provinces were able to reduce the famous stronghold of the Itzaes in Peten, and break down the temples in which, until then, the religious rites of the people who built the massive structures of Uxmal and Chichen-itza had been kept up in all their primitive pomp and significance. The history of this reduction was written by the chronicler Villagutierre with all the minute detail, and in the spirit of Froissart and the historians of the Middle Ages; but it only exists in parchment cerements, and under the seal of a strange, tongue, in the libraries of the curious and the learned. But since he wrote, until within a very recent period, neither historian or traveller, priest or soldier, has ventured into the sinister region which resisted with equal success the power of the Spanish arms and the still more formidable influences of the Catholic faith. The little knowledge once possessed of the country has been lost; the very names of its people, once the terror of the adjacent colonies, have almost passed from the memory of the present generation, and the Spanish establishments themselves, which the genius of Ursua pushed forward into the disputed territory, have been left to almost utter isolation and forgetful

ness.

Occasional references to the country, in books of travel, or in the transactions of learned societies, which have served rather to show how small is our knowledge, than to add to our information, are all that has been presented to the world concerning it, since the days of Cortez and Ursua. M. Waldeck skirted it in the directions of Tabasco and Yucatan, and Mr. Stephens on the side of Guatemala, but neither ventured into its interior. They heard fearful accounts of the ferocity of its incommunicative inhabitants, and have repeated to us the tragical stories connected with the fate of the few daring adventurers whom tradition reports as having undertaken to solve the mystery of its fastnesses. Even in Guatemala itself, within the nominal jurisdiction of which the greater part of the unknown country in ques

tion is included, only the vaguest no tions exist of the remote district of Peten and of the great Lake of Itza, on an island of which, and on the site of the metropolis of the Itzaes, Ursua founded a town which is still a political dependency of the republic. Separated by one hundred and fifty-six leagues of distance, involving a journey of twentynine days, ten of which are through an unbroken wilderness, which can only be traversed on foot, across rivers frequently unfordable, and wide tracts of country often inundated, and over mountains so steep, that in some places they can only be ascended by rude ladders formed by notching the trunks of foresttrees, and placing them against the declivities, to say nothing of the total absence of shelter and provisions, and the danger of attack from Hostile Indiansin view of these circumstances, it is not surprising that even that part of the country which is under a qualified Spanish authority, is, in all essential respects, a terra incognita, and has so long escaped the explorations of travellers.

How long it would have remained in this condition had its exploration and illustration depended exclusively on the people and governments of the surrounding states, it is not worth while to inquire. The darkness which enshrouded it would probably have been permitted to thicken and become more and more profound, had not M. Arthur Morelet, an adventurous French explorer and savant, crossed the Atlantic, and, plunging boldly into its recesses, brought it with its physical characteristics, its quaint people, and its natural history, within the circle of modern knowledge, and under the light of modern intelligence.*

The researches of M. Morelet are far too varied and important, and have too clear an appeal to American as well as general scientific interest, to be suffered to remain in the comparative obscurity to which a mistaken delicacy would

* Voyage dans l'Amérique Centrale, l'ile de Cuba et le Yucatan, par Arthur Morelet. Paris, 1867.

condemn them. They cover the vast delta of the Usumasinta, extending to the ruins of Palenque on the west, and thence eastward to the singular terrestrial basin of the mysterious Lake of Itza or Peten. From this centre they were extended southward, through a vast wilderness, and the hitherto untraversed and undescribed province of Vera Paz, to the city of Guatemala-a distance of upwards of three hundred leagues. In conjunction with the explorations of Messrs. Waldeck and Stephens in Chiapa and Yucatan, and of other later investigators to the southward, in Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, they serve to give us a very complete view of Central America, using that designation in a geographical sense, as including that portion of the continent lying between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and that of Darien. By their light, and that afforded by other investigators, we may now venture to speak with some degree of confidence and certainty of the vast and hitherto unexplored region to which we have alluded, and which, for want of a better name, we may call, after the people who inhabit it, Lacandon, or the country of the Lacandones.

