Passing into the state of Vera Cruz, the attention of the observer is arrested by great numbers of mounds of all the varieties peculiar to the Mississippi Valley. Excavations have yielded pottery of burnt clay, idols, and flint and stone weapons, as well as implements of agriculture, but no trace of iron or copper is recorded. As the Nahuas are said by Duran and Sahagun to have landed on the Gulf coast not far north of this region, and to have traversed it in their wanderings southward, and since the tradition derives them from Florida, it is not improbable that here we see the continuation of the works of the lower Mississippi.[526]

Of several interesting specimens of ancient architecture in the state of Vera Cruz we have selected a few examples. At Puente Nacional the remarkable pyramid shown in the cut is situated. It was described by J. M. Esteva in the Museo Mexicano in 1843. The pyramid is six stories high, and the eastern side is faced by a grand stairway in the form of a cross. Mr. Bancroft has described it, employing the accompanying cut. At Centla, twenty-five or thirty miles north of Cordova, a series of remarkable fortifications were discovered in 1821, which have been most thoroughly described by Sr. Sartorius, who visited the locality in 1833, but whose account was not published until 1869.[527]

The most notable fortification is situated at a narrow pass between two ravines, with perpendicular walls several hundred feet deep. The distance between the precipices at this point is only twenty-eight feet. The defensive works consist of several pyramidal structures built of stone and mortar. The largest of these has three terraces rising from the rear until they approach a perpendicular wall, fronting a narrow passage-way only three feet wide. This perpendicular wall is surmounted with parapets and loop-holes for defence. A pyramid on the opposite side of the passage-way, the platform of which is reached by a single flight of steps, is possessed of the same defensive features, with the addition of a ditch at its front eleven feet wide excavated in the solid rock to a depth of five and a half feet. The object of the fortress seems to have been the protection of an oval-shaped tract of fertile land containing about four hundred acres, lying between the barrancas. At the opposite end of the oval tract, the precipices approach so closely to each other as to leave a narrow passage of only three feet in width, which also is guarded by stone walls. Of numerous pyramids in the region, the one figured in the cut (from Bancroft’s work) is pronounced by Sr. Sartorius as typical of all of them.[528]

Half a league below the town of Huatusco, Dupaix discovered a remarkable pyramid crowning a hill on a slope of which was also a group of ruins called the Pueblo Viejo. This structure known as El Castillo, measures sixty-six feet in height, though there is some uncertainty as to the size of the base.[529] Dupaix’s text states it to be two hundred and twenty-one feet square, but Mr. Bancroft calls attention to the fact that Castañeda’s drawing makes it about seventy-five feet square. The pyramid in three terraces measures thirty-seven feet high. The superstructure is in three stories, with a single doorway in the lowest. This seems to have been the only opening through the walls of the castle, which were eight feet thick; we presume, however, only at their base, as their exterior shows a sloping rather than a perpendicular surface. The lowest story forms a single apartment with three pillars in the centre supporting the beams of the floor above. Portions of the beams were visible when Dupaix visited the locality. The walls of the castle are of rubble made of stone and mortar, as in the Yucatan structures, having stone facings. The exterior of the castle proper was coated with polished plaster and ornamented with panels containing regular rows of round stones embedded in the coating. Some unimportant fragments of sculpture in stone and terra-cotta were found in the ruin. El Castillo is of special interest because of the well-preserved condition of its superstructure. About one hundred and fifty or sixty miles north-west of the city of Vera Cruz, the German artist Nebel found a group of ruins known as those of Tusapan, buried in a dense forest at the foot of the Cordillera. The only structure which remains standing closely resembles the pyramid above described, except that the walls of the pyramid are not terraced, and the tower surmounting the pyramid is built with a single story. The only opening in the tower is the doorway at the head of the stairway. The interior contains a single apartment twelve feet square. The ceiling is said to have been arched or pointed, but Herr Nebel has failed to furnish definite information as to whether the arch was of overlapping stones or not, an oversight of an unpardonable character, since it would be of greatest interest to know whether the Maya arch existed so far north. The pyramid is described as thirty feet square, and built of irregular blocks of limestone, which was probably covered with a coat of the plastering generally employed and so polished in its appearance.[530] One remaining structure in the State of Vera Cruz merits special attention, namely, the pyramid of Papantla. This pyramid, known as El Tajin, “the thunderbolt,” is situated in a dense forest near the modern town of Papantla, which lies about forty miles east of Tusapan. There is a wide divergence of expression as to the dimensions of the pyramid. Herr Nebel, however, makes the base something over ninety feet square and the height fifty-four feet. The pyramid is seven stories high and apparently solid, except the topmost story which contained interior departments. This crowning structure is now sadly dilapidated. Dupaix’s statement, copied by Humboldt, that the material of the pyramid is porphyry, cut in immense blocks, appears to be an error, since later exploration has revealed the fact that the pyramid was constructed of regularly cut blocks of sandstone laid in mortar, and coated with a hard, smooth cement, three inches thick. A stairway on the eastern front is divided as well as being guarded by solid stone balustrades.[531]

