image whose weight
amounted to about 3,500 lbs. Its imposing and majestic attitude,
and the insignia which adorned it, leads to the supposition that it
was some notable leader of the time, a king, or perhaps a noble of
those regions. Such deductions were hazarded as suppositions. The
discoverer supposed it buried by its kindred and subjects more than
12,000 years ago. The reasons shall I attempt to give? It was
reached at 8 meters in depth, not far from the manorial castle of
Chichen, to which the approach is by a staircase of 90 steps, which
are visible from the four cardinal points. According to the above
discoverer there existed a kind of mausoleum or monument--erected
to the memory of the ruler, Chac-Mool, by the queen, his
wife--until it was destroyed at the time of the invasion of
Chichen-Itza by the Nahuas or Toltecs, at the end of the second
century of the Christian era. Even now is preserved at a short
distance from the place where was exhumed the statue of Chac-Mool,
a statue of stone representing a tiger, also above a quadrilateral
base, which once had a human head, and which it is presumed
surmounted the monument before the time of its destruction.

Employing a protection of limbs and trunks of trees, and providing
a capstan with ropes made from the bark of the grapevine, by force
of perseverance the learned Le Plongeon was able to land upon the
surface of the soil the most noteworthy archaeological treasure
which has been discovered to this day in Yucatan.

Ignorant of the laws of the country, this American traveller
thought that he might at once call himself the proprietor of the
statue, and succeeded in bringing it, in 15 days, as far as the
uninhabited town of Piste, two miles from the ruins, upon a wagon
constructed for the purpose, hiding it in the neighborhood of the
above town, while he informed himself about his supposed rights.
The indefatigable traveller came to Merida, where, in the meantime
the Government of the State asserted that the statue was the
general property of the nation and not that of the discoverer.

Leaving for a better opportunity the questions relative to it, Dr.
Le Plongeon occupied himself in visiting other ruins, busying
himself between the Island of Cozumel and that of Mugeres, until
peace should