132 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



were published in the proceedings of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society of Paris, and in the Literary Gazette 

 of London. He is the only man in that country who 

 has given any attention at all to the subject of antiqui- 

 ties, or who has ever presented Copan to the consider- 

 ation of Europe and our own country. Not being 

 an artist, his account is necessarily unsatisfactory and 

 imperfect, but it is not exaggerated. Indeed, it falls 

 short of the marvellous account given by Fuentes one 

 hundred and thirty-five years before, and makes no 

 mention of the moveable stone hammock, with the sit- 

 ting figures, which were our great inducement to visit 

 the ruins. No plans or drawings have ever been pub- 

 lished, nor anything that can give even an idea of that 

 valley of romance and wonder, where, as has been re- 

 marked, the genii who attended on King Solomon seem 

 to have been the artists. 



It lies in the district of country now known as the 

 State of Honduras, one of the most fertile valleys in 

 Central America, and to this day famed for the supe- 

 riority of its tobacco. Mr. Catherwood made several 

 attempts to determine the longitude, but the artificial 

 horizon which we took with us expressly for such pur- 

 poses had become bent, and, like the barometer, was 

 useless. The ruins are on the left bank of the Copan 

 River, which empties into the Motagua, and so passes 

 into the Bay of Honduras near Omoa, distant perhaps 

 three hundred miles from the sea. The Copan River 

 is not navigable, even for canoes, except for a short 

 time in the rainy season. Falls interrupt its course be- 

 fore it empties into the Motagua. Cortez, in his terri- 

 ble journey from Mexico to Honduras, of the hardships 

 of which, even now, when the country is comparatively 

 open, and free from masses of enemies, it is difficult to 