For Nahua monuments of the purest type we naturally turn to Anahuac the home of Toltec and Aztec art during its most advanced period of development. But alas! the hand of the conqueror and the zeal of the fanatic have robbed irretrievably the antiquarian and the student of the history of architecture and art, of the best and noblest remains of that strangely interesting civilization. Our attention is naturally directed to the architecture of that ancient religious centre—Cholula—the origin of which, together with that of its great pyramid, we have described in a previous chapter. We have already seen that the prime object for erecting the immense pile, according to Duran, was the worship of the sun, and not to afford a refuge from a deluge as has been generally supposed. The pyramid of Cholula is situated in the eastern portion of a village to which it has given its name, and is reached by a ride of about ten miles westward from the city of Puebla de los Angelos. The magnificent temple upon its summit dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, fell a prey to the destroying vengeance of Cortez, who no doubt was enraged at the stubborn resistance with which he was met by the devoted natives, in a hard-fought battle at the foot and upon the slopes of the pyramid. Of the large number of descriptions, either made from personal observation or written from a comparison of accounts, none surpass that of Humboldt, which was the result of a careful survey, performed in 1803. Humboldt’s drawing, however, was a restoration and not a picture of the condition of the shrub-grown hill as he saw it.[532] The pyramid, according to Humboldt, measures at the base six hundred and thirty-nine metres or a trifle more than fourteen hundred and twenty-eight feet square; in other words, about forty-four acres. The base is shown by Humboldt to be more than twice as large as that of Cheops. Humboldt and Dupaix give its height as fifty-four metres or one hundred and seventy-seven feet; Mayer says it is two hundred and four feet; Tylor, two hundred and five feet, and Heller[533] states that its summit platform covers an area of 13,285 square feet. Its height is somewhat greater than that of the pyramid of Mycerinus. Humboldt compares it to a mass of brick, covering a square four times as large as the Place Vendôme and twice the height of the Louvre. He considers it of the same type as the temple of Jupiter Bélus—the pyramids of Meïdoùn Dahchoùr, and the group of Sakharah in Egypt. This great monument was constructed in four equal terraces of small sun-dried bricks, laid in a mortar which has been pronounced by some a mixture of clay with fragments of stones and pottery, by others a cement intermixed with small pieces of porphyry and limestone. Herr Heller discovered that the entire structure had been covered with a coating of cement composed of lime, sand and mortar.[534] The present appearance of the pyramid is sufficient to induce the opinion that it was originally a natural eminence faced up with adobes in terraces, in accordance with the architectural idea, but its position in the centre of a plain, together with the revelations as to its contents, disclosed by the construction of the Pueblo road through one corner of its base, furnish partial if not conclusive proof that it was entirely of artificial construction. The excavation revealed the perfect regularity with which the bricks were laid in the interior, and brought to light a tomb containing two skeletons, two basalt figures, a collection of pottery and other articles not described. Humboldt has fully described this chamber, which was constructed with stone walls supported by cypress timbers. No doorway could be found opening into the tomb.

