Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Volym 2

Framsida
Harper & Brothers, 1841

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Sida 184 - Indians of Chajul is, that no white man has ever reached this city ; that the inhabitants speak the Maya language, are aware that a race of strangers has conquered the whole country around, and murder any white man who attempts to enter their territory. They have no coin or other circulating medium ; no horses, cattle, mules, or other domestic animals except fowls, and the cocks they keep under ground to prevent their crowing being heard.
Sida 348 - Here were the remains of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar people, who had passed through all the stages incident to the rise and fall of nations ; reached their golden age, and perished, entirely unknown. The links which connected them with the human family were severed and lost, and these were the only memorials of their footsteps upon earth.
Sida 273 - Palacio!" and through openings in the trees we saw the front of a large building richly ornamented with stuccoed figures on the pilasters, curious and elegant ; trees growing close against it, and their branches entering the doors; in style and effect unique, extraordinary, and mournfully beautiful. We tied our mules to the trees...
Sida 184 - That the region referred to does not acknowledge the government of Guatimala, has never been explored, and that no white man ever pretends to enter it, I am satisfied. From other sources we heard that from that sierra a large ruined city was visible, and we were told of another person who had climbed to the top of the sierra, but, on account of A FIBLD FOR FUTURE ENTERPRISE.
Sida 184 - ... flashing eye, called up an image of the bold and resolute priests who accompanied the armies of the conquerors ; and as he drew a map on the table, and pointed out the sierra to the top of which he had climbed, and the position of the mysterious city, the interest awakened in us was the most thrilling I ever experienced. One look at that city was worth ten years of an every-day life. If he is right, a place is left where Indians and an Indian city exist as Cortez and Alvarado found them ; there...
Sida 184 - with much labour climbed to the naked summit of the " Sierra, from which, at a height of ten or twelve thousand " feet, he looked over an immense plain, extending to " Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and saw at a distance a " large city spread over a great space, and with turrets white
Sida 258 - We had brought the silla with us merely as a measure of precaution, with much expectation of being obliged to use it ; but at a steep pitch, which made my head almost burst to think of climbing, I resorted to it for the first time. It was a large, clumsy armchair, put together with wooden pins and bark strings. The Indian who was to carry me, like all the others, was small, not more than five feet seven, very thin, but symmetrically formed. A bark strap was tied to the arms of the chair, and, sitting...
Sida 284 - They are more than half an inch long, and have a sharp moveable horn on the head : when laid on the back they cannot turn over except by pressing this horn against a membrane upon the front. Behind the eyes are two round transparent substances, full of luminous matter, about as large as the head of a pin, and underneath is a larger membrane containing the same luminous substance. Four of them together threw a brilliant light for several yards around ; and by the light of a single one we read distinctly...
Sida 405 - Perhaps the high ruined structures at Palenque, which we have called pyramidal, and which were so ruined that we could not make them out exactly, were originally of the same shape. On the east side of the structure is a broad range of stone steps between eight and nine inches high, and so steep that great care is necessary in ascending and descending ; of these we counted a hundred and one in their places.
Sida 405 - I counted sixteen elevations, with broken walls and mounds of stones, and vast, magnificent edifices, which at that distance seemed untouched by time and defying ruin. I stood in the doorway when the sun went down, throwing from the buildings a prodigious breadth of shadow, darkening the terraces on which they stood, and presenting a scene strange enough for a work of enchantment. ' The Casa del Enano is 68 feet long.

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