Nicaraguan antiquities, concerning which I have now given all the information in my possession, give rise to but little discussion or visionary speculation. Indeed there is little of the mysterious connected with them, as they do not necessarily carry us farther back into the past than the partially civilized people that occupied the country in the sixteenth century. Not one relic has appeared which may not reasonably be deemed their work, or which requires the agency of an unknown nation of antiquity. Yet supposing Nicaragua to have been long inhabited by a people of only slightly varying stages of civilization, any one of the idols described may have been worshiped thousands of years before the Spanish conquest. The relics are over three hundred years old; nothing in themselves proves them to be less than three thousand. Comparison with more northern relics and history may fix their age within narrower limits. FOOTNOTES: [II-1] A general view of South American antiquities is given in another chapter of this volume. [II-2] I might except a Roman coin of the time of Cæsar Augustus, and a buried ship, or galley, of antique model, said to have been discovered in early times by the Spaniards in the vicinity of Panamá, and which figured somewhat largely in early speculations on the question of American origin. I need not say that the evidence for the authenticity of such a discovery is extremely unsatisfactory. See: _García_, _Orígen de los Ind._, p. 174, with quotation from _Marineo_, _Sumario_, (Toledo, 1546,) fol. 19--apparently the original authority in the matter--and a reference to other editions and works; _Solórzano Pereyra_, _De Ind. Jure_, tom. i., p. 93; _Id._ _Política Ind._, tom. i., p. 22; _Horn_, _Orig. Amer._, p. 13; _Simon_, _Noticias Historiales_, (Cuença, 1626,) lib. i., cap. x.