ring of the woodman's axe in the forest at home, and wished for a few long-sided Green Mountain boys. But we had been buffeted into patience, and watched the Indians while they hacked with their machetes, and even wondered that they succeeded so well. At length the trees were felled and dragged aside, a space cleared around the base, Mr. Catherwood's frame set up, and he set to work. . . . It is impossible to describe the interest with which I explored these ruins. The ground was entirely new; there were no guide-books or guides; the whole was a virgin soil. We could not see ten yards before us, and never knew what we should stumble upon next. At one time we stopped to cut away branches and vines which concealed the face of a monument, and then to dig around and bring to light a fragment, a sculptured corner of which protruded from the earth. I leaned over with breathless anxiety while the Indians worked, and an eye, an ear, a foot, or a hand was disentombed; and when the machete rang against the chiselled stone, I pushed the Indians away, and cleared out the loose earth with my hands. The beauty of the sculpture, the solemn stillness of the woods, disturbed only by the scrambling of monkeys and the chattering of parrots, the desolation of the city, and the mystery that hung over it, all created an interest higher, if possible, than I had ever felt among the ruins of the Old World. After several hours' absence I returned to Mr. Catherwood, and reported upwards of fifty objects to be copied. I found him not so well pleased as I expected with my report. He was standing with his feet in the mud, and was drawing with his gloves on, to protect his hands from the moschitoes. As we feared, the designs were so intricate and complicated, the subjects so entirely new and unintelligible, that he had great difficulty in drawing. He had made several attempts, both with the camera lucida and without, but failed to satisfy himself, or even me, who was less severe in criticism. The "idol" seemed to defy his art; two monkeys on a tree on one side appeared to be laughing at him, and I felt discouraged and despondent. -vol. i. pp. 95-120.

Despite the difficulties which obstructed their labours, the two antiquaries continued their operations. Mr. Catherwood, thanks to a piece of oiled canvass and a pair of waterproof boots, worth their weight in gold,' established himself in a somewhat less perilous studio than at first; and Mr. Stephens's time was fully occupied in selecting ornaments for him to copy and clearing away the trees around them, in carrying on a defensive war against the churlish Don Gregorio and a drunken alcalde, and in negotiations with Don José Maria for the purchase of the city. When first Mr. Stephens propounded the question to him, What will you take for your ruins? the Don's astonishment was unbounded; and strong doubts evidently came upon him both as to the sanity and solvency of the buyer. However, he said he would consult his wife, and give his answer on the morrow:

'The next morning he came, and his condition was truly pitiable.

He

He was anxious to convert unproductive property into money, but was afraid to do so, and said that I was a stranger, and it might bring him into difficulty with the government. I again went into proof of character, and engaged to save him harmless. . . Shades of suspicion still lingered; and, as a last resource, I opened my trunk, and put on a diplomatic coat, with a profusion of large eagle buttons. I had on a Panama hat, soaked with rain and spotted with mud, a check shirt, white pantaloons, yellow np to the knees with mud, and was about as outré as the negro king who received a company of British officers, on the coast of Africa, in a cocked hat and military coat without any inexpressibles; but Don José Maria could not withstand the buttons on my coat; the cloth was the finest he had ever seen; and Don Miguel and his wife were fully convinced that they had in their hut an illustrious incognito. The only question was who should find paper on which to draw the contract. I did not stand upon trifles, and gave Don Miguel some paper, who took our mutual instructions, and appointed the next day for the execution of the deed. The reader is perhaps curious to know how old cities sell in Central America. I paid fifty dollars for Copan.'—vol. i. pp. 127, 128.

The purchase was, however, for some time delayed in consequence of the sinister machinations of Don Gregorio; and Mr. Stephens, disappointed in his ambitious hopes of being Lord of Copan and its idols, set himself zealously to work to survey the ruined city. From the density of the foliage, the whole region being one thick mat of trees, the task was one of difficulty, and required three days of unintermitted labour; but the result was a very complete plan and a detailed account of the principal objects of architectural interest. These are massive walls, terraces, ranges of steps, pyramidical structures rising from 30 to 130 feet in height, quadrangular areas, and portals, all of the most massive construction, and many of them painted-the whole having the appearance of temples.

Scattered among these ruins, or standing at a little distance from them, are the sculptured idols with their attendant altars. Of these numerous very elaborate and beautiful engravings are given, an attentive examination of which inclines us to think that the popular appellation given to them is correct; and that they were intended as idols for worship, not as memorials of the dead -although in several instances the faces carved upon them are evidently portraits.

Viewed with reference to their rank as works of art, we should be inclined to place them high in the scale of architectural sculpture. To the elegance and sublimity of the Grecian and Roman schools they have no pretension whatever, nor have they the severe grandeur of the best specimens of the Egyptian; but they appear to us to be vastly superior to anything which India

or

or China or Japan has ever produced. Their chief merit lies in their general effect. The figures are ill-proportioned; many of the faces are grotesque and even hideous, and the subordinate parts confused and overcharged: but-and in this it is that they differ from all the barbarous styles of sculpture with which we are acquainted their general effect is not only rich and beautiful, but dignified and imposing to a degree which we could hardly have supposed to be producible from the assembling together so many uncouth and incongruous parts.

Mr. Stephens, towards the close of his work, states his reasons for doubting the great antiquity which has been assigned to the ruins in Central America. He refers them to a period not many centuries antecedent to the invasion of the Spaniards; and there appears great weight in the arguments which he adduces. But although this comparative modernness may somewhat detract from the mysterious interest which surrounds it, Copan still offers an unrivalled field of study to the antiquary. In the rapid progress which hieroglyphic science is now making, we cannot but hope that the abundant collection of symbolic writings which its idols afford will ere long enable the zealous inquirer to remove the veil which at present hangs over the place.

