body was buried, looking towards the west and the ornaments were laid on either side.
Thus evidence was obtained that the form of sepulture was different from that of the Indians of America, and is exactly similar to that of the Phœnicians as described by the Scholiast in Thucydides. In speaking of certain tombs at Delos which had been opened he says that some were known to be Phœnician for the following reason, "τῶν ἄλλων γὰρ ἐπ᾽ ἀνατολὰς ποιούντων ὁρᾷν τοὺς νεκροὺς, οἷ φοίνικες ἐξεπίτηδες ἐπὶ δύσιν" I. 8. "Other nations bury the dead looking towards the east, the Phœnicians (lay them) with care towards the west."
Much information was obtained respecting the position of other ruins, as well as those actually examined, for my Father only made a cursory visit to aid him in preparing for a more complete exploration. This object he was not able to accomplish, and he deferred writing the result of his first journey in the hope that a second would have enabled him to put forward a work containing further and more valuable particulars.
I may state that he learned from mahogany cutters that in British Honduras on the banks of the Belize river there are the ruins of a very fine city, which has never been visited by a scientific traveller, and one of the men gave him a pebble fish of a green colour which he had found there. This object may have had its shape naturally, but at all events the hole drilled for the eyes is artificial, and no lapidary of the present day could do it more perfectly.
My Father considered that if this theory of a Phœnician or Carthaginian Colony is correct, traces must be looked for on the sea coast. The representations which different travellers have given us of the monuments in Central America have been drawings, but however well the outline of a building and its general characteristics can be thus delineated, inscriptions and matters of detail cannot be accurately transcribed in this manner. If copies of the celebrated inscription of Darius at Behistan had been made by drawing instead of by means of paper casts the cuneiform character might yet have remained undecyphered. It is therefore of consequence to obtain correct representations of these monuments, but in the first instance our own territory and the adjoining coast should be carefully examined by competent persons provided with a photographic apparatus. Our government has most liberally contributed to the exploration of Africa and to excavations in the Levant, and surely it is a national discredit to leave unnoticed important antiquities in our American possessions. A thousand pounds would amply suffice to defray the expenses of such an expedition,
