of blood. Two young men of good
constitution, and who could afford to spend five years, might
succeed. If the object of search prove a phantom, in the wild
scenes of a new and unexplored country, there are other objects of
interest; but, if real, besides the glorious excitement of such a
novelty, they will have something to look back upon through life.
As to the dangers, they are always magnified, and, in general,
peril is discovered soon enough for escape. But, in all
probability, if any discovery is made, it will be made by the
Padres. As for ourselves, to attempt it alone, ignorant of the
language and with the mozos who were a constant annoyance to us,
was out of the question. The most we thought of, was to climb to
the top of the sierra, thence to look down upon the mysterious
city; but we had difficulties enough in the road before us; it
would add ten days to a journey already almost appalling in the
perspective; for days the sierra might be covered with clouds; in
attempting too much, we might lose all; Palenque was our great
point, and we determined not to be diverted from the course we had
marked out." Vol. II, p. 193-196.

It is now known that two intrepid young men, incited probably by this
identical passage in Mr. Stevens's popular work--one a Mr. Huertis, of
Baltimore, an American of Spanish parents, from Cuba, possessing an
ample fortune, and who had travelled much in Egypt, Persia, and Syria,
for the personal inspection of ancient monuments; and the other, a Mr.
Hammond, a civil-engineer from Canada, who had been engaged for some
years on surveys in the United States, agreed to undertake the perilous
and romantic enterprise thus cautiously suggested and chivalrously
portrayed.

Amply equipped with every desirable appointment, including daguerreotype
apparatuses, mathematical instruments, and withal fifty repeating
rifles, lest it should become necessary to resort to an armed
expedition, these gentlemen sailed from New-Orleans and arrived at
Belize, in the fall of 1848. Here they procured horses, mules, and a
party of ten experienced Indians and Mestitzos; and after pursuing a
route, through a wild, broken, and heavily wooded region, for about 150
miles, on the Gulf of Amatique, they struck off more to the south-west,
for Coban, where they arrived on the morning of Christmas day, in time
to partake of the substantial