THE BUILDERS OF THESE CITIES. 455 



but it must be borne in mind that in the former the char- 

 acters are carved on stone, and in the latter written on 

 paper (made of the Agave Mexicana). Probably, for 

 this reason, they want the same regularity and finish ; 

 but, altogether, the reader cannot fail to mark the 

 strong similarity, and this similarity cannot be acci- 

 dental. The inference is, that the Aztecs or Mexicans, 

 at the time of the conquest, had the same written lan- 

 guage with the people of Copan and Palenque. i * 

 I have thus very briefly, and without attempting to 

 controvert the opinions and speculations of others, pre- 

 sented our own views upon the subject of these ruins. 

 As yet we perhaps stand alone in these views, but I 

 repeat my opinion that we are not warranted in going 

 back to any ancient nation of the Old World for the 

 builders of these cities ; that they are not the work of 

 people who have passed away and whose history is lost, 

 but that there are strong reasons to believe them the 

 creations of the same races who inhabited the country at 

 the time of the Spanish conquest, or some not very dis- 

 tant progenitors. And I would remark that we began 

 our exploration without any theory to support. Our 

 feelings were in favour of going back to a high and 

 venerable antiquity. During the greater part of our 

 journey we were groping in the dark, in doubt and un- 

 certainty, and it was not until our arrival at the ruins of 

 Uxmal that we formed our opinion of their compara- 

 tively modern date. Some are beyond doubt older than 

 others ; some are known to have been inhabited at the 

 time of the Spanish conquest, and others, perhaps, were 

 really in ruins before ; and there are points of difference 

 which as yet cannot very readily be explained ; but in re- 

 gard to Uxmal, at least, we believe that it was an ex- 

 isting and inhabited city at the time of the arrival of the 



