296 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



principal building was completely concealed from their 

 view. 



He returned to the village, and after concerting 

 measures with the deputy of the district, an order was 

 issued to the inhabitants of Tumbala, requiring two 

 hundred Indians with axes and billhooks. On the 

 17th seventy-nine arrived, furnished with twenty-eight 

 axes, after which twenty more were obtained in the vil* 

 lage ; and with these he again moved forward, and im- 

 mediately commenced felling trees, which was followed 

 by a general conflagration. 



The report of Captain Del Rio, with the commentary 

 of Doctor Paul Felix Cabrera of New Guatimala, de- 

 ducing an Egyptian origin for the people, through ei- 

 ther the supineness or the jealousy of the Spanish gov- 

 ernment was locked up in the archives of Guatimala 

 until the time of the Revolution, when, by the operation 

 of liberal principles, the original manuscripts came into 

 the hands of an English gentleman long resident in that 

 country, and an English translation was published at 

 London in 1822. This was the first notice in Europe 

 of the discovery of these ruins ; and, instead of electri- 

 fying the public mind, either from want of interest in 

 the subject, distrust, or some other cause, so little notice 

 was taken of it, that in 1831 the Literary Gazette, a 

 paper of great circulation in London, announced it as 

 a new discovery made by Colonel Galindo, whose un- 

 fortunate fate has been before referred to. If a like 

 discovery had been made in Italy, Greece, Egypt, or 

 Asia, within the reach of European travel, it would 

 have created an interest not inferior to the discovery of 

 Herculaneum, or Pompeii, or the ruins of Psestum. 



While the report and drawings of Del Rio slept 

 in the archives of Guatimala, Charles the Fourth of 