This country is naturally divided into three distinct regions, strongly characterized and contrasted by their topography, productions, and people. First in order, approaching from the north, we find an enormous alluvion or delta, low, densely-wooded, and traversed in every direction by creeks and lagoons, through which the waters, poured down by the Usumasinta and Tabasco, find their devious and uncertain way to the Gulf of Mexico. For six months of the year, during the season of rains, the rivers and creeks overflow their low banks, and the whole country resembles a great sea, filled with floating forests. But when the waters subside, the channels of the creeks become narrowed, the swollen lagoons contract, and both become bordered by broad bands of black mud, which blister and crack under the tropical sun, generating miasmatic vapors, and filling the air with

imperceptible poison and death. These conditions imply a region of luxuriant vegetation and teeming aquatic life. Its forests are not alone of wide extent, but every tree is loaded down with lianes and vines of a thousand varieties, blushing with flowers of overpowering odor, that hang in festoons from every gigantic limb. Beneath their shade the slender bamboo shoots up its green and graceful stem, and the arum struggles to display its broad leaves to the sun and air. The lagoons, too, are full of aquatic plants of sizes and varieties unknown to northern latitudes, among which swarm myriads of waterfowls, filling the air with their discordant cries, and on the slightest alarm startling the traveller with the rush of their multitudinous wings. The alligator,

also, slumbers on the slimy shores, as yet undisturbed by the splash of wheels or by the rifle-crack which has made life unhappy to his persecuted congener of the Lower Mississippi.

In such a region as this, man is an intruder. He will not brave the unequal warfare with savage nature which life here involves only under the pressure of overpowering circumstances, or the potential influences of gain. Such do not seem to have existed in ancient times, and the whole of the lower Usumasinta here described, and which may be called the Lagoon country, is destitute of traces of aboriginal population. It is possible that the builders of Palenque and Ocosingo, and the other dwellers on the upper waters of the river, may have used it as a means of communication with the sea; but neither they nor their descendants made any permanent establishments on its sinister shores. And as Cortez found it, three hundred and fifty years ago, so it remains to this day-except that there are a few establishments for the cutting of logwood, scattered here and there, at wide intervals apart, which afford, in their rude hospitalities, a welcome refuge to the exhausted traveller, whose canoe has threaded wearily, for days and weeks, the intricacies of the mesh of waters.

Succeeding to this low region of the lagoons, is a vast area of territory, embraced between the true Cordillera, or great dividing-ridge of the continent, on the west, and a subordinate range of mountains, bearing various names at different points, which starts out from the Cordillera in Guatemala, and runs northeastward, through the Peninsula of Yucatan. This wide region, comprehending an extent of territory nearly equal to that of New England, is drained by the river Usumasinta, which gathers its waters from a thousand mountain-gorges and valleys. It is a region of extraordinary diversity of surface, and the unpublished records of ancient military expeditions against its unconquered inhabitants, speak with simple wonder of its plains and valleys and glistening lakes. M. Morelet traversed only its northern border, starting from the town of Tenosique on the Usumasinta, eastward to the Lake of Itza-a distance of one hundred leagues. He found the country but little broken, with a gradual ascent to the elevated plain or plateau within which is embraced the lake referred to-itself the centre of a terrestrial basin, without an outlet to the sea, something like the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Deseret or Utah. The whole country intervening between the river and the lake on the line which he traversed is now a wilderness, without a trace of human occupancy. But Nature holds here exulting dominion, and although vegetation is less rank and thick than on the low grounds, it seems stronger, more vigorous, and of a higher type. Forest has succeeded to forest through unknown ages, fertilizing the soil and affording nourishment to newer and more magnificent growths, and the traveller en; counters occasional trees of gigantic proportions, veritable colossi, which astonish and overawe him with their dimensions. Some of these are from ten to fifteen yards in circumference, and send out branches which themselves exceed in size the monarchs of our northern woods. From these depend vines of numberless varieties, swaying

