Note 513 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
The original accounts furnished by actual explorers of Copan are as follows: 1st, by the Licenciado Diego García de Palacio, who prepared an account of his duties and their performance, for the king, Felipe II of Spain, dated March 8, 1576, and preserved in the Muñoz collection of MSS. The account has been published several times, at least once in the United States, in Palacio,
Carta Dirijida al Rey
, Albany, 1860, and translated into English by E. G. Squier; 2d, an account by Fuentes y Guzman, in a MS. dated 1689. However, so much as related to Copan was published in 1808 in Juarros,
Compendio de la Hist. de la Ciudad de Guatemala
, trans. in English in 1823; 3d, by Col. Juan Galindo, an officer in Central American service (explorations made in 1835), published communication in
Am. Antiq. Soc. Trans.
, vol. ii, pp. 545–50, and in
Antiq. Mex.
, tom. i, div. ii, pp. 73, 76; 4th, Stephens and Catherwood in 1839, published in
Incidents and Travels in Central America
, vol. i, pp, 95–160. New York, 1841.
The ruins have been visited by two or three persons since described by Stephens, but the public has not enjoyed the benefit of their researches, as we believe nothing has since been published on Copan. Brasseur de Bourbourg, who visited the ruins in 1863 and 1866, testifies to the perfect accuracy of the descriptions and plates in Stephens’ and Catherwood’s work. A considerable number of notices of Copan have been made up by different writers from these sources. The latest and best of such notices is that by Mr. Bancroft, Native Races, vol. iv, pp. 77–105, from whose bibliographical note we have drawn somewhat for the above facts.