There have been only two statues found at Palenqué, in connection with the T emple of the Cross,[1063] but the considerable number of carved figures discovered at Copan,[1064] as well as the general impression that these latter ruins are the oldest on the American continent,[1065] have made in some respects these most celebrated of the Honduras remains more interesting than those of Chiapas. It is now generally agreed that the ruins of Copan[1066] do not represent the town called Copan, assaulted and captured by Hernando de Choves in 1530, though the identity of names has induced some writers to claim that these ruins were inhabited when the Spaniards came.[1067] The earliest account of them which we have is that in Palacio’s letter to Felipe II., written (1576) hardly more than a generation after the Conquest, and showing that the ruins then were much in the same condition as later described.[1068] The next account is that of Fuentes y Guzman’s _Historia de Guatemala_ (1689), now accessible in the Madrid edition of 1882; but for a long time only known in the citation in Juarros’ _Guatemala_ (p. 56), and through those who had copied from Juarros.[1069] His account is brief, speaks of Castilian costumes, and is otherwise so enigmatical that Brasseur calls it mendacious. Colonel Galindo, in visiting the ruins in 1836, confounded them with the Copan of the Conquest.[1070] The ruins also came Under the scrutiny of Stephens in 1839, and they were described by him, and drawn by Catherwood, for the first time with any fullness and care, in their respective works.[1071] * * * * * Always associated with Copan, and perhaps even older, if the lower relief of the carvings can bear that interpretation, are the ruins near the village of Quiriguá, in Guatemala, and known by that name. Catherwood first brought them into notice;[1072] but the visit of Karl Scherzer in 1854 produced the most extensive account of them which we have, in his _Ein Besuch bei den Ruinen von Quiriguá_ (Wien, 1855).[1073] * * * * * The principal explorers of Nicaragua have been Ephraim George Squier, in his _Nicaragua_,[1074] and Frederick Boyle, in his _Ride across a Continent_ (Lond. 1868),[1075] and their results, as well as the scattered data of others,[1076] are best epitomized in Bancroft (iv. ch. 2), who gives other references to second-hand descriptions (p. 29). Since Bancroft’s survey there have been a few important contributions.[1077] III. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE PICTURE-WRITING OF THE NAHUAS AND MAYAS.