moulds of the numerous hieroglyphic inscriptions. There are in all in the neighbourhood of the ruins about thirty caned stelae and altars (some of which are shown in the illustrations to this chapter), and nearly all of them bear inscriptions; but I shall defer all comment on the hieroglyphic writing to a later chapter, when more material will be available from which to select examples for explanation. In the meantime I may here give an account of my efforts to impress on the mind of a Central American the great interest attaching to the study of these carved inscriptions.
Whilst I was at Copan the village was visited by a General in the Honduras army. I am told that in the army of that Republic Generals are plentiful, and that the Government find it well to keep them harmlessly employed, lest the devil should find some mischief for their idle hands to do, in the shape of drawing up "pronunciamientos"; and this particular general was in the employment of the department of excise—that is to say, with the aid of a somewhat ragged following of soldiers, he was hunting through the country for illicit stills. Of course we paid one another formal visits and I had some very pretty speeches made to me about Progress, and Liberty, and Science, which, had they been printed with a free use of Capital letters, would have read like a leading article in a Spanish-American newspaper. The General thanked me formally for the distinguished service I was rendering his country, and accepted with effusion my offer to take him round the ruins and show him what discoveries had been made. On the next morning he appeared with note-book and pencil in hand, and we set off for the ruins, where I did my best in the capacity of showman. We examined all the excavations, and then returned to have another look at the monuments in the Great Plaza; but throughout our walk, although the General's fingers played caressingly round his pencil, he never took a note. At last we stood looking at the back of Stela A, which is covered with a particularly well-preserved inscription inclosed in a flat undecorated margin, on which some former visitor had rendered himself conspicuous by deeply carving his distinguished name, J. HIGGINS, in letters about three inches long. I was holding forth, in my best Spanish, about the probability of an interpretation being found to the hieroglyphics, and pointing out some glyphs which I had also met with on monuments in Chiapas and Peten, when the General opened his notebook, as I thought to make a drawing of the glyphs in question. When his pencil bad been at work for a few moments I glanced at the sheet to see how proficient he might be as a draughtsman, and found that he had got down J. HIG, and was carefully printing the second G, when he turned round to me and said "Senor Don Alfredo, after all, these hieroglyphics are very much like the characters we use now!"
