Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/266

246 place where it once stood: all the rest of the inclosure was become one spacious cemetery, for nearly two hundred souls were buried under the ruins, which could now scarcely be recognized amidst the rank herbage with which they were overgrown. The whole of the city, indeed, presents a splendid panorama of romantic dilapidation.

The edifices of public worship had been no less than fifty or sixty in number: vestiges of them may still be faintly traced in some places by the inquiring eye; in others, some dismembered column stands like a tall ghost amidst the mournful groves. I had ridden, with a large party, up the side of the Water Mountain, to the height of about half a mile, whence I gained a more comprehensive view of the scene beneath me. I asked many questions of my companions, but it was with the greatest difficulty that I could obtain the least information required; the reason appeared obvious: they had been born and bred in the city, and, consequently knew not