At Xochicalco, the “hill” or “castle of flowers,” situated seventy-five miles south-west from the city of Mexico and distant from Cuernavaca fifteen miles in nearly the same direction, are found the most remarkable specimens of ancient Mexican architecture north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The most important descriptions of the ruins are by Alzate y Ramirez,[535] Humboldt,[536] Dupaix and Castañeda,[537] Nebel,[538] and one prepared by the authority of the Mexican government.[539]

These ruins are both beneath and upon a natural hill of oval form measuring about two miles in circumference and from three hundred to four hundred feet in height, authorities differing considerably on this point. At the foot of the hill on its northern side, are the entrances of two tunnels, one of which extends to a point eighty-two feet from the edge of the hill, where it terminates abruptly. The second tunnel penetrates the solid limestone of the hill in the form of a square gallery nine and a half feet high and broad, extending inward for several hundred feet and branching into several auxiliary galleries, which terminate in some instances abruptly. The floors are paved with small blocks of stone, to a thickness of a foot and a half; masonry in some places support the sides, and all the interior surface shows traces of red paint upon the polished cement coating with which it was finished. The principal gallery, after turning a right angle toward the left and extending some hundred feet in a straight line, enlarges into a subterranean chamber eighty feet long by about sixty feet in width. Two circular columns of living rock were left in making the excavation as supports for the roof. The most singular feature connected with the chamber is the perfectly circular excavation found at its south-east angle, or that corner of the room diagonally opposite to the corner at which the passage-way enters it. This circular apartment is only about six feet in diameter, and while it is no deeper than the adjoining chamber, rises above its ceiling in a dome-shaped roof, lined with stones hewn in curved blocks. The curve of this dome-like ceiling corresponds with that of a well-proportioned Gothic arch. At the apex of the dome, a round hole ten inches in diameter extends vertically upwards; some suppose to the pyramid above, but a moment’s calculation suffices to show that in view of the considerable diameter of the hill and the comparatively short distance from the chamber to its exterior slope, such is impossible. The exterior of the hill presents a most wonderful display of masonry. Its entire circuit is compassed with five terraces of well-laid stone and mortar, faced with perpendicular walls. Each terrace of masonry is about seventy feet in height, and is constructed in an irregular line, forming sharp angles, like the bastions of a fortress; each wall supporting the terraces rises above the level of their respective platforms in parapets, evidently for defence. The pavements of the platforms are of stone and inclined slightly toward the south-west, with a view to draining off the rainfall. Dupaix is the only explorer who mentions the means of ascent, which he describes as a roadway eight feet wide, leading to the summit. The summit platform measures 285 by 328 feet, and is surrounded by a wall which is perpendicular on the inside, and on the outside conforms to the slope of the terrace wall of which it is an extension. This parapet, built of stones without mortar, rises five and a half feet above the plaza, and is two feet and nine inches thick, we presume at its top, since the outer slope of the terrace would make a difference between the top and bottom. Near the centre of the plaza stands the base of a pyramid which presents some remarkable architectural contrasts from anything we have thus far described. Its sides face the cardinal points, and measure sixty-five feet from east to west, and fifty-eight feet from north to south. One of the façades, the northern, according to Nebel, and the western, according to the Mexican Government Survey in the Revista, is cut in two in the centre by an opening twenty feet wide, where it is supposed a stairway formerly led to the superstructure. The cut from Nebel, and reproduced by Mr. Bancroft, shows the façade to the left of the opening, as the observer faces the pyramid.

