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Transcriber's Note

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and
hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled
and hyphenated words is found at the end of the text.

Oe ligatures have been expanded.





  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.


[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration]

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Velasquez, in the unpublished portion of his narrative, to be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:

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration]

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
  CENT