the distribution of various formations is laid down on a geological chart. In the same way the classification of the languages of the nations of New Spain points out the history of migrations with an evidence which cannot be mistaken, and is also in harmony with the traditions of the people and other sources of information. Thus there can be no doubt that the language of the Mexicans is spoken through Guatamala and down to Nicaragua; confirming the truth of the native tradition of the migration of the Toltecs from Mexico to the south. But there a still more important consideration remains which we shall endeavour to render as perspicuous as possible. The Huastecas were a powerful nation living to the north of Mexico, the Mayas inhabited the peninsula of Yucatan, and the Poconchi were far to the south and west in Guatamala. The languages spoken by these three nations have a strong affinity with each other, but none with the Mexican. Hence the very important idea that they are the dismembered portions of one great nation which have been pushed aside by the more recent conquerors. When we remember that these nations, or at least the Mayas of Yucatan,had the same calendar as the Mexicans, and indeed a great similarity of mythological and ritual notions, may we not conjecture that they were the sources of the Mexican civilization? The Toltecs, who used the Mexican language, were in Mexico in the sixth century of our era; and if they invaded a previously civilized race, it is obvious that settled societies must have existed from a very remote period, and many revolutions taken place whose history we shall never learn.

The mythology and traditions of the Indian tribes are perhaps inferior in importance to the philosophic study of their languages, although it has obtained a greater share of attention, especially since the excellent dissertations of Humboldt bave cleared up so much of what was previously obscure. The fact that the people of Mexico possessed annals which ascended to the fifth century of our era, and that they unquestionably arrived in the vale of Anahuac from a remote northern region, are circumstances of the highest interest and perfectly authentic.

The great analogy which we ob

serve between many of the mythological fables of the people of Mexico and those of the Old World is well calculated to afford matter for speculation. The four ages of the world, each characterised by the predominance of one of the four elements, is the counterpart of the four mythic ages of the Hindoos and Greeks. The tradition common to the people of Peru, Mexico, and Bogota, that their ancestors had been instructed and civilized by white and bearded men, points also to some extrinsic and foreign source whence they derived their institutions. But the most inexplicable circumstance of all is the complicated calendar of the Mexicans founded upon a very accurate knowledge of the true length of the solar year. Whence this profound science and astronomical knowledge, and these secular cycles, calling to mind those elaborated by the Etrurians at a period anterior to the foundation of Rome? Such facts at all events prove that civilization is not always progressive, and we may well hesitate before we adopt the theory of social progress so poetically expounded by Lucretius, and which has been so generally and unthinkingly received.

On this topic it is melancholy to reflect that vast stores of knowledge, which were accessible at the period of the conquest of Peru and Mexico, have now irretrievably perished, solely from the effects of monkish fanaticism and Spanish bigotry. In this respect the barbarism of the Spanish government is a national disgrace only inferior to that of the fearful atrocities which every where marked the track of the early conquerors. It is well known that one of the most cherished occupations of the first bishop of Mexico (Zummaraga) was the hunting out and destruction of every manuscript or monument, a purpose which he executed on a scale of grandeur unrivalled since the exploits in that way of the caliph Omar. In Yucatan, where abundance of astronomical and chronological books existed at the time of the conquest, very few escaped the fanatic fury of Bishop Landa. Cogolludo informs us that these books contained the reckoning of the years, wars, inundations, hurricanes, famines, and such events. For more than a century past not a fragment of these

