Under the circumstances attending our visit to it, we found this one of the most interesting places we had seen in our whole exploration of ruins; but I am compelled to omit many details deserving of description and comment, and shall close with one remark. The reader knows the difficulty we had in reaching this place from the interior. The whole triangular region from Valladolid to the Bay of Ascension on one side, and the port of Yalahao on the other, is not traversed by a single road, and the rancho of Molas is the only settlement along the coast. It is a region entirely unknown; no white man ever enters it. Ruined cities no doubt exist, and young Molas told us of a large building many leagues in the interior, known to an old Indian, covered with paintings in bright and vivid colours, and the subjects of which were still perfect. With difficulty we contrived to see this Indian, but he was extremely uncommunicative; said it was many years since he saw the building; that he had come upon it in the dry season while hunting, and should not be able to find it again. It is my belief that within this region cities like those we have seen in ruins were kept up and occupied for a long time, perhaps one or two centuries, after the conquest, and that, down to a comparatively late period, Indians were living in them, the same as before the discovery of America. In fact, I conceive it to be not impossible that within this secluded region may exist at this day, unknown to white men, a living aboriginal city, occupied by relics of the ancient race, who still worship in the temples of their fathers. The reader will, perhaps, think that I have gone far enough. We had now finished our voyage along the coast, and the end which we had in view was fully accomplished. We had seen, abandoned and in ruins, the same buildings which the Spaniards saw entire and inhabited by Indians, and we had identified them beyond question as the works of the same people who created the great ruined cities over which, when we began our journey, hung a veil of seemingly impenetrable mystery. At that time, we believed the discovery and comparison of these remains to be the surest, if not the only means, of removing this veil; and though other proofs had accumulated upon us, these were not on that account the less interesting.