Page:Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumatsintla Valley.djvu/26

18 established the communication between two widely separated settlements. In this vast stretch of wilderness the workmen did not once encounter a ruined city; however, about eight leagues from Tzendales, at a point which the men called Champa de San Pedro (not far from the San Pedro River), during an excursion into the forest to the left of the road, Sr. Gónzali, accompanied hy Rafael Naranjo, came upon a temple which crowned a small cerro (presumably a pyramidal substructure). As it was already late in the evening and these gentlemen and their mozos were obliged to hasten back, they made only a hurried inspection of the edifice. They remembered, however, that its ground plan showed a rectangular passage. They also saw earthen vessels in the interior, but they did not attempt a further exploration of the ruined city, which is doubtless in the vicinity. I temporarily gave the name Naranjo-Gónzali to these ruins, which I hope may some day be explored. Furthermore, in connection with a land-survey which certain engineers made on the Lacanhá River (which runs parallel, so to speak, with the Usumatsintla, but in the opposite direction, flowing into the Lacantun), ruins were found to which I gave the name Ruinas de Lacanhá, though as yet I have been unable to undertake an expedition to them for lack of more definite information. Later on Sr. D. José Némecke — an experienced man in the lumber-business — told me that the edifice discovered by Gónzali forms part of the ruined city near the river Lacanhá, and that no other ruins exist in that region. I am inclined to agree with this opinion of Sr. Némecke.

On the following day we went to the rancho Sulusúm, belonging to Mr. German Koller, whom I fortunately met on the road and having interchanged greetings with him, I communicated to him my intention of visiting the ruins of Xupá from his rancho. We had formerly been acquainted, having met in 1877, when I visited the ruins of Palenque; Mr. Koller, therefore, consented most courteously to my plan, and promised to accompany me in person, as soon as he should return from a short trip which he was obliged to make at that moment.

About one and one-half leagues from Palenque, we turned aside to the left of the road and passing over the remains of a very ancient city, we soon came to the rancho picturesquely situated on the left bank of the Chacamax, where we were very kindly received by Mr. Koller's wife.

We remained here two days awaiting Mr. Keller's return, and employed the time in exploring the ruins in the neighborhood, which was the easier inasmuch as large milperias had been established here in recent years and the ruins therefore lay exposed in the abandoned stubble-fields. We did not succeed, however, in discovering a single sculptured stone; not even in the vicinity of what was once the principal temple, and which is now reduced to a moderately large heap of ruins. But in one place we found large gutter-tiles of baked clay deep in the ground.