In another small mound Mr. Maudslay found fragments of human bones, two small axes, and portions of a jaguar's skeleton and some animal teeth which he suggests were dog's, but which were probably jaguar's. In yet another mound stones carved into death's-heads were found and small stone serpents' heads. He speaks, too, of figures of jaguars carved on either side of the stairway of one of the pyramids, and on the top step "a human head in the jaws of an animal." He believes that he found traces of glyphs on the facings of the steps; and the edges of many of the stairways were elaborately carved, usually with entwining snakes. His reports make it obvious that Stephens had not exaggerated in any degree the wonders of Copan. It is indeed very doubtful if the Spaniards at the time of the Conquest ever came across the ruins, though, as Stephens points out, Cortes in his memorable journey from Mexico to Honduras must have passed within two days' march of the city. This fact certainly goes far to prove that in Cortes's day Copan was already deserted, or he would have heard of it and turned aside to subdue its cacique. But after all, this is but theorising. The Spaniards may have seen Copan in all its wonder of carving and paint, and been so little impressed as to leave us not a line about it. For, as even the ever amiable Stephens admits, "the conquerors of America were illiterate and ignorant adventurers, eager in pursuit of gold and blind to everything else." The ruins of Quirigua stand on a level plain covered by dense forest, a little more than half a mile from the left bank of the Motagua River near En Cuentros, some five miles from the town of Quirigua. They consist of monuments almost identical in shape and arrangement with those of Copan. Mr. Maudslay, to whose patient and scholarly researches there for several years archæology is indebted for the remarkable detailed account contained in the _Biologia Centrali Americana_, says the site must have always been subject to inundations, and that the level of the ground would appear to have been raised since the monuments were erected. [Illustration: FRIEZE AT PIEDRAS NEGRAS, USUMACINTA RIVER. (From a photograph by Herr Maler.)] [Illustration: STELA AT COPAN, GUATEMALA.]