Chapter VIII: Antiquities of Vera Cruz (2)

Something over two miles north-west of the ruins described, at the only point where the mesa is accessible on the northern side, is a double stone wall guarding the passage. The outer wall is three or four hundred yards long, thirteen feet high, and fifty feet thick at the base, diminishing towards the top. The inner wall is of smaller dimensions. The same system of defensive works is repeated on the opposite side of the mesa. The only movable relics found were, the figure of a female bearing a sculptured cross, a representation of a mummy closely wrapped as if for burial and having features of a different type from those ordinarily found in Aztec idols, and the form of a man with arms crossed and legs bent, sculptured on a slab, all of the same sandstone of which the buildings were constructed. According to Campo, another smaller group of remains has been seen farther south, towards the Mesa de Amistlan. Two idols of porous basalt and numerous arrow-heads of obsidian are reported at Guautla, twenty-five or thirty miles north-west of Metlaltoyuca.[VIII-52]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: RELICS AT PÁNUCO]

In the northern extremity of the state, in the region about Pánuco, small relics are said to be very abundant. A list of thirty specimens collected by Mr Francis Vecelli during a survey of the Pánuco River, some of them doubtless belonging to the state of Tamaulipas, across the river, is given by Mr Vetch in the Journal of the London Geographical Society. They are mostly of limestone and represent human figures, for the most part females, rudely sculptured and wearing peculiar head-dresses. The foreheads are represented as high and broad, the lips thick, and the cheek-bones high. The sculpture is rude, and nearly every one of the images has a long unshaped base or tenon, as if intended to be fixed in a wall. A front and rear view of one of these images are shown in the cut.[VIII-53] In the town itself, idols, heads, obsidian arrow-heads, and fragments of ancient pottery, some of it glazed, are often washed out by the heavy rains. Mr Lyon speaks of "several curious ancient toys and whistles, with one small terra cotta vase very beautifully carved with those peculiar flourishes introduced in the Mexican manuscripts," also "an antique flute of a very compact red clay, which had once been polished and painted. It had four holes, and the mouth part was in the form of a grotesque head." Flutes occur both single and double, with two, three, and four holes. Earthen representations of birds, toads, and other animals are frequently found either whole or in fragments. West of the town five or six mounds from thirty to forty feet high are vaguely mentioned.[VIII-54] Buried in the ground in a ravine near the town, and resting on the stone walls of a dilapidated sepulchre, Mr Norman claims to have found a stone slab seven feet long, wider at one end than the other, but two feet and a half in average width, one foot thick, and bearing on one side the sculptured figure of a man. Dressed in a flowing robe, with girdle, sandal-ties on his feet, and a close-fitting cap on his head, he lies with crossed arms. The face is Caucasian in feature, and the work is very perfectly executed. For the authenticity of so remarkable a relic Mr Norman is hardly a sufficient authority. Two small images, probably of terra cotta, were presented by Mr Norman to the New York Historical Society.[VIII-55]

At the Calondras Rancho, some twenty-five miles from Pánuco, a large oven-like chamber is reported on the slope of a hill, which contains large flat stones used for grinding maize. The ruins at Chacuaco, three leagues south of the town, are said to cover about three square leagues. Mr Norman also gives cuts of two clay vases from the same locality, one of them having a negro face, very likely of modern origin. San Nicolas, five leagues, and Trinidad six leagues south-west of Pánuco, are other places where ruins are reported to exist.[VIII-56]

FOOTNOTES:

[VIII-1] _Mühlenpfordt_, _Mejico_, tom. ii., p. 32; _Mexikanische Zustände_, tom. i., p. 31.

[VIII-2] _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 292-7, tom. iii., pp. 104-9, with two plates representing the colossal head, and several other relics from some locality not mentioned.

[VIII-3] _Ottavio_, in _Nouvelles Annales des Voy._, 1833, tom. lix., p. 64.

[VIII-4] _Waldeck_, _Palenqué_, pl. xlix.; _Tylor's Anahuac_, pp. 230-1.

[VIII-5] _Antiq. Mex._, tom. i., div. ii., p. 35.