in festoons from their lofty hold, or twining themselves around the massive tree-trunks, with a wealth of luxuriance and bloom, of which no description can convey an accurate notion to our hyperborean fancies. In places, a colony of princely palms has effected a lodgment and crowded out the more rugged varieties of forest-trees. Here, their tall trunks are crowned with broad and feathery leaves; yonder, their branches are still laced up in their undeveloped stipe, while elsewhere they spread out in graceful, fan-like forms against the blue sky, while a flood of light streams down among them in a bright and cheerful blaze. Flowers, too, of corresponding proportions line the devious path of the adventurous traveller, and among them the aristolochia grandiflora, often measuring fifteen and eighteen inches in diameter, resembling the conventional cap of liberty, turned up with a violet velvet lining. Its great size, sombre color, and, above all, its rank and virulent odor, which generally deters the traveller from touching it, have led the Spaniards, who are never at a loss for a nickname, whether for men or for natural objects, to call it Montera del Demonio, or the "Devil's Cap."

Here, also, is found the pavo del monte, or peacock of the woods, which surpasses the bird of Juno in the brilliancy of its plumage; the stately currasow, the gay macaw, and the vociferous parrot. Serpents, contrary to conventional notions, are rare, and except, perhaps, from the coral, with its alternate bands of yellow, black, and red, and with a fang more deadly than the most virulent poison that human ingenuity has yet devised, the wayfarer here has nothing to dread from the lithe and scaly descendant of the tempter of our unfortunate common mother!

But with all this wealth of teeming earth around him, man feels that he is here only as an accident. The part which he plays is so insignificant, that he seems hardly requisite to the general harmony of the creation. He struggles through the dark old forests like a pigmy, the impotent challenger of con

stantly occurring obstacles. It is in these vast solitudes that the enigma of human existence first presents itself to the mind. Nothing here accords with the ideas implanted by education and developed by pride, and the traveller cannot help reflecting for how many centuries have these forests given shade and vegetation without at all profiting those beings who arrogate to themselves the dominion of the world!

These ideas and impressions are doubt less wrong in themselves, but they are such as fill the mind of the wayfarer in trackless wilds. The ancient Ascetics, who sought to extinguish the pride and vainglory of their spirits, did well to seclude themselves in forests and among mountains, away from the crowded cities and the haunts of men!

To the vast region of forests just described, there succeeds a high tableland or plateau, elevated upward of two thousand feet above the sca, shut in by a cincture of hills, dotted over with clumps of forests and wooded elevations, in the midst of which gleams, like a diamond amongst emeralds, the beautiful Lake of Itza. It is the centre of a considerable district, dependent, politically, on Guatemala, and called the district of Peten. On an island, near its southern extremity, the seat and stronghold of the ancient warlike Itzaes, stands the town of Flores, the capital of the district. This district, and, above all, this lake, have a special interest, not only from the fact that they have never before been described, but also because they constitute a remarkable physical phenomenon on this continent, only paralleled by the valley and lake of Titicaca in Bolivia, and that of the Great Salt Lake in our own territory. Hitherto it has been a question whether this lake discharged its waters into the Gulf of Mexico or the Bay of Honduras; and it was left for M. Morelet to settle the disputed question, which he has done in a manner equally clear and conclusive. According to his account, the lake is an irregular body of water, fifty miles in length, by three to five miles in average width. Although it receives a

number of small streams, it has no outlet, whenee the Indians call it Nohuken, translated by the Spaniards, Beben Mucho, or Drink Much. It is of great depth, deepening rapidly from its shores, whence our explorer was at first inclined to believe it of volcanic origin. But he failed to discover any traces of igneous action on the rocks that surround it, which are of a coarse limestone, gypsum, and silex. It is belted with wooded hills, and although no reeds appear on its surface, yet a narrow line of water-lilies runs along its shore, in a fragrant fringe. In times of scarcity, the seeds of these flowers are gathered and ground for bread. During the dry season the level of the water in the lake is sensibly lowered, while in the rainy season the waters rise so high as to threaten with overflow the houses built on the borders of the Island of Flores. Although usually calm, and almost as motionless as a mirror, yet during the rainy season its surface is sometimes lashed into fury by the northeast winds, which blow over the high plain of Peten with vehement force.

