132 Recreations of a Sportsman 



scroll or rectilinear form, are found on some of 

 the Painted Rocks over the border. One figure 

 was the Muluk sign of the Maya codex, easily 

 recognized / and the scroll recalled similar figures 

 on ollas from old Tusayan graves, and a similar 

 figure is found indefinitely repeated in the in- 

 terior of the tomb on Mount Guiri, near Mitla, 

 whose ruins antedate history and are among the 

 wonders of the American continent. 



Excavation showed that the rock doubtless 

 weighed several tons, and had been brought from 

 the distant mountains for some purpose indi- 

 cated by the inscription, as the delta of the Yaqui 

 is, so far as I could see, entirely destitute of 

 stones of that, or any, kind. The impression it 

 conveyed to the unscientific observer was that 

 the stone had been brought there, and the in- 

 scription made, referring to the region, a sign 

 post of the ancients. We found no instruments 

 of stone with which it was made, but in the 

 debris thrown up were pieces of broken pottery 

 which may have belonged to the makers, as the 

 nearest water was the Rio Yaqui, five or six 

 miles distant. The inscriptions were all upon 

 one side, but on the opposite, a crude face, eye, 

 and beak marks had possibly been attempted, 

 giving the resemblance of a flat human face, or 

 that of an owl. 



It seems incredible that a region of such fasci- 

 nation, hardly four days from New York, and 



