MEMOIR
OF AN
EVENTFUL EXPEDITION
IN
CENTRAL AMERICA;

RESULTING IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE IDOLATROUS CITY OF
IXIMAYA,

In an unexplored region; and the possession of two

REMARKABLE AZTEC CHILDREN,

Descendants and Specimens of the Sacerdotal Caste, (now
nearly extinct,) of the Ancient Aztec Founders of the
Ruined Temples of that Country,

DESCRIBED BY
JOHN L. STEVENS, ESQ.,
AND OTHER TRAVELLERS.

Translated from the Spanish of
PEDRO VELASQUEZ,
of SAN SALVADOR.

NEW YORK:
E. F. Applegate, Printer, 111 Nassau Street.
1850.

PROFILE ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM
CENTRAL AMERICAN RUINS,
OF
ANCIENT RACES STILL EXISTING
IN IXIMAYA.

The above three figures, sketched from engravings in “Stevens’s Central America,” will be found, on personal comparison, to bear a remarkable and convincing resemblance, both in the general features and the position of the head, to the two living Aztec children, now exhibiting in the United States, of the ancient sacerdotal caste of Kaanas, or Pagan Mimes, of which a few individuals remain in the newly discovered city of Iximaya. See, the following Memoir, page 31.

These two figures, sketched from the same work, are said, by Senor Velasquez, in the unpublished portion of his narrative, to be “irresistible likenesses” of the equally exclusive but somewhat more numerous priestly caste of Mahaboons, still existing in that city, and to which belonged Vaalpeor, an official guardian of those children, as mentioned in this memoir. Velasquez states that the likeness of Vaalpeor to the right hand figure in the frontispiece of Stevens’ second volume, which is here also the one on the right hand, was as exact, in outline, as if the latter had been a daguerreotype miniature.

While writing his “Narrative” after his return to San Salvador, in the spring of the present year, (1850,) Senor Velasquez was favored, by an American gentleman of that city, with a copy of “Layard’s Nineveh,” and was forcibly struck with the close characteristic resemblance of the faces in many of its engravings to those of the inhabitants in general, as a peculiar family of mankind, both of Iximaya and its surrounding region. The following are sketches, (somewhat imperfect,) of two of the male faces to which he refers:

And the following profile, from the same work, is pronounced by Velasquez to be equally characteristic of the female faces of that region, making due allowance for the superb head dresses of tropical plumage, with which he describes the latter as being adorned, instead of the male galea, or close cap, retained in the engraving.

These illustrations, slight as they are, are deemed interesting, because the Iximayans assert their descent from a very ancient Assyrian colony nearly co-temporary with Nineveh itself—a claim which receives strong confirmation, not only from the hieroglyphics and monuments of Iximaya, but from the engravings in Stevens’ volumes of several remarkable objects, (the inverted winged globe especially,) at Palenque—once a kindred colony.

It should have been stated in the following Memoir, that Senor Velasquez, on his return to San Salvador, caused the two Kaana children to be baptized into the Catholic Church, by the Bishop of the Diocese, under the names of Maximo and Bartola Velasquez.

MEMOIR
OF A RECENT
EVENTFUL EXPEDITION
IN
CENTRAL AMERICA.

In the second volume of his travels in Central America—than which no work ever published in this country, has created and maintained a higher degree of interest, both at home and abroad—Mr. Stevens speaks with enthusiasm of the conversations he had held with an intelligent and hospitable Padre, or Catholic priest, of Santa Cruz del Quiche, formerly of the village of Chajul; and of the exciting information he had received from him, concerning immense and marvellous antiquities in the surrounding country, which, to the present hour, remain entirely unknown to the world. The Padre told him of vast ruins, in a deserted and desolate region, but four leagues from Vera Paz, more extensive than Quiche itself; and of another ruined city, on the other side of the great traversing range of the Cordilleras, of which no account has been given. But the most stimulating story of all, was the existence of a living city, far on the other side of the great sierra, large and populous, occupied by Indians of the same character, and in precisely the same state, as those of the country in general, before the discovery of the continent and the desolating conquests of its invaders.

The Padre averred that, in younger days, he had climbed to the topmost ridge of the sierra, a height of 10 or 12,000 feet, and from its naked summit, looking over an immense plain, extending to Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, had seen, with his own eyes, in the remote distance, “a large city, spread over a great space, with turrets white and glittering in the sun.” His account of the prevalent Indian report concerning it was, that no white man had ever reached that city; that the inhabitants, who speak the Maya language, are aware that a race of white strangers has conquered the whole country around them, and have hence murdered every white man that has since attempted to penetrate their territory. He added that they have no coin or other circulating medium; no horses, mules, or other domestic animals, except fowls, “and keep the cocks under ground to prevent their crowing being heard.” This report of their slender resources for animal food, and of their perpetual apprehension of discovery, as indicated in this inadequate and childish expedient to prevent it, is, in most respects, contradicted by that of the adventurous expedition about to be described, and which, having passed the walls of their city, obtained better information of their internal