spaniards; but later, in the year 1536, 

 Capt. Gonzalo de Alvarado established it again and it exists today, 

 with as many as 60 Spanish residents. Trade in this city is based 

 chiefly on its mule ranches, wheat and other native products, which 

 they export to adjoining provinces. The Circuit Court now in Guate- 

 mala was originally in this city. 



697. Five leagues from this city, near the village of Copan, there 

 are some grand buildings from an immemorial past, of which the 

 memory has been lost for many generations, and all information 

 about those who created and built them, from their great antiquity. 

 Among their ruins are things extraordinary and admirable ; among 

 these is a beautiful hall, in the center of which there is a very large 

 and well-made table in a stone like alabaster ; round about it are 

 seated many well-sculptured figures, with good features and long 

 beards, decked out in their breastplates and backplates and helmets, 

 with swords in their belts ; with them is another figure in pontifical 

 vestments and a mitre on his head ; the workmanship and the dress 

 are very strange and altogether diflferent from what prevails in those 

 regions. Close by this hall run galleries very well built in stone with 

 tall monolith pillars which remain standing, thanks to their strength. 

 And for 4 and even more than 6 leagues round about this superb 

 building there are great quantities of dressed stone, from which it 

 appears — and these ruins give proof of it — that there was once in 

 these parts a people of great intelligence, energy, and efficiency, and 

 great cities, which long lapse of time has obliterated, reducing them 

 to what our Spaniards found when they discovered them, and what 

 is visible today. These ruins are very much like those which have 

 been found in Yucatan, not far from those provinces where they 

 established the city of Merida, which today is the capital of that 

 Diocese and State. 



Chapter XXII 



Continuing the Description of the Diocese, Provinces, and Cities 

 of Honduras. 



698. To the N. of Comayagua some 14 leagues is the city of San 

 Pedro, near Puerto Caballos, where they used to unload the mer- 

 chandise coming from Spain for Guatemala and all those provinces ; 

 it was dismantled in the year 1604 by order of the great Governor 



