Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/954

 778 1 he Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [June, Mr. Stephens collected a large amount of descriptive information, and Mr. Catherwood made a considerable amount of drawings of the buildings discovered. In the summer of 18-11, Mr. Stephens published the result of his journey under the title " Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan." The details of these discoveries were received with astonishment, as few of our most devoted students of anti- quarian research were prepared to hear of the existence of such buildings, even in ruins, as were here described by pen and pencil. The thirst for exploration at once be- gan, and in the autumn of 1841, imme- diately after the publication of his book, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by Mr. Cath- erwood, once more set out to review the wonderful region they had so interest- ingly described. These kindred spirits roamed over an immense extent of country and visited forty-four ruined cities, or at least places at which remains of ruined buildings were found. Even the inhabitants of the City of Mexico, itself, were wholly unaware of the existence of any such re- mains as those now discovered by our investigating countrymen. In 1843 Mr. Stephens published the result of this second series of labors in his " Incidents of Travel in Yucatan ;" and in 1844 Mr. Catherwood gave to the world a splendid folio volume of tinted lithograph plates, representing the chief among the objects explored. These published discoveries made a vast accession to the knowledge we had just acquired of the wonderful people who inhabited this now dreary waste, and likewise drew attention to the sur- prising similarity between the architec- tural monuments of ancient Egypt and these now brought to light on our con- tinent. Several years before the dis- coveries in question, a writer who had described some of the Mexican monu- ments remarked : " The first and strong- est cunviction M'hich will flash on the mind of every ripe antiquarian, whilst surveying the long series of Mexican and Toltecan monuments, is the simi- larity which the ancient monuments of New Spain bear to the monumental records of ancient Egj-pt. Whilst sur- veying them, the glance falls with fa- miliar recognition on similar graduated pyramids ; on similar marks of the same primeval Ophite worship ; on vestiges of the same triune and solar deity ; on planispheres and temples, which though characterized by some distinctions, en- tirely American, are not less worthy of the notice of the Egyptian antiquaries ; on relics of palaces at once noble in their architecture and beautiful in their pro- portions and decorations; on monu- ments sepulchral, domestic, religious, or warlike, which deserve the designa- tion of cyclopean as much as any that are now extant in Italy or Greece; our idols and sculptures, some of rude and some of finished workmanship, exhibit- ing different eras^ of civilization, and often presenting the most striking affini- ties with the Egyptian, yet distinguished from it by characteristics perfectly American." The researches in Yucatan have ren- dered 3 T et more evident the existence of a stjde of art in ancient Mexico, inter- esting alike for the analogies which it presents to that of Egypt, and for the points of difference between them. One of the most remarkable buildings which Mr. Catherwood has illustrated, is now called, in the Spanish of the coun- try, the " Casa del Gobernador," or Governor's House. It is situated at a place called Uxmal. This building is constructed entirely of hewn stone, and measures three hundred and twenty feet in front, by forty feet in depth ; and it has a height of about twenty-six feet. It has eleven door-ways in front, and one at each end. The apartments within are narrow, seldom exceeding twelve feet in width. But some of them are sixty feet in length, by more than twenty in height. These chambers have no