Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/63

Rh the shape of idols, small and big, masks, and vases, and of which there are many specimens in the museum and throughout the country, it is sufficient to say that it is all of the rudest kind, and derives its chief attraction and interest from its hideousness and almost entire lack of anything which indicates either artistic taste or skill on the part of its fabricators. Take any fair collection of what purports to be the products of Aztec skill and workmanship, and place the same side by side with a similar collection made in any of the most civilized of the islands of the Pacific—the Feejees, the Marquesas, or the Sandwich Islands, or from the tribes that live on Vancouver's Sound—and the superiority of the latter would be at once most evident and