294 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



foot, crossed the River Chacamal, and after an absence 

 of nearly a year returned safe, but naked and emacia- 

 ted, with his hair and nails long, having been eight days 

 with a single Carib on the banks of a wild river, search- 

 ing for a crossing-place, and living upon roots and herbs. 

 He built a hut on the borders of the Chacamal River, 

 and lived there with a Carib servant, preparing for an- 

 other and more protracted journey among them, until 

 at length some boatmen who came to trade with him 

 found him lying in his hammock dead, with his scull 

 split open. He had escaped the dangers of a journey 

 which no man in that country dared encounter, to die by 

 the hands of an assassin in a moment of fancied securi- 

 ty. His arm was hanging outside, and a book lying on 

 the ground ; probably he was struck while reading. 

 The murderers, one of whom was his servant, were 

 caught, and were then in prison in Tobasco. Unfortu- 

 nately, the people of Palenque had taken but little in- 

 terest in anything except the extraordinary fact of his 

 visit among the Caribs and his return safe. All his 

 papers and collection of curiosities were scattered and 

 destroyed, and with him died all the fruits of his la- 

 bours ; but, were he still living, he would be the man, 

 of all others, to accomplish the discovery of that myste- 

 rious city which had so much affected our imaginations. 



As the ruins of Palenque are the first which awakened 

 attention to the existence of ancient and unknown cities 

 in America, and as, on that account, they are perhaps 

 more interesting to the public, it may not be amiss to 

 state the circumstances of their first discovery. 



The account is, that in the year 1750, a party of 

 Spaniards travelling in the interior of Mexico pene- 

 trated to the lands north of the district of Carmen, in 

 the province of Chiapas, when all at once they found 



