104 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



sculptured figures and rows of death's heads. Climbing 

 over the ruined top, we reached a terrace overgrown 

 with trees, and, crossing it, descended by stone steps 

 into an area so covered with trees that at first we could 

 not make out its form, but which, on clearing the way 

 with the machete, we ascertained to be a square, and 

 with steps on all the sides almost as perfect as those of 

 the Roman amphitheatre. The steps were ornamented 

 with sculpture, and on the south side, about half way 

 up, forced out of its place by roots, was a colossal 

 head, evidently a portrait. We ascended these steps, 

 and reached a broad terrace a hundred feet high, over- 

 looking the river, and supported by the wall which we 

 had seen from the opposite bank. The whole terrace 

 was covered with trees, and even at this height from 

 the ground were two gigantic Ceibas, or wild cotton- 

 trees of India, above twenty feet in circumference, ex- 

 tending their half-naked roots fifty or a hundred feet 

 around, binding down the ruins, and shading them with 

 their wide-spreading branches. We sat down on the 

 very edge of the wall, and strove in vain to penetrate 

 the mystery by which we were surrounded. Who 

 were the people that built this city ? In the ruin- 

 ed cities of Egypt, even in the long-lost Petra, the 

 stranger knows the story of the people whose vesti- 

 ges are around him. America, say historians, was 

 peopled by savages ; but savages never reared these 

 structures, savages never carved these stones. We 

 asked the Indians who made them, and their dull an- 

 swer was " Quien sabe ?" " who knows 



There were no associations connected with the 

 place ; none of those stirring recollections which hal- 

 low Rome, Athens, and 



" The world's great mistress on the Egyptian plain 



