154 



INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL. 



had been rejected by the workmen after they were 

 quarried out. The back of this monument had con- 

 tained two. Between the second and third tablets the 

 flint has been picked out, and the sculpture is blurred ; 

 the other, in the last row but one from the bottom, re- 

 mains untouched. An inference from this is, that the 

 sculptor had no instruments with which he could cut 

 so hard a stone, and, consequently, that iron was un- 

 known. "We had, of course, directed our searches and 

 inquiries particularly to this point, but did not find any 

 pieces of iron or other metal, nor could we hear of any 

 having ever been found there. Don Miguel had a col- 

 lection of chay or flint stones, cut in the shape of ar- 

 row-heads, which he thought, and Don Miguel was no 

 fool, were the instruments employed. They were suf- 

 ficiently hard to scratch into the stone. Perhaps by 

 men accustomed to the use of them, the whole of these 

 deep relief ornaments might have been scratched, but 

 the chay stones themselves looked as if they had been 

 cut by metal. 



The engraving opposite represents the altar as it 

 stands before the last monument. It is seven feet 

 square and four feet high, richly sculptured on all its 

 sides. The front represents a death's head. The top 

 is sculptured, and contains grooves, perhaps for the 

 passage of the blood of victims, animal or human, ofier- 

 ed in sacrifice. The trees in the engraving give an 

 idea of the forest in which these monuments are buried. 



