other side of the great
traversing range of Cordilleras lies the district of Vera Paz,
once called Tierra de Guerra, or land of war, from the warlike
character of its aboriginal inhabitants. Three times the
Spaniards were driven back in their attempt to conquer it.[A-133]

The rest of the Tierra de Guerra never was conquered; and at this
day the northeastern section bounded by the range of the
Cordilleras and the State of Chiapa is occupied by Cadones, or
unbaptized Indians, who live as their fathers did, acknowledging
no submission to the Spaniards, and the government of Central
America does not pretend to exercise any control over them. But
the thing that roused us was the assertion by the Padre that four
days on the road to Mexico, on the other side of the Great
Sierra, was a LIVING CITY, large and populous, occupied by
Indians, precisely in the same state as before the discovery of
America. He had heard of it many years before, at the village of
Chajal, and was told by the villagers that from the topmost
ridge of the Sierra this city was distinctly visible. He was then
young, and with much labor climbed to the naked summit of the
Sierra, from which, at a height of ten or twelve thousand feet,
he looked over an immense plain extending to Yucatan and the Gulf
of Mexico, and saw at a great distance a large city, spread over
a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun.
The traditionary account of the Indians of Chajal is, that no
white man has ever reached the city; that the inhabitants speak
the Maya language; are aware that a race of strangers has
conquered the whole country around, and murder any white man who
attempts to enter their territory. They have no coin or other
circulating medium; no horses, cattle, mules, or other domestic
animals, except fowls, and the cocks they keep under ground to
prevent their crowing being heard.[B-134]

[Footnote A-133: Page 193, Vol. 2.]

[Footnote B-134: Ibid. Page 195.]

Mr. Stephens then adds:

One look at that city is worth ten years of an every-day life. If
he is right, a place is left where Indians and an Indian city
exist as Cortez and Alvarado found them. There are living men who
can solve the mystery that hangs over the ruined cities of
America; perhaps, who can go to Copan and Palenque and read the
inscriptions on their monuments.