Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/589

Rh bk. II. ch. n. CENTRA!. AjNIERICA. 573 country, and the artist and photographer are enabled to puFSue their occupations in security and at leisure, it is to be hoped that materials will become available for completing this chapter of our history. At present, it must remain nearly a blank, because so few representations of Mexican monuments exist on which reliance can be placed, Yucatan. It is extremely difficult to determine whether it is owing to their original paucity, or to their destruction by the Spaniards, that the monuments in the province of Mexico are now so few and far between. If we may judge from the glowing descriptions of the conquerors, and the analogy of the remains in Yucatan, we may almost certainly ascribe their disappearance to the bigotry or the avarice of the Euro peans. Be tins as it may, it is certain that the moment we pass the southern boundary of Mexico and enter the peninsula generally known as Yucatan, which for our present purpose must be considered as including Costa Rica, we find a province as rich in architectural remains as any of the same extent in the Old World, not even excepting Cambodia, which is the one it most nearly resembles. In this region Messrs. Stephens and Catherwood visited and described between fifty and sixty old cities; and, if we may trust native re- ports, there are others in the centre of the land even more important than these, but which have not been visited by any European in modern times. Of the cities described by these travellers, Uxmal, Palenque, Kabah, Chichen Itza, and others, are really magnificent The first-named almost rivals Ongcor in s})lendor and extent, thougl it falls far short of it in the elegance or beauty of detail of itj; buildings. As before hinted, there seems no reason for dissenting from tht conclusion Messrs. Stephens and Catherwood arrived at regarding their age. It is deliberately expressed by the last-named author in his folio work (page 8) in the following terms: "I do not think we should be safe in ascril)ing to any of the monutnonts which retain their forms a greater age than from 800 to 1000 years ; and those which are perfect enough to be delineated I think it is likely are not more than from 400 to 600 years old." In other words, they belong to the great building epoch of the world — the 13th century, or a little before or after that time.^ It seems more than probable, therefore, that ^ There is a celebrated bas-relief on the back wall of a small temple at Pa- lenque representing a man offering a child to an emblem very like a Christian cross. It is represented in the first series of the *' Incidents of Travel," vol. ii. p. 344. None of the sculptures have given rise to snch various interpreta- tions; but nothing would surprise me less than if !t turned out to be a native mode of representing a Christian bap- tism, and was therefore subsequent to the conquest.