[Illustration: ONE OF THE COLUMNS AT QUIRIGUA.]
Various theories have been propounded concerning all these ruins of Mexico and Central America, and it would be presumptuous for anyone not a member of a dozen or more learned societies and bearing several scientific degrees to venture an opinion. A few writers ascribe them to descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, to the Phœnicians, and to the Egyptians. Some ascribe to them great antiquity and others assert that they are of comparatively recent construction. The well-known traveller, J. L. Stephens, says: “They are the work of the same race who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or of some not very distant progenitors.” The great argument against this view is, however, that there were no traditions among the people found by the Spaniards that shed any light as to their origin, as would certainly have been the case if he is correct. The people who built them seem to have had a distinct, independent and separate existence.
Professor Marshall H. Saville, of the Department of Anthropology, in Columbia University, and also one of the curators in the American Museum of Natural History, is one of the best versed authorities on the ruins of Spanish-America, as he has visited many of them in connection with scientific expeditions. Through his courtesy I am enabled to give the following description written by him of the ruins at Quirigua:—
Of all the ancient cities in Central America, the forest covered ruins of Quirigua are perhaps the least known. They are situated in the valley of the Motagua, or Montagua River, about half a league from the left bank, and about sixty miles from the mouth where it empties into the Caribbean Sea. Entirely overspread with the densest tropical vegetation found anywhere in Central America, they have remained unexplored and their extent unknown. Now, however, the transcontinental railway from Puerto Barrios to the City of Guatemala passes through the valley at a distance of not more than a mile from this wonderful group of remains, and they are thus brought within easy reach of the traveller.
As yet no systematic excavation has ever been carried on there, although no field in Central America offers a richer return to the archæologist. It is not at all improbable that still more valuable sculptures may be buried in the paradise of luxuriant growth, in which cacao, quina, india rubber, mahogany, bamboo and gigantic ferns abound, through the depths of which the jaguar, puma, tapir and peccary roam at will, while birds of brilliant coloured plumage are exceedingly numerous.