REMARKABLE STONES. 201 



though the mounds were not far distant, I was ex- 

 cessively scratched and torn in getting to them. 

 Thej were all ruined, so that they barely preserved 

 their form. Passing between these, I saw beyond 

 three others, forming three angles of a patio or square; 

 and in this patio, rising above the thorn-bushes and 

 briers, were huge stones, which, on being first dis- 

 covered, suddenly and unexpectedly, actually start- 

 led me. At a distance they reminded me of the 

 monuments of Copan, but they were even more ex- 

 traordinary and incomprehensible. They were un- 

 couth in shape, and rough as they came from the 

 quarry. Four of them were flat ; the largest was 

 fourteen feet high, and measured toward the top four 

 feet in width, and one and a half in thickness. The 

 top was broader than the bottom, and it stood in a 

 leaning posture, as if its foundation had been loosen- 

 ed. The others were stiU more irregular in shape, 

 and it seemed as if the people who erected them had 

 just looked out for the largest stones they could lay 

 their hands on, tall or short, thick or thin, square or 

 round, without regard to anything except bulk. 

 They had no beauty or fitness of design or propor- 

 tion, and there were no characters upon them. But 

 in that desolation and solitude they were strange and 

 striking, and, like unlettered headstones in a church- 

 yard, seemed to mark the graves of unknown dead. 



On one of the mounds, looking down upon this 

 patio, was a long building, with its front wall fallen, 

 and leaving the whole interior exposed to view. I 



Vol. L— C c 



