

LIKE THE SYRINX OF THE ANCIENTS. 123 
early ages of Babylonian and Egyptian architecture. The great pyramid of Cho- 
lula has a basis 1440 feet on each side, or twice as broad as the great pyramid of 
Giza; but its height is only 164 English feet. It is built in four stages, and had 
asmall temple on its upper platform, while the interior contained sepulchral 
chambers ;—circumstances which still farther connect this American temple with 
the pyramids of Egypt, and the Chaldean monuments described by Ricu and 
others. The curious and systematic mode of hieroglyphic paintings of the Mexi- 
cans, which combined natural and conventional signs, and, according to Hum- 
BOLDT, also phonetic characters, bears a striking similarity to the hieroglyphical 
papyri of Egypt; and it may not be unworthy of notice, that the Mexican MSS. 
were folded up zigzag-wise, or something like a fan,—precisely almost as the 
Siamese papyri MSS. are folded to this day. 
The singular resemblance between the institutions of the Peruvian lawgiver 
Manco Capac and the systems of Hindostan, are not to be overlooked; the same 
exaltation of a theocracy, drawing its descent from heaven; the same exaction 
of passive obedience to the head of this theocracy, who, like the first legislator of 
India, traced his pedigree to the sun; the same division of the people into castes. 
The Peruvians, like the Hindoos, were, by such institutions, trained into a 
patient, laborious, little-intellectual people; and, like their Asiatic prototypes, 
have left behind astonishing monuments of patient industry in some of their public 
works. 
I have introduced this comparison between the people of both hemispheres, 
in order to shew that I do not assume too much in supposing an instrument in- 
vented by the ancient inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere, the original of the 
subject.of this paper,—a musical instrument of stone found in a Huaca, or sepul- 
chral tumulus, which is said to have covered the body of an Inca of Peru. 
It was brought from South America by my friend Josaua Rawopon, Esq. 
He received it from General ParorssrEn, a native of England of French extrac- 
tion, who had obtained it as an article of value and great rarity in Peru. 
It was customary with the natives of South America to raise large tumuli 
over distinguished men; and in these were buried domestic utensils in wood, 
stone, and the precious metals, often with very considerable treasures, especially in 
Peru. It would seem that the contents of the rich Huacas are still known to the 
Peruvian Indians, either from tradition or from some species of record. They 
appear to consider it a sacrilegious act for one of themselves to violate the tomb 
for the sake of its treasures; but there are more than one instance of their re- 
warding an European for kindness done them by revealing where he may dig 
with the certainty of obtaining a golden harvest. The vast Huaca near Truxillo, 
in the Plain of Chimi, was discovered to JuAN GUTIERRES DE TOLEDO, in 1576, by 
an Indian, and the bars and utensils of gold it yielded to the fortunate Spaniard 
equalled 46,810 oz. of gold, or upwards of £181,288 sterling. It appears to have 
