HOLSIES] 



ABORIGINAL AMEEICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 



275 



ranj;o lie-.; about 2 inik'S iiorlh from tlie river, and runs east and west. At tli<' 

 foot of it we crossed a wild stream. Tlie side of tlie mountain was overgrown 

 with buslies and trees. Tlie top was bare, and commanded a magnilicent view of 

 a dense forest, broken only by the winding of the Copan River, and the clearings 

 for the haciendas of Don Gregorio and Don Miguel. The city was buried in forest 

 and entirely hidden from sight. Imagination peopled the quarry witli workmen, 

 and laid bare the city to their view. Here, as the sculptor worked, he turned 

 to the theater of his glory, as the Greek did to the Acropolis of Athens, and 

 dreamed of innnortal fame. Little did he imagin(» that th(» time would conu' 

 when his works would perish, his race be extinct, his city a desolation and abode 



Via. 141. The stonecutters of Yueatau. From a .urdiip in thi' National Museum. 



for reptiles, for strangers to gaze at and wonder by what race it had once 

 been inhabited. 



The stone is a soft grit. The range extended a long distance, seemingly 

 unconscious tliat stone enough had been talven from its sides to build a city. 

 How the huge masses were transported over tlie irregular and bx-oken surface 

 we had crossed, and particularly how one of them was set up on the top 

 of a mountain 2,000 feet high, it was impossible to conjecture. In many 

 places were blocks which had been quarried out and rejected for some defect ; 

 and at one spot, midway in a ravine leading toward the river, was a gigantic 

 block, much larger than any we saw in the city, which was probably on its 

 way thither, to be carved and set up as an ornament, when the labors of the 

 workmen were ari'ested. T-ike the unfinished blocks in the quarries at Assouan 

 and on the Pentelican IVbmntain, it remains as a memorial of balHed human 

 plans. 



