Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 107 



figure.''^ Speaking of Porsenna, the king of Etruria, and the 

 earliest and most formidable of the enemies of the old Eoman 

 Republic, the Eoman author, Varro, thus writes, " Porsenna is 

 buried under the city of Clusium, in which place he left a monu- 

 ment of squared stone, each side three hundred feet wide, fifty 

 high. On this square base wichin is an inextricable labyrinth, 

 from which, if anyone should hastily enter without the clue, he 

 cannot find his way out. Above the square stand five pyramids 

 — four in the corners, one in the middle — seventy-five feet at the 

 base, a hundred and fifty feet high, so pointed that on the top of 

 each, a brazen circle and cupola is placed, from which bells are 

 suspended by chains which, agitated by the wind, are heard at a 

 great distance, as was formerly the case at Dodona." 



Let us now look, in imagination, at a somewhat similar struc- 

 ture in Polynesia, exhibiting as it does the two remarkable 

 characteristics of the earlier postdiluvian architecture, in being 

 both pyramidal and colossal. " The form of the interior or area 

 of their temples," observes Mr. Ellis, "was frequently that of 

 a square, or a parallelogram, the sides of which extended forty or 

 fifty feet. Two sides of this space were enclosed by a high stone 

 wall ; the front was protected by a low fence ; and opposite a 

 solid pyramidal structure was raised, in front of which the images 

 were kept and the altars fixed. These piles were often immense. 

 That which formed one side of the square of the large temple in 

 Atehuru was two hundred and seventy feet long, ninety feet 

 wide at the base, and fifty feet high, being at the summit one 

 hundred and eighty feet long and six wide. A flight of steps led 

 to its summit, the bottom step was six feet high. The outer 

 stones of the pyramid, composed of coral and basalt, were laid 

 with great care, and hewn or souared with immense labour, 

 especially the tiav, or corner stones." § 



Humboldt introduces his account of the pyramids of Mexico 

 with the following very suggestive observation : — " We shall be 

 surprised to find, towards the end of the fifteenth century, in a 

 world which we call new, those ancient institutions, those religious 

 notions, and that style of building which seem in Asia to indicate 

 the very dawn of civilisation." And again, " It is impossible to 

 read the descriptions which Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus 

 have left us of the temple of Jupiter Belus, without being struck 

 with the resemblance of that Babylonian monument to the 

 Teocallis of Anahuac. * * * * The group of the Pyramids 

 of Teotihuacan is in the valley of Mexico, eight leagues north- 

 east from the capital, in a plain that bears the name of Micoatl, 

 or the path of the dead There are two large pyramids dedicated 

 to the sun (Tonatiuh), and to the m oon (Meztli) ; and these are 



X Niebuhr, Hare and ThirlwalTs Translation. 

 § Polynesian Researches, vol. I, page 340. 



