74 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AXU ARCHITECrS JOURNAL, 



[Mabch, 



"Man was In andpnt flays of grosser mould, 

 An'l Hercules might blush to learn how far 

 Beyon-I tlie limits he had vaiuly set, 

 The dullest sea-hoat eooo shnli wing her (vay; 

 Man shall descry another hemisphere. 



* « * * * * 



At our antipodes are cities, states, 

 And thronged em]itres, ne'er derined of yore.** 



'Morgonte Sfaggiore.* 



Thus snng- Piilci, while Columbus was either yet unborn or in his 

 cliildlioiid, siiiling- toy boats on the bay of his native Genoa. 

 Rumoiirs liad from time to time been afloat, of ruined cities in 

 the midst of the trackless uoods of A^'estern and Central Ame- 

 rica; hunters and travellers had found masses of masonry and 

 sculijtured stones half hidden beneath the roots of the many- 

 wintered {giants of the forest: but these reports were long treated 

 as travellers' tales, or as the result of a vivid imagination mis- 

 taking some curiously-shaped stone for the work of man's hand, 

 where it was supposed man had never been. At last, exactly one 

 hundred years ago, a party of Spaniards travelling in Central 

 America, found unmistakeable ruins; and on examination, hewing 

 their way through the dense forest, discovered the remains of a 

 city, extending over 18 or 20 miles. 



^An exploring party was then sent out by the King of Spain in 

 1786, but either through jealousy or indifference, their report re- 

 mained unpublished until the papers fell into the liands of an 

 English gentleman at Guatimala, during the revolution of 1822. 

 Still, d(nil)ts were thrown upon the authenticity of this narrative, 

 and little interest was excited, until a paper appeared in the 

 Litemn/ Gazette in 1831, calling the attention of the public to the 

 discoveries of Colonel Galindo; by this time, also, the celebrated 

 Von Humboldt had travelled in Central America, and when his 

 researches were published, scepticism was compelled to give way. 

 Since then, many travellers have explored the country, and new 

 discoveries have been made by Messrs. Stephens, Catherwood, 

 M aldeck, and others; and already forty-four ruined cities have 

 been brought to light in Yucatan alone. 



Naturally, where no certainty exists, each discoverer erects his 

 own theory as to the date of this lost empire, and the race by 

 which it was inhabited. At present, the most generally received 

 opinion i.s, that these ruins are not so ancient as those of the East- 

 ern world, and that they were living cities at the time of the 

 Spanish conquest. The historian, Herrera, who accomjjanied 

 Cortez in his expedition against Mexico, describes the natives as 

 having a peculiar form of head, such as is represented on the 

 sculptures, probably flattened back during infancy; and speaks of 

 lofty terraces, ascended by fliglits of steps; of temples, magnifi- 

 cent palaces, and carved ifUds, all of stone. It is to be presumed, 

 however, that as in our own quarter of the globe, cities fall into 

 decay, while others rise in their neighbourhood, so in America 

 some of the remains may be of a date anterior to others: the 

 architecture of Palenque, for instance, appears to belong to an 

 earlier period than that of Uxmal; and at the time of the con- 

 quest, though the Spaniards paused to erect a cross within two or 

 three miles of Palenque, no mention is made of a populous city in 

 the vicinity; most likely, therefore, it was already in ruins and 

 hidden in the forest at the time they passed by. 



Winged Globe. 

 The American Archa?ological Society have come to the conclu- 

 sion that the first inhabitants were colonists from Tartary and 

 JMalacca; and it is thought they did not cross the ocean, biit had 

 wandered to the far north, and so overland to the new continent — 

 successive races passing onwards, until they settled in the plains 

 of Mexico and Yucatan. If this be the correct theory, it is sin- 

 gular how they could have supported themselves during their 



northern transit, and that they should have left no distinct traces 

 of their footsteps by the way. Evidences of an Eastern origin 

 are, however, not wanting: the winged globe is found over the 

 doorways of Palenque, and the resemhlance to the sacred symbol 

 of Egypt is too exact to have been mere accident. Pyramids, too, 

 and even mummies, have been found in Peru; and in the valley of 

 the Ohio, tumuli have been found, containing conical domes of 

 masonry, exactly the same as the ''tholi" of the Pelasgians. 



The rapid and rank growth of vegetation in that hot, damp 

 climate may account for the state of utter ruin in which the most 

 modern of these cities is found; but it is difficult to conceive 

 (even allowing for the supineness of the Spanish Indians) how, in 

 the course of a few generations, all record, all tradition of the 

 past could so completely have disappeared: the hieroglyphics 

 carved on the monuments are as utterly unintelligible to those 

 whose great grandfathers must have spoken the same language, as 

 are the Etruscan inscriptions after the lapse of nearly two thou- 

 sand years. The only name the Indians have for the ruins, when 

 even aware of their existence, is '■'Ctisas de Piedras," and the in- 

 variable answer to any question concerning them, '■•Quien Sabe!" 



JLijik 



X 



\ 



JLz 



/ 







Portion of Facade from Casa del Gobemndor. 



In general appearance, the cities of Central America must have 

 greatly resembled those of Assyria: like the Assyrians, this mys- 

 terious peojile built their temples and palaces upon high artificial 

 platforms; those of America were of ]iyramidal form, ascended by 

 wide flights of steps. At Uxmal, the platform upon which the 

 principal building, called the Casa del Gobernador, is elevated is 

 divided into three terraces, of the respective heights of 3, 20, and 

 19 feet; the lowest terrace is 600 feet in length, and the fa9ade of 



