Note III-32 — Chapter III · ANTIQUITIES OF SALVADOR AND HONDURAS. RUINS OF COPAN.

'The hieroglyphics displayed upon the walls of Copan, in horizontal or perpendicular rows, would indicate a written language in which the pictorial significance had largely disappeared, and a kind of word-writing had become predominant. Intermingled with the pictorial devices are apparently purely arbitrary characters which may be alphabetic.' Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, p. 322. They are conjectured to recount the adventures of Topiltzin-Acxitl, a Toltec king who came from Anáhuac and founded an empire in Honduras, or Tlapallan, at the end of the eleventh century. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 101-2. Like those of Palenque, and some characters of the Dresden MS. Squier's Pref. to Palacio, Carta, p. 10. 'No he hallado libros de sus antigüedades, ni creo que en todo este distrito hay más que uno, que yo tengo.' Palacio, in Pacheco, Col. Doc. Inéd., tom. vi., p. 39. I have no idea what this one book spoken of may have been. The characters are apparently hieroglyphics, 'but to us they are altogether unintelligible.' Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 55-6, 66.