other parts of the country, it might have seemed doubtful whether it
had ever been formed according to any plan or rules of art. The mass of
stone was so solid that no vegetation could take root upon it; its
sides were bare and bleached, and the pieces, on being disturbed, slid
down with a metallic sound like the ringing of iron. In climbing up I
received a blow from a sliding stone, which nearly carried me back to
the bottom, for the moment completely disabled me, and from which I did
not entirely recover until some time afterward.

From the top of this mound I saw two others of nearly the same height,
and, taking their direction with the compass, I descended and directed
my steps toward them. The whole ground was covered with trees and a
thick undergrowth of brush and thorn-bushes. My Indian had gone to lead
the horses round to another road. I had no machete, and though the
mounds were not far distant, I was excessively scratched and torn in
getting to them. They were all ruined, so that they barely preserved
their form. Passing between these, I saw beyond three others, forming
three angles of a patio or square; and in this patio, rising above the
thorn-bushes and briers, were huge stones, which, on being first
discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, actually startled me. At a
distance they reminded me of the monuments of Copan, but they were even
more extraordinary and incomprehensible. They were uncouth in shape,
and rough as they came from the quarry. Four of them were flat; the
largest was fourteen feet high, and measured toward the top four feet
in width, and one and a half in thickness. The top was broader than the
bottom, and it stood in a leaning posture, as if its foundation had
been loosened. The others were still more irregular in shape, and it
seemed as if the people who erected them had just looked out for the
largest stones they could lay their hands on tall or short, thick or
thin, square or round, without regard to anything except bulk. They had
no beauty or fitness of design or proportion, and there were no
characters upon them. But in that desolation and solitude they were
strange and striking, and, like unlettered headstones in a churchyard,
seemed to mark the graves of unknown dead.

On one of the mounds, looking down upon this patio, was a long
building, with its front wall fallen, and leaving the whole interior
exposed to view. I climbed up to it, but saw only the remains of the
same narrow cor