MEXICO AND ITS ANTIQUITIES. 



627 



ject of " Prehistoric Art in America," has given a graphical descrip- 

 tion of the Mexican ruins as a whole. " The massive constructions in 

 Mexico and Peru," he says, " the immense spread of the bases and the 

 inclination of the walls, give a 

 pyramidal tendency and an ap- 

 pearance of stability and dura- 

 bility that force us to think of 

 Egypt. Palenque, with its pal- 

 aces, and Tiaguanuco, or Huanu- 

 cho-Viejo, in Peru, with their 

 monumental portals and their not 

 numerous openings in the form 

 of the tau, for the admittance 

 of light, their walls covered with 

 bright-red paint, and their figures 

 always in profile, would not be 

 out of place on the banks of the 

 Nile. The bas-reliefs of Chichen- 

 Itza resemble those of Babylon 

 and Nineveh in richness of orna- 

 mentation. The meanderings of the friezes of Mitla, of the Casa del 

 Gobernador, and the Casa de Monjas, at Uxmal, are of a kind with 

 those of Greek art. The porch of Kabah, an aqueduct on the Roda- 

 dero, at Cuzco, might have stood on the Roman Campagna. The 

 figures with which the temple of Xochicalco (Mexico) was adorned 

 were represented sitting with crossed legs in the traditional attitude 



FlG. 7. QTTETZALCOATL. 



Fig. 8. Featheked Seepent. 



of Buddha ; and recently a Protestant missionary remarked upon 

 the resemblances between the edifices at Chichen-Itza and the topes 

 or dagobas he had seen at Anaradjapora, the ancient capital of 

 Ceylon. The pyramids are certainly the most salient feature in 

 this ancient architecture. The walls that still stand are composed of 



