45 



at Veletri. The forehead of the Mexican priest- 

 ess is ornamented with a string- of pearls on the 

 edge of a narrow fillet. These pearls, which 

 have never been observed on any Egyptian 

 statue, indicate the communications which ex- 

 isted between the city of Tenochtitlan, ancient 

 Mexico, and the coast of California, where 

 pearls are fished up in great numbers. The neck 

 is covered with a three cornered handkerchief, 

 to which hang twenty-two little balls, or tassels, 

 placed with great symmetry. These tassels, 

 as well as the headdress, are found on a great 

 number of Mexican statues, or bas-reliefs, and 

 in hieroglyphical paintings, and remind us of 

 the small apples and pomegranates on the robes 

 of the high priest of the Hebrews. 



On the front of the statue, and half a deci- 

 metre * from its basis, the toes of the feet are 

 seen on each side, but there are no hands, which 

 indicates the infancy of the art. It seems, from 

 the back front, that the figure is seated, or ra 

 ther squat ; and it is singular, that the eyes in 

 this figure are without eye-balls, which are indi- 

 cated in the bas-reliefs lately discovered at 

 Oaxaca. The basalt of this sculpture is very 

 hard, and of a fine black ; it is the true basalt, 

 with a few grains of peridot, and not Lydian 



* For the correspondence of English with French mea- 

 sures, see the tahle at the end of the volume. 



