THE MEXICANS. 149 



Let us now turn to the more pleasing part of the picture, that which 

 considers the progress these people had made in the refinements of civilised life. 



The state of civilisation among the Mexicans, when they were first known 

 to the Spaniards, was much superior to that of the Spaniards themselves on their 

 first intercourse with the Phenicians, " or that of the Gauls when first known to 

 the Greeks, or that of the Germans and Britons when first known to the Romans. 

 — Their understandings are fitted for every kind of science, as experience has 

 actually shown. Of the Mexicans who have had an opportunity of engaging in 

 the pursuit of learning — which is but a small number, as the greater part of the 

 people are always employed in the public or private works — we have known 

 some good mathematicians, excellent architects, and learned divines."* 



The architectural taste of the Mexican nation is chiefly seen in the Palace 

 of Mitla, and the ruins of Palenque. The first of these remains is situated in the 

 province of Oaxaca, and belongs to the era of the Zapotecas : it embraces five 

 separate buildings, disposed with great regularity, courts, terraces, columns, 

 arabesques and subterranean vaults. The columns, which are the only ones 

 hitherto found in America, are without capitals, and indicate the infancy of this 

 department of art.f 



If we go southward to Guatemala, which was a province of Mexico under 

 nearly all the dynasties that governed that country, we find other architectural 

 remains of an elaborate and imposing character, which tend still more strongly to 

 impress the mind with the genius of the ancient people of Anahuac. " The cave 

 of Tibulca," says Juarros, " appears like a temple of great size hollowed out of the 

 base of a hill, and is adorned with columns, having bases, pedestals, capitals and 

 crowns, all accurately adjusted according to architectural principles."! Juarros 

 also describes the cavern temple at Mixco in yet more extraordinary details; 

 which remind us, says an ingenious author, of the rock caverns and temples of 

 EUora, Elephanta, and other similar monuments of Hindoo workmanship. § Are 

 these the works of the Toltecas, or of their cultivated progenitors the Olmecas ? 



In the same region of country, near the village of Palenque, are the ruins of 

 a city of which we have already spoken, in which the massive edifices, the inclined 



* Clavigero, ut swpra, t Humboldt, Monuments, II, p. 156. 



X Hist, of Guatemala, p. 57. 



§ M'CuLLOH, Researches, p. 316. — The monumental treasures of New Spain have been for 

 centuries hidden from investigation by a singularly selfish policy. It is matter of congratulation, 

 however, that the time is rapidly approaching when the Anglo Saxon race will control the destinies 

 of Mexico, and throw open her buried monuments to the scrutiny of art and science. 

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