Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/240

228 Another consideration which I think bears some influence as to the probability of a foreign agency having introduced the first elements of civilization into Central America is afforded by the circumstance that communication between these ancient cities must have been chiefly by water. It appears from the earliest accounts of Yucatan that in the Northern part of that country there were paved roads, but in the interior Cortes in his extraordinary march from Mexico to Nito found none, although he passed near Palenque and Copan, and visited Peten. The fact that the people who at the time of the Spanish Conquest lived at Palenque could give no account of the origin of the edifices at that place would confirm the idea that they were an intrusive population. The inhabitants of the coast had ceased to be a maritime people, and this would account for the circumstance, otherwise difficult to be explained, that although various nations were found on the mainland inhabiting well built houses and acquainted with many of the art of civilized life, yet the people on the Islands in their neighbourhood were in a state of barbarism.

In 1851 my Father was able to put into execution a plan which he had long formed of visiting Yucatan. His official duties at Havana prevented his leaving that place until the summer, but as under any circumstances the servile war then raging would have prevented an exploration of the Peninsula, he thought it advisable not to defer visiting the coast and especially the Island of Cozumel, which appears to have been the sacred Island of the former inhabitants. The travellers who had previously visited that country (with the sole exception I believe of Colonel Galinda at Copan) had made no excavations; but my Father considered that it was most essential to try to discover traces of the builders of these cities by means of the relics to be found in their sepulchres. As is the case in all such expeditions much time was lost in ascertaining the position of the tombs. Several were found and examined; and their contents, flint spear heads or knives, copper and pebble instruments or weapons, figures of divinities with hawk heads, images of tortoises, incense burners, and pottery vases, were brought to England. A very curious female bust with gauntlet gloves on the hands was also found in a tomb. A small piece of silver, much worn or beaten, was discovered in a grave on the coast of Yucatan, it is of irregular shape but bears no trace of an inscription and may have been inlaid as an ornament. In another grave a white glass bead was found; and with one person several stalactites were buried, as was the case in a tomb opened by Colonel Galinda at Copan.

The form of sepulture was the same in all instances. The