* * * * *
=_John L. Stephens, 1808-1852._= (Manual, p. 504.)
From the "Travels in Central America."
=_269._= DISCOVERY OF A RUINED CITY IN THE WOODS
The sight of this unexpected monument put at rest, at once and forever,
in our minds, all uncertainty in regard to the character of American
antiquities, and gave as the assurance that the objects we were in
search of were interesting, not only as the remains of an unknown
people, but as works of art, proving, like newly-discovered historical
records, that the people who once occupied the continent of America were
not savages. With an interest perhaps stronger than we had ever felt
in wandering among the ruins of Egypt, we followed our guide, who,
sometimes missing his way, with a constant and vigorous use of his
machete, conducted us through the thick forest, among half-buried
fragments, to fourteen monuments of the same character and appearance,
some with more elegant designs, and some in workmanship equal to the
finest monuments of the Egyptians; one displaced from its pedestal by
enormous roots; another locked in the close embrace of branches of
trees, and almost lifted out of the earth; another hurled to the ground,
and bound down by huge vines and creepers; and one standing, with its
altar before it, in a grove of trees which grew around it, seemingly to
shade and shroud it as a sacred thing; in the solemn stillness of the
woods it seemed a divinity mourning over a fallen people.
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