216 



CONNECTION OF MEXICAN REMAINS. 



realm of Montezuma is alleged to have extended to near the pre- 

 sent limits of the Republic of Central America ; nor will he forget 

 with what rapidity the well trained Indian couriers of the Emperor 

 passed over the three hundred intervening miles of mountain, plain 

 and valley, between Vera Cruz and the Valley of Mexico, in order 

 to inform their sovereign of the Spaniards' arrival and their leader's 

 determination to visit the Aztec Court. At Cozumel, and else- 

 where in Yucatan, the earliest Spanish adventurers were struck by 

 the architecture of the edifices which were inhabited by the Indians. 

 In their letters and narratives they always speak of these " buildings 

 of stone and lime" as indicating civilization. The Indian deities 

 were, at that time, unquestionably, worshipped in them. At Cho- 

 lula, Tlascala, and Tenochtitlan or Mexico, as well as at Tezcoco, — 

 pyramids, dwellings, palaces, walls, streets, causeways, were all 

 built of stone cemented by mortar, and many of these objects were 

 profusely ornamented. There can be no doubt of these facts, for 

 they were attested at the time by numerous witnesses, while many 

 of the material relics of that age have descended even to the pre- 

 sent time, and may still be inspected in the capital of the Republic. 

 Why, then, should we hesitate to believe that a vast chain of civil- 

 ized, intelligent and affiliated nations, co-existed on the central part 

 of this continent in the sixteenth century, and that the ruined cities, 

 temples and pyramids which are spread from the waters of the Gila 

 as far south as Peru and Chili, and whose wonderful remains are 

 now gradually unearthed by the industry of antiquarians, are the 

 architectural fragments of their national grandeur ? 



We do not conceive it necessary to throw back the Indian archi- 

 tects into the gloom of antiquity, long anterior to the arrival of the 

 Spaniards. There is a natural yearning in the human mind for the 

 mystery with which a vague, indefinite epoch, surrounds ruins that 

 are accidentally discovered. But this is a poetical sentiment, rather 

 than a fair starting point in archaiological researches ; and, in spite 

 of the national vanity which might be gratified by proving that 

 the aboriginal civilization of our continent was as old as that of 

 Egypt, we shall adhere to the belief that Mitla, Palenque, Uxmal 

 and Quemada were inhabited by the builders or their descendants, 

 whilst the thrones of Mexico and Peru were occupied by Monte- 

 zuma and Atahualpa. 



