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Squier, who tells us more of them than any other explorer, says, “I heard of remains and monuments in Honduras and San Salvador equal to those of Copan in extent and interest.” He mentions the ruins of Opico, near San Vincente, in San Salvador, which “cover nearly two square miles, and consist of vast terraces, ruins of edifices, circular and square towers, and subterranean galleries, all built of cut stones: a single carving has been found here on a block of stone.” Remains of “immense works” exist in the district of Chontales, near the northern shore of Lake Nicaragua; and pottery found in Nicaragua “equals the best specimens of Mexico and Peru.” Don Jose Antonio Urritia, curé of Jutiapa, gave the following account of a great ruin on a mountain in San Salvador, near the town of Comapa: it is called Cinaca-Mecallo: “The walls, or remains of the city wall, describe an oval figure, within which roads or streets may be traced, and there are various subterranean passages and many ruined edifices.
There follows a song by the old shepherd Opico, on the superiority of the 'former age'; after which Carino asks the narrator, Sincero the pseudonym under which Sannazzaro travelled in the realm of shepherds to recount his history, which he does at length, ending with a lament in sestina form. By way of consoling him in his exile Carino, in return, tells the tale of his own amorous adventures.
Next the reverend Opico is induced to discourse of the powers of magic as the shepherds proceed to the sacred grove of Pan, who shares with Pales the honours of Arcadian worship, and to the games held at the tomb of sibyllic Massilia a name under which Sannazzaro is said to have commemorated his own mother.
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