interesting relics has been known in Yucatan. It is not, however, monkish fanaticism that has been alone at work in the destruction of valuable sources of information: the despicable jealousy of the Spanish government has also done its best (even down to a very recent period) to obstruct all enlightened investigation. About the beginning of the last century Boturini, a zealous Italian, visited New Spain for the purpose of exploring the antiquities of the country. His fate was what might have been anticipated. After forming the finest collection of Mexican manuscripts, or rather picture writings, which had ever been brought together, he was arrested and deprived of his treasures. On being sent to Spain he was acquitted of all evil designs, but his collections were detained in Mexico, in part dispersed, and the remainder consumed by damp and indifference. In the same spirit, permission to publish works on Spanish America was most ungraciously accorded at Madrid. It was with the utmost difficulty that Remesal obtained permission to publish his inoffensive work, the History of Chiapa; and even as late as 1770, Clavigeros' History of Mexico was not permitted to be published in Spain. The consequence of this has been, that a vast number of histories and dissertations, written by intelligent Indians or by priests soon after the conquest, when traditions and events were still recent in the memory, have been permitted to slumber in manuscript, in archives, and monasteries, and few have seen the light until the colonies threw off the yoke of their unnatural parent. When the Academy of Madrid began to stir themselves, it was in a manner quite characteristic of the country. They published a splendid edition of the works of Sepulveda, a man infamous for having reduced to system the atrocities of the conquerors and defended their crimes, while the manuscripts of Las Casas, which are invaluable historic documents, have been neglected by all the literati of Spain, except Llorente.

Although so great a mass of information has been irretrievably lost, and much remains to be yet disinterred from the archives of Simancas and the convents of Mexico, there is another source of knowledge which yet re

mains to be noticed. Many of the monuments of ancient American civilization were too massive and enduring to be easily destroyed, and the pyramids and temples still remain, neglected by Spanish indolence, and suffering from no other injury than the slow effects of time and the influence of tropical rains. Some of these works astonish us by the vast amount of labour which must have been bestowed on their construction. The pyramid of Cholula, near Mexico, rivalling in altitude those of Egypt, has a base equal in surface to that of Stephen's-green. The pyramids of

the sun and moon in the same country approximate in magnitude to the greatest edifices of the same kind in the Old World. In Peru we find Cyclopean structures like those of Tyrins and Micæne. Central America and Yucatan abound in ruined cities, temples, statues, bas reliefs, and stucco ornaments. In this vast field for future investigations we consider we are but entered upon the threshold. It is only since the travels of Humboldt that the subject has arrested the attention of philosophers, as it was not until the emancipation of the Spanish colonies that the path of inquiry was laid open to scientific enterprise. The country north of Mexico, and up to the Columbia river, is yet unexamined, although this region, to which all Aztec tradition points, must contain much that is interesting. We know that in that direction the yet undescribed ruins called the casas grandes, or great houses, exist on the banks of the Rio Gila. It is not so well known that other ruins are found in the same direction. In the mountains, in lat. 27° 28°, there are many great caves cut out of the solid rock, in which are painted men and women in decent dresses, and many kinds of animals. Some caves, discovered by Father Joseph Rotea, are described as being thirty feet in length, fifteen in breadth, and as many in height. Men and women are portrayed in a costume similar to the Mexican, and some with head-dresses. This discovery brings to mind the tradition of the Mexicans, that their ancestors issued from seven caves, from whence they commenced their emigration. It is not, perhaps, generally known, that pyramids and mounds occur throughout the whole

valley of the Mississippi, from the Great Lakes to Florida. These monuments are often of immense size, and their numbers no less astonishing, the least of them requiring for its construction efforts far above the resources of the wandering tribes which Europeans have found in those regions. That these edifices in the valley of the Mississippi are the works of an extinct race is proved from other circumstances, for the modern Indians retain no traditions concerning them, and entertain no feelings of religious veneration towards them as being the monuments of their ancestors. As in such cases physical evidence is always more decisive than historical, or than any antiquarian inferences, however plausible, the following facts, although incapable of affording dates, establish the great antiquity of these aboriginal edifices upon evidence that cannot be controverted:-Most of these monuments are covered with forests; and while many of the trees, from their vast size and the number of their annual layers of wood, are apparently of great age, the vestiges of decayed wood, and absence of that uniformity of character peculiar to a recent second growth, demonstrate that several generations of trees have sprung up and disappeared since these works were deserted. This great antiquity is proved still more convincingly from other evidence. Thus in Florida, lakes which were formerly approached by artificial avenues have since become dry. Rivers, upon whose margins these ruins are perceptible, have deserted their ancient channels. It is well known that the waters of Lakes Erie and Ontario occupy a smaller surface than they formerly did, and ancient beeches still define the former

extent of the waters. No ancient edifices occur between the ancient beeches and the present shores. They are all beyond these limits, and appear, therefore, to have been erected with reference to the former level of the waters.*

