From the top of this mound I saw two others of nearly the same height, and, taking their direction with the compass, I descended and directed my steps toward them. The whole ground was covered with trees and a thick undergrowth of brush and thorn-bushes. My Indian had gone to lead the horses round to another road. I had no machete, and though the mounds were not far distant, I was excessively scratched and torn in getting to them. They were all ruined, so that they barely preserved their form. Passing between these, I saw beyond three others, forming three angles of a patio or square; and in this patio, rising above the thorn-bushes and briers, were huge stones, which, on being first discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, actually startled me. At a distance they reminded me of the monuments of Copan, but they were even more extraordinary and incomprehensible. They were uncouth in shape, and rough as they came from the quarry. Four of them were flat; the largest was fourteen feet high, and measured toward the top four feet in width, and one and a half in thickness. The top was broader than the bottom, and it stood in a leaning posture, as if its foundation had been loosened. The others were still more irregular in shape, and it seemed as if the people who erected them had just looked out for the largest stones they could lay their hands on tall or short, thick or thin, square or round, without regard to anything except bulk. They had no beauty or fitness of design or proportion, and there were no characters upon them. But in that desolation and solitude they were strange and striking, and, like unlettered headstones in a churchyard, seemed to mark the graves of unknown dead. On one of the mounds, looking down upon this patio, was a long building, with its front wall fallen, and leaving the whole interior exposed to view. I climbed up to it, but saw only the remains of the same narrow corridor and arch, and on the wall were prints of the red hand. The whole country was so overgrown that it was impossible to form any idea of what its extent had been, but one thing was certain, a large city had once stood here, and what its name was no man knew. At this time my visit was merely intended as preliminary, for the purpose of judging whether there were any subjects for Mr. Catherwood's pencil, and it was now about one o'clock. The heat was intense, and sweating and covered with briers and burrs, which stuck to every part of my clothes, I came out into the open road, where my Indium was waiting for me with the horses. We mounted immediately, and continued on a gallop to the hacienda of Tankuche, two leagues distant.