Of the moral effect of the monuments themselves, standing as they do in the depths of a tropical forest, silent and solemn, strange in design, excellent in sculpture, rich in ornament, different from the works of any other people, their uses and purposes and whole history so entirely unknown with hieroglyphics explaining all, but being perfectly unintelligible, I shall not pretend to convey any idea. Often the imagination was pained in gazing at them.
Source
John Lloyd Stephens (speaking of Maya monuments). 1841. Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. Vol. I: 123-124. Reprinted in 1949 by Rutgers University Press; 2 volumes. As quoted in John S. Henderson's The World of the Ancient Maya.
