160 



INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL. 



on its monuments. No Champollion has yet brought 

 to them the energies of his inquiring mind. Who shall 

 read them ? 



" Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, 

 O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 

 And say ' here was or is,' where all is doubly night f^* 



In conclusion, I will barely remark, that if this is the 

 place referred to by the Spanish historian as conquered 

 by Hernando de Chaves, which I almost doubt, at that 

 time its broken monuments, terraces, pyramidal struc- 

 tures, portals, walls, and sculptured figures were entire, 

 and all were painted ; the Spanish soldiers must have 

 gazed at them with astonishment and wonder ; and it 

 seems strange that a European army could have en- 

 tered it without spreading its fame through official re- 

 ports of generals and exaggerated stories of soldiers. 

 At least, no European army could enter such a city now 

 without this result following ; but the silence of the 

 Spaniards may be accounted for by the fact that these 

 conquerors of America were illiterate and ignorant ad- 

 venturers, eager in pursuit of gold, and blind to every- 

 thing else ; or, if reports were made, the Spanish gov- 

 ernment, with a jealous policy observed down to the 

 last moment of her dominion, suppressed everything 

 that might attract the attention of rival nations to her 

 American possessions. 



