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Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) Researches Volume I. (London: 1814) |
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Caleb Atwater's 1820 excerpt | Ethan Smith's 1823 book | Sacred Book of the Indians?
Joseph Smith? | Book of Mormon? | Lord Kingsborough | Henry A. Stebbins' Lectures
(note: illustrated plate links are to von Humboldt's images in the earlier folio edition)
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R E S E A R C H E S Concerning THE INSTITUTIONS & MONUMENTS OF The Ancient Inhabitants OF A M E R I C A. with Descriptions & Views OF SOME OF THE MOST Striking Scenes in the C O R D I L L E R A S: Written in French by ALEXANDER DE HUMBOLDT, & Translated into English by Helen Maria Williams. VOL. I 
Page 118 Vol. I. VIEW OF COTOPAXI. ______ L O N D O N. Published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, J. Murray & H. Colburn. |
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C O N T E N T S VOLUME I.: iii Advertisement. 1 Introduction. 35 Monuments of America. 43 (1 & 2) A Statue of an Azteck Priestess. 49 (3) A View of the Great Square of Mexico. 53 (4) The Natural Bridges of Icononzo. 61 (5) The Passage of Quindiu, in the Cordillera of the Andes. 72 (6) The Water Fall of the Tequendoma. 81 (7) The Pyramid of Cholula. 105 (8) Detached Mass of the Pyramid of Cholula. 108 (9) The Monument of Xochicalco. 115 (10) The volcano of Catopaxi. 126 (11) A Mexican Monument in Relief, found at Oaxaca. 135 (12) Genealogy of the Princes of Azcahazalco. 141 (12) A Law-suit in Hieroglyphical Writing. 145 (13) Azteck Hieroglyphical Manuscript, Preserved in the Vatican. 201 (14) Costumes Delineated in the time of Montezuma. 206 (15) Azteck Hieroglyphics, from the Manuscript of Veletri 230 (16) View of Chimborazo and Carquairazo. 240 (17) Peruvian Monument at Cannar. 247 (18) Rock of Inti-Guaicu. 251 (29) Inga-Chungana, Near Cannar. 255 (20) Interior of the House of the Inca in Cannar. 262 (21) Azteck Bas-relief, found in the Great Square of Mexico. 270 (22) Basaltic Rocks and Cascade of Regla. 276 (23) Relief in Basalt, Representing the Mexican Calendar. VOLUME II.: 1 (24) House of the Inca at Callo in the Kingdom of Quito 10 (25) Chimborazo, seen from the Plain of Tapia 15 (26) Epochs of Nature, According to Azteck Mythology 34 (27a) Hieroglyphic painting, taken from the Borgian manuscript of Veletri 34 (27b) Signs of the days of the Mexican Almanac 38 (28) An Azteck Hatchet 40 (29) An Azteck idol of basaltic porphyry, found under the pavement of the Great Square at Mexico 51 (30) Cataract [Water Fall] of the Rio Vinagre, near the Volcano of Purace 54 (31) Postman of the Province of Jaen de Bracamoros [Bracamoras] 57 (32) Hieroglyphical history of the Aztecks, from the deluge to the foundation of the city of Mexico 71 (33) Bridge of Ropes [Rope Bridge] near Penipe 76 (34) Coffer of Perote 78 (35) Mountain of Ilinissa; 80 (36) Fragments of Azteck hieroglyphics, deposited in the royal library of Berlin 83 (37) Hieroglyphic Paintings in the Museum Borgia Veletri 88 (38) Migration of the Azteck nations, from an hieroglyphic painting deposited in the royal library of Berlin 90 (39) Vases of granite found on the coast of Honduras 92 (40) An Azteck idol, in basalt, found in the valley of Mexico 94 (41) Air volcano of Turbaco 99 (42) Volcano of Cayambe 100 (43) Volcano of Jorullo 104 (44) Calendar of the Muysca Indians, the ancient inhabitants of the plain of Bogota 144 (45) Fragment of a hieroglyphical manuscript, preserved in the royal library at Dresden 148 (46-48) Hieroglyphical paintings from the Mexican manuscript of the Imperial Library in Vienna 153 (49-50) Ruins of Mitla Miguitlan in the Province of Oaxaca; plan and elevation 160 (51) View of the Corazón 163 (52-53) Costumes of the Indians of Michoacan 165 (54) A look into the crater interior of the Pic of Tenerife |
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43 OF AN AZTECK PRIESTESS. PLATES I. & II. I have placed at the head of my Picturesque Atlas a valuable relic of Mexican sculpture; a statue in basalt, preserved at Mexico in the cabinet of a distinguished lover of the arts, M. Dupé, captain in the service of his catholic majesty. This well-onformed officer, who in early life improved his taste for fine arts by a residence in Italy, has made several excursions through New Spain, to investigate the Mexican monuments. He has sketched with great accuracy the reliefs of the pyramid of Papantla, on which he intended to publish a very curious work. The statue, of which both sides are here represented in their natural zize, * is chiefly remarkable __________ * See the French edition in folio, Plates I and II. 44 for a kind of headdress, somewhat resembling the veil or calantica of the heads of Isis, the Sphinxes, Antinous, and a great number of other Egyptian statues. It must nevertheless be observed, that, in the Egyptian veil, the two ends, which fall below the ears, are generally very scanty and cross folded. In several statues of the God Apis, in the Museum of the Capitol, the ends are convex in the front, and plaited lengthways, while the back part, that which touches the neck, is constantly flat, and not rounded as in the Mexican headdress. That the greatest analogy exists between this headdress and the plaited drapery, that encircles the heads incrusted on the pillars of Tentyra, is evident from the accurate dtawings, which M. Denon has given in his Travels in Egypt. Perhaps the fluted pads, which in the Mexican statue extend towards the shoulders, are masses of hair, like the tresses in a statue of Isis, of Greek workmanship, placed in the library of the Villa Ludovisi at Rome. This singular arrangement of the hair is particularly striking on the reverse of the statue, engraved on the second plate, which presents an enormous bag tied in the middle by a knot. The celebrated Zoega, of whom the fine arts have lately been deprived by death, assured me, that he had seen a bag of exactly the same form on a small statue of Osiris in bronze, in the Museum of Cardinal Borgia 45 at Veletri. The forehead of the Mexican priestess is ornamented with a string of pearls on the edge of a narrow fillet. These pearls, which have never been observed on any Egyptian statue, indicate the communications which existed between the city of Tenochtitlan, Ancient Mexico, and the coast of California, where pearls are found in great numbers. The neck is covered with a three cornered handkerchief, to which hang twenty-two little balls, or tassels, placed with great symmetry. These tassels, as well as the headdress, are found on a great number of Mexican statues, on bas-reliefs, and in hieroglyphical paintings, and remind us of the small apples and pomegranates on the robes of the high priest of the Hebrews. On the front of the statue, and half a decimetre * from its basis, the toes of the feet are seen on each side, but there are no hands, which indicates the infancy of the art. It seems, from the back front, that the figure is seated, or rather squat; and it is singular, that the eyes in this figure are without eye-balls, which are indicated in the bas-reliefs lately discovered at Oaxaca. The basalt of this sculptre is very hard, and of a fine blacl; it is the true basalt, with a few grains of peridot, and not the Lydian __________ * For the correspondence of English with French measures, see the table at the end of the volume. 46 stone, or porphyry with basis of greenstone, which antiquaries commonly call Egyptian basalt. The folds of the headdress, and especially the pearls, are highly finished; though the artist, destitute of a steel chisel, and with no tools perhaps but those of copper mixed with tin, such as I have brought from Peru, must have encountered great difficulties in the execution. This statue has been very accurately drawn, under the inspection of M. Dupé, by a student of the Academy of Painting at Mexico. It is 0.38 of a metre in height, and 0.19 in breadth. I have adopted the denomination of the statue of a priestess, the title which it bears in the country. It may nevertheless represent some Mexican divinity, and have been originally classed among the household gods. The headress and pearls found on an idol discovered in the ruins of Tezcuco, and which I deposited in the cabinet of the King if Prussia, at Berlon, give authority to this conjecture. The ornament of the neck, and the natural form of the head, render it more probable, that the statue represents simply an Azteck woman. On this last supposition, the fluted pads, which extend toward the breast, cannot be tresses; since the virgins, who devoted themselves to the service of the temple, were shorn by the high priest, or tepanteohuatzin. 