Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/443

Rh place for the purpose of visiting the ruins, we postponed our decision till the next day.

The next morning Don Joaquin told us of the skeleton of a colossal animal, supposed to be a mastodon, which had been found in the neighbourhood. Some of the bones had been collected, and were then in the town; and, having seen them, we took a guide and walked to the place where they had been discovered, on the borders of the Rio Chinaca, about half a mile distant. At this time the river was low, but the year before, swelled by the immense floods of the rainy season, it had burst its bounds, carried away its right bank, and laid bare one side of the skeleton. The bank was perpendicular, about thirty feet high, and the animal had been buried in an upright position. Besides the bones in the town, some had been carried away by the flood, others remained imbedded in the earth; but the impression of the whole animal, from twenty-five to thirty feet long, was distinctly visible. We were told that about eight leagues above, on the bank of the same river, the skeleton of a much larger animal had been discovered.

In the afternoon we rode to the ruins, which in the town were called Ias cuevas, the caves. They lie about half a league distant, on a magnificent plain, bounded in the distance by lofty mountains, among which is the great Sierra Madre.

The site of the ancient city, as at Patinamit and Santa Cruz del Quiché, was chosen for its security against enemies. It was surrounded by a ravine, and the general character of the ruins is the same as at Quiché, but the hand of destruction has fallen upon it more heavily: the whole is a confused heap of grass-grown fragments. The principal remains are two pyramidal structures of this form:— One of them measures at the base 102 feet; the steps are 4 feet high, and 7 feet deep, making the whole height 28 feet. They are not of cut stone, as at Copan, but of rough pieces cemented with lime; and the whole exterior was formerly coated with stucco, and painted. On the top is a small square platform, and at the base lies a long slab of rough stone, apparently hurled down from the top; perhaps the altar on which human victims were extended for sacrifice.

The owner of the ground, a Mestitzo, whose house was near by, and who accompanied us to the ruins, told us that he had bought the land from Indians, and that for some time after his purchase, he was