386 Voyage of the Novara. 



appearance have been an extensive place once, as the ruhis 

 cover eight to ten acres. Considering the little space which 

 the Indian of the present day requires for his household 

 gods, it may be assumed that this was a place of from 30,000 

 to 40,000 inhabitants. I saw no buildings of very remarkable 

 dimensions, nor indeed any one the laying out of which 

 designated it as once intended for religious purposes. The 

 ruins are for the most part, relics of simple mud-huts, all 

 similarly laid out in single chambers, differing from each 

 other mainly in the greater or less dimensions of the apart- 

 ments. Nothing here told of the existence of any buildings 

 intended for public meetings, temples for worship, sacrificial 

 altars, &c., such as one meets with in the ruined cities 

 of Central America, in Copan, Quirigua, Peten, Palenque, 

 and so forth. One perceives that each of these huts, like 

 those inhabited by the Indians at the present day, consisted 

 of two compartments, the entire superficial area being from 86 

 to 42 feet square. The larger of the two apartments is about 

 60 feet, the smaller from 12 to 18 feet in width and depth. 

 Nowhere could we discern a trace of that special construction 

 which is observable among the Indian races of the high lands 

 of Guatemala, and is there usually employed for taking 

 vapour-baths (Temaskal.) 



To form any notion of the antiquity of these buildings is 

 doubly difiicult in a climate where it never rains and the 

 temperature is the same throughout the year, and where con- 

 sequently buildings are not exposed to the destructive alter- 



