Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/249

Rh stair-way through a dark shaft leads to a subterranean apartment of one hundred feet in length, by thirty in width, whose walls are covered with Grecian ornaments similar to those on the exterior of the edifice, as shown in the plate. These external walls are said to be decorated with labyrinthine figures, formed by a mosaic of small porphyritic stones, and we recognize in them the same designs which are admired in the ancient vases, falsely called Etruscan, and on the frieze of the old temple usually assigned to the god Redicolus, which lies near the grotto of Egeria at Rome.

But the objects which chiefly distinguish the architectural remains of Mitla from all other Mexican antiquities are six porphyritic columns, which support the ceiling of a vast saloon. These singular columns,—almost the only ones found in the New World,—evince the extreme infancy of art;—they have neither bases nor capitals, and are cut in a gradually tapering shape from a solid stone, more than fifteen feet in length.

The distribution of the apartments in this extraordinary edifice presents some striking analogies with the monuments of Upper Egypt, described by Denon and the savants who composed the institute at Cairo. Don Pedro de Laguna, who examined them carefully many years ago, discovered on their walls some curious paintings of sacrifices and martial trophies. In order to form an idea of the almost Cyclopean style of architecture, we may remark the extraordinary dimensions of the stones above the entrances to the principal halls. Mr. Glennie states that one of these masses is eighteen feet eight inches long, four feet ten inches broad, and three feet six inches thick. A second is nineteen feet four inches long, four feet ten and a half inches broad, and three feet nine inches thick, whilst a third is nineteen feet six inches long, four feet ten inches broad, and three feet four inches thick. The antiquarian will not fail to observe, that there is some similarity between the exterior of these Oajacan remains and those which have been uncovered and described in Yucatan, by Stephens, during his second expedition. It is not improbable that an intercourse existed between the inhabitants of these districts, prior to the Spanish Conquest. We believe that these architectural remains and nearly all of those in Yucatan, Chiapas and Guatemala, were the abodes and temples of the Indians who dwelt in Mexico and the adjacent countries when Grijalva and Cortez first landed on our continent. The distance from Oajaca, through Chiapas and Tabasco, to Yucatan is not too great to have prevented even a rapid communication from Mitla to Uxmal, or Palenque. The reader will recollect that the