47 A slight resemblance between the calantica of the heads of Isis, and the Mexican headdress; the pyramids with terrasses, like those of Fayoum, and Sakharah; the frequent use of hieroglyphical painting; the five complementary days added to the end of the Mexican year, similar to the epagomena of the Memphian year; exhibit very remarkable points of comparison between the people of the Old and the New Continent. We are nevertheless very far from indulging in hypotheses, which would be as vague and uncertain as those which make the Chinese a colony from Egypt, and the Biscayan language a dialect of the Hebrew. These analogies for the most part disappear, when the facts are examined separately. The Mexican year, for instance, notwithstanding the epagomena, differs entirely from that of the Egyptians. An illustrious geometrician, * who examined the fragments which I brought to Europe, fiund by the Mexican intercalculation, that the duration of the tropical year of the Aztecks is almost identical with the duration found by the astronomers of Almamon. If we go back to the early ages, history marks several central points of civilization, of the mutual relations of which we are ignorant; such __________ * La Plaec, Exposition de Systéme du Mondo, 3d. ed. p. 554. 48 as Meroe, Egypt, the banks of the Euphrates, Hindostan, and China. The elevated plains of Central Asia have no doubt given birth to systems of knowledge still more remote, and perhaps to the reflection of that light we may be led to attribute the commencement of American civilization. |
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49 PLATE III. The city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of Anahuac, founded in the year 1325, on a small group of islands, situate on the western part of the salt lake of Tezcuco, was totally destroyed during the siege carried on by the Spaniards in 1521, which lasted seventy-five days. The new city, which contains nearly 140,000 inhabitants, was rebuilt by Cortez on the ruins of the old. The streets were ranged in the same lines, but the canals, which crossed the streets, were filled up by degrees; and Mexico, greatly embellished by the Viceroy, count of Revillagigedo, may at present vie with the finest towns of Europe. The great square, represented in the third plate, is the spot on which formerly stood the spacious temple of Mexitli; which, like all the teocalli, or houses of the Mexican divinities, was a pyramidal 50 edifice, resembling the Babylonian monument dedicated to Jupiter Belus. The palace of the Viceroy of New Spain is on the right; a building of simple architecture, belonging originally to the family of Cortez, which is that of the Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, Duke of Monte Leone. In the middle of the engraving is the cathedral, part of which (el sagrario) is in the ancient Indian or Moorish style, vulgarly called Gothic. Behind the cupola of the sagrario, at the corner of the street Del Indio Triste and that of Tacuba, stood formerly the palace of the King of Axajacatl, where Montezuma lodged the Spaniards on their arrival at Tenochtitlan. The palace of Montezuma was on the right of the cathedral, opposite that of the present Viceroy. It appears to me useful to point out these localities, since they may be interesting to those, who study the history of the conquest of Mexico The Plaza Mayor, which must not be confounded with the great market of Tlatelolco, described by Cortez in his letters to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, is ornamented, since 1803, with the equestrian statue of Charles the Fourth, executed at the expense of the Viceroy, the Marquis of Branciforte. This statue of bronze is in the purest style, and highly finished; it was drawn, modelled, cast, and erected by the same artist, Don Manuel Tolsa, a native of Valentia in Spain, and director of the class of sculpture in 51 the academy of the fine arts at Mexico. We know not which most to admire, the talents of this artist, or the courage and perseverance which he displayed in a country where every thing was to be created, and numberless obstacles to be surmounted. The capital work succeeded on the first cast. The statue weighs nearly twenty-three thousand kilogrammes, and is two decimetres higher than the equestrian statue of Lewis the fourteenth, which stood in the Vendome at Paris. The artist had the good taste not to gild the horse, which is simply coated with a brownish oil varnish. As the buildings around the square are in general not lofty, the sky forms the back ground to the statue; a circumstance which, on the ridge of the Cordilleras, where the atmosphere is of a deep blue, produces a very picturesque effect. I was at Mexico when this enormous mass was removed from the foundery to the Plaza Mayor, a distance of about sixteen hundred metres, which it took five days to accomplish. The means employed by Mr. Tolsa to raise it on a pedestal of a beautiful Mexican marble were very ingenious, and would deserve a minute description. The great square of Mexico is at present of an orregular form, since that which contains the shops of the Parian has been built within it, contrary to the plan of Cortez. To correct the appearance of this orregularity, it has been thought 52 necessary, to place the equestrian statue, which the Indians call the great horse, in a particular enclosure, paved with large slabs of porphyry, and raised more than fifteen decimetres above the level of the adjacent streets. The oval, the great axis of which is a hundred metres, is encircled by four fountains, and closed, to the great discontent of the natives, by four gates, the bars of which are ornamented in bronze. The engraving is a faithful copy of a drawing on a larger scale by Mr. Ximeno, a distinguished artist, and director of the class of painting in the academy of Mexico. The figures in the drawing placed beyond the enclosure, are in the dress of the Guachinangoes, or lower class of the Mexican people. * __________ * See my Political Essay on the Kingdom of New-Spain, French edition, pages 119, 168, 177 and 186. |
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53 OF ICONONZO. PLATE IV. Amidst the majestic and varied scenery of the Cordilleras, the vallies most powerfully affect the imagination of the European traveller. The stupendous neight of the mountains can be discerned only at a considerable distance, and from the low lands which extend along the coasts to the foot of the central chain. The elevated plains, which encircle the summits of these mountains covered with perpetual snow, are for the most part from two thousand five hundred to three thousand metres above the level of the ocean. This circumstance weakens in some measure the effect produced by the colossal masses of Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and Antisana, viewed from the lofty plains of Riobamba and Quito: while, on the contrary, the vallies of the Cordilleras, deeper and narrower than those of 54 the Alps and the Pyrenees, present scenes of the wildest aspect, and fill the soul with astonishment and terror. These vallies are crevices, the sides and bottom of which are clothed with vigorous vegetation; and the depth in many parts is so grear, that were Vesuvius and the Puy de Dome seated in these abysses, their summits would not exceed the ridge of the nearest mountains. M. Ramond's interesting travels have made us acquainted with the valley of Ordesa, which descends from Mount Perdu, and the mean depth of which is nearly nine hundred metres (four hundred and fifty-nine toises). In travelling on the ridge of the Andes, from Pasto to the town of Ibarra, and descending from Loxa to the banks of the river of Amazons, M. Bonplaud and myself traversed the well-known crevices of Chota and Cutaco, which on measuring I found to be, one fifteen hundred, and the other thirteen hundred meters in perpendicular depth. To give a more complete idea of the grandeur of these geological phenomena, it must be remarked, that the bottom of these crevices