lage did not
increase our interest. The cura himself had never visited these ruins;
they were all buried in forest; there was no rancho or other habitation
near; and as our time was necessarily to be much prolonged by the
change we were obliged to make, we concluded that it would not be
advisable to go and see them.

But the cura had much more interesting information. On his own hacienda
of Kantunile, sixteen leagues nearer the coast, were several mounds, in
one of which, while excavating for stone to be used in building, the
Indians had discovered a sepulchre containing three skeletons, which,
according to the cura, were those of a man, a woman, and a child, but
all, unfortunately, so much decayed that in attempting to remove them
they fell to pieces.

[Engraving: Contents of terra cotta vases]

At the head of the skeletons were two large vases of terra cotta, with
covers of the same material. In one of these was a large collection of
Indian ornaments, beads, stones, and two carved shells, which are
represented in the following engraving. The carving on the shells is in
bas-relief, and very perfect; the subject is the same in both, and the
reader will observe that, though differing in detail, it is of the same
type with the figure on the Ticul vase, and those sculptured on the
wall at Chichen. The other vase was filled nearly to the top with
arrow-heads, not of flint, but of obsidian; and as there are no
volcanoes in Yucatan from which obsidian can be procured, the discovery
of these proves intercourse with the volcanic regions of Mexico. But,
besides these, add more interesting and important than all, on the top
of these arrow-heads lay a _penknife with a horn handle_. All these the
cura had in his possession, carefully preserved in a bag, which he
emptied on a table for our examination; and, as may be supposed,
interesting as the other memorials were, the penknife attracted out
particular attention. The horn handle was much decayed, and the iron or
steel was worn and rusted. This penknife was never made in the country.
How came it in an Indian sepulchre? I answer, when the fabrics of
Europe and this country came together, the white man and the red had
met. The figures carved on the shells, those little perishable
memorials, accidentally disinterred, identify the crumbling bones in
that sepulchre with the builders of Chichen, of those mysterious cities
that now lie shrouded in the forest; and those bones were laid