Page:Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx.djvu/126



examining the adornments of the atlantes that supported the altar, we could not help exclaiming, "Why, this is Burmah!" And so it is. But it is also America. Yes, ancient America, brought back to light after slumbering many ages in the lap of Time, to show the people of the nineteenth century that, long, long ago, intimate communications existed between the inhabitants of the Western Continent and those of Asia, Africa, and Europe, just as they exist to-day; and that ancient American civilization, if not the mother of that of historical nations of antiquity, was at least an important factor in the framing of their cosmogonic notions and primitive traditions.

Of that fact no better proof can be obtained than by comparing the symbols of the universe found among the Mayas, the Hindoos, the Chaldees, and the Egyptians.

The simplest is that of the Mayas. It seems to have served as model for the others, that evidently are amplifications of it. We find it many times repeated, adorning the central fillet of the upper cornice of the entablatures of the eastern and west-