href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@31418@[email protected]#Footnote_8-1_12" class="fnanchor pginternal" id="FNanchor_8-1_12" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">8-1 The chronicler Gomara furnished a long list of the native articles which Grijalva brought back in 1519 from Potonchan and the neighboring coast. They reveal a high degree of artistic culture, and leave no doubt but that the tribes of the vicinity were as developed in the arts as any in America.

Ruined Cities.—Writing about 1875, Mr. H. H. Bancroft says: “On the immediate coast (of Tabasco) some large towns and temples were seen by the early voyagers; but I have no information that relics of any kind have been discovered in modern times.”8-2

In fact, although it is doubtful if there are any ruins directly on the coast, there are many but a short distance inland. Those at Comalcacalco have been figured and described by M. Charnay, and his work is so well known that a reference to it is sufficient.

At the locality called Pedrito, about fifteen miles from the mouth of the Tabasco, there are many mounds, embankments, piles of pottery and other signs of an ancient town. Among the relics is a large circular stone, “like a round table,” with figures in relief engraved on its sides, and with holes drilled in its surface, in which pegs or wooden nails are said to have been fitted.8-3 About ten miles north of this spot is another group of mounds on the left bank of the Rio de San Pablo y San Pedro. Doubtless many others exist unknown in the dense forests.

The Ruins of Cintla.—The ruins of Cintla were visited and surveyed by the late Dr. C. H. Berendt in March and April, 1869, and, so far as I know, neither before nor since have they been seen by any archæologist. Nor can I learn that Dr. Berendt ever published the results of his researches. The only reference I can find to them in any of his published writings is in a paper which he read, July 10th, 1876, before the American Geographical Society, and which was published in its Bulletin, No. 2, for that year. The title of this address was, “Remarks on the Centers of Ancient Civilization in Central America and their Geographical Distribution.” He certainly prepared a much more extended paper especially on Cintla, with illustrations and maps, fragments of which I have found among the documents left at his death; but if published, I have been unable to trace it. Nor can I discover what became of the considerable archæological collection which he made at Cintla and brought away with him, a memorandum about which is among his papers.

The passage in his address before the Geographical Society touching on Cintla is as follows:

“It was by mere chance that in the year 1869 I discovered the site of ancient Cintla, buried in the thick and fever-haunted forests of the marshy coast, and unknown until then to the Indians themselves. In the course of the excavations which I caused to be made, antiquities of a curious and interesting character were laid bare.

“Prominent among these ruins, and presenting a peculiar feature of workmanship, are the so-called teocallis, or mounds, which here are built of earth, and covered at the top and on the sides with a thick layer of mortar in imitation of stone work. On one of these mounds I found not only the sides and the platform, but even two flights of stairs, constructed of the same apparently fragile but yet enduring material. One of the latter was perfectly well preserved. I likewise saw clay