The great granite or porphyritic stones which constitute the facing of the pyramid, some of them eleven feet in length and three feet in height, must have been brought to the summit of the hill at the expense of great labor, especially since they must have been transported from a considerable distance, no such material being found within a circuit of many leagues. The stones were laid without mortar, and so nicely that it is said the joints are scarcely perceptible. Fragments of a ruined superstructure surmount the pyramid. The foundation walls of the second story were two feet and three inches from the edge of the cornice below it, except on the west where the space was four and a half feet wide. In 1755, so say the inhabitants of the vicinity, the structure was yet complete, having five receding stories like the first, and probably reaching a height of sixty-five feet. On its crowning summit, on the eastern side, stood a large throne-like block of stone, ornamented with elaborate sculptures. The second story foundations indicate the position of three doorways at the head of the grand stairway, and the account in the Revista describes an apartment twenty-two feet square observable at the summit of the first story, but now filled with fragments of stone. Mr. Bancroft suggests that from this apartment there may have been some means of communication with the subterranean galleries already described. The colossal sculpture on the face of the pyramid will receive our attention on a future page.[540]

The general description given above, together with the reported character of the superstructure of this magnificent monument, calls to mind the main features of the great teocalli dedicated to the bloody god Huitzilopochtli in the Aztec capital called Tenochtitlan or Mexico. This blood-stained temple upon whose altars smoked the hearts of countless human victims, is supposed to have occupied the site of the cathedral fronting the Plaza Mayor of the modern city of Mexico. Not a vestige of that terraced pyramid has survived the destructive hand of fanaticism and the transforming work of man and nature which have been going on ever since upon the old site of the capital of the Montezumas. It is said to have been built in five stories, with flights of steps affording access to the summit; but each flight was so constructed with reference to the platform at its top, as to require almost a complete circuit of the building before the next flight could be reached. It was necessary, therefore, in order to reach the summit platform, to pass four times around the pyramid. It is supposed that this was intended to display to better advantage the solemn processions of the priests as their long train mounted gradually the sides of the edifice. The specialist is already familiar with the descriptions by Bernal Diaz, whose particular extravagance of statement renders his work altogether unreliable. Also with the accounts by Torquemada, Gomera, Cortez and Clavigero. The reader has no doubt acquainted himself with the main facts in the writings of the graceful and imaginative Prescott, whose seeming romance, The History of the Conquest of Mexico, has been proven by recent and reliable investigation to have approached much nearer to fact than to fiction. Mr. Tylor, after careful exploration, has expressed in his “Anahuac” his surprise and satisfaction at what he considers to be the proof of Mr. Prescott’s general correctness of statement as to the extent of the Aztec capital and the probable character of its edifices.[541]

For a description of the palaces of Mexico and Chapultepec, the museums, mansions of the nobles, the pavements and aqueducts of that buried city, we refer the reader who has not access to the sources, to the admirable account by Prescott, especially since it more properly belongs to the province of history (now that all traces of them have disappeared) than to that of archæology.[542]

Of many interesting localities where architectural remains still exist, we select one more in the Central region, to illustrate our subject. The ancient religious city of the early Nahuas, Teotihuacan, with its famous pyramids—the traditional origin of which we have already noted[543]—deserves our attention. The city of the gods has had many describers, from the illustrious Humboldt to the observant and philosophical Mr. Tylor. The most complete description, however, is that given in the report of a scientific commission appointed by the Mexican government in 1864, containing accurate plans and views.[544] Sr. Antonio Garcia y Cubas, a member of the commission, subsequently published a most interesting memoir on the pyramids of Teotihuacan, entitled Ensayo de un Estudio comparativo entre las Pirámides Egípcias y Mexicanas (Mexico, 1871). The analogies between Teotihuacan and Egyptian pyramids receive the greater share of attention, though some valuable facts not mentioned in the report of the commission are here made known. Mr. Bancroft has reproduced the main features of the report of the Mexican Commission and compared it with previous researches, thus presenting the reader with probably the best critical version of the exploration of Teotihuacan, to be found in any language.[545] The cut reduced from Almaraz for Mr. Bancroft’s work shows the plan of the Teotihuacan monuments on a scale of about twenty-five hundred and fifty feet to an inch.

