ed some curious
expectations, for the Indians described it as _very new_. It lay on the
same path, to the left in returning to the rancho, and separated from
us by a great field of taje, through which we were obliged to cut a
path for several hundred yards to the foot of the terrace. The walls
were entire and very massive; but climbing up it, I found only a small
building, consisting of but two apartments, the front much fallen, and
the doors filled up, but no sign or token distinguishing it as _newer_
or more modern; and I now learned, what I might have done before by a
little asking, that all they meant by their description of it was, that
it was the newest known to them, having been discovered but twelve
years before, accidentally, on clearing the ground for a milpa, until
which time it was as much unknown to them as to the rest of the world.
This intelligence gave great weight to the consideration which had
often suggested itself before, that cities may exist equal to any now
known, buried in the woods, overgrown and lost, which will perhaps
never be discovered.

On the walls of this desolate edifice were prints of the "mano
colorado," or red hand. Often as I saw this print, it never failed to
interest me. It was the stamp of the living hand; it always brought me
nearer to the builders of these cities, and at times, amid stillness,
desolation, and ruin, it seemed as if from behind the curtain that
concealed them from view was extended the hand of greeting. These
prints were larger than any I had seen. In several places I measured
them with my own, opening the fingers to correspond with those on the
wall. The Indians said it was the hand of the master of the building.

The mysterious interest which, in my eyes, always attached to this red
hand, has assumed a more definite shape. I have been advised that in
Mr. Catlin's collection of Indian curiosities, made during a long
residence among our North American tribes, was a tent presented to him
by the chief of the powerful but now extinct race of Mandans, which
exhibits, among other marks, two prints of the red hand; and I have
been farther advised that the red hand is seen constantly upon the
buffalo robes and skins of wild animals brought in by the hunters on
the Rocky Mountains, and, in fact, that it is a symbol recognised and
in common use by the North American Indians of the present day. I do
not mention these as facts within my own knowledge, but with the hope
of