Consonant with its isolation and individuality, the lake nourishes fishes of peculiar species, distinct from any that have yet been described. The most abundant is called cili-a silvery fish, gregarious in its habits, like the herring, and belonging to the genus chatoissus. Here, too, our traveller discovered a new variety of alligator, or rather a true crocodile, to which the Academy of Natural Sciences of Paris gave the name of Crocodilus Moreletii. Instead of two orifices in the upper jaw to secure the fourth teeth, it has two grooves on each side, and is, in other ways, distinguished from the other varieties of the reptile yet discovered on this continent.

To the eastward of Lake Itza are a number of smaller lakes, in a line, extending towards the sources of the Rio Hondo, which, during the period of rains, overflow and connect with each other, forming a continuous chain, through which canoes may pass. Apart from its lakes, the most salient feature

of the district of Peten, especially near its centre, is the multitude of regular, mammillary-wooded hills, alternating with level plains, or savannas, of every varying aspect. These are carpeted with grass, and although offering abundant pasturage for herds of cattle, are silent and unoccupied. Altogether, the country resembles some broad and beautiful park, and the traveller expects every moment to hear the familiar bark of some farmer's dog, or see the smoke curl up from the chimney of his dwelling. But only one green glade succeeds to another, and the hours pass by with scarcely a sign or sound of life to diversify his journey or disturb the repose that rests on all things like a sabbathspell.

Owing to its elevation and other causes, the climate of Peten is cool, dry, and salubrious. Its soil is wonderfully fertile, and its natural resources almost unbounded.

The maize yields two hundred fold in ordinary years, and a certain white variety matures so rapidly that it may be gathered within ninety days after planting; cacao grows spontaneously in the woods; a fine aromatic variety of tobacco flourishes luxuriously in the very streets of Flores; coffee bears fruit at the end of the first year; vanilla, sarsaparilla, Tabasco pepper, copal, and dye-woods, are all indigenous, besides a multitude of vegetables, the fruits or roots of which have value as food, or may be usefully employed in the arts.

Peten, in its geographical position, its history, and in respect to its population, belongs naturally to Yucatan, of which it constitutes the most elevated part. The two countries are separated only by immense forests. But between it and Guatemala, to which it belongs politically, we find a great rampart of mountains, impassable even for mules. Thus hemmed in on every side, and isolated from the world, the people of Peten have developed a character equally peculiar and interesting, approaching, perhaps, more nearly to that Arcadian simplicity and contentment, of which we sometimes dream as the per

fection of human conditions, than any other people of which we have any knowledge. Genial nature supplies them with abundant food at the cost of but little exertion, and ignorant of other lands and free from artificial wants, they believe their own forestfenced region to be the most favored spot on the globe, and their own modes of life the most rational and satisfactory. And if we may credit the description which our traveller has drawn of their condition, they are equally contented and happy. In the streets of Flores there are neither shops nor artisans, not even a market, and every one depends on his own productions, or on such exchanges as he may be able to make with his neighbors, for his food. The accumulation of property is a purpose unknown, and possession constitutes the only title to the soil which is recognized among the people. The day, which in other lands is the period of activity, is here the period of calm and repose. But as soon as the sun goes down, and the evening-breeze sets in, the town is full of life and hilarity, and the sound of the marimba, issuing from open doorways, invites whoever chooses to enter and share in the dance and the song, which continue far into the night, under no more brilliant illumination than the light of the moon, or that of pine splinters stuck in friendly crevices in the walls. High and low participate with perfect freedom in the festivities, and rank, age, caste, and color, all the conditions which elsewhere divide society, are lost or confounded. The same tumblerfor few families are the fortunate possessors of more than one-circulates among the guests, until it is drained, while a single spoon alternates from hand to hand with the same jar of sweetmeats. It need hardly be added that under such primitive conditions, the ladies of Flores have not yet mastered the mysteries of crinoline and corsets. Their dress is of that free and open character which best conforms with the geniality of the climate. A chemise of thin linen or cotton cloth, fringed around the arms and neck with coarse