is only a fourth part less elevated above the level of the sea, than the passages of St. Gothard and Mount Cenis. The valley of Ocononzo, or Pandi, part of which is reproduced in the fourth plate, is less remarkable for its dimensions, than for the singular form of its rocks, which seem to have been carved by the hand of 55 man. Their naked and barren summits present the most picturesque contrast with the tufts of trees and shrubs, which cover the brinks of the crevice. The small torrent, which has made itself a passage through the valley of Icononzo, is called Rio de la Summa Paz, and falls from the eastern chain of the Andes, which, in the kingdom of New Grenada, divides the basin of the river Magdalena from the vast plains of the Meta, the Guaviare, and the Orinoco. This torrent confined in a bed almost inaccessible, could not have been crossed but with extreme difficuly, if nature had not provided two bridges of rocks, which are justly considered in the country as among the objects most worthy the attention of travellers. In the month of September, 1801, we passed these natural bridges of Icononzo, on our journey from Santa Fé de Bogota to Popayan and Quito. The name of Iconozo is that of an ancient village of the Muysco Indians, situate at the southern extremity of the valley, of which only a few scattered huts now remain. The nearest inhabited place to this remarkable spot is the small village of Pandi, or Mercadillo, at the distance of a quarter of a league toward the north-east. The road from Santa Fé to Fusagasuga, (lat. 4 degrees 20 minutes 21 seconds north; long. 5 degrees 7 minutes 14 degrees), and thence to Pandi, is one of the most difficult and least frequented to be found in the Cordilleras. 56 The traveller must feel a passionate enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, who prefers the dangerous descent of the desert of San Fortunato, and the mountains of Fusagasuga, leading towards the natural bridges of Icononzo, to the usual road from the elevated plain of Bogota, by the Mesa de Juan Diaz to the banks of the Magdalena. The deep crevice through which rushes the torrent of the Summa Paz, is in the centre of the valley of Pandi. Near the bridge the waters keep their direction from east to west, during a length of four thousand metres. The river forms two beautiful cascades at the point where it enters the crevice in the west of Don, and where it escapes in its descent towards Melgar. This crevice was probably formed by an earthquake, and resembles an enormous vein, from which the mineral substance has been extracted by the labor of miners. The neighboring mountains are of gritstone, with a clay cement; this formation, which reposes on the primitive schists (thonschiefer) of Villeta, extends from the mountain of rock salt of Zipaquira to the basin of the river Magdalena. The mountain contains also the strata of coal of Canoas, or Chipa, which are worked near the great fall of Tequendama. * In the valley of Icononzo, the gritstone (sandstein) __________ * See Plate VI, French folio edition. 57 is composed of two distinct rocks; one, extremely compact and quartzose, with a small portion of cement, and scarcely any fissures of stratafication, lies on a schistose gritstone (sandsteinschoefer), with a fine grain, and divided into an infinite number of small strata, extremely thin, and almost horizontal. It is probable, that the compact and quartzose stratum. when the crevice was formed, resisted the shock which rent these mountains; and that it is the continuity of this stratum, which serves as a bridge to cross from one side of this valley to the other. This natural arch is fourteen metres and a half in length, and twelve metres seven decimetres in breadth: its thickness in the centre is two metres four decimetres. Experiments carefully made on the fal of bodies, and with a chronometer by Berthoud, gave us ninety-seven decimetres for the height of the upper bridge above the level of the waters of the torrent. A well informed person, who has an agreeable country residence in the beautiful valley of Fusagasaga, Don Jorge Lozano, had already measured this height with a line, and found it to be one hundred and twelve varas (93.4 m.); the mean depth of the torrent appears to be about six metres. The Indians of Pandi have formed, for the safety of travellers, who, however, seldom visit this desert country, a 58 small balustrade of reeds, which extends along the road leading to the upper bridge. Sixty feet below this natural bridge is another, to which we are led by a narrow pathway, which descends upon the brink of the crevice. Three enormous masses of rock are fallen so as to support each other. That in the middle forms the key of the arch; an accident which might have given the natives the idea of arches in masonry, unknown to the people of the new world, as well as to the ancient inhabitants of Egypt. I shall not decide the question whether these masses of rock have been projected from a great distance, or whether they are the fragments of an arch broken on the spot, but originally like the upper bridge. The latter conjecture seems probable, from a similar event which happened to the Coliseum at Rome, where, in a half ruined wall, several stones stopped in their descent, because in falling they accidently formed an arch. In the middle of the second bridge of Icononzo is a hollow of more than eight metres square, through which the bottom of the abyss is perceived. We there made our experiments on the fall of bodies. The torrent seems to flow through a dark cavern, whence arises a lugubrious noise, caused by the numberless flights of nocturnal birds that haunt the crevice, and 59 which we were led at first to mistake for those bats of gigantic size so well known in the equinoctial regions. Thousands of them are seen flying over the surface of the water. The Indians assured us, that these birds are of the size of a fowl, with a curved beak and an owl's eye. They are called cacas; and the uniform colour of their plumage, which is a brownish gray, leads me to think, that they belong to the genus of the caprimulgus, the species of which are so various in the Cordilleras. It is impossible to catch then, on account of the depth of the valley; and they can be examined only by throwing down rockets to illumine the sides of the crevice. The height of the natural bridge of Icononzo above the ocean is eight hundred and ninety-three metres. A phenomenon, similar to the upper bridge, of which we have just given the description, exists in the mountains of Virginia, in the county of Rockbridge. This Mr. Jefferson has examined with an attention, that distinguishes all of the observations of that excellent naturalist. * The natural bridge of Cedar Creek in Virginia is a calcareous arch of twenty-seven metres at ots opening; its height above the waters of the river is seventy metres. The earthen bridge (Rumichaca), which we found on the declivity of the porphyritic mountains __________ * Notes on Virginia, p. 56. 60 of Chumban, in the province of Los Pastos; the bridge of Madre de Dios, called Danto, near Totonilco, in Mexico; the pierced rock near Grandola, in the province of Alentejo, in Portugal; are geological phenomena, which bear some resemblance to the bridge of Icononzo; but I doubt whether in any part of the Globe a phenomenon has been discovered so extraordinary as that of the three masses of rocks, which support each other by forming a natural arch. I sketched the natural bridges of Icononzo from the northern part of the valley, with a side view of the arch. The first proofs of this plate indicate erroneously Mr. Gmelin of Rome as the engraver, instead of M. Bouquet of Paris. |