Copan is on the left bank of the river of the same name, which empties itself into the Motagua; the former stream is not navigable, even for canoes, except for a short time during the rainy season; and there are falls in its course. It is, we presume, from these difficulties that Mr. Stephens, although he became lord of the manor, could not carry into effect his patriotic scheme of floating the idols down to the sea and shipping them off to New York, in emulation of the late amiable, accomplished, and most unjustly satirized Lord Elgin.

After spending a few more days among these ruins, our author's cares of office began to press upon his mind :

'When we turned off,' he says, 'to visit these ruins we did not expect to find employment for more than two or three days, and I did not consider myself at liberty to remain longer. I apprehended a desperate chase after a government, and fearing that among these ruins I might wreck my own political fortunes, and bring reproach upon my political friends, I thought it safer to set out in pursuit.'-vol. i. p. 148.

A council was therefore called at the base of an idol, and it was settled that he should immediately proceed to Guatimala, and that Mr. Catherwood should remain to complete his drawings-a task which he has most admirably performed, although his labours were interrupted by a severe attack of fever.*

A journey

Our great object,' says Mr. Stephens, was to procure true copies, adding nothing VOL. LXIX. NO. CXXXVII.

F

to

A journey not of actual danger, but rendered insecure by the unsettled state of the country, brings our author at length to Guatimala. Here he enters upon his diplomatic functions, or rather makes an unsuccessful attempt to do so; the confusion and division of parties, the conflicting pretensions of the separate states, and the absence of anything approaching to a fixed authority being such that, in the end, he was constrained to quit the place and to seek elsewhere-but as it proved with equal ill success-that federal government to which alone he was accredited by his own country. He gives a vivid picture of the state of society and of the anarchy of political parties in Guatimala and around it—and what a picture it is! Tumults, seditions, conspiracies, domestic wars commenced without cause or object, and only ending in one place to be renewed in another; each year, almost each month, a new knot of ambitious fools and scoundrels presenting themselves upon the stage, each in his turn filling a large space in the public eye for a bloody moment, and then swept away into oblivion. The mind recoils with sickening disgust from the details. Were not all lighter feelings subdued by the horrors which mark every page in the annals of Central America, there would be ample scope for ridicule in contemplating the succession of ignorant, remorseless demagogues, scarcely removed from savages, exalting themselves into heroic sages and deliverers of their country; playing at freedom like a set of mischievous schoolboys, and calling on all the world to admire their philosophy and self-devotion.

Although no direct admission of the kind escapes our author, we cannot but suspect, from more than one casual expression, that his enthusiastic admiration of Republican governments was a little disturbed when he found himself surrounded by these clumsy imitators. In the preface to this work, which bears date so late as May, 1841, he adverts with much satisfaction to—

late intelligence from Central America, which enables him to express the belief that the state of anarchy in which he has represented that beautiful country no longer exists; that the dark clouds which hung over it have passed away, that civil war has ceased, and Central America may be welcomed back among republics.'-Preface, pp. iii. iv.

The hope has, alas! proved fallacious. Still later accounts speak of renewed commotion and bloodshed; and we predict with

to produce effect as pictures. Mr. Catherwood took all the outlines with the camera lucida, and divided his paper into sections, so as to preserve the utmost accuracy of proportion. The plates are, in my opinion, as true copies as can be presented, and except the stones themselves, the reader cannot have better materials for speculation and study.-vol. i. pp. 137, 138.

The illustrations indeed are admirable; not so the map of the route. It is incorrect, incomplete, and obscure. This should be amended in a second edition.

sorrow,

sorrow, but without a grain of doubt, that this fair, this magnificent country is doomed to a long period of civil war and all its attendant miseries. We predict this from our conviction that its population is very far removed from that state of intelligence and advancement which alone can fit a people to receive free institutions with advantage to themselves, to adopt them with moderation and wisdom, and to use without abusing them. Even amongst the most philosophic and enlightened people, dabbling in republicanism has always proved a dangerous amusement. When men but just removed from barbarism, and who are degraded and oppressed by popish bigotry and superstition in their worst and most revolting forms, attempt to do so, the experiment is nothing short of madness.

We will not dwell on those parts of Mr. Stephens's work which are devoted to political events: they are detailed concisely and clearly, and with his accustomed vigour of description: we will also pass over, as lightly as he himself does, all his diplomatic doubts, difficulties, and annoyances. The tone in which he jests on his fruitless search for a government before which he could represent his masters, is judiciously adopted, as it disarms the ridicule which might otherwise have attached to his official failure; and indeed, as we have before remarked, we are inclined to believe that as long as volcanic mountains and ruined cities were within his reach, his political cares sat very lightly upon him.

In preference to all such matter, we shall take our readers as rapidly as we can to the next scene of his antiquarian labours; though there are some passages of so much merit, and which stand so much in our path, that it is with difficulty we can pass them by. His description of lazzoing, of the fête of La Conception, and of a novice taking the black veil, are masterly. The latter subject is a hackneyed one, but we have never met with it so simply and so effectively given; and we would recommend its study to all the novel-writing public as an example how much picturesque power is gained by an absence of exaggeration, and ambitious labouring after point.

After remaining a fortnight at Guatimala, Mr. Stephens sets out on a short excursion to the shores of the Pacific; and in his route ascends the Volcano de Agua, the height of which is 14,450 feet above the level of the sea. On his return to the capital he was alarmed by the receipt of a letter from Mr. Catherwood, dated from Esquipulas, and informing him that he had been robbed by his servant; had been so ill as to be obliged to leave the ruins and to take up his abode at the churlish Don Gregorio's,