Without losing ourselves in a labyrinth of vain conjectures respecting these ancient monuments, the information they afford, if small, is clear and satisfactory. We care nothing about wandering masons, the Cabiri of Samothrace; nor do we believe that the Americans had teachers in pyramid building from Etruria or Egypt. The only legitimate conclusions in such a case as the present do not require masses of incoherent learning borrowed from Bryan or Bochart. Unequivocal evidence proves that many of these buildings are of a very remote antiquity; and, for aught we know, America received its first settlers as early as Java and Japan, or any remote portion of the Old World. It is also sufficiently apparent that the population of North America must have been prodigiously greater than it was at the period when Europeans first established themselves there. The great numbers and vast magnitude of the monuments must have required for their erection the combined labour of thousands of hands; and it is equally obvious that such a people must have lived by agriculture and not by hunting, and must have had some regular form of government-a combination, in all probability, of civil and priestly despotism, such as existed in Mexico and Bogota. Another perhaps still more valuable lesson is taught to the inductive antiquarian by these remarkable facts. It has long been a favourite notion that the human race,

States.

originally savage and left to itself, has made a gradual progress from the hunting state up to our modern civilization. This doctrine was an indispensable article in the creed of historians and philosophers, especially toward the close of the last century. It is taken for granted by Helvetius and the whole body of French writers, and in our own country apparently by Dr. Robertson and others; and Lord Kaimes was so convinced of its truth that he inferred from it the authenticity of Ossian's poems, because they were composed while society existed in the hunting state. In the vast valley of the Mississippi it is, however, certain that the course of society has been very different-the farther back we go the greater the civilization-and the Indian, instead of emerging from, has sunk down into the hunting state.

We have given a brief outline of the principal sources whence we can derive information respecting the early history of the American race; and after this long introduction we shall endeavour to give an outline of the contents of Mr. Stephens' recent work on Yucatan, with some remarks on the ancient and modern history of that interesting country. Mr. Stephens' present work will be less interesting to the general reader than his previous work on Central America; and for this very sufficient causes may be assigned without passing any censure on the traveller. When his work on Central America appeared, the subject was altogether new, except to the very small number who make Spanish American history an object of minute study, and even to this select few the work was peculiarly welcome, as it afforded details of what they only knew in a vague and general manner. Another circumstance which added to the interest of the former volumes was the nature of the country visited, which presented, in its volcanoes, mountains, and lakes, so many remarkable phenomena; and also its disturbed and uncertain political state, which afforded so many interesting personal adventures, which, however hazardous at the time, added to the excitement of the reader; and last of all, we may add the novelty of the subject. In the present work we have to follow the traveller into a great country, where no other incon

veniences awaited him than want of accommodation; and, instead of the annoyances of Carrera's officers, we have only complaints of musquitos and garrapatos. We think, however, the work might have been got up in a more artist-like manner. The mixture of travelling adventures, descriptions and measurements of ruins, and digressions on various topics, injures the unity of the work, distracts the attention of the reader, and renders it difficult to collect the whole subject into one view. There is another circumstance to which we must also allude, which is remarkable, especially after his previous journey had directed Mr. Stephens' attention to the subject of American antiquities; his reading on the subject appears to have been far from extensive; and we look in vain for any thing like broad general views. His acquaintance even with the early Spanish writers is obviously limited, and he never avails himself of those analogies which such a knowledge might have afforded him. Another circumstance which we regret is the want of that knowledge of natural history which would have enabled him to have given useful information to his readers; and this is the more to be regretted, as he was accompanied by a naturalist during his tour in Yucatan. None of his readers but a botanist can form any idea of the sapote tree, so valuable from the indestructibility of its timber, or the ramon, whose leaves afford food for horses, or the gigantic ceibo, the ornament of the forest. the other hand, we have in Mr. Stephens the purely practical, active man, with abundance of shrewd common sense, always interesting and amusing when relating his incidents of travel, and faithfully accurate in his descriptions of antiquities, and possessed of that prudence which, in an antiquary, is more valuable than learning, and prevents him from indulging in idle and baseless conjectures.

