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 table at the end of the volume. 