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61 IN THE CORDILLERA OF THE ANDES. PLATE V. In the Kingdom of New Grenada, from 2 degrees 30 minutes to 5 degrees 15 minutes of northern latitude, the Cordillera of the Andes is divided into three oarallel chains, of which the two lateral only are covered at very considerable heights with gritstone, and other secondary formations. The easyern chain divides the valley of the River Magdalena from the plains of Rio Meta. The natural bridges of Icononzo, of which we have just given the description, are situate on its western declivity. Its highest summits are the Paramo de la Summa Paz, and that of Chingasa. Neither of these attains the region of perpetual snows. The central chain divides the waters between the basin of the river Magdalena and that of Rio Cauca. It often attains the limits of the prepetual snows, and greatly surpasses it in the 62 colossal summits of Guanaeas, Baragan, and Quindiu. At the rising and setting of the Sun, this central chain offers a magnificent spectacle to the inhabitants of Santa Fé; and reminds us, though on a much more stupendous scale, of the view of the Alps in Switzerland. The western chain of the Andes separates the valley of Cauca from the province of Choco, and the coasts of the South Sea. Its elevation is scarcely fifteen hundred metres; it sinks so low between the sources of the Rio Atracto, and those of Rio San-Juan, that we can scarcely follow its course into the isthumus of Panama. These three chains of mountains are blended together in the sixth and seventh degrees of north latitude. They form a single group to the siuth of Popayan, in the province of Pasto. We must not, however, confound them with the division of the Cordilleras observed by Bouguer and La Condamine in the kingdom of Quito, from the equator to the second degree of south latitude. The city of Santa Fé de Bogota is situate on the west of the Paramo of Chingasa, in an elevated plain, which is two thousand six hundred and fifty metres above the level of the sea, and which extends to the ridge of the eastern Cordilleras. This particular structure of the Andes obliges the traveller from Santa Fé to Popayan and the banks of the Cauca, to descend the 63 eastern chain, either by the Mesa and Tocayma, or the natural bridges of Icononzo, and cross the central chain. The most frequent passage os that of the Paramo de Guanacas, described by Bouguer, on his return from Quito to Carthagena. Pursuing this road the traveller crosses the ridge of the central Cordilleras in a single day, and amidst an inhabited country. We preferred the passage of the mountain of Quindiu, or Quindio, between the cities of Ibague and Carthago, the entrance of which passage is represented in the fifth plate. * These geographical explanations seemed necessary to give a clear idea of the position of a place, which is not to be found in the most accurate charts of South America, even in that of La Cruz. The mountain of Quindiu, (lat. 40 degrees 36 minutes, long. 5 degrees 12 minutes) is considered as the most difficult passage in the Cordilleras of the Andes. It is a thick, uninhabited forest, which in the finest season cannot be traversed in less than ten or twelve days. Not even a hut is to be seen, nor can any means of subsistence be found. Travellers at all times of the year furnish themselves with a month's provision, since it often happens, that by the melting of the snows, and the sudden __________ * See Plate V, folio edition. 64 swell of the torrents, they find themselves so circumstanced, that they can descend neither on the side of Carthago, nor that of Igabue. The highest point of the road, the Garito del Paramo, is three thousand five hundred and five metres above the level of the sea. As the foot of the mountain, towards the banks of the Cauca, is only nine hundred and sixty metres, the climate there is in general mild and temperate. The pathway, which forms the passage of the Cordilleras, is only three or four decimetres in breadth, and has the appearance in several places of a gallery dug, and left open to the sky. In this part of the Andes, as almost in every other, the rock is covered with a thin stratum of clay. The streamlets, which flow down the mountains, have hollowed out gullies six or seven metres deep. Along these crevices, which are full of mud, the traveller is forced to grope his passage; the darkness of which is increased by the thick vegetation, that covers the opening above. The oxen, which are the beasts of burden commonly made use of in this country, can scarcely force their way through these galleries, some of which are two thousand metres in length; and if perchance the traveller meets them in one of these passages he finds no means of avoiding them, but by turning back, and climbing the earthen wall, which borders the crevice, and keeping 65 himself suspended, by laying hold of the roots, which penetrate to this depth from the surface of the ground. We traversed the mountain of Quindiu in the month of October, 1801, on foot, followed by twelve oxen, which carried our collections and instruments, amidst a deluge of rain, to which we were exposed during the last three or four days, in our descent on the western side of the Cordilleras. The road passes through a country full of bogs, and covered with bamboos. Our shoes were so torn by the prickles, which shoot out from the roots of these gigantic gramina, that we were forced like all other travellers, who dislike being carried on men's backs to go barefooted. This circumstance, the continual humidity, the length of the passage, the muscular force required to tread in a thick and muddy clay, the necessity of fording deep torrents of icy water, render this journey extremely fatiguing: but, however painful, it is accompanied by none of the dangers, with which the credulity of the people alarm travellers. The toad is narrow, but the places where it skirts precipices are very rare. As the oxen are accustomed to put their feet in the same tracks, they form small furrows across the road, separated from each other by narrow ridges of earth. On very rainy seasons, these ridges are covered by water, which renders the traveller's step 66 doubly uncertain, since he knows not whether he places his foot on the ridge, or in the furrow. As few persons on easy travel on foot, in these climates, through roads so difficult, during fifteen or twenty days together, they are carried by men in a chair, tied on their back; for in the present state of the passage to Quindiu, it would be impossible to go on mules. They talk in this country of going on a man's back (andar en carguero), as we mention going on horseback, no humiliating idea is annexed to the trade of cargueroes; and the men who follow this occupation are not Indians, but mulattoes, and sometimes even whites. It is often curious to hear these men, with scarcely any covering, and following a profession which we should consider so disgraceful, quarrelling in the midst of a forest, because one has refused the other, who pretends to have a whiter skin, the pompous title of don, or of su merced. The usual load of a carguero is six or seven arrobas (from seventy-five to eighty-eight kilogrammes*); those who are very strong, carry as much as nine arrobas. When we reflect on the enormous fatigue, to which these miserable men are exposed, journeying eight or nine hours a day over a mountainous country; when we know, that their __________ * For the correspondent English and French weights, see the table at the end of the volume. 67 backs are sometimes as raw as those of beasts of burden, and that travellers have often the cruelty to leave them in the forests, when they fall sick; that they earn by a journey from Ibague to Carthago only twelve or fourtten piastres (sixty or seventy francs) in a space of fifteen, and sometimes even twenty-five or thirty days; we are at a loss to conceive, how this employment of a carguero, one of the most painful which can be undertaken by man, is eagerly embraced by all the robust young men, who live at the foot of the mountains. The taste for a wandering and vagabond life, the idea of a certain independence amidst forests, leads them to prefer this employment to the sedentary and monotonous labour of cities. The passage of the mountain of Quindiu is not the only part of South America, which is traversed on the backs of men. The whole of the province if Antioquia is surrounded by mountains so difficult to pass, that they who dislike entrusting themselves to the skill of a carrier, and who are not strong enough to travel on foot from Santa Fé de Antioquia to Bocca de Nares, or Rio Samana, must relinquish all thoughts of leaving the country. I was acquainted with an inhabitant of this province, so immensely bulky, that he had not met with more than two mulattoes capable of carrying him; and it would have been impossible for him 68 to return home, if those two carriers had died, while he was on the banks of the Magdalena, at Mompox or Honda. The number of young men, who undertake the employment of beasts of burden at Choco, Ibague, and