[VIII-6] _Mayer's Mex. as it Was_, pp. 93-7; _Id._, _Mex. Aztec, etc._, vol. ii., p. 272, with 3 cuts; _Id._, in _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. vi., p. 588, pl. vi., fig. 5, 6, 8, 11, 12; _Gondra_, in _Prescott_, _Hist. Conq. Mex._, tom. iii., pp. 82-4, pl. xv., plate of a vase.

[VIII-7] _Sartorius_, _Fortificaciones Antiguas_, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 818-27.

[VIII-8] _Finck_, in _Smithsonian Rept._, 1870, pp. 373-5. Mr Tylor, in traveling northward towards Jalapa, speaks of 'numerous remains of ancient Indian mound-forts or temples which we passed on the road.' _Anahuac_, p. 312.

[VIII-9] _Brasseur de Bourbourg_, _Palenqué_, p. 33. '_Chalchiuhcuecan_, ou le pays des coquilles vertes. On voit encore des débris de la ville de ce nom, sous les eaux qui s'étendent de la ville de la Véra Cruz au château de San-Juan-de-Ulloa.' _Id._, _Hist. Nat. Civ._, tom. i., p. 143. Ruins of the ordinary type are reported outside the triangular area, in the Sierra de Matlaquiahuitl or del Gallego, running south from the Rio Jamapa to San Juan de la Punta. _Sartorius_, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., p. 820.

[VIII-10] _Dupaix_, 1st exped., pp. 7-8, pl. viii., fig. 8; _Kingsborough_, vol. v., p. 214, vol. vi., p. 425, vol. iv., pl. iv., fig. 10; _Lenoir_, in _Antiq. Mex._, p. 28. Kingsborough's text represents this relic as 16 leagues from Orizava instead of Córdova.

[VIII-11] _Dupaix_, 1st exped., p. 7, pl. vi., vii., fig. 6, 7; _Kingsborough_, vol. v., pp. 213-14, vol. vi., pp. 424-5, vol. iv., pl. iv., fig. 8, 9; _Lenoir_, in _Antiq. Mex._, tom. ii., div. i., pp. 22, 27-8.

[VIII-12] _Dupaix_, 1st exped., p. 5, pl. iv-v., fig. 4-5; _Kingsborough_, vol. v., pp. 212-13, vol. vi., pp. 423-4; vol. iv., pl. iii., fig. 6-7; _Lenoir_, pp. 18, 22, 26-7.

[VIII-13] _Historia de Jalapa_, Mex. 1869, tom. i., p. 7.

[VIII-14] _Hakluyt's Voy._, vol. iii., p. 453.

[VIII-15] Note in _Cortés_, _Despatches_, p. 39; _Rivera_, _Hist. Jalapa_, Mex., 1869, tom. i., p. 39. Cempoala is located on some maps on the coast a few leagues north of Vera Cruz; there is also a town of the name in Mexico.

[VIII-16] _Esteva_, in _Museo Mex._, tom. ii., pp. 465-7, with plan and view. Respecting the circumference of the structure, Esteva's text says: 'la media circunferencia de la base, tomada desde el escalon ó cuerpo A. B. C., (letters which do not appear in his plate) pues mas abajo no se podia tomar con esactitud, es de ciento cincuenta y seis piés castellanos.' I have taken the circumference from the plan. The material Esteva states to be 'cal, arena, y piedras grandes del rio,' but the view indicates that hewn stone is employed, or at least that the whole structure is covered with a smooth coating of cement in perfect preservation. Esteva's account is also published in the _Diccionario Univ. de Geog._, tom. x., pp. 166-8, and a slight description from the same source in _Mayer's Mex. Aztec, etc._, vol. ii., pp. 203-4.

[VIII-17] _Lyon's Journal_, vol. ii., p. 209; _Sartorius_, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., p. 826. Mühlenpfordt, _Mej._, tom. ii., p. 89, also mentions the Paso de Ovejas remains.

