VAIN SPECULATIONS. 



105 



but architecture, sculpture, and painting, all the arts 

 which embellish life, had flourished in this overgrown 

 forest ; orators, warriors, and statesmen, beauty, ambi- 

 tion, and glory, had lived and passed away, and none 

 knew that such things had been, or could tell of their 

 past existence. Books, the records of knowledge, are 

 silent on this theme. The city was desolate. No rem- 

 nant of this race hangs round the ruins, with traditions 

 handed down from father to son, and from generation 

 to generation. It lay before us like a shattered bark in 

 the midst of the ocean, her masts gone, her name ef- 

 faced, her crew perished, and none to tell whence she 

 came, to whom she belonged, how long on her voyage, 

 or what caused her destruction ; her lost people to be 

 traced only by some fancied resemblance in the con- 

 struction of the vessel, and, perhaps, never to be known 

 at all. The place where we sat, was it a citadel from 

 which an unknown people had sounded the trumpet of 

 war ? or a temple for the worship of the God of peace ? 

 or did the inhabitants worship the idols made with 

 their own hands, and offer sacrifices on the stones be- 

 fore them ? All was mystery, dark, impenetrable mys- 

 tery, and every circumstance increased it. In Egypt 

 the colossal skeletons of gigantic temples stand in the 

 unwatered sands in all the nakedness of desolation ; 

 here an immense forest shrouded the ruins, hiding 

 them from sight, heightening the impression and moral 

 effect, and giving an intensity and almost wildness to 

 the interest. 



Late in the afternoon we worked our way back to the 

 mules, bathed in the clear river at the foot of the wall, 

 and returned to the hacienda. Our grateful muleteer- 

 boy had told of his dreadful illness, and the extraordi- 

 nary cure eff'ected by Mr. Catherwood ; and we found 



Vol. I.— O 