Meddellin, is so considerable, that we sometimes met a file of fifty or sixty. A few years ago, when a project was formed to make the passage from Nares to Antioquia passable for mules, the cargueroes presented formal remonstrance against mending the road, and the government was weak enough to yield to their clamours. We may here observe, that a class of men near the mines of Mexico have no other employment, than that of carrying other men on their backs. In these climates the indolence of the whites is so great, that every director of a mine has one or two Indians at his service, who are called his horses (cavallitoes), because they are saddled every morning, and, supported by a small cane, and bending forwards, they carry their master from one part of the mine to another. Among the cavallitoes, or cargueroes, those who have a sure foot and easy step are known and recommended to travellers. Ot is distressing to hear the qualities of man spoken of in terms, by which we are accustomed to denote the gait of mules and horses. The persons who are carried in a chair by a carguero must remain several hours motionless, and leaning backwards; the least motion 69 is sufficient to throw down the carrier, and his fall would be so much the more dangerous, as the carguero, too confident in his skill, choses the most rapod declivities, or crosses a torrent on a narrow and slippery trunk of a tree. Those accidents are howewver rare, and those which happen must be attributed to the imprudence of travellers, who, frightened at a false step of the carguero, leap down from their chairs. The fifth plate represents a very picturesque view, seen at the entrance of the mountain of Quindiu, near Ibague, at a post called the foot of the Cuesta. The truncated cone of Tolima, covered with perpetual snow, and reminding us by its form of Cotopaxi and Cayambe, appears above the mass of gigantic rocks. The small river of Combeima, which mingles its waters with those of Rio Cuello, winds in a narrow valley, and forces its way across a thicket of palm trees. A part of the town of Ibague, the great valley of the river Magdalena, and the eastern chain of the Andes, are seen in the back ground. In the fore ground is a band of cargueroes coming up the mountain, representing the mode of fastening on the shoulders the chair made of bamboo wood, which is steadied by a headstall similar to that worn by horses and oxen. The roll in the hand of the third carguero is the roof, or rather movable house, 70 which is to shelter the travellers who cross the forests of Quindiu. When they reach Ibague, and prepare for the journey, they pluck in the neighboring mountains several hundred leaves of the vijao, a plant of the family of the bananas, which forms a genus approaching the thalia, and which must not be confounded with the heloconia bihai. These leaves, which are membranous and silky, like those of the musa, are of an oval form, fifty-four centimetres (twenty inches) long, and thirty-seven centimetres (fourteen inches) in breadth. Their lower surface is a silvery white, and covered with a farinaceous substance, which falls off in scales. This peculiar varnish enables them to resist the rain during a long time. In gathering these leaves, an incision is made in the middle rib, which is a continuation of the foot-stalk; and this serves as a hook to suspend them, when the movable roof is formed. On taking it down, they are spread out and carefully rolled up in a cylindrical bundle. It requires about a hundred weight of leaves (50 kilogrammes) to cover a hut large enough to hold six or eight persons. When the travellers reach a spot in the midst of the forests, where the ground is dry, and where they propose to pass the night, the cargueroes lop a few branches from the trees, with which they make a tent. In a few minutes this slight timber work is divided into squares by the stalks of 71 some climbing plant, or threads of the agave, placed in parallel lines three or four decimetres from each other. The vijao leaves meanwhile have been unrolled, and are now spread over the above work, so as to cover each other like the tiles of a . These huts thus hastily built, are cool and commodious. If, during the night, the traveller feels the rain, he points out the spot where it enters, and a leaf is sufficient to obviate the inconvenience. We passed several days in the valley of Boquia under one of these leafy tents, which was perfectly dry amidst violent and incessant rains. The mountain of Quindiu, is one of the richest spots in useful and interesting plants. Here we found the palm-tree, (ceroxylon andicola), the trunk of which is covered with vegetable wax; the passiflora in trees; and the majestic grandiflora, with flowers of a scarlet color sixteen centimetres (six inches long). |
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72 FALL OF TEQUENDAMA. PLATE VI. The elevated plain, on which stands the city of Santa Fé de Bogota, resembles, in a variety of circumstances, that which is surrounded by the Mexican lakes. Each of these plains is higher than the summit of St. Bernard, the first being two thousand six hundred and sixty, and the second two thousand two hundred and seventy-seven metres above the level of the ocean. The valley of Mexico is bounded by a circular wall of mountains of porphyry, and its centre is covered with water: for the numerous torrents, which rush into the valley, found no outlet, until the Europeans had dug the canal of Huehuetoca. The plain of Bogota is also encircled with lofty mountains; and the perfect level of the soil, its geological structure, the form of the rocks of Suba and Facatativa, which rise like small islands in the midst of the savannahs, seem all to indicate the existence of an ancient lake. The river of Funzha, usually called the Rio de 73 Bogota, into which flow the waters of the valley, forced its way through the mountains to the southwest of Santa Fe. Near the farm of Tequendama, this river rushes from the plain by a narrow outlet into a crevice, which descends towards the basin of the river Magdalena. Were an attempt made to close this passage, which is the sole opening out of the valley of Bogota, these fertile plains would gradually be converted into a sheet of water like the Mexican lake. It is easy to perceive the influence of these geological facts on the traditions of the ancient inhabitants of these countries. We shall not decide, whether merely from the aspect of the country a people not far removed from civilization were led to form hypotheses on the first revolutions of the Globe; or whether the great inundations of the valley of Bogota were sufficiently recent, to have left traces on the the memory of men. Historical traditions are every where blended with religious opinions; and it may not be uninteresting in this place to mention those, which the conqueror of this country, Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, found disseminated among the Muyscas, Panchas, and Natagaymas, when he first penetrated into the mountains of Cundinamarca. * __________ * See Lucas Fernandez Piedrahita, Obispo de Panama. 74 __________ Historia general del Nuevo Reyno de Grenada, page 17; a work composed from the Mss. of Quesada. 75 began from that epocha to enlighten our planet during the night. Bochica, moved with compassion for those who were dispersed over the mountains, broke with his powerful arm the rocks that enclosed the valley, on the side of Canoas and Tequendama. By this outlet he drained the waters of the Lake of Bogota; he built towns, introduced the worship of the Sun, named two chiefs, between whom he divided the civil and ecclesiastical authority, and then withdrew himself, under the name of Idacanzas, into the holy valley of Iraca, near Tunja, where he lived in the exercise of the most austere penitence for the space of two thousand years This Indian fable, which attributes the cataract of Tequendama to the founder of the empire of Zaque, contains a number of peculiarities, which we find scattered in the religious traditions of several nations of the old continent. The good and evil principle here seem to be personified in the old man Bochica and his wife Huythaca. The remote period when the Moon did not exist, reminds us of the boast of the Arcadians on the antiquity of their origin. The planet of the night is represented as a malignant being, augmenting the humidity of the Earth; while Bochica, child of the Sun, dries the soil, promotes agriculture, and becomes the benefactor of the Muyscas, as the first Inca was that of the Peruvians. 