50 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



Nohcacab, who, however, had never seen them him- 

 self. Since our arrival in the country we had not 

 met with anything that excited us more strongly, and 

 now we had mingled feelings of pain and pleasure; 

 of pain, that they had not been discovered before 

 the sentence of irretrievable ruin had gone forth 

 against them ; at the same time it was matter of 

 deep congratulation that, before the doom was ac- 

 compHshed, we were permitted to see these decay- 

 ing, but still proud memorials of a mysterious peo- 

 ple. In a few years, even these will be gone ; and 

 as it has been denied that such things ever were, 

 doubts may again arise whether they have indeed 

 existed. So strong was this impression that we de- 

 termined to fortify in every possible way our proofs. 

 If anything could have added to the interest of dis- 

 covering such a new field of research, it was the 

 satisfaction of having at our command such an ef- 

 fective force of Indians. No time was lost, and 

 they began work with a spirit corresponding to their 

 numbers. Many of them had hachas, or small 

 axes, and the crash of falling trees was like the stir- 

 ring noise of felling in one of our own forests. 



The plate opposite represents a pyramidal mound, 

 holding aloft the most curious and extraordinary 

 structure we had seen in the country. It put us on 

 the alert the moment we saw it. We passed an en- 

 tire day before it, and, in looking back upon our 

 journey among ruined cities, no subject of greater 

 interest presents itself to my mind. The mound is 



