in the full face, are put in their natural position. The short squat
figures become slim and tall; and in numberless little details of
dress, modelling, and ornament, the acquaintance of the artist with
European types is shown; and it is very seldom that the modern
counterfeiter can keep clear of these and get back to the old standard.

Among the things on the condemned shelf were men's faces too correctly
drawn to be genuine, grotesque animals that no artist would ever have
designed who had not seen a horse, head-dresses and drapery that were
European and not Mexican. Among the figures in Mayer's _Mexico_, a vase
is represented as a real antique, which, I think, is one of the worst
cases I ever noticed. There is a man's head upon it, with long
projecting pointed nose and chin, a long thin pendant moustache, an eye
drawn in profile, and a cap. It is true the pure Mexican race
occasionally have moustaches, but they are very slight, not like this,
which falls in a curve on both sides of the mouth; and no Mexican of
pure Indian race ever had such a nose and chin, which must have been
modelled from the face of some toothless old Spaniard.

Mention must be made of the wooden drums--_teponaztli_--of which some
few specimens are still to be seen in Mexico. Such drums figured in the
religious ceremonies of the Aztecs, and one often hears of them in
Mexican history. I have mentioned already the great drum which Bernal
Diaz saw when he went up the Mexican teocalli with Cortes, and which he
describes as a hellish instrument, made with skins of great serpents;
and which, when it was struck, gave a loud and melancholy sound, that
could be heard at two leagues' distance. Indeed, they did afterwards
hear it from their camp a mile or two off, when their unfortunate
companions were being sacrificed on the teocalli.

The Aztec drums, which are still to be seen, are altogether of wood,
nearly cylindrical, but swelling out in the middle, and hollowed out of
solid logs. Some have the sounding-board made unequally thick in
different parts, so as to give several notes when struck. All are
elaborately carved over with various designs, such as faces,
head-dresses, weapons, suns with rays, and fanciful patterns, among
which the twisted cord is one of the commonest.

Besides the drums which are preserved in museums, there are others,
carefully kept in Indian villages, not as curiosities, but as
instruments of magical power. Heller mentions s