ANTIQUITY OF PALENQUE. 357 



cle of this once great and lovely city, overturned, des- 

 olate, and lost ; discovered by accident, overgrown with 

 trees for miles around, and without even a name to dis- 

 tinguish it. Apart from everything else, it was a mourn- 

 ing witness to the world's mutations. 



" Nations melt 

 From Power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 

 The sunshine for a while, and downward go." 



As at Copan, I shall not at present offer any conjec- 

 ture in regard to the antiquity of these buildings, merely 

 remarking that at ten leagues' distance is a village cal- 

 led Las Tres Cruces or the Three Crosses, from three 

 crosses which, according to tradition, Cortez erected at 

 that place when on his conquering march from Mexico 

 to Honduras by the Lake of Peten. Cortez, then, must 

 have passed within twenty or thirty miles of the place 

 now called Palenque. If it had been a living city, its 

 fame must have reached his ears, and he would proba- 

 bly have turned aside from his road to subdue and plun- 

 der it. It seems, therefore, but reasonable to suppose 

 that it was at that time desolate and in ruins, and even 

 the memory of it lost. 



