AN OPERATION IN PROSPECT. 115 



was better than a canopied bed, that we were welcome 

 guests. In fact, all were pleased. His wife expected 

 us to drive away her fever and ague ; Bartalo made 

 .sure that we would reduce the protuberance of his 

 stomach ; and Don Miguel liked our society. In these 

 happy circumstances, the raging of the elements with- 

 out did not disturb us. 



All day I had been brooding over the title-deeds of 

 Don Jose Maria, and, drawing my blanket around me, 

 suggested to Mr. Catherwood " an operation." (Hide 

 your heads, ye speculators in up-town lots !) To buy 

 Copan ! remove the monuments of a by-gone people 

 from the desolate region in which they were buried, 

 set them up in the great commercial emporium," 

 and found an institution to be the nucleus of a great 

 national museum of American antiquities ! But quere, 

 Could the idols" be removed ? They were on the 

 banks of a river that emptied into the same ocean by 

 which the docks of New- York are washed, but there 

 were rapids below ; and, in answer to my inquiry, Don 

 Miguel said these were impassable. Nevertheless, I 

 should have been unworthy of having passed through 

 the times " that tried men's souls" if I had not had an 

 alternative ; and this was to exhibit by sample : to cut 

 one up and remove it in pieces, and make casts of the 

 others. The casts of the Parthenon are regarded as 

 precious memorials in the British Museum, and casts of 

 Copan would be the same in New- York. Other ruins 

 might be discovered even more interesting and more 

 accessible. Very soon their existence would become 

 known and their value appreciated, and the friends of 

 science and the arts in Europe would get possession of 

 them. They belonged of right to us, and, though we 

 did not know how soon we might be kicked out our- 



