Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/83

75 florid. Of the sixty or seventy ruined cities scattered throughout Yucatan, none offers points of greater interest than Uxmal. The ruins of Copan, in Honduras, are distinguished for the number of idols and altars richly sculptured; those of Palenque, in the State of Chiapas, for the profusion of stucco adornment, tablets, bas-reliefs, and statuary; Uxmal, for the richness of its sculptured façades, the magnitude of its buildings, and the chasteness and beauty of its statuary, judging from the few specimens found there. There was recently discovered at Uxmal, by the archæologist. Dr. Le Plongeon, in the summer of 1881, a beautiful statue, surpassing anything ever found among the ruins of Central America. Fearing that, if made known to the government, it would share the fate of his other discovery at Chichen, that of Chaacmol, he closed the aperture leading to it; and this fair conception of Indian art was again consigned to the darkness in which it has rested for centuries.

Who are the people who built these structures, who lavished the work of a lifetime upon their adornment, and who have passed away without leaving a memorial (except in undeciphered hieroglyphs) of their existence? Various are the theories propounded, and presumptuous would he be who would now offer one differing from those of the learned men,—who all differ among themselves! Writers seeking to find in the Bible the root of the tree of the human family have ascribed these buildings to the Jews, to the Phoenicians, and to the Egyptians. Some assign to them a great antiquity, others claim that they are of comparatively recent construction. Among the latter is Stephens, who says, "They were not the work of people who have passed away and whose history is lost, but of the same race who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or of some not very distant progenitors." Yet he admits that there are no traditions, (as there should be if his supposition were correct,) as in the case of Egypt, Greece, and Rome; and this, with many other facts, is in support of the theories of Dr. Le Plongeon and other hardy thinkers of later date than Stephens, who do not fear to deliver their unshackled opinions. The above-quoted writer also thought that perhaps the Toltecs, smallrefs