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All who have seen them speak much as Dupaix speaks of the perfection of the masonry, the admirable design and finish of the work, and the beauty of the decorations. Their beauty, says M. Charnay, can be matched only by the monuments of Greece and Rome in their best days. One fact presented by some of the edifices at Mitla has a certain degree of historical significance.
Between 1805 and 1807, three journeys were successively taken in the province of Chiapa and to Palenque by Captain William Dupaix and the draughtsman Castañeda, and the result of their researches appeared in 1830 in the form of a magnificent work, with illustrations by Augustine Aglio, executed at the expense of Lord Kingsborough.
These important ruins were not described by Stephens and Catherwood. Captain Dupaix’s work gives some account of them, and Desiré Charnay, who saw them since 1860, brought away photographs of some of the monuments. Four of the standing edifices are described by Dupaix as “palaces,” and these, he says, “were erected with lavish magnificence; *
They are not alike either in dress, posture, or expression. Dupaix describes it correctly in saying it represents a person apparently “absorbed in devotion” a worshiper, and not a goddess. Moreover, Astarte usually appears on the medals standing on the forward deck of a vessel, holding a cross with one hand, and pointing forward with the other.
At that time it may have included this castle. In this part of Mexico Captain Dupaix examined a peculiar ruin, of which he gave the following account: “Near the road from the village of Tlalmanalco to that called Mecamecan, about three miles east of the latter, there is an isolated granite rock, which was artificially formed into a kind of pyramid with six hewn steps facing the east.
Similar tubes have been found among relics of the Mound-Builders in Ohio and elsewhere. In Mexico, Captain Dupaix saw sculptured on a peculiar stone structure the figure of a man making use of one. Astronomical devices were sculptured below the figure. This structure he supposed to have been used for observation of the stars.
These structures, and the Mexican teocallis generally, were made of earth, and faced with brick or stone. Captain Dupaix saw, not far from Antequera, two truncated pyramids which were penetrated by two carefully constructed galleries. A gallery lined with hewn stone, bearing sculptured decorations, went through one of them.
Lewis Cass, every modern writer who has investigated the history and former condition of Spanish America, either with the help of books or of personal observation of the present state of that part of our continent, shares the same fate. Robertson, Dupaix, Stephens, Humboldt, are all objects of Mr. Wilson's vituperation or contempt.
Captain Dupaix found the main gallery sixty yards, or one hundred and eighty feet long, terminating at two chambers which are separated only by two massive square pillars carefully fashioned of portions of the rock left for the purpose by the excavators. Over a part of the inner chamber, toward one corner, is a dome or cupola six feet in diameter at the base, and rather more in height.
Dupaix says, “It is impossible to describe adequately the interior decorations of this sumptuous temple.” The cross is supposed to have been the central object of interest. It was wonderfully sculptured and decorated; human figures stand near it, and some grave ceremony seems to be represented. The infant held toward the cross by one of the figures suggests a christening ceremony.
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