scattered over the
surface. A few miles away there is another group of circular mounds.

Across the river in Vera Cruz, from very slight mention, we gather that,
substantially, the same kind of ruins occur. At Chacuaco the ruins are
said to cover three square leagues--but we have no further account of
them than that. Small relics of aboriginal art are said to be common,
and mention is made of mounds. The antiquities of Vera Cruz are a topic
about which it is very difficult to form correct ideas. It will be
noticed that it presents a long stretch of country to the Gulf. The land
near the coast is low, and very unhealthy. About thirty miles from the
coast we strike the slope of the mountains bounding the great interior
plateau. This section is fertile and healthy, and was, evidently,
thickly settled in early times. We must remember that it is always in
a mountainous section of country that a people make their last stand
against an invading foe. It was in these mountain chains where the Maya
tribes made their last stand against the invading Nahua tribes, and even
this line was pierced through by the Tonacas.

It is not strange, then, to find abundant evidence of former occupation
in all this section of country. One thing in its favor was the number
of easily defended positions. The country is cut up by deep ravines.
The early inhabitants used all the land that was at all available for
agricultural purposes. On steep slopes they ran terraces to prevent the
soil from washing. In the smaller ravines they located great numbers
of water-tanks, from which, in the dry season, they procured water to
irrigate their land. Of this section, we are told, "there is hardly a
foot of ground in the whole State of Vera Cruz in which, by excavation,
either a broken obsidian knife, or a broken piece of pottery, is not
found. The whole country is intersected with parallel lines of stones,
which were intended, during the heavy showers of the rainy season, to
keep the earth from washing away. The number of these lines of stones
shows clearly that even the poorest land, which nobody in our day would
cultivate, was put under requisition by them."<48>

Illustration of Papantla.----------------

They no less conclusively show that a considerable body of people had
here been pressed by foreign invasion into a small, contracted space. It
is useless to attempt a more particular description of these ruins.
In the absence of cuts, the description