RUIN'S OP MEKCHifi. 43 



no easy matter, as we had not come provided with tools for such work ; but shift was 

 made with the end of a broken pickaxe and some carpenter's chisels. By keeping 

 mozos at work at it three at a time in continued rotation, by the end of a week 

 the weight of the stone had been reduced by half, and we were able to move it 

 to the river-bank and pack it in the bottom of our largest canoe. On the 

 26th of March we struck our camp, and all started up the river together, and 

 on the following day, at the Paso de Yalchilan, I lost the pleasant companionship of 

 M. Charnay, who had rejoined his men and returned direct to Tenosique. It was very 

 hard hauling the canoe, heavily ladened with the stone lintel, against the swift current 

 of the river, and we were four days getting as far as the mouth of the Rio Lacandon. 

 On the 30th March we reached the first inhabited rancho at Santa Rosa, and the next 

 day I met Mr. Schulte at the mouth of the Rio Salinas and accepted a passage in his 

 canoe to the Paso Real, leaving the mozos and my heavily-laden canoes to follow more 

 slowly. On the way up-stream, we landed on the left bank of the river not far from 

 the mouth of the Rio Salinas, and passed a few hours in examining the ruins of a town 

 of considerahle extent. I could find no stone houses standing, but there were several 

 fragments of sculptured stones bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions lying amongst the 

 numerous foundation-mounds, and the whole site would probably repay careful 

 exploration. 



From the Paso Real the stone lintel was carried by Indians to Sacluc, where I 

 purchased a saw from one of the wood-cutters, and was again able slightly to reduce 

 the weight of the stone. From Sacluc it was hauled across the Savannah to the 

 neighbourhood of Flores on a solid-wheeled ox-cart, the solitary wheeled vehicle then 

 existing in the province of Peten ; then it was again slung on a strong pole and carried 

 by 16 Indian mozos through the forest to the British frontier village of El Cayo, where 

 it was again packed in the bottom of a canoe and sent down the river to Belize. It 

 now rests at Bloomsbury in the British Museum. 



At the time of my visit Menche was supposed to lie within the Guatemalan frontier, 

 and a few years later leave was obtained for me from the Government of that Republic 

 to remove some other carved lintels from the ruins. Gorgonio Lopez and his brothers 

 were sent down the river for this purpose, and after making careful moulds of all the 

 carved lintels still in position in the houses, they removed some others from those 

 houses which had fallen into ruins ; these they packed in the canoes and hauled up the 

 Usumacinta to the mouth of the Rio Salinas. That stream was then ascended to a 

 point above the Nueve Cerros, where canoe-navigation ends, and the stones were 

 then carried overland to Coban, were they were carefully packed and sent in carts to 

 the port of Panzos, on the Rio Polochic, for shipment to England. 



I presented these sculptures also to the National Collection, and they are now to be 

 seen at the British Museum. 