[VIII-18] _Iberri_, in _Museo Mex._, tom. iii., p. 23. Gondra's account in _Mosaico Mex._, tom. ii., pp. 368-72, with two views and a plan. Sartorius' description in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 821-2, tom. ii., p. 148, with two views apparently the same as by Gondra, an additional side and front view of a pyramid, and a plan which bears no likeness to Gondra's, representing perhaps a different part of the ruins. According to this author the ruins were first made known in 1829 or 1830. The two accounts are very perplexing to the student, sometimes resembling each other so closely that one is ready to believe that Sartorius was the explorer from whom Gondra obtained his information and drawings, in other parts so different as to indicate that different ruins are referred to. I am inclined to believe that Gondra's information did in part refer to some other ruin in the same region. Gondra's account is also printed in _Diccionario Univ. Geog._, tom. ix., pp. 565-8. Brief mention in _Rivera_, _Hist. Jalapa_, Mex. 1869, tom. i., pp. 389-90.

[VIII-19] Respecting the first narrow pass, the oval table, and the ditch, Sartorius says nothing. He mentions such a ditch, however, in connection with the ruins of Tlacotepec, as we shall see. It is quite possible that the features mentioned do not belong to Centla at all.

[VIII-20] 10 varas according to Sartorius; Gondra says 15.

[VIII-21] Copied from Sartorius, with the addition of the shading only.

[VIII-22] The views given by Gondra and Sartorius are of the pyramid A, from the east, and of the terrace walls at B, from the west. The latter also gives a view of the small pyramid _b_, from the north. The plan given by Gondra bears no resemblance to the other. It may represent ruins in other parts of the plateau; it may be a faulty representation made up from the explorer's description of the works that have been described; or, what is, I think, more probable, it may refer to some other group of ruins in the vicinity. It represents a collection of pyramids and buildings, bounded on both the east and west by walls, one of which has an entrance close to the brink of the precipice, while the other had no opening till one was made by the modern settlers.

[VIII-23] 'Ochenta varas en cuadro.' Perhaps it should read _feet_ instead of varas. The plate makes the front slightly over 24 varas.

[VIII-24] _Dupaix_, 1st exped., pp. 8-9, pl. ix-xi., fig. 9-12; _Kingsborough_, vol. v., pp. 215-16, vol. vi., pp. 425-6, vol. iv., pl. v-vi., fig. 11-15. The skull is mentioned and sketched only in Kingsborough's edition. _Lenoir_, pp. 23, 29. Slight mention of these ruins from Dupaix, in _Mosaico Mex._, tom. ii., pp. 373-4; _Klemm_, _Cultur-Geschichte_, tom. v., p. 157; _Warden_, in _Antiq. Mex._, tom. ii., pp. 67-8.

[VIII-25] _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., p. 821.

[VIII-26] _Storia Ant. del Messico_, tom. ii., p. 150; _Bradford's Amer. Antiq._, p. 104.

[VIII-27] _Museo Mex._, tom. iii., p. 23.

[VIII-28] _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., p. 822; _Mosaico Mex._, tom. ii., pp. 368, 372; _Smithsonian Rept._, 1870, p. 374.

[VIII-29] This may possibly be the ditch referred to by Gondra in his account of Centla.

[VIII-30] _Sartorius_, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 822-4, with plan and view, the latter giving no information.

[VIII-31] _Id._, p. 824.

[VIII-32] _Heller_, _Reisen_, pp. 61, 72-3, 76-7, with cut.

[VIII-33] _Sartorius_, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 825-6.

[VIII-34] _Id._, pp. 821, 824-5, with a sketch which amounts to nothing.

[VIII-35] _Anahuac_, p. 297.

