REMARKABLE HIEROGLYPHICS. 343 



fered from exposure, and the hieroglyphics are perfect, 

 though the stone is cracked lengthwise through the mid- 

 dle, as indicated in the engraving. 



The impression made upon our minds by these speak- 

 ing but unintelligible tablets I shall not attempt to de- 

 scribe. From some unaccountable cause they have 

 never before been presented to the public. Captains 

 Del Rio and Dupaix both refer to them, but in very 

 few words, and neither of them has given a single draw- 

 ing. Acting under a royal commission, and selected, 

 doubtless, as fit men for the duties intrusted to them, 

 they cannot have been ignorant or insensible of their 

 value. It is my belief they did not give them because 

 in both cases the artists attached to their expedition 

 were incapable of the labour, and the steady, deter- 

 mined perseverance required for drawing such compli- 

 cated, unintelligible, and anomalous characters. As at 

 Copan, Mr. Catherwood divided his paper into squares : 

 the original drawings were reduced, and the engravings 

 corrected by himself, and I believe they are as true 

 copies as the pencil can make : the real written records 

 of a lost people. The Indians call this building an es- 

 cuela or school, but our friends the padres called it a 

 tribunal of justice, and these stones, they said, contain- 

 ed the tables of the law. 



There is one important fact to be noticed. The hie- 

 roglyphics are the same as were found at Copan and Qui- 

 rigua. The intermediate country is now occupied by 

 races of Indians speaking many different languages, and 

 entirely unintelligible to each other ; but there is room 

 for the belief that the whole of this country was once 

 occupied by the same race, speaking the same lan- 

 guage, or, at least, having the same written characters. 



There is no staircase or other visible communication 