The pyramid marked A in the plan is known as Metztli Itzacual, which is interpreted “House of the Moon.” It measures 156 metres or 512 feet from east to west by 130 metres or 426 feet from north to south. According to Almarez, its height is 42 metres or 137 feet, but Sr. Garcia y Cubas, who took his measurement on the opposite side of the pyramid from that measured by Almaraz, says that it is 46 metres or 150 feet high. The summit platform, according to Garcia y Cubas, is six metres or nineteen and a half feet square; quite a discrepancy is here observable between the estimated area given by Beaufoy and copied by Mr. Bancroft as thirty-six by sixty feet, and this actual measurement. The sides of the pyramid nearly face the cardinal points. The eastern slope is 31° 30′, while the southern is somewhat steeper, being 36°. The slope on the east seems to have been unbroken except by a zigzag roadway, leading to the summit. The remaining sides are plainly marked by the remains of three terraces, one of which is still about three feet wide. Humboldt and Tylor both speak of remains of stairways of which no mention is made by the Government Commission. Most observers have described the pyramids as faced with hewn stone, but the commissioners on the contrary found them coated with successive layers of different conglomerates as follows: “1st, small stones from eight to twelve inches in diameter, with mud forming a layer of about thirty-two inches; 2d, fragments of volcanic tufa, as large as a man’s fist, also in mud, to the thickness of sixteen inches; 3d, small grains of tetzontli (a porous volcanic rock) of the size of peas, with mud, twenty-eight inches thick; 4th, a very thin and smooth coat of pure lime mortar. These layers are repeated in the same order nine times and are parallel to the slopes of the pyramid, which would make the thickness of the superficial facing about sixty feet.”[546] On the southern slope, sixty-nine feet from the base, according to Almarez, a gallery large enough to admit a man crawling on hands and knees, extends inward on an incline, a distance of twenty-five feet, and terminates in two square wells or chambers, each five feet square, and one of them fifteen feet deep. Mr. Löwenstern, according to Mr. Bancroft, states that “the gallery is a hundred and fifty-seven feet long, increasing in height to over six feet and a half, as it penetrates the pyramid; that the well is over six feet square, extending apparently down to the base and up to the summit; and that other cross galleries are blocked up by débris!” It is probable that these remarkable galleries never existed, except in Mr. Löwenstern’s imagination, since Sr. Almarez in the report of the official survey pronounces the tunnel already described as simply excavations by treasure-hunters. The pyramid B of the plan, situated five hundred and seventy-five yards south of the House of the Moon, is called Tonatiuh Itzacual, or “House of the Sun.” This pyramid requires no description, except to give its dimensions, since in all other respects it is precisely similar to the House of the Moon. The House of the Sun, according to the measurement of Sr. Garcia y Cubas, which is the most recent, is at the base 232 metres or 761 feet by 220 metres or 722 feet. Its height is 66 metres or 216 feet, while the summit platform measures 18 by 32 metres or 59 by 105 feet. Both this pyramid and the preceding have each a small mound on one of their sides near their base. In the latter instance this mound seems connected with an avenue of mounds just west of it. An embankment marked a, b, c, d, one hundred and thirty feet wide on the summit and twenty feet high, widening out at the extremities into platforms, extends around three sides of the “House of the Sun.” Across the Rio San Juan, and at the distance of twelve hundred and fifty yards southward of the “House of the Sun,” stands the Texcalpa or “citadel.” This is a quadrangular enclosure, measuring on its exterior twelve hundred and forty-six by thirteen hundred and thirty-eight feet. The embankments are of enormous strength, being two hundred and sixty-two feet thick by thirty-three feet high, except on the western side, which is but sixteen feet high. The enclosure is divided unequally by a wall as strong as that upon the sides. On the centre of this wall stands a pyramid ninety-two feet high. At its base are two small mounds besides one in the western enclosure, while fourteen others averaging twenty feet in height are arranged with regularity upon the summit of the enclosing wall. An avenue two hundred and fifty feet wide formed by mounds and measuring two hundred and fifty rods in length, extends from a point south of the “House of the Moon” to the river, as is shown from C to D, in the plan. The avenue is cut up into compartments by six cross embankments, a rather strange feature for which no explanation has been afforded. These mounds are mostly conical, built of fragments of stone and clay, and some of them reach a height of thirty feet. The native traditions call it Micaotli, which may indicate that they were designed for the purposes of sepulture. Almaraz, who excavated one of the multitude of mounds or tlalteles in the vicinity, found four walls meeting at right angles, though a little inclined and forming a small square. Connected with this were steps, at the top of which four other walls enclosed a little room, supposed to have been a tomb. The natives describe the discovery of a stone box in one of the mounds containing a skull, with about such a collection of trinkets as is commonly met with in the stone graves of Tennessee. Mayer describes a massive stone column, ten feet long and four feet square, cut from a single block. This resembles the elaborate capitol of a column resting on a base with scarcely a shaft intervening. It is called the fainting stone by the natives, who believe that whoever sits on it is sure to faint instantly.

