Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/953

 1809.] Ancient American Architecture. i t i tons of men and women once here, and once proud, happy, content with the fugitive hour and heedless of the dark and dooming to-morrow ? I saw four skeletons lying under glass covers (found some time since), and supposed to be a family overtaken by destruction in their own home. Are they father, mother, and two sisters ? Whether so or not, I never saw the human outline wear such an aspect of terrible tragedy. The up- lifted arm, the palm of the hand heaven- Avard ; and the figure of one of the girls, her face down and leaning upon her left wrist ; nothing I had previously seen gave me such a profound sense of the awful calamity that had hurriedly swept Pompeii out of existence. Strange that the ashes which entombed the city should have preserved it so perfectly. Did ever Egypt embalm like this ? The huge mummy, how well it was shrouded and laid away in its sarcophagus ! And here is its form unwrapt — the winding- sheet is off, and the pale spectre looks up and confronts the Mount of Fire, under whose quick, scorching, tumult- uous blasts, its life, trade, homes, tem- ples, religion — its many sins and sor- rows — its gaieties, and hnpes, and bright- ness — all were sepulchred together. The old heathen faith, all unawares to itself made fearfully true at the last— the con- suming flame of the funeral altar — and Vesuvius the mighty torch-bearer, to ignite the sacrifice ! But there were no chaplets, no incense, no lamps, no sprink- ling of mourners from the laurel branch, no " Ilicet," 1 no " Salve JEtenium." ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE. THE system of railroads is now rapidty bringing nearer and nearer to us the wonders of art as well as nature, of which we have been hitherto content to read, but of which a very limited number have had the courage or perseverance to know anything inti- mately. We travel to Europe and into Asia and Africa, to look at the renowned monuments of ages past ; while those of our own continent are barely known to exist — and even that little item of knowledge is just now but thirty years old. It is true the difficulty laj 7 in the ab- sence of almost all facilities of travel. But, now that the Pacific is united by rail to the Atlantic, we may look with full confidence to the connection at no very distant day of Central America with our States. We do not mean an- nexation, of course, but simpl}- a making easy the present plena labores which be- set the art student who dared that region for architectic lore. On the southern margin of the Gulf of Mexico is the province of Yucatan, in and near to which the magnificent remains of ancient American architec- ture were found to exist. President Van Bxjren, in the autumn of 1839, sent Mr. J. L. Stephens, a gen- tleman of talent and education, on a mission to Central America, on the ful- filment of which he was authorized to travel through the country and make researches into that terra incognita. Mr. Stephens was accompanied in his travels by Mr. Catherwood, the artist, and although the country was at that time suffering from intestine broils which rendered travelling not a little dangerous, yet did these two adventur- ous gentlemen manage to effect a jour- ney of three thousand miles in Chiapas, Yucatan, and other districts in Central America whose names alone were known at that time in Europe and the United States, but from which places we are now in constant receipt of news.