76 APPENDIX. 



their own towns generally in the immediate vicinity of the iiboriginal cities, 

 l^rocuring all the building material they needed from the native structures, 

 destroying so far as possible all the idols, altars, and other paraphernalia of the 

 Maya worship, and forcing the discontinuance of all ceremonies in honor of the 

 heathen gods. . . . All the early voyagers, conquistadores, and writers 

 speak of the wonderful stone edifices found by them in the country, partly 

 abandoned and partly occupied by the natives. To suppose that the buildings 

 they saw and described were not identical with the ruins, that every trace of 

 the former had disappeared, and that the latter entii-ely escaped the notice of 

 the early visitors to Yucatan, is too absurd to deserve a moment's consid- 

 eration."* 



* Bancroft : Native Eaces etc.; vol. iv, pp. 281-283. 



