Page:Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumatsintla Valley.djvu/50

42 to all doubts as to ownership in that part of the country. According to the latest disposition, therefore, Piedras Negras, which lies on the right bank of the Usumatsintla, belongs to Guatemala. The Mexican wood-cutting establishments still in this neighborhood will naturally all have to be removed.

On the third day we arrived safely at the site of the ruined city, the distance of which from Tenosique I estimated at about fifteen leagues.

The road from Tenosique to El Cayo runs by the ruined city and ends in a little open place, in which stands a great ceiba-tree. This place is bounded on the west side by rocky cliffs in which are several caves affording shelter to the wanderer. Trom this place, which I called La Plazuela de las Cuevas, a ravine, running transversely through the cliffs, leads to the Usumatsintla near by. On the heights to the right, and also below in the transverse valley, lay the huts of a woodcutting establishment only recently abandoned and still in good condition. La Casa Principal, on an eminence near the river, was naturally the largest, and in it we comfortably established ourselves.

There, where the transverse valley opens towards the river, splendid sandbanks with blackish limestone rocks rising out of them invited us to bathe. The people of that region have named the place Piedras Negras after these rocks (Plate VII, 1).

One of these rocks, rising obliquely and pointed at the top, is especially noticeable, because there is carved upon its steeply inclined surface a circular design (Fig. 15) which resembles that upon the great sacrificial table (Fig. 19) on the esplanade before the temple of the eight stelæ. This fact seems to justify the surmise that on the rock in question were performed the sacrifices intended to appease the water deities; the blood of the victims trickling from the rock and mingling with the waters of the river. I called this rock La Roca de los Sacrificios.

Toward the end of the rainy season (October, November), however, the river rises at that point to the height of ten to fifteen metres, and all