as in that of the Polochic, and not until we approached Los Amates did we come to the forest. In many places banana or plantain suckers had got entangled in the bushes overhanging the banks or on shoals, and were rooting and growing. The river is about a hundred yards wide at Los Amates, where we landed after a canoa voyage of five hours and a half. The steep bank was muddy, and the whole town likewise, as far as we could see. Four open-walled reed huts shelter all the inhabitants, both man and beast. The view riverwards was attractive, as the river seemed the only way out of this forest-environed spot. We walked into the woods on the trail northward to El Mico, about three quarters of a league; here the ground was utterly water-soaked, and we saw nothing interesting except two humming-birds having a bitter duel. They were so absorbed in their deadly hatred that we stood some minutes within arm's length without interrupting them. Near the houses the manaca-palms overspread the path in most perfect Gothic arches, forming groined vaults of living green. Our comida was tolerable; but flies and mosquitoes were abundant, so were dogs and pigs, and there were many chickens with their wings turned inside out and their feathers put on the wrong way. We could throw stones at the dogs without attracting notice; but I found the people evidently did not like to have the pigs insulted.

Our señora was a curious specimen, all skin and bones, clad in a scant dress, a large straw hat, and apparently nothing else, and smoking an ever-burning cigar. At night she put us on a shelf of slim bambus that would not bear our weight standing, though they made a fairly

comfortable bed. We shared this loft with corn and poultry; and looking down into the common room beneath us, we saw by the light of a bowl of oil strange domestic scenes. Women were swinging in hammocks and smoking cigars, and children lying naked on the bare earth floor; and it was pleasant to see such at-one-ness and the utter absence of anything like bashfulness.

Our calendar alone informed us that the next day was Christmas, and we spent it in waiting for our mozos and bestias, who arrived about three o'clock. We sat on the sheet-iron pipes, fifteen inches in diameter, which were resting here on their way to the Friedmann mines, farther south. They kept us out of the mud, and were the only comfortable seats in the town. On the mango and orange trees we found a pretty little yellow orchid (Oncidium ?). In the houses we saw tanning done, without a vat, by making a bag of the hide and filling it with the bark decoction, which slowly percolated through and was replaced. The remains of an English steam-launch were scattered about, sheets of copper from her bottom serving as clapboards to part of the house where we lodged. At night the men of the place were all drunk and very noisy. The fires were kept burning late, and cast weird gleams through the open slat walls into the darkness.

Having engaged a guide for the so-called Ruinas at Quirigua, at eight o'clock the next morning we said our adios (after paying our hostess nineteen reals for ourselves and mozos) and started down the river bank. Across the river were the largest bambus we had seen in the country, some joints at least six inches in diameter. Our path led through a canebrake, and often so close on the loose banks of the Motagua that I feared we should

drop in. For two hours we went on in this way, stopping only to rifle a turtle's nest of fourteen small eggs (less in size than a pullet's). We then turned to the left and came to the Quirigua river, which more resembled a creek; and here my heart sank, for I have a great dread of black waters and muddy bottoms. Santiago waded in first, and I followed close on the little mule; and we all crossed safely, our mozo leading his wife by the hand with great care. Once in the thick forest, our guide did his best to empty a generous bottle of aguardiente he had brought with him; so that within an hour he knew very little about the road, or anything else useful. Cohune and similar palms were on all sides, and we first saw here the pacaya (Euterpe edulis ?), - a slender palm with edible pods or buds. Enormous trees with buttresses even the goyava took this form here were prominent among the lower palms, and ginger and wild bananas bordered the rather indefinite path, which we had constantly to clear of vejucos and fallen palm-leaves. Many round holes, as large as a flour-barrel, showed where palm-stumps had been eaten out by insects.

A little brook with chalybeate waters cost us both a wetting; for Frank's mare stuck in a mud-hole, and my mule slid down a steep bank backwards into the water, soaking my saddlebags. After travelling three hours on this muddy road, we came to a clearing, where were two large champas fast going to ruin. Mr. A. P. Maudslay, an Englishman who has spent much labor and money in exploring Guatemaltecan antiquities, had been here twice, and not only cleared a considerable space around the principal monuments, but had cleaned the stones, and even made moulds in plaster of some of them; he had

also built the champas that sheltered us. We spread our wet things over a fire, and went to the first monument (A on the plan), which was close at hand. Mr. Catherwood's sketches, published in Stephens's most interesting Travels, led us to expect rough menhirs quite analogous to the Standing Stones of Stennis, or those better known of Stonehenge. Here, rising from a pool of water collected in the excavation Mr. Maudslay had made to examine the foundation, was a monolith of light-colored, coarse-grained sandstone, well carved over its entire surface except top and bottom.

On the front and back were full-length human figures, not deities, but attempted likenesses, joined with the tigre's head to indicate chief

PN

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Remains at Quirigua.

100

tainship, and a skull to represent death. Both sides. were covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions quite distinct, but not intelligible to any living being. (See Frontispiece.) What would I have given to be permitted to read the stone-cut story! No locked chamber ever inspired half the curiosity. When was this stone

set up, by whom, and to what purpose? Whose are the portraits, when did these persons live, and what did they do for their fellows. The mocking answer to all these questions is cut in the stone before us. The native name of idolos is an idle one, unless used in the Greek sense; for these are no gods, but memorials of the dead as distinctly as the tombstones in our modern graveyards. While the hieroglyphs are similar to those at Copan and Palenque, they are not, I think, identical, and I fancy they are of the nature of the denominative cartouches of the Egyptian obelisks. I copy Mr. Maudslay's plan of this group of monuments, from which it will at once be seen that their relative position to the other remains is puzzling in the extreme. We left our imaginings for the time, and proceeded to the practical work of photography. This was no light task; for the sun was behind trees which cast shadows on the monuments, while the shady side was almost invisible in the camera. Insects swarmed in front of the lens, and the heat was almost insupportable under the rubber focusing-cloth. However, I succeeded fairly in carrying away a dozen pictures. Whether I can with no greater difficulty explain to my readers what this cemetery looked like, even with the aid of Mr. Maudslay's rough plan, is more questionable.

We entered a clearing, some four hundred feet square, made only the year before, but already covered with undergrowth, so that our men had to use their machetes freely to expose the stones. The level was low and the soil full of water, which stood in pools here and there. On our left was a mound, more than two hundred feet long, which we did not inspect, and in front of this were placed three monoliths. The first (A) was the smallest ;