Stone Hatchets 25 
away—the one from San Carlos, the other from Castillo; 
but neither could succeed in reaching home, on account of 
the swamps and rivers in their way, and after wandering 
about the woods for some time they were recaptured. I saw 
the lad soon after he was taken the second time. He had 
been a month in the woods, living on roots and fruits, and 
had nearly died from starvation. He had an intelligent, 
sharp, and independent look about him, and kept continually 
talking in his own language, apparently surprised that the 
people around him did not understand what he was saying. 
He was taken to Castillo, and met there the woman who had 
been captured a year before, and had learnt to speak a little 
Spanish. ‘Through her as an interpreter, he tried to get per- 
mission to return to the Rio Frio, saying that if they would 
let him go he would come back and bring his father and 
mother with him. This simple artifice of the poor boy was, 
of course, ineffectual. He was afterwards taken to Granada, 
for the purpose, they said, of being educated, that he might 
become the means of opening up communication with his 
tribe. 
The rubber-men bring down many little articles that they 
pillage from the Indians. They consist of cordage, made 
from the fibre of Bromeliaceous plants, bone hooks, and 
stone implements. Amongst the latter, I was fortunate 
enough to obtain a rude stone hatchet, set in a stone-cut 
wooden handle: it was firmly fixed in a hole made in the 
thick end of the handle.!_ It is a singular fact, and one show- 
ing the persistence of particular ways of doing things through 
long ages amongst people belonging to the same race, that, 
in the ancient Mexican, Uxmal, and Palenque picture- 
writings, bronze axes are represented fixed in this identical 
manner in holes at the thick ends of the handles. 
We slept on board one of the steamers of the American 
Transit Company. It was too dark when we arrived at San 
Carlos to see anything that night of the great lake, but we 
heard the waves breaking on the beach as on a sea-shore, 
+ [Figured in Evans’ Ancient Stone Implements, 2nd edition, 
p.155. In Evans’ first edition it is erroneously stated in the text to be 
from Texas. It has been pointed out that early man adopted the 
opposite method to the modern in the mounting of his axes: we fix 
the handle into a hole in the axe head; he jammed the head into a hole 
in the handle.] 
Cc 
