102 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
Captain Antonio del Rio visited them for the purpose of scientific - 
description, and made the world acquainted with their nature. He 
examined fourteen buildings of hewn stone, together with a subterranean 
aqueduct, and estimated the extent of buildings along the river at from 
seven to eight leagues in length, and halfa league in breadth. The next 
explorers were Du Paix and Castineda in 1807, who made drawings and 
plans of the monuments, which were used by Waldeck and Lord Kings- 
borough. Waldeck himself visited Palenque in 1832, and Stephens and 
patneonees in 1840. The ruins were inspected by Morelet in 1846, and 
in 1858 by Charnay. In the accounts of these explorers, and in the 
works of Brasseur de Bourbourg, Bancroft, Baldwin, Short, etc., ample 
material is provided for enabling the reader to picture to himself the 
deserted city... The following description is largely from Brasseur de 
Bourbourg.* 
The ruins receive their name from the village of Palenque, within a 
few miles of which they are situated. The ancient city had been built 
on the hill slopes at the entrance to the steep mountain range of 
Tumbala, which in unforeseen circumstances might serve as a safer refuge 
for its inhabitants. But at that time the adjacent plains, intersected by 
so many rivers and natural canals, formed a great lake, similar to the 
lagoon of Terminos, such as it now appears at the time of the height of 
water between June and October. A distance of from nine to twelve 
miles separates the ruins of this metropolis from the river Catasaha. 
This is the space to which the name of Las Playas, or the Flats, is given, 
because of the inundation to which they are subject. 
The plain of Palenque, undulating slightly, descends gently towards 
the sea, intersected by a multitude of streams, which have their sources 
in the mountains. Nature, always prodigal of her gifts in this enchanting 
climate, assured to it in profusion, with perennial fertility and healthful- 
ness, tested by a long succession of years, all that a fertile soil under a 
delightful sky could furnish spontaneously in productions necessary to 
the support and comfort of life. The little river Otolum flows at the 
foot of the ruins, before going to join the Rio Michol, which further on 
swells the Catasaha, itself a tributary of the magnificent Uzumacinta. 
The limpid tide of the Michol winds at the foot of the mountains, rolling 
its waters among the flowers and shrubs of the meadows that spread 
abroad the sweetest perfumes. A site so favoured by nature could not 
fail to attract living beings. It is, in fact, the retreat of a multitude of 
quadrupeds and of birds of every hue. They delight to multiply in these 
smiling solitudes, whence man drove them and held them at a distance 
for ages, and whither they only returned when revolutions, banishing 
