The most interesting examples are to be found in the forest above San Agustin. Under the giant cedars and tall cecropias that cover the slopes one finds works of a more pretentious nature, scattered among the dense low palm growths and covered with creepers and epiphytes. There a huge stone tablet may be seen, supported on four richly carved stone columns six feet high, which probably served as an altar for the offer of sacrifice; or it may have been the entrance to a temple. Near-by is an underground gallery leading to two large caves in which are carvings of the sun and moon with rays darting in all directions. There are many other statues within a radius of several miles, and doubtless a systematic search of the region would reveal rich archæological treasure-troves. Numerous mounds and caverns furnish abundant evidence of the existence of ruined temples and the remnants of works of art that have yielded to decadence with the passing of the centuries. Most of the known statues have been undermined by fortune-hunters and have toppled over; others have been broken by the excavators in their mad search for the small gold replicas or ornaments that are found in the graves, while several have been demolished by order of the clergy. The only thing that prevents the removal of the stones themselves is their great weight and lack of transportation facilities. The ruins about San Agustin possess none of the ornate massiveness of those found in Guatemala and Yucatan, but rather has the work been executed along severe lines and in bas-relief; nor are they nearly so well preserved, which might tend to show that they date back to an earlier period. Hieroglyphics are almost wholly wanting. Doctor Karl Theodor Stoepel, who spent some time in San Agustin previous to our visit, has traced a similarity between one of the monoliths and an example found in Pachacama, Bolivia. In one or two instances the work resembles that of the Aztecs. Just how to account for the advance of civilization to a point where art and architecture were encouraged, and which supported a well-organized form of government, and then to explain its complete extinction, is a question on which students of the subject are at variance. Religion in some form or other has always wielded a powerful influence upon the life and customs of primitive nations; one evidence--almost invariably the deities and the temples erected for their veneration represent the supreme efforts of the ancient artists and alone have withstood the weathering of ages. This points strongly to the supremacy of a sacerdotal order; but whether the reigning classes who withheld their knowledge from the common people for selfish purposes were annihilated by an uprising of the servile hordes or by an outside invasion, or whether some great cataclysm of nature extinguished the progress of ages at a stroke, may forever remain a secret.