in this manner, being lighted by windows bearing the exact form of the Egyptian Tau.

The Tultecan sculptures are most extraordinary, and bring before us a people as singular as if they appertained to another planet. Their physiognomy is unlike any of the various families of the human race, with which any other sculptures or monumental records had previously rendered us familiar. Their receding forehead, their low facial angle, and the conical form of their heads would, according to the ordinary principles of the craniologists, indicate little short of idiotism, did we not perceive on the very monuments where the elementary data of craniology would seem to testify against them, marks of a powerful, civilized and enlightened people. The sculptures which reveal these novel characteristics in the outward form and lineaments of a distinct nation, are bas-reliefs, which appear in the form of metopes on the square pilasters, which, alternating with similar square door-ways, form the outward façade of the Cyclopean cloisters, which surround one of the rectangular courts of the great temple of Palenqué. The architectural forms with which these sculptures are associated are as unique as the sculptures themselves; yet is there a general resemblance to the metopes of the Greek temples, inasmuch as in the instance of the Parthenon itself, two analogous figures appear on each tablet, the one of the victor, the other of the vanquished. Other physiognomical characteristics, not less singular than the low angle of their facial elevation, mark the countenance of the extraordinary people thus curiously preserved for our inspection. The nose is long, large, and prominent, so much so as to amount to a deformity, when contrasted with the receding forehead. The facial line recedes in the same singular manner from the base of the nostrils to the termination of the chin. The receding angle of the lower portion of the face is grotesquely broken by an unsightly protrusion of the lower lip. These are the general characteristics of the nation. But there are some of the sculptures which depict individuals less revolting to the European standard of physiognomical beauty.

The costume of the people represented on the metopes in question, as well as in the sanctuaries and on the walls of different temples, is in some respects like the Egyptian, but in other respects strikingly different. The Egyptian apron was generally of striped cotton, and folded in a peculiar manner, a portion of it forming a girdle, and passing between the legs, resembling

a similar article of dress worn by the East Indians at the present day. But the Tultecan apron resembles the Roman military apron or the Scotch philibeg. It descends from the waist, and covers the thigh down to the knees; it is, however, distinguished by one Egyptian appendage, namely, by the mimic tail of an animal which appears to have adorned the Tultecan hero as it adorned the Egyptian demi-god. Nothing like a tunic, supported by straps, sometimes covered by a cuirass and girdled at the waist, which was the dress of the superior and military days in Egypt, is to be found in the Tultecan costume. The apron is supported by a baldric, which descends from the right shoulder to the left side, and joins the girdle at the waist. The armlets, bracelets, and anklets strikingly resemble the Egyptian. But the legs of the Tultecan heroes are invested with sandals, some of them reaching above the ancle, and strikingly resembling the Roman; some of them like greaves, cover the leg as high as the lower part of the knee, and some of them in every respect seem to resemble the Highland sandal ; so minutely indeed, as even to imitate the same diagonal crosslined pattern. The patterns of the stuffs of which the aprons are made, are often various and elegant, sometimes flowered, diamoned, or leopard-spotted. Rich ornaments of gold, silver, or jewels, would seem to have been used on the baldric, the girdle, the fringes of the apron, and the sandals. The apron, thus richly decorated for the male, becomes, strictly speaking, a petticoat for the Tultecan females; descending as low as the foot, but equally distinguished by variety of pattern and ornaThe whole costume might be safely described as at once gorgeous and elegant, and certainly in nowise inferior in either of those qualifications to the Egyptian; but the effect is greatly deteriorated by the grotesque wildness of the head-dress. In the midst of this difference, however, the object was in both cases the same, namely, to express some symbolical properties peculiar to the wearer. There appears to have been a great variety of these symbolic forms in both cases; but some of the Egyptian head-dresses are extremely beautiful. The most singular appendages to the Tultecan heroes are the instruments either of war, music, or agriculture, which they hold in their hands; they are grotesque and almost unintelligible. Attached to the girdles of some of the warriors, appear, in the form of a warlike ornament, a head or heads (embalmed in all probability) of their vanquished enemies.

ments.

In respect to religion and religious rites, there is a striking Egyptian analogy. The gods of the Tultecans appear sculptured in bas-relief, in the dark inner rooms of extant temples. The idol bears no resemblance to the monstrous deformities peculiar to the gloomy superstitions of the Mexicans, and which that cruel people bathed in the blood of innumerable victims. Portrayed on the inner wall of the adytum of one of the sanctuaries belonging to the great temple of Palenqué, is seen the chief god of the Tultecan people. He would appear to have been their only god. He is worshipped symbolically under other forms, and in other localities. He seems to be strictly identifiable with the Osiris of Egypt, and the Adonis of Syria. In the first place, he is enthroned on a couch perfectly Egyptian in its model,-constructed somewhat in the form of a modern couch-a cushioned plinth, resting on the claws and four limbs of the American lion. There is no real difference between the couch and that which is reproduced in all the tombs and palaces of Egypt. The god is characterized by the same physiognomy as that which distinguished his worshippers. He is, however, seated in the Hindoo or Asiatic fashion, not in the Egyptian-his legs being crossed under him. On his head he wears a conical cap, not differing much from that which the Osiris of Egypt wears. Two additional symbols, the one Egyptian, the other not, but equally intelligible, namely, the lotus and the column affixed to the cap, clearly indicate the same triune divinity. Every one knows the Egyptian associations of the lotus; but the column is never used in an Egyptian head-dress. It was nevertheless an unquestionable symbol of Osiris, and thus completes the identification. All the remaining appurtenances of the sculptured picture concur in establishing the same hypothesis. It was on the back of a similar leonine couch that both the cognate gods of Egypt and of Syria-Osiris and Adonis-underwent their three days' entombment, previously to their fourth day's resurrection. It was during this interim, in each case, that their devotees or their priests made offerings to both deities of flowers in pots, and thence the proverbial designations of the "gardens of Adonis." They were doubtless intended to be symbolical of the lost Hesperian garden-the pagan paradise forfeited by man's fall, and to which the dead and revived Adonis or Horus was destined to restore him. All these characteristics are complete in the sculptured tablets to which we are referring. A priestess kneels before the Tul

