MORGAN] SO-CALLED PALACE AT PALENQUE. 271 
those [ruins] as yet known, as appears by the plan, is not larger than our 
Park or Battery” [in New York], he proceeds: ‘“It is proper to add, how- 
ever, that considering the space now occupied by the ruins as the site of 
palaces, temples, and public buildings, and supposing the houses of the in- 
habitants to have been, like those of the Egyptians and the present race of 
Indians, of frail and perishable materials as at Memphis and Thebes, to have 
disappeared altogether, the city may have covered an immense extent.”? 
This is a clear case of suggestio falsi by Mr. Stephens, who is usually so 
careful and reliable and, even here, so guarded in his language. He had 
fallen into the mistake of regarding these remains as a city in ruins, instead 
of asmall Indian pueblo in ruins. But he had furnished a general ground 
plan of all the ruins found of the Palenque pueblo, which made it plain that 
four or five structures upon pyramidal platforms at some distance from each 
other, with the whole space over which they were scattered about equal to 
the Battery, made a poor show for a city. The most credulous reader 
would readily perceive that it was a misnomer to call them the ruins of a 
city; wherefore the suggestions of Mr. Stephens, that ‘‘considering the space 
now occupied by the ruins as the site of palaces, temples, and public build- 
ings, and supposing the houses of the inhabitants * * * of frail and 
perishable materials to have disappeared * * * the city may have 
covered an immense extent.” That Mr. Stephens himself considered or 
supposed either to be true may have been the case, but it seems hardly 
supposable, and in either event he is responsible for the false coloring thus 
put upon those ruins, and the deceptive inferences drawn from them. 
These structures are highly creditable to the intelligence of their 
builders, and can be made to reveal the manner of their use and the 
actual progress they had made in the arts of life; but they never can 
be rationally explained while such wild views are entertained concerning 
them. Until the actual character and signification of these ruins are made 
known, such opinions may be expected to prevail concerning them. They 
spring from the assumed existence of a state of society far enough advanced 
to develop potentates and privileged classes, with power to enforce labor 
from the people for personal objects. ‘There is no evidence whatever in 
1 Incidents of Travel, Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, ii, 355. 