One additional group of ruins, as yet unclassified with any of the types we have described, merits our attention. This group is known as Los Edificios of Quemada, situated in southern Zacatecas north of the Central plateau and probably the home of the Chichimecs.[547] Mr. Bancroft has attempted to reconstruct the unsatisfactory accounts of the several explorers of Quemada, but with little success. We therefore decline adding another comparative failure to the list of literature on these ruins. Some general observations, however, may not be out of place. The Cerro de los Edificios is a natural eminence about half a mile long and between one hundred and two hundred yards wide, except at its southern extremity where it increases to a width of five hundred yards. The authorities differ as to its height, one saying from two to three hundred feet, and another eight to nine hundred feet above the plain. Ancient roads well paved radiate in various directions from the hill, some of them extending a distance of five or six miles. The northern brow of the hill, where the descent is not so precipitous as at the other points, is guarded by a stone wall, as are all other points where the precipitous sides do not offer a sufficient barrier to an intruder from without. The surface of the hill is quite uneven, and these irregularities have been formed into terraces supported by stone walls. Foundations have thus been secured for a multitude of structures, some of them perfectly pyramidal and others consisting of quadrangular enclosures or squares, terraced and having steps descending to the court within, where pyramidal structures of stone are found. On the eastern terrace of the Cerro, a round pillar, eighteen feet high and nineteen feet in circumference, stands in proximity to a wall of as great height as the pillar. Traces of nine similar pillars are visible, and the probability is that they formed part of a balcony or perhaps a portico. Adjoining this wall is an enclosure measuring 138 by 100 feet, in which are eleven pillars in line, each seventeen feet in circumference and as high as an adjacent wall, namely eighteen feet. The distance from the wall is twenty-three feet, and the presumption is that the pillars supported a roof. There are no doorways, properly so called, since the doorways are large quadrangular openings extending to the full height of the halls. No windows were discovered anywhere. The material is gray porphyry from hills across an intervening valley, and the mortar is reddish clay, mixed with straw, and is of poor quality. Sculpture, hieroglyphics, pottery, human remains, idols, arrow-heads, and obsidian fragments are totally wanting, thus presenting a strange contrast with all other Mexican ruins. Nevertheless, the massiveness of the fortifications, the height and great thickness of the walls, none of which are less than eight feet thick and in one instance over twenty, the extensive system of paved roads, besides great elevated stone causeways running through the city, the size of the enclosed squares, one of which contains six acres, all indicate that this might have been the capital city of a powerful people, a people whose architectural affinities with all others that we are acquainted with are very few, and whose contrasts are numerous. Certainly the type and execution of the masonry, though massive, is more primitive than found elsewhere in Mexico. We do not mean that it is more ancient, for such cannot be true, but inferior to that in other parts of Mexico and the Central American region. The arch of overlapping stones is entirely wanting, and but for the round columns without either base or capitol, the steps toward advancement in the art would only be those common to that generally vigorous and warlike period which, in the history of every people, has preceded a higher civilization. Mr. Bancroft has published Burghes’ plan of Quemada but to little purpose, since the descriptive matter available does not contain a reference to more than one-fourth of the many structures indicated.