[VIII-36] _Mosaico Mex._, tom. i., pp. 102-5. Gondra's account of the location is as follows: 'En la serranía al Norte de Jalapa, y distante de aquella ciudad de diez á once leguas, se encuentra en el canton de Misantla el cerro llamado del Estillero, á cuya falda se descubre una montaña terminada por una meseta muy angosta, de cerca de legua y media de largo, y aislada por barrancos profundos y acantilados, y por despeñaderos inaccessibles; rodeada por los cerros del Estillero, Magdalenilla, el Chamuscado, el Camaron y el Conejo por la parte del Oeste; por el Monte Real ácia el Este, y lo restante por la elevada cuesta de Misantla.... La única parte algo accesible para subir á la meseta de la montaña donde se hallan las ruinas, está ácia la falda del Estillero.... Al comenzar la meseta, bajando por la falda del cerro del Estillero, lo primero que se observa es un paredon demolido hecho de gruesas piedras,' etc. Gondra's account was reprinted in the _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, tom. ii., p. 220-3. Iberri's account is found in the _Museo Mex._, tom. iii., pp. 21-4. Respecting the location he says:--'El cerro conocido de la Magdalena, degradando su altura en picos porfiríticos que afectan figuras cónicas ó piramidales, ... forma un grupo de montañas sumamente escabrosas, que se dividen como rádios en ramas estrechadas por barrancas profundas y escarpadas de pórfido.... En una de estas ramas se hallan las referidas ruinas, cuya entrada está cerrada por un muro,' etc. Account made up from Gondra, with cut probably from same source in _Mayer's Mex. Aztec_, vol. ii., pp. 200-3; _Id._, _Mex. as it Was_, pp. 250-1. Slight mention by Mühlenpfordt, _Mej._, tom. ii., p. 88, who thinks the ruin may be identical with that of Tusapan. Same account in _Mexicanische Zustände_, tom. i., p. 142.

[VIII-37] _Mühlenpfordt_, _Mej._, tom. ii., pp. 88-9; _Mexikanische Zustände_, tom. i., pp. 142-3.

[VIII-38] _Gaceta de Mexico_, July 12, 1785, tom. i., pp. 349-51. Location 'por el rumbo del Poniente de este pueblo, á dos leguas de distancia, entre un espeso bosque.' This original account was printed later in _Diccionario Univ. Geog._, tom. x., pp. 120-1; it was also translated into Italian, and printed in _Marquez_, _Due Antichi Monumenti_, Rome, 1804, p. 3, also accompanied by the plate.

[VIII-39] _Humboldt_, _Vues_, tom. i., pp. 102-3; _Id._, _Essai Pol._, p. 274; _Id._, in _Antiq. Mex._, tom. i., div. ii., p. 12. Humboldt's account translated by Gondra, in _Prescott_, _Hist. Conq. Mex._, tom. iii., pp. 39-40, says it is the forest that is called Tajin, that the ruin was discovered by hunters, and pronounces the plate in the _Gaceta_ very faulty.

[VIII-40] _Nebel_, _Viage Pintoresco_. The drawing is geometric rather than in perspective, and the author's descriptive text in a few details fails to agree exactly with it. José M. Bausa gives a slight description in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, tom. v., p. 411, without stating the source of his information. He locates the ruin 2½ leagues south-west of the pueblo. This author states that Carlos M. Bustamante published a good account of the ruin in 1828, in his _Revoltijo de Nopalitos_. Other accounts of Papantla made up from the preceding sources, are as follows:--_Mayer's Mex. Aztec_, vol. ii., pp. 196-7, with cut after Nebel; _Id._, _Mex. as it Was_, pp. 248-9; _Id._, in _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. vi., p. 583, pl. xi.; _Baldwin's Anc. Amer._, pp. 91-2; _Conder's Mex. Guat._, tom. i., p. 227; _Fossey_, _Mex._, pp. 317-18; _Hassel_, _Mex. Guat._, pp. 238-9; _Larenaudière_, _Mex. Guat._, p. 45; _De Bercy_, _Travels_, tom. ii., p. 237; _Bradford's Amer. Antiq._, pp. 79-80; _Mühlenpfordt_, _Mejico_, tom. ii., p. 88; _Mexicanische Zustände_, p. 142; _Bingley's Trav._, pp. 259-60; _Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact._, vol. i., p. 256; _Armin_, _Heutige Mex._, pp. 96-7, with cut; _Malte-Brun_, _Précis de la Géog._, tom. vi., p. 462; _Müller_, _Amerikanische Urreligionen_, p. 459; _Priest's Amer. Antiq._, pp. 276-8; _Wappäus_, _Geog. u. Stat._, p. 154; _Wilson's Mex. and its Religion_, pp. 246-7.

