Note III-13 — Chapter III · ANTIQUITIES OF SALVADOR AND HONDURAS. RUINS OF COPAN.

The Licenciado Diego García de Palacio, Oidor (Justice, not Auditor) of the Real Audiencia of Guatemala, in accordance with the duties of his office, traveled extensively in Guatemala and adjoining provinces, embodying the results of his observations on countries and peoples visited in a relation to King Felipe II. of Spain, dated March 8, 1576, which document is preserved in the celebrated Muñoz collection of MSS. It contains a description of the ruins of Copan which exists in print as follows; Palacio, Relacion, in Pacheco, Col. Doc. Inéd., tom. vi., pp. 37-9; Palacio, Carta dirijida al Rey, Albany, 1860, pp. 88-96, including an English translation by E. G. Squier; Palacios, Description, in Ternaux-Compans, Recueil de Doc., pp. 42-4, which is a somewhat faulty French translation; Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, tom. xcvii., pp. 38-40; Squier's Cent. Amer., pp. 242-4; and it is mentioned by Señor J. B. Muñoz in a report on American antiquities, written as early as 1785, of which a translation is given in Brasseur de Bourbourg, Palenqué, pp. 7-8; Herrera, Hist. Gen., quotes, or rather takes from, Palacio's relation extensively, but omits the portion touching Copan. This first account of the ruins is by no means the worst that has been written. Although naturally incomplete, it is evidently a bona-fide description by an actual visitor, written at a time when the ruins were very nearly in their present condition, and their origin wrapped in mystery, although the stirring events of 1530 were yet comparatively fresh in the memory of the natives. The next account is that in Fuentes y Guzman, Recopilacion Flórida de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala, MS., 1689. This work was never printed, although said to be in preparation for the press in 1856. Ximenez, Hist. Ind. Guat., p. vii. Fuentes' description of Copan was, however, given to the public in 1808, in Juarros, Compendio de la Hist. de la Ciudad de Guatemala, a work translated into English in 1823, under the title of A Statistical and Commercial Hist. of the Kingdom of Guatemala. From Juarros the account is taken by many writers, none, so far as I know, having quoted Fuentes in the original. Where the latter obtained his information is not known. His account is brief, and justly termed by Brasseur de Bourbourg, Palenqué, p. 14., 'la description menteuse de Fuentes,' since nothing like the relics therein mentioned have been found in later times. Yet it is possible that the original was mutilated in passing through Juarros' hands. This description, given in full in my text, is repeated more or less fully in Stephens' Cent. Amer., vol. i., p. 131; Warden, Recherches, p. 71; Conder's Mex. Guat., vol. ii., pp. 299-300; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. vi., pp. 470-1; Humboldt, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1827, tom. xxxv., p. 329; Hassel, Mex. Guat., pp. 385-6; Cortés, Adventuras, p. 321, and in many other works mentioned in connection with matter from later sources. Next we have the exploration of Colonel Juan Galindo, an officer in the Central American service, sometime governor of the province of Peten, made in April, 1835. An account of his observations was forwarded to the Société de Géographie of Paris, and published in the Bulletin of that Society, and also in the Literary Gazette of London. A communication on the subject was also published in Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. ii., pp. 545-50; and the information furnished to the French Geographical Society was published en résumé in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., pp. 73, 76. Ten drawings accompanied Galindo's report, but have never been published, although the author announced the intention of the Central American government to publish his report in full with plates. He says, 'je suis le seul qui ait examiné les ruines de Copan, et qui en ait fait la relation,' but he knew nothing of Palacio's visit. 'Not being an artist, his account is necessarily unsatisfactory and imperfect, but it is not exaggerated.' Stephens' Cent. Amer., vol. i., p. 132. 'Had an enquiring mind, but a very superficial Education.' Squier's Pref. to Palacio, Carta, p. 8. Most of Galindo's account is also given with that of Juarros, in Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 96-9; also some information from the same source in Brownell's Ind. Races, p. 52, and in Larenaudière, Mex. et Guat., p. 267. In 1839 Messrs Stephens and Catherwood visited Copan. Mr Stephens, as I find by a careful examination of his book, spent thirteen days in his survey, namely, from November 17 to 30; while Mr Catherwood spent the larger part of another month in completing his drawings. The results of their labors appeared in 1841 and 1844 under the titles:—Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Central America, vol. i., pp. 95-160, with twenty-one plates and seven cuts; Catherwood's Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, in folio, with large lithographic plates. Slight descriptions of the ruins, made up chiefly from Stephens, may be found as follows:—Helps' Span. Conq., vol. iii., pp. 54-5; Willson's Amer. Hist., pp. 76-9, with plan and cut; Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1841, tom. xcii., pp. 64-74, 57, with plan and plates; Jones' Hist. Anc. Amer., pp. 57-69, 116; Davis' Antiq. Amer., pp. 4-5; Id., (Ed. 1847,) p. 30; Dally, Races Indig., pp. 12-13; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 111-14, with cut; Wappäus, Geog. u. Stat., p. 308; Tiedemann, Heidelb. Yahrb., 1851, p. 85; Larenaudière, Mex. et Guat., pl. 9-12, the text being from Galindo and Juarros; Reichardt, Cent. Amer., pp. 91-2; Amérique Centrale, Colonization, pt. ii., p. 68; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, pp. 462-4, 483; Macgregor's Progress of Amer., pp. 877-8; Frost's Great Cities of the World, pp. 279-82, with cut. Dr Scherzer in 1856 started to explore Copan, but, owing to the political state of the country at the time, was unable to get nearer than Santa Rosa, where the padre said moreover that recent land-slides had much injured the effect of the ruins. This author gives, however, a brief account made up from Stephens, Galindo, and Juarros. Scherzer's Trav., vol. ii., pp. 41, 86-7, 94-5. Id., Wanderungen, pp. 332, 366, 371. In September, 1856, the Jesuit Padre Cornette is said to have visited the ruins; M. César Daly, at a date not mentioned, prepared on the spot plans and drawings of the different structures which he intended to publish in the Revue Générale de l'Architecture, but whether or not they have ever appeared, I know not; the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg made two visits to Copan in 1863 and 1866; some slight additional information on the subject was communicated by Mr Center, on authority not given, at a meeting of the American Ethnological Society in February, 1860; and Mr Hardcastle, who had spent several weeks in exploring the ruins, furnished some farther notes at a meeting of the same society in April, 1862; and, finally, photographs were made of the ruins by M. Ellerly, director of the Alotepeque silver-mines. But these later explorations have not as yet afforded the public much information, except that the photographs mentioned, when compared by Brasseur de Bourbourg with Catherwood's plates, show the latter as well as Stephens' descriptions to be strictly accurate. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 96, tom. ii., p. 493; Id., Palenqué, pp. 8, 17; Hist. Mag., vol. v., p. 114, vol. vi., p. 154.