Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/152

144 six miles from the coast, five or six miles in length by half a mile wide. Here some of the sailors with Cortes went on shore, and found in the town, near by, four temples, the idols in which represented human female figures of large size, for which reason they named this place Punta de las Mujeres, or Women's Cape. What Stephens, in 1842, did for Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, in a superficial manner, the archaeologist Dr. Le Plongeon has since done more thoroughly and satisfactorily. In a communication, printed in 1878, he gives a complete survey (the first) of the Isla Mujeres, locating the ancient buildings, the shrine, or temple, formerly containing the idols spoken of, and the "altar." A valuable discovery by the Doctor was made there of a terra-cotta female figure, which had formed the front of a brasero, or incense-burner. It was of excellent workmanship, and valuable, not only from this fact, but owing to the extreme rarity of works of the ceramic art on and near the peninsula of Yucatan.

He carefully surveyed the ruins, and made photographs of the "temple," which shows that it has suffered from the hand