FIRST ACCOUNTS OF THESE RUINS. 189 



country, and, like those, in position and general 

 effect reminding me of processions in Egyptian 

 tombs. The colour of the flesh was red, as was al- 

 ways the case with the Egyptians in representing 

 their own people. Unfortunately, they were too 

 much mutilated to be drawn, and seemed surviving 

 the general wreck only to show that these aboriginal 

 builders had possessed more skill in the least endu- 

 ring branch of the graphic art. 



The first accounts we heard of these ruins date 

 back to the time of my first visit to Nohpat. Among 

 the Indians there at work was one who, while we 

 were lunching, sitting apart under a tree, mentioned 

 these ruins in exaggerated terms, particularly a row 

 of painted soldiers, as he called them, which, from his 

 imperfect description, I supposed might bear some 

 resemblance to the stuccoed figures on the fronts of 

 the buildings at Palenque; but, on pushing my in- 

 quiries, he said these figures carried muskets, and 

 was so pertinacious on this point that I concluded 

 he was either talking entirely at random, or of the 

 remains of old Spanish structures. I noted the 

 place in my memorandum-book, and having had it 

 for a long time upon our minds, and received more 

 different accounts of it than of any other, none 

 proved more unlike what we expected to find. We 

 looked for few remains, but these distinguished for 

 their beauty and ornament, and high state of pres- 

 ervation, instead of which we found an immense 

 field, grand, imposing, and interesting from its vast- 



