ose of men and
animals, while others appear entirely arbitrary, or designed simply
for ornament. Enough can be clearly made out to show the affiliation
of the engravers with the ancient Mexican families of Nicaragua and
San Salvador. The space covered by these inscriptions is about one
hundred feet long, by twelve or fifteen in height. A quarter of a
mile to the southward are other smaller rocks with figures, too much
defaced, however, to be traced satisfactorily. Vases of curious
workmanship, human bones in considerable quantities, and other relics
and remains, it is said, may be discovered by digging in the earth
anywhere within the natural amphitheatre to which I have referred.
This is another circumstance going to favor the belief that this was
anciently a place of great sanctity; for it is a universal custom
among all nations to bury their dead in the neighborhood of shrines
and temples.

Although the immediate district in which these aboriginal traces are
found does not seem to have fallen within the region occupied by the
Nahuatt or Mexican tribes of Central America at the time of the
Conquest, but in what was called the country of the Chontals, yet it
is not difficult to suppose, that, in the various hostile encounters
which we know took place between the two nations, the Nahuatts may
have penetrated as far as Aramacina, and left here some record of
their visit,--if, indeed, they did not succeed in effecting a
temporary lodgment. At any rate, there can be but little doubt that a
portion of the engravings on the rocks above described, but
particularly those which seem to record dates, were made by them.

From Aramacina to Caridad, the next town on our course, and four
leagues distant, the road is laid out on Spanish principles, which
are the very reverse of scientific. Instead of keeping along the
river-valley, it passes directly over a high, rocky spur of the
lateral mountains, through a pass called _El Portillo_, (The Portal,)
elevated fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The view from its
summit, whence we were enabled to trace our course up to this point,
as if on a map, in some degree compensated us for the labor of the
ascent. From here we could also look ahead, beyond the town of
Caridad; and we saw, with some misgivings, that there the lateral
ranges of mountains seemed to send down their spurs boldly to the
river, leaving only what the Spaniards call a _canon_ or narrow
gorge, walled in with precipitou