ANTIQUITIES.—BOOK II. 
191 
brick. Like those oi Mexico, wherever there has been a consid¬ 
erable town, we find two large pyramids, supposed to represent 
the sun and moon, and a number of smaller ones, to represent the 
stars. There is very little doubt but that they originated with the 
same people, for they may be considered as existing in the same 
country. What is the distance between Red river and the north¬ 
ern part of the intendancy of Vera Cruz, in whi ;h the pyramid of 
Papantla is situated ? little more than ten or fifteen days journey. 
Even supposing there were no mounds in the intermediate 
space, the distance is not such, as to preclude the probability of 
intercourse. There is no obstruction in the way; a coach and 
four has been driven from Mexico to Nacogdoches. 
The Mexican histories give uncertain accounts of the origin 
of those works, nor are the antiquarians able to form any satis¬ 
factory hypothesis. They are attributed by some to the Toul- 
tec nation, as far back as the ninth century, who emigrated to 
Mexico from the north, perhaps from the banks of the Missis¬ 
sippi; and by others, to the Olmec nation, still more ancient, 
who came to Mexico from the east. A curious discovery, made 
a few years ago in the state of Tennessee, proves beyond a 
doubt, that at some remote period the valley of the Mississippi 
had been inhabited by a much more civilized people, than when 
first known to us. Two human bodies were found in a coppe¬ 
ras cave, in a surprising state of preservation. They were first 
wraped up in a kind of blanket, supposed to have been manu¬ 
factured of the lint of nettles, afterwards with dressed skins, and 
then a mat of nearly sixty yards in length. They were clad in 
a beautiful cloth, interwoven with feathers, such as was manu¬ 
factured by the Mexicans. Tne flesh had become hard, but the 
features were well preserved. They had been h re, perhaps, 
for centuries, and certainly were of a different race from the 
modern Indians. They might have belonged to the Olmec, who 
overran Mexico about the seventh century, to the Toultec. who 
came centuries afterwards, or to the Aztecs, who founded the 
great city of Mexico, in the thirteenth century. 
These subjects can only bewilder; every nation, in tracing 
back its history, must finally lose itself in fable. The Aztec 
(Mexican) mode of preserving their chronicles, must ne^essa- 
