222 
GUATEMALA. 
were altars, they must have been very inconvenient ones, 
as they are about five feet high, and very little of the 
upper surface is level. We did not visit the other por¬ 
tions of the cemetery as shown on the plan, because we 
did not at the time know of their existence, our guide 
being still under the malign influence of the bottle. 
We boiled our turtle’s eggs (these, by the way, no boil¬ 
ing ever hardens), drank coffee and limonade, and ate 
sardines among these Maya relics, and then departed, 
after an interesting visit of only three hours. The heat 
and the swarms of insects by day gave us no encourage¬ 
ment to pass the night there, though we could not leave 
without a hope that we might return, and perhaps dig 
about the stones. Although visitors do not often get to 
these monuments, some have left the proofs of their low 
sense of propriety in inscriptions scratched on the stone. 
Truly the Indios who wander through this cemetery 
and call the figures idolos are more civilized than those 
fellows who have desecrated the stones by their otherwise 
unimportant names. 
Our way out was a return for two miles, and then 
branched into another path, where the marks of the 
railway surveyors were plainly visible, and it seems that 
the Ferro-carril del Norte will come close to the Ruinas 
of Quirigua. As we left the lowlands we came upon 
ledges of sandstone perhaps a mile from the Ruinas, of 
the same kind used for the monoliths; but we could not 
find, perhaps owing to the dense vegetation, any signs of 
quarry work. In the path we saw fragments of pottery 
apparently ancient; and there are no modern habitations 
near at hand. As the path wound up the hill we crossed 
a sandstone ridge and had fine views over the valley of 
