APPENDIX XI. 
A DESCRIPTION OF THE RUINS OF COPAN, BY JUAN GALINDO, IN 1834.1 
REPORT OF THE SCIENTIFIC Commission APPOINTED TO MAKE A SURVEY OF THE 
ANTIQUITIES OF CoPAN IN CoMPLIANCE WITH A Decree Datep JANUARY IS, 
1834, Issu—eD By Dr. Mariano GALvez, CoMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE 
STATE OF GUATEMALA. 
Copan, June 19, 1834. 
Citizen Secretary of the General Office of the 
Supreme Government of the State of Guatemala: 
I have the honor to submit to you the following statement of the investiga- 
tions which I have been able to carry out among the ruins of this old city and the 
neighboring country, in compliance with the mission by which I was honored by 
that Supreme Government on the 16th of January ultimo. 
It is impossible for us to fix in an accurate manner the beginning of the exis- 
tence of the planet which we inhabit; nevertheless, we can clearly see that since 
that epoch it has undergone great changes. Water used to cover what is now dry 
land, whole races of gigantic creatures have disappeared, and tropical animals 
inhabited the boreal regions. 
Of all the living species of the globe, that to which we belong is the one which 
particularly attracts our attention. Man appears in six different races, namely, 
the American Indian, the Esquimaux, the Tartar, the Malay, the African, and the 
Caucasian, and among all these the oldest 1s undoubtedly the Indian. The mis- 
taken and foolish pride of the descendants of the Caucasian makes them claim 

1The manner in which the original manuscript of the Galindo report on the ruins of Copan fell into the writer’s 
hands after the first chapter of this book was already in galley proof is so unusual as to warrant a brief account of 
this timely discovery by way of a preface to the report itself, a translation of which into English is given here. 
Colonel Juan Galindo was an officer in the service of the government of Central America, and previous to 
his visit to Copan in 1834 had been commandant at Flores, in the Department of Peten, where he had also under- 
taken other archzological investigations. (See page 18.) 
In April 1834, he was sent to Copan by the government of Central America to make an official report on the 
ruins, and while there he wrote several letters to scientific societies and periodicals both in Europe and America, 
notably to The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts and Sciences (see Galindo, 1835); The 
American Antiquarian Society (see Galindo, 18354); and The Société de Géographie de Paris (see Galindo, 1836 and 
18362). 
All three of these letters were written under the same date, June 19, 1834 (the same date as that of his report, 
see above), and in the one to the American Antiquarian Society he states that he was engaged in the preparation 
of a report which “the Government of Central America intends publishing” (Galindo, 18354, p. 545). 
This report, however, never seems to have been published, and its existence was only known through the above 
letters. Indeed, after a protracted search for it in the government archives in Guatemala City, during which the 
writer enlisted the aid of his friend, the Licenciado Don Adrian Recinos, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in the 
government of Guatemala, he reluctantly reached the conclusion that it had been destroyed in one of the many 
revolutions which had swept over Guatemala since Galindo’s time, and in Chapter I of the original manuscript of 
this volume had so stated. 
Last summer (August 1919), during the course of a visit to Baltimore, where Mr. William Gates, of Point 
Loma, California, then had his large collection of Maya manuscripts housed, the latter placed in the writer’s hands 
a folio manuscript of 46 pages in Spanish, which he said he had received from abroad several years ago. 
This manuscript proved to be none other than the long-lost original of the Galindo report on his mission to 
Copan, written in Galindo’s own handwriting at Copan on June 19, 1834. It was directed to Dr. Mariano Galvez, 
then Commander-in-Chief of the State of Guatemala, and the 25 figures, which had formerly accompanied it— 
maps, drawings of the monuments, etc., direct reference to which is frequently made in the text of the report—had 
been removed before it came into the possession of Mr. Gates. 
Where this report had lain hidden all those 80 years, and how it came into the hands of the collector from 
whom it was purchased by Mr. Gates, it has been impossible tc ascertain, but the writer regards it as a peculiarly 
happy coincidence that it was “rediscovered” in the Gates collection during the past summer, and that the owner 
has graciously consented to its publication here for the first time. 
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