Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/334

Rh generation after generation has stood, lived, warred, grown old and passed away; and not only their names, but their nation, their language has perished, and utter oblivion has closed over their once populous abodes! We call this the New World. It is old! Age after age, and one physical revolution after another has passed over it—but who shall tell its history?

Who? We have seen the memorials of three distinct races—but who can tell the origin of the first two—or even of the last? And, yet, these are only part of the inhabitants of North America.

I have attempted to describe to you the prominent remains that still exist farther south, in the Valley of Mexico, and in other portions of the Republic. Following the links of the chain still farther south, Messieurs Stephens and Catherwood have given an account of forty cities visited by them in their second tour; and they describe the ruins of others and their monuments, still more southerly, in their former volumes.

In South America, we have only the most distinct accounts of Peru; and although the Government of the Incas possessed no regular city but Cuzco, many interesting specimens have been exhumed from the "Guacas," or mounds, with which they covered the bodies of the dead. "Among these," says Dr. Rees, are "mirrors of various dimensions, of hard shining stones, highly polished; vessels of earthenware, of different forms; hatchets and other instruments, some destined for war, and others for labor. Some were of flint, some of copper, hardened by an unknown process, to such a degree as to supply the place of iron," To these may be added a variety of curious drinking vessels, made of pottery baked and painted; many specimens of which embellish the public and private Museums of our country, and are not unlike some that have been found in the Island of Sacrificios.



The public roads of the Peruvians were also worthy of all praise; especially those two magnificent highways traversing the country from Quito to Cuzco for fifteen hundred miles;—the one passing through the