76 The traveller, who views the tremendous scenery of the cataract of Tequendama, will not be surprised, that rude tribes should have attributed a miraculous origin to rocks which seem to have been cut by the hand of man; to that narrow gulf into which falls headlong the mass of waters that issue from the valley of Bogota; to those rainbows reflecting the most vivid colours, and of which the forms vary every instant; to that column of vapour, rising like a thick cloud, and seen at five leagues distance, from the walks around Santa Fé. The sixth plate can give but a very feeble idea of the majestic spectacle. If it be difficult to describe the beauties of cataracts, it is still more difficult to make them felt. by the aid of the pencil. The impression they leave on the mind of the observer depends on the concurrence of a variety of circumstances. The volume of water must be proportioned to the height of the fall, and the scenery around must wear a wild and romantic aspect. The Pissevache and the Staubbach, in Switzerland, are lofty, but their masses of water are not very considerable. The Niagara and the fall of the Rhine, on the contrary, furnish an enormous volume of water, but their height is not above fifty metres. A cataract surrounded by hills only produces far effect, than the falls of water which rush into the profound and narrow vallies of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and, above all, 77 The Cordilleras of the Andes. Independent of the height and mass of the column of water, the figure of the landscape, and the aspect of the rocks; it is the luxuriant form of the trees and herbaceous plants, their distribution into groups, or into scattered thickets, the contrast of those craggy precipices and the freshness of vegetation, which stamp a peculiar character on these great scenes of nature. The fall of Niagara, placed beneath a northern sky, in the region of pines and oaks, would be still more beautiful, were its drapery composed of heliconias, palms, and arborescent ferns. The cataract of Tequemdama forms an assemblage of every thing that is sublimely picturesque in beautiful scenery. This fall is not however, as it is commonly believed to be in the country, and repeated by naturalists in Europe, the loftiest cataract on the Globe: the river does not rush, as Bouguer relates, into a gulf of five or six hundred metres of perpendicular depth; but there scarcely exists a cataract which, from so lofty a height, precipitates so voluminous a mass of waters. The Rio de Bogota, after replenishing the marshes between the village of Facatativa and Fontibon, is still forty-four metres broad at canoas, a little above the fall; which is half the breadth of the Seine at Paris, between the Louvre and the Palace of the Arts. The river narrows considerably near its fall, where the crevice, which 78 appears to have been formed by an earthquake, is only ten or twelve metres wide. In very dry seasons, the volume of water, which, at a double bound, falls to a depth of a hundred and seventy-five metres, still presents a side view of ninety square metres. The two figures of men, represented in the drawing, serve as a scale of the total height of the fall. The point where these men are placed, on the upper bank, is two thousand four hundred and sixty-seven metres above the level of the ocean. From this point to the river Magdalena, the small river of Bogota, called at the foot of the cataract Rio de la Mesa, Rio de Tocayma, or Rio del Collegio, has still a fall, of two thousand one hundred metres, which is more than one hundred and forty metres in every common French league. The road, which leads from the town of Santa Fé to the fall of Tequendama, passes by the village of Suacha, and the great farm of Canoas, well known for its fine crops of wheat. The enormous mass of vapours, which continually rises from the cataract, and which is prectated by its contact with the cold air, contributes much, it is believed, to the great fertility of this part of the plain of Bogota. At a small distance from Canoas, on the height of Chipa, a magnificent prospect astonishes the traveller by the variety of its contrasts. Leaving the cultivated plain rich in corn, he finds himself surrounded, 79 not only with the aralia, the alstonia theaeformis, the begonia, and the yellow bark tree, (cinchona cordifolia), but with oaks, with elms, and other plants, the growth of which recalls to his mind the vegetation of Europe; when suddenly he discovers as from a terrace, and at his feet, a country producing the palm, the banana, and the sugar cane. The crevice into which the Rio de Bogota throws itself communicating with plains of the warm region (tierra caliente), a few palm trees have sprung up at the foot of the cataract. This particular circumstance leads the inhabitants of Santa Fé to observe, that the cataract of the Tequendama is so high, that the water falls in one bound, from a cold (tierra fria) into a warm country. We are sensible, that a difference of one hundred and seventy-five metres of height is too inconsiderable, to have much influence on the temperature of the air; and it is not on account of the height of the soil, that the vegetation of the plain of Canoas contrasts with that of the ravine. If the rock of Tequendama, which is a gritstone with a clayey basis, were not quite perpendicular, and if the elevated plain of Canoas were sheltered like the crevice, the palm trees, which flourish at the foot of the cataract, would have pushed their migrations to the upper level of the river. The appearance of vegetation is so much the more interesting to the inhabitants of the valley 80 of Bogota, as they live in a climate where the thermometer descends very often to the freezing point. I succeeded, but not without danger, in carrying instruments into the crevice itself, at the foot of the cataract. It takes three hours to reach the bottom by a narrow path (camino de la Culebra), which leads to the ravine of La Povasa. Although the river loses in falling a great part of its water, which is reduced into vapours, the rapidity of the lower current forces the observer to keep at the distance of nearly one hundred and forty metres from the basin dug out by the fall. A few feeble rays at noon fall on the bottom of the crevice. The solitude of the place, the richness of the vegetation, and the dreadful roar that strikes the ear, contribute to render the foot of the cataract of Tequeendama one of the wildest scenes that can be found in the Cordilleras. |
 The Pyramid of Cholula. |
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81 PLATE VII. Among those swarms of nations, which, from the seventh to the twelfth century of the Christian era, successively inhabited the country of Mexico, five are enumerated, the Toltecks, the Cicimecks, the Acolhuans, the Tlascaltecks, and the Aztecks, who, notwithstanding their political divisions, spoke the same language, followed the same worship, and built pyramidal edifices, which they regarded as teocallis, that is to say, the house of their gods. These edifices were all of the same form, though of very different dimensions; they were pyramids, with several terraces, and the sides of which stood exactly in the direction of the meridian, and the parallel of the place. The teocalli was raised in the midst of a square and walled enclosure, which, somewhat like the _______ of the Greeks, contained gardens, fountains, the dwellings of the priests, and sometimes arsenals; since each house of a Mexican divinity, like the ancient temple of 82 Baal Berith, burnt by Abimelech, was a strong place. A great staircase led to the top of the truncated pyramid, and on the summit of the platform were one or two chapels, built like towers, which contained the colossal idols of the divinity, to whom the teocalli was dedicated. This part of the edifice must be considered as the most consecrated place; like the _____, or rather the _____, of the Grecian temples. It was there also, that the priests kept up the sacred fire. From the peculiar construction of the edifice we have just described, the priest who offered the sacrifice was seen by a great mass of the people at the same time; the procession of the teopixqui, ascending or descending