Year: 1862




The age is fruitful of important discoveries
We have the description of a ruined city, just
given us by an explorer in the Gonzales district.
The picture which he drew for us, Of this forgot
ten place buried in the Wilderness brought to our
mind Stephens eloquent descriptions of Copan,
Palen9ue and Uxman, the latter Of which our
friend had himself visted-cities built by peo-
Pile, the name of whom even has died out of the
memory of man. 1t is said to lie in N. N. E.
direction from Libertad, at distance of 25 to 80
miles.


Some of the ruins bore evidence of having once
been palaces, from the solidity of the remaining
walls and the elaborate sculpture on the door
ways; others may have been temples-their
thresholds were guarded by immense stone fig
ures richly decorated, having wings and bearing
warlike implements which may have represented
warrior saints or angels. In one spot was flight
of steps leading to a broad and stately terrace,
and here and there, amid the thick underground,
were to be seen broken pyramids and square tow
ers, at whose base the fallen stones lay scattered
in irregular piles. All these were richly sculp-
tured in composite style, having some affinity to
the Asiatic and Egyptian.


In other places on the ground were fragments
of stone figures larger than life, in which the hu-
man and the brute forms were strangely interwo-
ven. Our informant could make no estimate of
the ground covered by these ruins. The i'm
mense trees which had grown up around them,
among which was the mahogany, cedar, and lig-
num-vite, combined with the condition of the ru-
ins themselves, and the primitive widness Of the
country thereabout, left no doubt in his mind that
many centuries had elapsed since the last inhabi-
tant of that once great and populous city had ta-
ken thence his solitary way.


What sensations crowd naturally upon the mind
at the announcement of this discovery. At the
present time it presents itself to in a singular
ly impressive aspect. The district of the country
in which are found these vestiges of a departed
race, is known to us chiefly as a great mining dis
rict, abounding also in pasture and tillage land.
Ere long, a host of bold and hardy spirits will
people it. 1t will grow to be great country.


1uc SVdl vi HofN'S ACo1SN ioA "HHS
with its western limb over golden California, is ta-
king its way southwark. In their journeyings to
and fro, these bands full of youth and health and
bold adventure, will some time come upon the re-
mains of this dead city. In the dim and storied
East we expect to encounter such sights but not
here. 1t is as if party of rosy children, heated
with their sports should come suddenly upon the
corpse Of one who had passed through all the Vi
cissitudes which yet awaited them and gone to rest
burdened with the weight of many years-noth-
ing left to it of all its life and strength and beau
ty except the Interchangeable beauty of death. "
And there will arise many questions and conjec-
lures to the origin, the history and the fate Of
this forgotten place; but there are none as yet
who can answer them.


In many other hidden spots are doubtless other
ruins as gigantic and imposing; will the strange
.osices ever be read ? At present they sleep the
dull cold sleep of perfect oblivion. There is no
solitary tradition lingering around those almost
impenetrable forests TO tell us who founded the
Ninevahs and Babylons of the Western World,
or how they grew to greatness and at length de-
cayed and gave their domain back to wild nature
again. Must we conclude that


''They had no bard-no orator,


No statesman, and they died"