In the course of the chapter, we have indicated the principal resemblances and contrasts between the various styles treated. The pyramidal structure we have found employed by both Mayas and Nahuas, with certain modifications and with such resemblances as would seem to indicate that both peoples had been originally, or at an early day, near neighbors, and that the younger people, at least the more recent in their occupancy of Mexico and Central America, the Nahuas, may have copied the pyramid in its perfected form from the Mayas. We have noted some difference between the ancient and modern Maya styles. In the ancient or Chiapan, the irregularities in the face of the pyramid caused by constructing it of tiers of rectangular stones were filled with mortar, and an even surface produced. In the modern or Yucatec style the blocks of stone-facing are bevelled to the angle of the slope. Furthermore, in some instances the corners of the pyramids were rounded. At Palenque the superstructures were of only one story, while Yucatec structures were often formed of three receding stories. Of the Copan ruins little can be said intelligently, except that the pyramid combined with the terrace is all-pervading, but still is not unlike the Palenque style in its main features. The Nahua architecture offers a great variety of styles, but at the same time the pyramidal structure is the fundamental feature of all kinds of structures. Mitla offers an exception to this rule, but there are doubts as to whether Mitla may be classified as a Nahua ruin at all. The early writers devoted much of their attention to seeming old world resemblances in ancient American architecture, but their speculations in most cases were puerile and trivial. Mr. Stephens, with the experience which the careful study and observation of old world monuments afforded him, strongly denies that any such analogies are to be found among the Maya groups.[548] M. Viollet-le-Duc considers the monuments of Mexico, especially those of Maya origin, to have been influenced by white and yellow races, the former of the Aryan from the north-east, the latter the Turanian from the north-west. He seems to find some analogy between ancient Japanese temples (and quotes a description from Charlevoix, Histoire du Japan, ed. 1754, tom. i, chap. x, p. 171) and those of ancient America. He thinks that the style of architecture at Uxmal indicates clearly that the first structures were of wood and resembled the style prevalent in Japan. However, the wooden structures more properly originated with the white races, while the use of stucco is characteristic of the Turanian or Yellow races of the north-west. He thinks it certain that Mitla and Palenque were influenced by a white race.[549] Señor Garcia y Cubas has attempted to prove in a careful argument that the pyramids of Teotihuacan were built for the same purposes as were the pyramids of Egypt. He considers the analogy established in eleven particulars, as follows: the site chosen is the same; the structures are oriented with slight variation, the line through the centres of the pyramids is in the astronomical meridian; the construction in grades and steps is the same; in both cases the larger pyramids are dedicated to the sun; the Nile has a “valley of the dead,” as in Teotihuacan there is a “street of the dead;” some monuments of each class have the nature of fortifications; the smaller mounds are of the same nature and for the same purpose; both pyramids have a small mound joined to one of their faces; the openings discovered in the Pyramid of the Moon are also found in some Egyptian pyramids; the interior arrangement of the pyramids is analogous.[550] Mr. Delafield by a less systematic argument advocates the same theory. However, his capability to discern analogies is not confined to a single structure, since in the pyramid of Cholula and the teocalli of the city of Mexico he finds a counterpart to the temple of Belus at Babylon, as described by Herodotus. The walls around the hill at Xochicalco explain the use of similar embankments at Circleville and Marietta in Ohio, while the order of the apartments at Mitla bears a striking analogy to the arrangements of apartments in the temples of upper Egypt. This and much more Mr. Delafield has been able to discover, but unfortunately only with certainty to his own mind.[551] Löwenstern is equally certain that the American monuments were not constructed by a nation analogous to that which built the pyramids of Egypt.[552] Ranking, on the other hand, finds that Teotihuacan was named after the illustrious dead buried beneath its pyramids, as was the custom in Egypt, but in this instance the name is analogous to that of Thiautcan or Khan, the name of the grand Khan of the Monguls and Tartars who occupied the throne of China at the time of Sir John Mandeville’s visit to Pekin in the fourteenth century; and as at Teotihuacan and among the Monguls the sun and moon were worshipped, so, according to Ranking, those American monuments are attributable to Mongul architects.[553] It would be easy for us to continue the citation of these fancied analogies, but it is no doubt already apparent to the reader that they are generally of too trivial a character to serve the ends of science, and we therefore dismiss their further consideration.[554]

