COPAN. 



15 



The distance between Copan and Quirigua cannot be much more than twenty-five 

 miles. There is, however, at the present time no road over the rugged and thickly- 

 wooded hills lying between them, and the shortest practicable track takes a considerable 

 bend westward and strikes the Motagua a little below Gualan. 



The valley formed by the Copan river is about a mile and a half in width where the 

 principal ruins are found. The stream enters this valley from the north-east, flowing 

 between hills which open out gradually, and after running about a mile in a south- 

 westerly direction, near to the southern line of hills, it turns for a short distance to the 

 west and touches the principal group of ruins, then bends sharply to the south, and, 

 after flowing for about half a mile in that direction, turns again to the west and flows 

 on along the south side of the plain. 



The tops of the hills on each side of the valley are thinly covered with pine-trees, 

 but the lower slopes are clothed with an almost impenetrable thicket of low trees and 

 shrubs. 



Sketch Map 

 OF THE SITE OF Scale of Miles. 



Rums at Copan. 



The modern village stands on part of the site of the ancient pueblo, about three- 

 quarters of a mile to the west of the principal group of ruined edifices, and is merely a 

 collection of a dozen miserable shanties inhabited by half-castes. The clearings con- 

 tinually made by these people for their tobacco and maize plantations have kept much 

 of the plain free from large timber-trees, and for a distance of about three miles along 

 the valley (wherever the more recent clearings enable one to examine the ground) raised 



