CHACUJAL. 29 



bad been somehow informed of our arrival, I gave orders to my men to keep well 

 together, and marching through the place, arrived at a great square, where they had 

 their mosques and houses of worship ; and as we saw the mosques and the buildings 

 round them just in the manner and form of those of Culua, we were more overawed 

 and astonished than we had been hitherto, since nowhere since we left Aculan had we 



seen such signs of policy and power We passed that night on watch, and on the 



following morning sent out several parties of men to explore the village, which was 

 well designed, the houses well built and close to each other. We found in them 

 plenty of cotton, woven or raw, much linen of Indian manufacture and of the best 

 kind, great quantities of dried maize, cacao, beans, peppers and salt, many fowls, and 

 pheasants in cages, partridges, and dogs of the species they keep for eating, and which 

 are very tasteful to the palate, and in short every variety of food in such abundance, 

 that had our ship and boats been near at hand, we might easily have loaded enough of 

 it to last us for many a day ; but unfortunately we were twenty leagues off, had no 

 means of carrying provisions except on the backs of men, and we were all of us in such 

 a condition that, had we not refreshed ourselves a little at that place, and rested for 

 some days, I doubt much whether we should have been able to return to our boats." 



The Indians, however, did not return to their town, and Cortes was left in peace to 

 build rafts on which to convey the grain he had captured, and after an adventurous 

 passage down the Eio Polochic he rejoined the brigantine in the Golfo Dulce and 

 carried the much-needed supplies to his half-starved companions. 



In 1882, when camped at Quirigua, I sent one of my men up the Rio Polochic to 

 make enquiries for the ruins of Chacujal, pointing out to him the localities in which 

 the ruins were most likely to be found. On his return he told me that he could hear 

 nothing whatever of any place named Chacujal, but that there was a ruin known as 

 Pueblo Viejo on the Rio Tinaja, on the south side of the Polochic a few miles from 

 Panzos. This situation answers so exactly to the requirements of the description given 

 by Cortes that there can be little doubt that we had found the ruins of the town called 

 by him Chacujal. In 1884 I was able to make a hurried visit to the ruins myself, and 

 found a number of foundations surmounted by low walls and a buttressed temple 

 mound, somewhat similar to those in the neighbourhood of Rabinal akeady described. 

 I could find no trace of sculptured stones or inscriptions. As the whole site was 

 covered with a dense jungle it was not possible to make any plan of the ruins 

 during the few hours at my disposal ; however, I saw quite enough to convince me 

 that, although the plan of the town had been carefully laid out, the buildings were 

 of no great importance and in no way comparable to those at Copan or Palenque. 

 Yet this is the town which Cortes compares to Culiia in Mexico, and deems to 

 be of greater importance than any town he had seen since leaving Acala, a statement 

 which goes far to prove that Cortes and his followers had met with none of the great 

 centres of Maya art during their wonderful march. 



