374 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



is ten feet, the arch is triangular, and on the walls 

 are the remains of paintings. 



These were the only buildings in the clearing, 

 and though, doubtless, many more lie buried in the 

 woods, we saw no other on the island ; but to us 

 these were pregnant with instruction. The building 

 presented in the engraving, standing close to the sea, 

 answers, in all its general features, the description of 

 the " towers" seen by Grijalva and his companions 

 as they sailed along the coast. The ascent is by 

 steps, the base is very massive, the building is small 

 at the top, it is about the height of two men placed 

 one above the other, and at this day we may say, as 

 the Spaniards did, that, to judge by their edifices, 

 these Indians appear to be very ingenious. It is an 

 interesting fact, moreover, that not only our patron 

 and sailors called this building a " tower," but in a 

 late article published in the proceedings of the Roy^rl 

 Geographical Society at London, entitled " Sketch 

 of the Eastern Coast of Central America, compiled 

 from Notes of Captain Richard Owen and the Offi- 

 cers of her Majesty's Ship Thunder and Schooner 

 Lark," this building, with others of the same general 

 character, is indicated by the name of a " tower." 

 So far as the route of Grijalva can be traced with 

 certainty, there is strong reason to believe that the 

 Spaniards landed for the first time in the bay on the 

 shore of which this building stands, and there is no 

 violence in the supposition that the building present- 

 ed is the very tower in which the Spaniards saw the 



