Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/370

292 have issued from a laboratory in New York before the crash. The Señores Payes were in the first stage of anticipated wealth, and talked in the familiar strains of city builders at home. They were roused by the prospect of any indirect addition to the value of their real estate; told me that two of them were then making arrangements to visit the tract, and immediately proposed that I should accompany them. Mr. Catherwood, on his road from Copan, had fallen in with a person at Chiquimula who told him of such ruins, with the addition that Colonel Galindo was then at work among them. Being in the neighbourhood, he had some idea of going to visit them; but being much worn with his labours at Copan, and knowing that the story was untrue as regarded Colonel Galindo, whom he knew to be in a different section of the country, he was incredulous as to the whole. We had some doubt whether they would repay the labour; but as there was no occasion for him to accompany me to San Salvador, it was agreed that during my absence he should, with the Señores Payes, go to Quirigua, which he accordingly did.

The reader must go back to Encuentros, the place at which we slept the second night of our arrival in the country. From this place they embarked in a canoe about twenty-five feet long and four broad, dug out of the trunk of a mahogany-tree, and descending two hours, disembarked at Los Amates, near El Poso, on the main road from Yzabal to Guatimala, the place at which we breakfasted the second morning of our arrival in the country, and where the Señores Payes were obliged to wait two or three days. The place was a miserable collection of huts, scant of provisions, and the people drank a muddy water at their doors, rather than take the trouble of going to the river.

On a fine morning, after a heavy rain, they set off for the ruins. After a ride of about half an hour, over an execrable road, they again reached the Amates. The village was pleasantly situated on the bank of the river, and elevated about thirty feet. The river was here about 200 feet wide, and fordable in every part except a few deep holes. Generally it did not exceed three feet in depth, and in many places was not so deep; but below it was said to be navigable to the sea for boats not drawing more than three feet water. They embarked in two canoes dug out of cedar-trees, and proceeded down the river for a couple of miles, where they took on board a negro man named Juan Lima, and his two wives. This black scoundrel, as Mr. C. marks him down in his note-book, was to be their guide. They then proceeded two or three miles farther, and stopped at a rancho on the left side of the river, and passing through two corn-fields, entered a forest of large