Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/448

 

on the continent of North America are the traces of a by-gone civilization more distinctly marked than in the peninsula of Yucatan. Here are found pyramids resembling in mathematical outline the vast structures in which the Pharaohs lie entombed. Here also the traditions of the early inhabitants carry the mind back to the days when the Israelites fled from their pursuers through the sundered waters of the Red Sea, and when the great law-giver lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness.

Into the Antillean sea the peninsula juts out a vast and arid promontory, risen from the ocean perhaps when Atlantis sank. Broken by undulating hills and low ranges, it extends in a series of irregular plains,

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