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CHAPTER XV.

COPAN IN 1885.

I at Copan for a few days in 1881, and returned there again in 1885, determined to make a more thorough investigation of the ruins, and the result of my work has been published at length in the pages of the 'Biologia Centrali-Americana.'

The earliest description of the ruins is found in a letter addressed by Diego Garcia de Palacio, an officer of the Audiencia of Guatemala, to King Philip II. of Spain, dated 8th of March, 1576. Palacio was an acute observer, and his description of the ruins shows that they were in much the same condition when he visited them in 1576 as they were when I began to work at them in 1885. It is, however, not to Palacio's letter, which has only comparatively recently been unearthed from the Spanish archives, but to the charming pages of Stephens and the beautiful drawings of Catherwood that the world in general is indebted for a knowledge of the wonders of Copan. But delightful as their great book is in every other respect, it does