the staircase of the pyramid, was beheld at a considerable distance. The inside of the edifice was the burial place of the kings and principal personages of Mexico. It is impossible to read the descriptions, which Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus have left us of the temple of Jupiter Belus, without being struck with the resemblance of that Babylonian monument to the teocallis of Anahuac. At the period when the Mexicans, or Aztecks, one of the seven tribes of the Anahuatlacks, (inhabitants of the banks of rivers,) took possession, in the year 1190, of the equinoctial region of New Spain, they already found the pyramidal monuments of Teotihuacan, of Cholula, or 83 Cholollan, and of Papantla. They attributed these great edifices to the Toltecks, a powerful and civilized nation, who inhabited Mexico five hundred years earlier, who made use of hieroglyphical characters, who computed the year more precisely, and had a more exact chronology than the greater part of the people of the old continent. The Aztecks knew not with certainty what tribe had inhabited the country of Anahuac before the Toltecks; and consequently the belief, that the houses of the deity of Teotihuacan and of Cholollan was the work of the Toltecks, assigned them the highest antiquity they could conceive. It is however possible, that they might have been constructed before the invasion of the Toltecks; that is, before the year 648 of the vulgar era. We ought not to be astonished, that no history of any American nation should precede the seventh century; and that the annals of the Toltecks should be as uncertain as those of the Pelasgi and the Ausonians. The learned Mr. Schloezer has clearly proved, that the history of the north of Europe reaches no higher than the tenth century, an epocha when Mexico was in a more advanced state of civilization than Denmark, Sweden and Russia. The teocalli of Mexico was dedicated to Tezcatlipoca, the first of the Azteck divinities after Teotl, who is the supreme and invisible Being; 84 and to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. It was built by the Aztecks, on the model of the pyramids of Teotihuacan, six years only before the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. This truncated pyramid, called by Cortez the principal temple, was ninety-seven metres in breadth at its basis, and nearly fifty-four metres in height. It is not astonishing, that a building of these dimensions should have been destroyed a few years after the siege of Mexico. In Egypt there scarcely remain any vestiges of the enormous pyramids, which towered amidst the waters of the lake Moeris, and which Herodotus says were ornamented with colossal statues. The pyramids of Porsenna, of which the description seems somewhat fabulous, and four of which, according to Varro, were more than eighty metres in height, have equally disappeared in Etruria. * But if the European conquerors overthrew the Teocallis of the Aztecks, they did not alike succeed in destroying more ancient monuments, that are attributed to the Tolteck nation. We shall give a succinct description of these monuments, remarkable for their form and magnitude. The group of the pyramids of Teotihuacan is in the valley of Mexico, eight leagues north-east __________ * Plin. xxxvi, 19. 85 from the capital, in a plain that bears the name of Micoatl, or the Path of the Dead. There are two large pyramids dedicated to the Sun (Tonatiuh,) and to the Moon (Meztli); and these are surrounded by several hundreds of small pyramids, which form streets in exact lines from north to south, and from east to west. Of these two great Teocallis, one is fifty-five the other forty-four metres in perpendicular height. The basis of the first is two hundred and eight metres in length; whence it results, that the Tonatiuh Yztaqual, according to Mr. Oteyza's measurement, made in 1803, is higher than the Mycerinus, or third of the three great pyramids of Geeza in Egypt, and the length of its base nearly equal to that of the Cephren. The small pyramids, which surround the great houses of the Sun and the Moon, are scarcely nine or ten metres high; and served, according to the tradition of the natives, as burial places for the chiefs of the tribes. Around the Cheops and the Mycerinus in Egypt, there are eight small pyramids, placed with symmetry, and parallel to the fronts of the greater. The two Teocallis of Teotihuacan had four principal stories, each of which was subdivided into steps, the edges of which are still to be distinguished. The nucleus is composed of clay mixed with small stones, and it is encased by a thick wall of tezontli, 86 or porous amygdaloid. * This construction recalls to mind that of one of the Egyptian pyramids of Sakharah, which has six stories; and which, according to Pocock, is a mass of pebbles and yellow mortar, covered on the outside with rough stones. On the top of the great Mexican Teocallis were two colossal statues of the Sun, and the Moon: they were of stone, and covered with plates of gold, of which they were stripped by the soldiers of Cortez. When bishop Zumaraga, a Franciscan monk, undertook the destruction of whatever related to the worship, the history, and the Antiquities of the natives of America, he ordered also the demolition of the idols of the plain of Micoatl. We still discover the remains of a staircase built with large hewn stone, which formerly led to the platform of the teocalli. On the east of the group of the pyramids of Teotihuacan, on descending the Cordillera towards the Gulph of Mexico, in a thick forest, called Tajin, rises the pyramid of Papantla. This monument was by chance discovered scarcely thirty years ago, by some Spanish hunters; for the Indians carefully conceal from the whites whatever was an object of ancient veneration. The form of this Teocalli, which __________ * Mandelstein of the German mineralogists. 87 had six, perhaps seven stories, is more tapering than that of any other monument of this kind; it is nearly eighteen metres in height, while the breadth of its basis is only twenty-five. This small edifice is built entirely with hewn stones, of an extraordinary size, and very beautifully and regularly shaped. Three staircases lead to the top. The covering of its steps is decorated with hieroglyphical sculpture, and small niches, which are arranged with great symmetry. The number of these niches seems to allude to the three hundred and eighteen simple and compound signs of the days of the Cempohualilhuitl, or civil calendar of the Toltecks. The greatest, most ancient, and most celebrated of the whole of the pyramidal monuments of Anahuac is the Teocalli of Cholula. It is called in the present day the Mountain made by the hand of Man _(monte hecho a manos)._ At a distance it has the aspect of a natural hill covered with vegetation. This pyramid is represented in the seventh plate in its present ruined state. A vast plain, the Puebla, is separated from the valley of Mexico by the chain of volcanic mountains, which extend from Popocatepetl, towards 88 Rio Frio, and the peak of Telapon. * This plain, fertile though destitute of trees, is rich in memorials, interesting to Mexican history. In it flourished the capitals of the three republicks of Tlascalla, Huexocingo and Choliila, which, notwithstanding their continual dissensions, resisted with no less firmness the despotism and usurping spirit of the Azteck kings. The small city of Cholula, which Cortez, in his Letters to Charles V. compares with the most populous cities of Spain, contains at present scarcely sixteen thousand inhabitants. The pyramid is to the east of the city, on the road which leads from Cholula to Puebla. It is well preserved on the western side, which is that represented in the engraving. The plain of Cholula presents that aspect of barrenness, which is peculiar to plains elevated two thousand two hundred metres above the level of the ocean. A few plants of the agave and dracsena rise on the foreground, and at a distance the summit of the volcano of Orizaba is beheld covered: with snow; a colossal mountain, five thousand two hundred and ninety-five metres of absolute height, and of which I have published a sketch in my Mexican Atlas, plate 17. The Teocalli of Cholula has four stories, all of __________ * See my Mexican Atlas, pl. III and IX. 89 equal height. It appears to have been constructed exactly in the direction