38 FOUNDATION-MOUNDS BETWEEN THE 



strongholds as Utatlan and Iximche, or towns built on rocky islands in the lakes. 

 Such was the stronghold in the lake of the Lacandones and the island town of 

 Puchutla, described in the pages of Remesal, which was conquered in the year 1559. 

 Such, too, was the island of Tayasal in the Lake of Peten, the headquarters of the 

 Itzas, captured in 1697, and with these may be classed the ruins on the hill-top at 

 Uspantan and the curious groups of temples and houses which crown the ridges of the 

 hills round the valley of Rabinal. None of them appear to have possessed walls and 

 bastions such as we are accustomed to associate with fortresses ; but all were placed 

 in naturally strong positions, and were easily defensible, and their existence tends to 

 the conclusion that the condition of society was one of continual intertribal warfare. 



None of the sites of these strongholds have yielded any examples of the carved 

 hieroglyphic inscriptions, highly ornamented stone buildings, or elaborately-sculptured 

 monolithic monuments which are to be found at Copan, Quirigua, or Palenque ; and 

 it cannot be too strongly insisted on that between the civilization revealed to us by 

 those great ruins and the culture of the Indian tribes conquered by the Spaniards there 

 is a great gap which at present we have no means of bridging. 



FOUNDATION=MOUNDS BETWEEN 

 THE CITY OF GUATEMALA AND rvEXXCO. 



(Plates LXXIV. & LXXV.) 



On the plain to the west of the city of Guatemala, between the city and the village of 

 Mixco, are the remains of an ancient Indian town extending over more than a square 

 mile. The plain is now under cultivation and has probably been so for a great number 

 of years, and the plough has rounded off the edges of the higher foundation-mounds, 

 and some of the lower mounds have been almost entirely worn away. The plan 

 (Plate LXXIV.) gives only the principal groups of mounds, and those to the south- 

 west are not very accurately plotted. 



The surface of the ground is strewn with potsherds, some pieces showing traces 

 of colour, and with chips and flakes of obsidian. I found one stone axe, and one 

 fragment of a pottery head very well moulded. 



There are also to be found lying in front of Sefior Arevalo's house some fragments 