tecan god in the attitude of adoration, and offers him a pot of flowers; but the "sacred garden" in the Tultecan vase does not consist of the mint offered to Osiris, nor of the gilded apples and lettuces offered to Adonis, but of an equally expressive, if not a more beautiful, symbol; the flower of the blood-stained hand-plant or Manitas, held sacred, as all the monuments attest, throughout New Spain. On the sculptured tablet over the head of the deity appear, precisely in the Egyptian fashion, the phonetic characters of his name, in an oblong square; and though the oval was devoted to the names of kings in Egypt, the scholar will recollect that the oblong square was devoted to the names of the gods. But neither of the phonetic character, nor of the symbolic character, which appear to have constituted the two divisions of the Tultecan hieroglyphical language, do we at the present time know any thing. The sacred bird of the Tultecans—the rainbow-colored pheasant of Central America, is represented standing on the Tultecan cross (resembling the Christian), and with its lower extremity terminating in a similar heart-formed spade. The subject of the sculpture shows the simplicity of the worship. Two Tultecan heroes, priests or chiefs, stand beside the sacred bird; one of them holds an infant in his arms; and it may be fairly inferred that the sculpture represents a dedication to the god-perhaps a species of baptism, which we know from Tertullian was a rite practised by the votaries of the god Adonis. There appears to be the indication of a similar ceremony in a detached temple near Milan. The sculptures of the sacellum, representing the god, have been obliterated; but the forms of females bearing infants in their arms, with the apparent intention of consecrating them to the divinity, are seen on the lateral faces of the pilasters of the doorway. One of them, in its original condition, must have produced a noble and imposing effect. All the details are tasteful, and highly ornamented. The pictural parts of the design stand out in a prominent manner; while vertical and horizontal lines of hieroglyphics, peculiar to the people who left these monuments, and descriptive, doubtless, of the ceremony, fill up, precisely in the form adopted in Egypt, all the interstices of this extraordinary sculpture.

All the temples of Egypt and Greece have their theological character. These, like the palaces of New Spain, the impressive feature of which is melancholy grandeur, bear upon them the indubitable signs of their theological origin and meaning. VOL. X. No. 27.

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Their extant forms are peculiar to New Spain; but the original type of them is on record; and the antiquarian will not fail immediately to recognize in them the high-places of Syria, Palestine, and Judea. They are most striking and impressive, and, at the same, most unique monuments. Like those of the Egyptians, they are all distinguished by architectural peculiarities, exclusively appertaining to the people who erected them. A high-place of three successive steps or terraces generally constitutes the platform of the temple. The terraces themselves resemble, in their sloping form, that which the Egyptian architects peculiarly affected. On the top of the high-place was an oblong, rectangular court; in the centre of this court stood the temple, divided, like the cavern temples of Nubia, into three dark rooms built of stone, and having an ark or barn-shaped roof. The innermost of these rooms constitutes the sanctuary. Painted sculptures decorate these rooms occasionally. Sometimes the stair-case ascends the high-place in front, traversing the curvilinear terraces, in a straight line to the door of the temple. The temple of Guatusco may be considered as the typical form of all the temples and high-places of New Spain. They are sometimes built on a larger or more magnificent scale. Occasional variation was imparted to the square form of the area, and the triple form of the terraces, by staircases ascending to the sanctuary from each of the cardinal points. The effect of these ascending stairs is often very striking; and sometimes the picturesque effect of these peculiar terraces is rendered beautiful by a graceful irregularity, or curvilinear form, being imparted to the outward acclivity of the angle. Sometimes the high-place has a circular, instead of a square ground-place, and in that case will remind antiquarians of the well-known Tepes, or highplaces of Syria, which are described as resembling a woman's breasts. The Syrian origin of these structures would thus seem to be presumptively made out. The sloping terraces above described are made of permanent materials. They are generally constructed of large blocks of stone, sometimes arranged in regular, and sometimes in irregular courses, but fitted together with true architectural skill, and covered with a stucco admirably constructed, and as hard as stone. This stucco, in some instances, was ornamented with sculptures, bearing a striking affinity in their design to the style called arabesque. It appears to have been, in some cases, covered with a purple color, which,