On

Mr. Norman's "Rambles in Yucatan" is an amusing, and also, in some respects, a valuable work; and the only censure we feel inclined to pass upon it is, that it has, at least, the appearance of an attempt to forestall his countryman, Mr. Stephens, whose work it anticipated by several months. Although, and we say it without censure, there is a good deal of what may

be called Americanism in Mr. Ste phens's work, this feature is much stronger in the "Rambler in Yucatan." Mr. Norman is a very favourable specimen of what may be called a genuine go-a-head Yankee, energetic and enterprising, with full faith in himself, and no small share of shrewdness in his dealings with others. That Mr. Norman possesses all these qualities in a high degree, our readers will admit, when we inform them, that after four months' absence from home, he has collected materials for a readable octavo of three hundred pages, ornamented by many interesting engravings. In perusing the work, we have observed a peculiarity of the American character, which certainly they did not derive from their English ancestors, we mean a bold recklessness of assertion, often substituted for what should be hypothetically expressed; in short, his confidence in himself, and desire to arrive at a conclusion, hurries on the mind. He quotes "Solis' History of Mexico" as a classical work, written at a period when he could have access to all the facts; he also quotes him as an authority for the practice of circumcision in Yucatan. Now, of all the Spanish historians, Solis is the most worthless as an authority. As to the period when he wrote giving him any thing like contemporary authority, Mexico was conquered in 1521, and the first edition of Salis appeared in 1684, or just one hundred and sixty-three years later. We shall dismiss Mr. Norman with the following quotation, in which he appears to be "the great sublime he draws"

"There is another class (of travellers) who have faith in man wherever he exists, who rely upon the permanence of the laws of nature, who do not imagine a man is necessarily a cannibal, or a troglodyte, because born in a different degree of latitude, nor that water will refuse to run down a hill at a foreigner's request. Through their confidence in the uniformity of nature's laws, they feel it unnecessary to equip themselves for a campaign into chaos when they leave their native land, always presuming every corner of this planet to be possessed of some of the elements of existence, such as air, fire, water, which a traveller may spare himself the trouble of bringing from home in his

trunk.

This faith in the future, this

trust in the resources which a mind of ordinary intelligence can always command under any sun and any clime, sustained the writer," &c.-p. I.

In these opinions of Mr. Norman we fully agree, and no man who cannot participate in their spirit is fit to wander from home.

Passing from the travellers in Yucatan to the contents of their works, we shall endeavour to give some account of the present state of its monuments; of the condition of its ancient inhabitants; and that to which their descendants are now reduced. When the Spaniards first visited Yucatan, they were astonished at finding the inhabitants in a much higher state of civilization than the Indians of Cuba and Hispaniola: instead of a feeble and naked race, they found a brave people, clothed in cotton mantles, and the country round teeming with people, and studded with stone edifices, used as temples and habitations for chiefs. The sceptical manner in which Dr. Robertson alludes to these edifices of the Americans, is a proof of the very defective means of knowledge which he possessed, which were greatly narrowed by the characteristic jealousy of the Spanish government. That these buildings should have been neglected and forgotten is not surprising, when we remember the fearful havoc which the early conquerors made in the native population, and that their fields and towns, long since desolated, are now overgrown with forests, effectually concealing the ancient monuments even from the eye of the curious; still, after a lapse of three centuries, the number, magnitude, as well as elaborate workmanship displayed in Yucatan, is truly remarkable. Monuments and temples abound everywhere; and from the top of almost any of the pyramids the traveller detects others buried amidst a dense tropical vegetation. It is impossible to enter into a minute account of these edifices, as no description, unaccompanied by engravings, could give an accurate idea of these monuments, and for this we must refer our readers to Mr. Stephens's work. The remains are of various kinds, but all possessing a strong, and we would say, a national affinity with those found in other parts of America. Some are the counterparts of