Sculpture and Hieroglyphics.—The mound sculpture, as has been observed in the cuts illustrating a previous chapter of this work, though comparatively rude in most cases, still, in a few instances, is quite remarkable as affording true representations of animals and possibly of the human face. Considerable progress in the art of ornamentation in terra-cotta is displayed on many of the vases and burial urns exhumed from the mounds. Many of the lines, figures and borders traced in relief and sometimes in taglio on those vessels indicate not only that a sense of the beautiful was present, but that it had been cultivated to a considerable extent. The same remarks apply to the pottery of the Pueblos and Cliff-dwellers. At Palenque, however, the student of art meets with no mean attempts at delineating the human form—in fact, the success obtained in this difficult field alone characterized the work of the Palenque artists. It is presumed that nearly all of the piers separating the doorways in the eastern wall of the palace were ornamented with stucco bas-reliefs. Two out of six of the best preserved are shown in the following cuts. The most remarkable feature of the first (Fig. 1, reduced from Waldeck for Bancroft’s work) is the cranial type, deformed to a shocking degree, probably by artificial pressure, so generally employed by the ancient American races. Possibly it is but a caricature.

Fig. 2 (a photographic reduction from Waldeck) presents us with a subject which has called forth no little discussion. The “elephant’s trunk” which protrudes from the elaborate head-dress of the priest has been thought to indicate an Asiatic influence.[555] We have already referred to the frequent occurrence of the “elephant trunk” ornament in Yucatan. The hieroglyphic signs at the top and on the faces of these reliefs no doubt hold locked up in their mysterious symbols the history of the scene.

In all of these reliefs the flattened cranial type is present, and no doubt represents the ideal of beauty among those ancient people. The stuccoes appear to have been moulded upon the undercoating of cement after it had become hard. The brush of the painter was then employed in its final embellishment.[556] Adjacent to the eastern stairway leading downward into the main court of the palace are great stone slabs, forming a surface on each side of the steps fifty feet long by eleven feet high. Waldeck, Stephens and Bancroft furnish views of gigantic human figures sculptured in low relief upon these surfaces. Both the attitudes and expressions portrayed indicate that the groups represented are either captives or possibly victims for sacrifice.[557] On the opposite side of the court, and on the stone face of the balustrade of a stairway, two figures, male and female, are sculptured, which, according to Waldeck, are of the Caucasian type. The same artist has shown the beautiful grecques which adorn the panels of the cornice.[558] Waldeck and Bancroft have figured a remarkable stone tablet of elliptical form, in which a princely personage is represented as sitting cross-legged on a chair formed of a double-headed animal, pronounced by Stephens to resemble a leopard. Catherword’s plate, in Morelet’s Travels, shows an ornament suspended from the neck of the chief figure resembling an effigy of the sun, while in Waldeck’s drawing the Egyptian Tau is graven upon the ornament.[559] The accompanying cut shows Waldeck’s drawing (employed by Mr. Bancroft).

Four hundred yards south of the palace stands the ruins of a pyramid and temple, which, at the time of Dupaix’s and of Waldeck’s visits were in a good state of preservation, but quite dilapidated when seen by Charnay. The temple faces the east, and on the western wall of its inner apartment, itself facing the eastern light, is found (or rather was, for it has now entirely disappeared) the most beautiful specimen of stucco relief in America. M. Waldeck, with the critical insight of an experienced artist, declares it “worthy to be compared to the most beautiful works of the age of Augustus.” He therefore named the temple the Beau Relief. The above cut is a reduction from Waldeck’s drawing used in Mr. Bancroft’s work, and is very accurate. However, the peculiar beauty of Waldeck’s drawing is such that it must be seen in order to be fully appreciated.