that unsubstantial king, who erects his thrones on broken columns and fallen domes, waves his sceptre over dispeopled wastes, and builds his capitals amid the rocks of Petræa and the catacombs of Egypt. # # # # # Such being the object of my ambition, it will not appear surprising that I embraced every opportunity to enlarge my knowledge of my favorite subject--American Antiquities--and eagerly perused every new volume purporting to throw any light upon it. I was perfectly familiar with the works of Lord Kingsborough and Dr. Robertson before I was fifteen years of age, and had studied the explorations of Bernal Diaz, Waldeck, and Dupaix, before I was twenty. My delight, therefore, was boundless when a copy of Stephens's travels in Yucatan and Chiapas fell into my hands, and I devoured his subsequent publications on the same subject with all the avidity of an enthusiast. Nor did my labors stop here. Very early I saw the importance of an acquaintance with aboriginal tongues, and immediately set about mastering the researches of Humboldt and Schoolcraft. This was easily done; for I discovered, much to my chagrin and disappointment, that but little is known of the languages of the Indian tribes, and that little is soon acquired. Dissatisfied with such information as could be gleaned from books only, I applied for and obtained an agency for dispensing Indian rations among the Cherokees and Ouchitaws, and set out for Fort Towson in the spring of 1848. Soon after my arrival I left the fort, and took up my residence at the wigwam of Sac-a-ra-sa, one of the principal chiefs of the Cherokees. My intention to make myself familiar with the Indian tongues was noised abroad, and every facility was afforded me by my hospitable friends. I took long voyages into the interior of the continent, encountered delegations from most of the western tribes, and familiarized myself with almost every dialect spoken by the Indians dwelling west of the Rocky Mountains. I devoted four years to this labor, and at the end of that period, with my mind enriched by a species of knowledge unattainable by a mere acquaintance with books, I determined to visit Central America in person, and inspect the monuments of Uxmal and Palenque with my own eyes. Full of this intention, I took passage on the steamship "Prometheus," in December, 1852, bound from New York to Greytown, situated in the State of Nicaragua; a point from which I could easily reach Chiapas or Yucatan. And at this point of my narrative, it becomes necessary to digress for a moment, and relate an incident which occurred on the voyage, and which, in its consequences, changed my whole mode of investigation, and introduced a new element of knowledge to my attention.