Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/318

Rh The stone, represented in the cut, is twenty-one feet long and of compact granite; its carving is oddly different from anything else we have seen among Mexican antiquities, and it is supposed, by Nebel, to have formed part of an edifice. He caused an excavation to be made by the Indians in front of this fragment, and, at a short distance below the surface, struck upon a road formed of irregular stones, not unlike the ancient pavements in the neighborhood of Rome. The picturesque traveller (whose book, I regret, is too large and expensive for republication in our country,) exceedingly regrets that he was unable to prosecute his inquiries and examinations in this neighborhood. He was alone, and unaided in the forests, except by a few idle and ignorant Indians; yet he has presented his readers with a drawing of this curious fragment, as the sign of a civilization that once reigned in a country which was hitherto imagined to have been inhabited alone by wild beasts and reptiles.

We have now advanced, in the course of this examination, into the tierra calliente near the eastern coast of Mexico. Fifteen leagues west from Papantla, lie the remains of T, supposed to have been a city of the Totonacos. They are situated in the lap of a small plain at the foot of the Cordillera, and are relics of a town of but limited extent. Of all these, however, nothing remains in great distinctness but the pyramidal monument, or Teocalli, of which the opposite drawing is given by Nebel.

This edifice has a base line of thirty feet on every side, and is built of irregular stones. A single stairway leads to the upper part of the first story, on which is erected a quadrangular house or tower,—while, in front of the door, still stands the pedestal of the idol, though all traces of the figure itself are gone. The interior of this apartment is twelve feet square, and the roof terminates in a point like the exterior. The walls have evidently been painted, but the outlines of the figures are no longer distinguishable.

The door and the two friezes are formed of sculptured stones; but it is evident from the fragments of carving, and a variety of figures of men and animals that lie in heaps about the rest of the city, that this temple was, in point of adornment, by no means the most splendid edifice of Tusapan.

Nebel has also presented us with a drawing of the following singular monument, which he found among the ruins of this ancient city.