176 TKAXSACTIONS OF THE [.MARCH 1, 



tlie hands of his brother from wounds treacherously inflicted in 

 his back. 



We found the interior of the mausoleum consisted of large, 

 loose stones piled one above another very carefully, and among 

 them, after many days' work, we found, ^0 feet below the sur- 

 face, a large statue and two urns containing the cremated remains 

 of the prince whom the statue had been made to represent. 

 With the remains we found a talisman of jadeite, some beads, 

 and around the base of the statue several very beautiful arrow 

 heads of pure white chalcedony ; and others of a semi-transpar- 

 ent green stone. 



Our Indian laborei-s were afraid to put their hands on any- 

 thing, believing that if tiiey touched what had belonged to the 

 ancients they would inevitably be overtaken by deatii before one 

 year elapsed. The result of this fear was that. more than once 

 they revolted, and gave us some troul)le, especially wlicn, after 

 almost insui-mountable difliculties, we had the statue, which 

 weighed 300 pounds, in a }iosition to bo drawn from its long 

 resting-place. Having no hemp at hand — in that country where 

 so much of it grows — we had caused the men to make ropes 

 from the pliant bark of a certain tree ; and the capstan, by which 

 the great statue was to be i)ulled to the surface up an inclined 

 plane, was made of trunks of trees and a stone ring that we had 

 been happy enough to find near the spot. To keep the loose 

 stones in the sides of the excavation from falling on the statue, 

 we had constructed a palisade of saplings around, and when 

 our men saw that it was really to be taken from its tomb, they 

 made an attempt to cut the withes that secured the palisade ; 

 and, finding that their own efforts to prevent the removal of the 

 great effigy were unavailing, they hoped that some unseen power 

 would come into play, in fact they were almost confident of it, 

 for when ordered to work the capstan they said : " The king 

 tiger cannot be moved, he is enchanted." And when the rope 

 stretched and snapped without having moved the ponderous 

 image one inch, they shouted with exultation ; but Dr. Le Plon- 

 geon mended the rope, and at the end of fifteen minutes the 

 statue had been successfully brought above ground, and the 

 Indians stared in bewilderment. Without a nail, screw, or other 

 tool than a large macliete, we made a small cart for the statue, 

 and dragged it to the nearest village, opening and levelling the 

 road as we advanced foot by foot. 



I regret to say that, after we had succeeded in getting it into 

 the territory guarded by Mexican troops, the statue was seized 

 by the authorities and taken — on board the ^Mexican gunboat 

 "Libertad" — to Mexico, where it is now in the museum of the 

 capital, though that government has never given us anything 



