FACILITIES FOR VISITING PALENQUE. 299 



there ; but what could a single man do with domestics 

 or other auxiliaries, without moral force or intelligence, 

 against a people still half savage, against serpents and 

 other hurtful animals, which, according to Dupaix, in- 

 fest these ruins, and also against the vegetative force of a 

 nature fertile and powerful, which in a few years re-cov- 

 ers all the monuments and obstructs all the avenues ?" 



The effect of this is to crush all individual enterprise, 

 and, moreover, it is untrue. All the accounts, founded 

 upon this, represent a visit to these ruins as attended 

 with immense difficulty and danger, to such an extent 

 that we feared to encounter them ; but there is no dif- 

 ficulty whatever in going from Europe or the United 

 States to Palenque. Our greatest hardships, even in 

 our long journey through the interior, were from the 

 revolutionary state of the countries and want of time ; 

 and as to a residence there, with time to construct a 

 hut or to fit up an apartment in the palace, and to pro- 

 cure stores from the seaboard, " those dangerous soli- 

 tudes" might be anything rather than unpleasant. 



And to show what individuals can accomplish, I state 

 that Mr. Cather wood's drawings include all the objects 

 represented in the work of Dupaix, and others besides 

 which do not appear in that work at all, and have never 

 before been presented to the public ; among which are 

 the frontispiece of this volume and the large tablets of 

 hieroglyphics, the most curious and interesting pieces of 

 sculpture at Palenque. I add, with the full knowledge 

 that I will be contradicted by future travellers if I am 

 wrong, that the whole of Mr. C.'s are more correct in 

 proportions, outline, and filling up than his, and furnish 

 more true material for speculation and study. I would 

 not have said thus much but from a wish to give confi- 

 ence to the reader who may be disposed to investigate 



