ESQUIPULAS AND QUIEIGUA. 
217 
also built the champas that sheltered us. We spread 
our wet things over a fire, and went to the first monu¬ 
ment (A on the plan), which was close at hand. Mr. 
Catherwood’s sketches, published in Stephens’s most in¬ 
teresting Travels, led us 
to expect rough menhirs 
quite analogous to the 
Standing Stones of Sten- 
nis, or those better 
known of Stonehenge. 
Here, rising from a pool 
of water collected in the 
excavation Mr. Mauds- 
lay had made to exam¬ 
ine the foundation, was 
a monolith of light-col¬ 
ored, coarse-grained 
sandstone, well carved 
over its entire surface 
except top and bottom. 
On the front and back 
were full-length human 
figures, not deities, but 
attempted likenesses, 
joined with the tigre’s 
head to indicate chief¬ 
tainship, and a skull to represent death. Both sides 
were covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions quite dis¬ 
tinct, but not intelligible to any living being. (See 
Frontispiece.) What would I have given to be per¬ 
mitted to read the stone-cut story! No locked chamber 
ever inspired half the curiosity. When was this stone 