[VIII-41] The dimensions in Nebel's text are, 120 feet square and 85 feet high, which must be an error, since the author says that the stairway in the plate may be used as a scale, each step being a foot; and measuring the structure by that scale it would be something over 90 feet square at the base and about 54 feet high. The _Gaceta_ says that the base is 30 varas (83 English feet) square, and the steps in sight were 57 in number. Humboldt calls the pyramid 25 mètres (82 feet) square and 18 mètres (59 feet) high, or, in _Essai Pol._, 16 to 20 mètres. Bausa, _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, tom. v., p. 411, calls the height 93 feet, with 53 steps.

[VIII-42] Bausa says the pyramid faces the north. The _Gaceta_ account represents the stairway as 10 or 12 varas wide. The plate represents the lateral narrow stairways as single instead of double, and the niches as not extending entirely across the wide central stairway. Only six stories are shown in the plate, terminating in a summit platform on which stand two small altar-like structures at the head of the lateral stairways. Nebel speaks simply of a 'double stairway.' Humboldt agrees with the plate in the _Gaceta_.

[VIII-43] The _Gaceta's_ text says 342, but its own figures correctly added make the number 378 as is pointed out by Marquez; and the plate accompanying the same account makes the number 309. Fossey says 360 niches. Humboldt made the number 378, which he supposed to relate to the signs of the Toltec civil calendar.

[VIII-44] _Nebel_, _Viage Pintoresco_; _Cassel_, in _Nouvelles Annales des Voy._, 1830, tom. xlv., pp. 336-7; _Mayer's Mex. Aztec_, vol. ii., p. 198; _Id._, _Mex. as it Was_, pp. 246-7.

[VIII-45] _Nebel_, _Viage Pintoresco_; _Mayer's Mex. Aztec_, vol. ii., pp. 199-200; _Id._, _Mex. as it Was_, pp. 247-8; _Armin_, _Alte Mex._, p. 43; Bausa, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, tom. v., pp. 411-12, locates Tusapan 14 leagues south-west of Papantla.

[VIII-46] The original of this report I have not seen; a translation, however, was published in the _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, of Feb. 20, 1866.

[VIII-47] _Mex., Mem. del Ministro del Fomento_, 1865, p. 234, etc. It was also published in a separate pamphlet. _Almaraz_, _Mem. acerca de los Terrenos de Metlaltoyuca_, pp. 28-33. Mention by García y Cubas, a companion of Almaraz, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., p. 37.

[VIII-48] _Chimalpopoca_, in _Almaraz_, _Mem._, p. 28; _Linares_, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 3ra época, tom. i., p. 103.

[VIII-49] The analysis is as follows:--quartzy sand, 31.00; silex, 13.00; aluminia and iron, 2.60; carbonate of lime, 48.00; magnesia, 2.50; moisture, 2.00; loss, 0.90. _Almaraz_, _Mem._, p. 30.

[VIII-50] 'De las dimensiones que usan hoy para hacer los árboles de tierra.' I am unable to say what such dimensions amount to in English measurement.

[VIII-51] A plate showing these paintings is given by Almaraz.

[VIII-52] _Burkart_, _Mexiko_, tom. i., p. 51.

[VIII-53] _Vetch_, in _Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. vii., pp. 1-11, with plate.

[VIII-54] _Lyon's Journal_, vol. i., pp. 57-61.

[VIII-55] _Norman's Rambles by Land and Water_, pp. 145-51, 164; _Mayer's Mex. Aztec_, tom. i., pp. 193-6.

[VIII-56] _Lyon's Journal_, vol. i., pp. 61-2; _Norman's Rambles_, pp. 149-50. Slight mention of relics in this region, in _Mühlenpfordt_, _Mejico_, tom. ii., p. 72; _Bradford's Amer. Antiq._, pp. 112-13.