of the four cardinal points; but as the edges of the stories are not very distinct, it is difficult to ascertain their primitive direction. This pyramidical monument has a broader basis than that of any other edifice of the same kind in the old continent. I measured it carefully, and ascertained, that its perpendicular height is only fifty metres, but that each side of its basis is four hundred and thirty-nine metres in length. Torquemada computes its height at seventy-seven metres; Betancourt, at sixty five; and Clavigero, at sixty one. Berual Diaz del Castillo, a common soldier in the army of Cortez, amused himself by counting the steps of the staircases, which led to the platform of the Teocallis; he found one hundred and fourteen in the great temple of Tenochtitlan, one hundred and seventeen in that of Tezcuco, and one hundred and twenty in that of Cholula. The basis of the pyramid of Cholula is twice as broad as that of Cheops; but its height is very little more than that of the pyramid of Mycerinus. On comparing the dimensions of the house of the Sun, at Teotihuacan, with those of the pyramid of Cholula, we see, that the people, who constructed these remarkable monuments, intended to give them the same height, but with bases, the length of which should be in the proportion of one to two. We find also 90 a considerable difference in the proportions between the base and the height in these various monuments; in the three great pyramids of Geeza, the heights are to the bases as 1 to 1.7; in the pyramid of Papantla covered with hieroglyphicks, this ratio is as 1 to 1.4; in the great pyramid of Teotihuacan, as 1 to 3.7; and in that of Cholula as 1 to 7.8. This last monument is built with unbaked bricks (xamilli), alternating with layers of clay. I have been assured by some Indians of Cholula, that the inside is hollow; and that, during the abode of Cortez in this city, their ancestors had concealed, in the body of the pyramid, a considerable number of warriours, who were to fall suddenly on the Spaniards; but the materials with which the Teocalli is built, and the silence of the historians of those times, * give but little probability to this assertion. It is certain, however, that in the interior of, this pyramid, as in other Teocallis, there are considerable cavities, which were used as sepulchres for the natives. A particular circumstance led to this discovery. Seven or eight years ago, the road from Puebla to Mexico, which before passed to the north of the pyramid, was changed. In tracing the road, the first story was cut through, so that an eighth part remained isolated __________ * Cartas de Herman Cortez; Mexico, 1770, p. 69. 91 like a heap of bricks. In making this opening a square house was discovered in the interiour of the pyramid, built of stone, and supported by beams made of the wood of the deciduous cypress (cupressusdisticha.) The house contained two skeletons, idols in basalt, and a great number of vases, curiously varnished and painted. No pains were taken to preserve these objects, but it is said to have been carefully ascertained, that this house, covered with bricks and strata of clay, had no outlet. Supposing that the pyramid was built, not by the Toltecks, the first inhabitants of Cholula, but by prisoners made by the Cholulans from the neighbouring nations, it is possible, that they were the carcasses of some unfortunate slaves, who had been shut up to perish in the interiour of the Teocalli. We examined the remains of this subterraneous house, and observed a particular arrangement of the bricks, tending to diminish the pressure made on the roof. The natives being ignorant of the manner of making arches, placed very large bricks horizontally, so that the upper course should pass beyond the lower. The continuation of this kind of stepwork served in some measure as a substitute for the Gothic vault, and similar vestiges have been found in several Egyptian edifices. An adit dug through the Teocalli of Cholula, to examine its internal structure, would be an interesting operation; and it is singular, 92 that the desire of discovering hidden treasure has not prompted the undertaking. During my travels in Peru, in visiting the vast ruins of the city of Chimu, near Mansiche, I went into the interior of the famous Huaca de Toledo, the tomb of a Peruvian prince, in which Garci Gutierez de Toledo discovered, on digging a gallery, in 1576, massive gold amounting in value to more than five millions of francs, as is proved by the book of accounts, preserved in the mayor's office at Truxillo. The great Teocalli of Cholula, called also the Mountain of unbaked bricks (tlalchihualtepec), had an altar on its top, dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the god of the air. This Quetzalcoatl, whose name signifies serpent clothed with green feathers, from coatl, serpent, and quetzalli, green feathers, is the most mysterious being of the whole Mexican mythology. He was a white and bearded man, like the Bochica of the Muyscas, of whom we spoke in our descriptions of the Cataract of Tequendama. He was high priest of Tula (Tollan,) legislator, chief of a religious sect, which, like the Sonyasis and the Bouddhists of Indostan, inflicted on themselves the most cruel penances. He introduced the custom of piercing the lips and the ears, and lacerating the rest of the body with the prickles of the agave leaves, or the thorns of the cactus; and of putting reeds into the wounds, in order 93 that the blood might be seen to trickle more copiously. In a Mexican drawing in the Vatican library, * I have seen a figure representing Quetzalcoatl appeasing by his penance the wrath of the gods, when, thirteen thousand and sixty years after the creation of the World, (I follow the very vague chronology computed by Rios) a great famine prevailed in the province of Culan. The saint had chosen his place of retirement near Tlaxapuchicalco, on the volcano Catcitepetl (Speaking Mountain,) where he walked barefooted on agave leaves armed with prickles. We seem to behold one of those rishi, hermits of the Ganges, whose pious austerity † is celebrated in the Pouranas. The reign of Quetzalcoatl was the golden age of the people of Anahuac. At that period, all animals, and even men, lived in peace; the earth brought forth, without culture, the most fruitful harvests; and the air was filled with a multitude of birds, which were admired for their song, and the beauty of their plumage. But this reign, like that of Saturn, and the happiness of the world, were not of long duration; the great spirit Tezcatlipoca, the Brahma of the nations of Anahuac, offered Quetzalcoatl a beverage, which, in rendering him immortal, inspired __________ * Codex anonymus, No. 3738, fol. 8. † Schlegel uber Sprache and Weisheit der Indier, p. 132. 94 him with a taste for travelling; and particularly with an irresistible desire of visiting a distant country, called by tradition Tlapullan. * The resemblance of this name to that of Huehuetlapallan, the country of the Toltecks, appears not to be accidental. But how can we conceive, that this white man, priest of Tula, should have taken his direction, as we shall presently find, to the south-east, towards the plains of Cholula, and thence to the eastern coasts of Mexico, in order to visit this northern country, whence his ancestors had issued in the five hundred and ninety-sixth year of our era? Quetzalcoatl, in crossing the territory of Cholula, yielded to the entreaties of the inhabitants, who offered him the reins of government. He dwelt twenty years among them, taught them to cast metals, ordered fasts of eight days, and regulated the intercalations of the Tolteck year. He preached peace to men, and would permit no other offerings to the Divinity, than the first fruits of the harvest. From Cholula, Quetzalcoatl passed on to the mouth of the river Goasacoalco, where he disappeared, after having declared to the Cholulans (Chololtecatles,) that he would return in a short time to govern them again, and renew their happiness. It was the posterity of this saint, whom the __________ * Clavigero Storia di Messico, tom. 2, p. 12. 95 unhappy Montezuma thought he recognized in the soldiers of Cortez. "We know by our books," said he, in his first interview with the Spanish General, "that myself, and those who inhabit this country, are not natives, but strangers, who came from a great distance. We kno |
