walls, the bas-reliefs and hieroglyphic sculpture, belong obviously to a remote age,
and are by pretty general consent attributed to the Toltecas.
The gigantic monuments of Anahuac are also seen in the pyramids of
Cholula, Teotihuacan and Fapantla. When the Aztecs took possession of this
country in the 12th century, they found these monuments already existing, and
referred them to the Toltecas. The pyramid of Cholula has a base twice the
breadth of that of Cheops, yet is low in proportion.* It is built of unbaked
bridü, is four stories or terraces in height, and is constructed in the direction of
the four cardinal points.—The pyramids of Teotihuacan are eight leagues north
of the city of Mexico : two of these are dedicated to the Sun and Moon, and these
again are surrounded by hundreds of others of smaller size, which form streets in
lines from north to south, and from east to west. Lastly in this series of
monuments, is the pyramid of Papantla, built of hewn stones of Cyclopean
dimensions, and ornamented with hieroglyphics.
Suffice it to add, that the year of the Mexicans consisted like our own, of three
hundred and sixty-five days, but instead of twelve it was divided into eighteen
months, each of twenty days : they possessed a distinct system of hieroglyphic
writing, and their annals went back more than eight centuries and a half before
the arrival of the Spaniards.
Their knowledge of arithmetic and astronomy, as we have already noted, was
both extensive and accurate. They had constructed considerable aqueducts, of
which the remains yet exist, and numerous canals for irrigation, of which one is
asserted to have extended a distance of one hundred and fifty leagues. “ They
were able to extract, separate and fuse metals; to give copper the hardness of
steel, for the fabrication of their weapons and instruments ; to make mirrors of
this hardened copper, or of hard stone ; to form images of gold and silver, hollow
within; to cut the hardest precious stones with the greatest nicety; to manufacture
and dye cotton and wool, and work and figure the stuffs in various ways ;
and to spin and weave the fine hair of hares and rabbits, into fabrics resembling and
answering the purposes of silks.”f Such are the people whom certain closet
authors in Europe have stigmatised as barbarians, incapable of the arts and
refinements of civilised life.
Clavigero, speaking of the present descendants of the Aztecs, observes that
* Humboldt, Monuments, I, p. 89.—This traveller states the side of the base to be, 1,423 feet,
while its height is only 177 feet.
t Cakli, quoted in Lawrence’s Lect. on Zoology, &c. p. 4S0.
they possess both the imitative and inventive faculties; and although slow in their
motions, they show extraordinary perseverance in those works that require long
continued attention. They are taciturn and severe in their manners, and seldom
exhibit those transitions of passion so common in other nations. They are generous
and disinterested, setting little value on gold, and giving, without reluctance, what
has cost them much labor to obtain.
But it will still be asked, where are now the descendants of the civilised
Mexicans ? Where is the genius of that people ? A passage from Humboldt will
sufficiently answer these questions. “ As to the moral faculties of the Indians, it
is difficult to appreciate them with justice, if we only consider this long oppressed
caste in their present state of degradation. The better sort of Indians, among
whom a certain degree of intellectual culture might be supposed, perished in great
part at the commencement of the Spanish conquest, the victims of European
ferocity. The Christian fanaticism broke out in a~ particular manner against the
Aztec priests; and the Teopixqui, or ministers of the divinity, and all those who
inhabited the Teocalli, or houses of the gods, who might be considered as the
depositories of the historical, mythological and astronomical knowledge of the
country, were exterminated; for the priests observed the meridian shade in the
gnomons, and regulated the calendar. The monks burned the hieroglyphic
paintings, by which every kind of knowledge was transmitted from generation to
generation. The people, deprived of these means of instruction, were plunged in
ignorance so much the deeper, inasmuch as the missionaries were unskilled in the
Mexican languages, and could substitute few new ideas in the place of the old.
The remaining natives then consisted of the most indigent race, poor cultivators,
artizans, among whom was a great number of weavers, porters, who were used as
beasts of burthen, and especially those dregs of the people, those crowds of beggars,
who bore witness to the imperfection of the social institutions, and the existence
of feudal oppression, and who, in the time of Cortez, filled the streets of all the
great cities in the Mexican empire. How shall we judge then, from these
miserable remains of a powerful people, of the degree of civilisation to which it
had risen from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and of the intellectual
development of which it is susceptible ? If all that remained of the French or
German nation were a few poor agriculturists, could we read in their features
that they belonged to nations which had produced Descartes and Clairaut, Kepler
and Leibnitz?”*
Polit. Essaya B. II, Chap. VI.