80 
name of Cerro del Venado (deer hill) is likewise attributed to 
an effigy of this animal being hewn out of one of the rocks. 
3. The old men who accompanied Sr. Moro in one of his 
expeditions to the upper Ostuta, pointed out the situation of a 
valley about nine miles east of the Cerro del Venado, where 
they found the remains of a large town with buildings of stone. 
None of these spots were visited by the Commission. 
4. Any object which has been shaped by nature into a fan- 
tastic form is considered as enchanted by the inhabitants of the 
Isthmus. Thus they designate with this epithet the caves of 
the cerro del Convento and of the upper Chicapa ; the Cerro 
Atravesado ; the problematical lake of Ostuta ; and above all, 
the island of Monapostiac, more generally known as the jEn- 
chanted Hill, 
In the manuscript just alluded to, it is mentioned that king 
Cosijopi at the beginning of his reign offered up a solemn sa- 
crifice to the greatest idol of the Zapotecos, called the Heart 
of the Kingdom, which was placed in this island. 
From the commencement of operations the highest point 
of the Monapostiac was fixed upon as the vertex of one of 
the first triangles of the trigonometrical net. The intelli- 
gence of the determination to proceed thither and fix upon it 
a signal, caused the greatest astonishment and terror among the 
natives. It was said a furious storm was sure to arise on nearing 
the island, and the loss of the party was considered ine^dtable. 
Nor is it surprising that these ignorant people should en- 
tertain superstitious ideas respecting this island, since the for- 
mation of it naturally excites considerable w^onder, even in the 
minds of the well-informed. From the summit, to the base 
which lies in the waters of the lake, it is composed of huge 
blocks of green sienitic stones, confusedly thrown one upon 
another, as if a heap of rubbish ; and when these stones are 
struck together they emit a sound not unlike that of a large 
bell. In Sr. Moro's account of the Survey, an hypothesis was 
ventured upon the singular structure of this island, supposing 
that it came out in a state, if not of positive fusion, at least one 
of incandescence, and that it broke into pieces by the uneven 
contraction of the matter caused by the surface, from being ex- 
