the origin of the
civilization they represent, we must go far back into the "deeps of
antiquity." On all the fields of desolation where they exist, every
thing perishable has disappeared. Wooden lintels are mentioned, but
these can hardly be regarded as constituting an exception when the
character of the wood, and the circumstances that contributed to their
preservation, are considered. Moreover, wooden lintels seem to have been
peculiar to Yucatan, where many of the great edifices were constructed
in the later times, and some of them of perishable materials. Every
where in the older ruins, nothing remains but the artificial mounds and
foundations of earth, the stone, the cement, the stucco hard as marble,
and other imperishable materials used by the builders.

If the edifices had all been made of wood, there would now be nothing to
show us that the older cities had ever existed. Every trace of them
would have been obliterated long before our time, and most of them would
have disappeared entirely long before the country was seen by the
Spaniards. The places where they stood, with no relics save the mounds
and pyramidal platforms, would resemble the works of our Mound-Builders,
and not a few "sound historical critics" would consider it in the
highest degree absurd to suggest that cities with such structures have
ever existed there. Under the circumstances supposed, how wisely
skepticism could talk against a suggestion of this kind at Copan, Mitla,
or Palenque! and how difficult it would be to find a satisfactory answer
to its reasonings! Nevertheless, those mysterious structures have not
wholly disappeared, and we can easily understand that there was a time
when large areas connected with them were covered with buildings of a
less durable character.

I have referred to a writer who maintains, with more vehemence than
candor, that the Aztecs, and all the other people found in the
country, were "savages" not greatly different from the wild Indians
farther north, while he admits the significance and great antiquity of
these ruins. His conception of their antiquity is somewhat extreme, for
he says they must have existed "for thousands of years" when the
Spaniards arrived. If he had maintained that civilized communities were
there "thousands of years" previous to that time, developing the skill
in architecture, decoration, and writing, to which the monuments bear
witness, it might be possible to agree with him. Some of us,