474 



APPENDIX. 



eral Government* and draw to it Catlin's Indian Gallery, and every 

 other memorial of the aboriginal races, whose history within our 

 own borders has already become almost a romance and fable. 

 The author does not despair of this yet. The difficulty will per- 

 haps be increased (the author trusts he will not be considered 

 presumptuous) by the attention that will be directed to the re- 

 mains of Palenque and the other ruined cities by the publication 

 of these pages, and the consequently exaggerated notions that 

 the inhabitants will form of their value ; but then he is persua- 

 ded that the Government of Mexico will, on proper representa- 

 tions, order a restitution of the casts now detained at Palenque, 

 and that the republic, without impoverishing herself, will enrich 

 her neighbours of the North with the knowledge of the many 

 other curious remains scattered through her country. And he 

 entertains the belief also that England and France, whose for- 

 midable competition has already been set up, as it were in ter- 

 rorem, by one proprietor, having their capitals enriched by the 

 remains of art collected throughout the Old World, will respect 

 the rights of nations and discovery, and leave the field of American 

 antiquities to us ; that they will not deprive a destitute country 

 of its only chance of contributing to the cause of science, but ra- 

 ther encourage it in the work of bringing together, from remote 

 and almost inaccessible places, and retaining on its own soil, the 

 architectural remains of its aboriginal inhabitants. 



THE END. 



1 1 4* 



