We view

Cordilleras, as well as the isle of Samothrace, in the Ægean sea, fragments of primitive languages are preserved in religious rites. The size of the platform of the pyramid of Cholula, on which I made a great number of astronomical observations, is 4,000,200 square metres. From it the eye ranges over a magnificent prospect, &c. at the same time three mountains higher than Mount Blanc, two of which are still burning volcanoes. A small chapel, surrounded with cypress and dedicated to the Virgin de los Remedios, has succeeded to the temple of the god of the wind, &c. An ecclesiastic of the Indian race celebrates mass every day on the top of this antique monument. In the time of Cortez, Cholula was considered as a holy city. Nowhere existed a greater number of Teocallis, of priests and religious orders (Tlamalazque,) no spot displayed greater magnificence in the celebration of public worship, or more austerity in its penances and fasts."-Humboldt's Res. pp. 97, 98.

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They call the morning star after Quetzalcoatl; they say he took this name on occasion of his disappearance."-p.123.

"With respect to the appellation Mexi, or Mezetli, (the other name by which Quetzalcoatl was known among the Mexicans); it is very remarkable that it is precisely the same as the Hebrew word which signifies the anointed." -p. 82.

"The virgin was represented in the Indian paintings, of whom the great Prophet should be born, and that his own people would reject and meditate evil against him, and would put him to death: accordingly he is represented in the paintings with his hands and feet tied to the tree. The manner in which he had returned to life again, and ascended to heaven, was likewise painted. The Dominican fathers said they had found these things among some Indians,

who inhabited the coasts of the South Seas, who stated they had received the traditions from their ancestors."— Monarquia Indiana, lib. 15, c. 49.

Baron Humboldt notices the same in the following curious passage extracted from his work, entitled American Monuments in Acosta's Natural History of the Indies, twenty-eighth chapter especially. —p. 163.

'Cozas was chief of the twenty men who commanded fasting and confession, affirming that Bachab had been put to death,' p. 165. Torquemeda informs us that Quelzalcoatl had been in Yutican, and was there adored. The interpreter of the Vatican Codex says, in the following curious passage, "that the Mexicans had a tradition that he, (Bachab) died upon the tree, and he adds, according to their belief, for the sins of mankind." p. 168. "If more history, paintings and monuments of Yutican had been preserved, we should have been enabled to determine whether Bachab and Quetzalcoatl were two different names for the same Lord, who was worshipped alike by Yutican and Mexico." The Chiapanese called the same Lord Votan, which signifies the HEART of the people. Of Quetzalcoatl, they relate that he proceeded on his journey toward the Red Sea (which is represented); when about to part from them, he desired them to restrain their grief and to expect his return, which would take place at the appointed time; accordingly they expect him even to the present time-and when the Spaniards came to their country they believed that it was He; and even in the year 1550, when the Capotecas revolted, they alleged as the cause of their insurrection the report that their God, who was to Redeem them, had already come. Cortez and Gomara, in relating the horrors which the Mexicans sustained during the last days of the siege, both mention that they consoled themselves in their last sufferings with the hopes of going to

Quetzalcoatl, that even the enemies of the city of Chollula bound themselves to make pilgrimages to it. And this was on account of the great love which they felt towards him, for in truth the dominion of Quetzalcoatl was sweet, and he exacted no service from them but easy and light things, instructing them in such as were virtuous, and prohibiting such as were wicked, evil, and injurious, teaching them likewise to abhor them. Hence it appears' continues Torquemeda, that the Indians who celebrated human sacrifices, did not so voluntarily, but from the great fear which they entertained of the Devil, on account of the threats which he held out to them, that he would destroy them, and sending bad seasons and many misfortunes upon them, except they duly performed the worship and service which they owed to him as a tribute and mark of vassalage from the right which he pretended to have acquired over them many years before. They declare that he remained with them during the entire period of twenty years, at the expiration of which he departed, prosecuting his journey to the kingdom of Tlapallan, taking along with him four virtuous and principal youths of the same city. Amongst the other doctrines which he delivered to them, he charged them to tell the inhabitants of the city of Chollula that they might be certain of the arrival by sea, at some future time, from a region situated towards the rising sun, of white men, like him, and that they were his brethren. The Indians accordingly always expected that prophecy would be fulfilled; and when they beheld the Christians, they immediately called them gods, the sons and brothers of Quetzalcoatl, although after they knew them, and had experienced their works, they no longer believed them to be divine, for in that city a signal massacre was perpetrated by the Spaniards unequalled till that time in the Indies, or perhaps in

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most other parts of the globe. Others say that the people of Chollula always believed that he would return to console and govern them, and when they saw the ships of the Spaniards coming, they said that their god, Quetzalcoatl, was now returned, and that he was bringing the temples over the sea in which he intended to dwell; but that when the disembarkation took place, they remarked, "these gods are many-it is not our god, Quetzalcoatl." p. 260. They say that Quetzalcoatl, whilst in this mortal life, wore long robes, reaching to the feet, from a sense of decency, with a mantle above interspersed with red marks. They preserved certain green gems which belonged to him with great veneration. "His image had a very ugly face, a large head, and a thick beard-they placed it in a recumbent posture, covered up with mantles, and they say that they did so as a token that he had again to return, and to reign over them, and that out of respect to his great majesty it was proper that his image should be covered up, and that they placed it in a recumbent posture to denote his absence; like one who reposes, who lays himself down on his side to sleep, and that awakening from the sleep of absence, he would rouse himself up to reign." The inhabitants of Yutecan venerated and revered this God, Quetzalcoatl, and named him Kukulcam. They heard moreover that the kings of Yutecan descended from him whom they call Cocomem, which signifies judges."

"St. Chrysostom (adds the commentator) commenting upon the passage, "There shall come a star out of Jacob," cites the authority of some who "said that those gentiles, believing in the future appearance of that star, appointed twelve sentinels who, at stated seasons of the year, ascended to the top of a high mountain, (named Victorial,) and remained there three days praying to God, and beseeching Him that He would manifest to them the star of which Balaam had prophecied,

who having beheld it, the kings came to adore the new-born infant Saviour. I know not whether the Devil, jealous of this prophecy, and desirous of keeping another people in a continual state of watching and anxiety, instituted this piece of fraud amongst the Indians of New Spain, to understand which it is proper that I should premise that in ancient times there was a man of the kingdom of Tula who was named Quetzalcoatl, who was a famous magician and necromancer, whom they afterwards worshipped as a God, and who was accounted a king of that country. He was conquered by another more powerful magician, such another as we may suppose Zoroaster of Babylon to have been, who deprived him of his kingdom. From thence he went to the city of Chollula, whither the other pursued him; when forsaking his kingdom he fled to the sea, pretending that the God who was the GREAT LIGHT called him to the side of the sea, to the borders of the east, but he promised that he would again return to avenge himself of his enemies, and. to redeem his people from their afflictions and the yoke of tyranny under which they groaned, for they said of him that he was very compassionate and merciful, that he was preserved in the recollection of those who lived in that age, and acquired much greater credit in all the ages which afterwards succeeded, and the Mexicans so fully believed his return, that their kings, when mounting the throne, took possession of the kingdom upon the express condition of being viceroys of their lord Quetzalcoatl, and of abdicating it on His arrival and obeying him as vassals.”1

"Mankind perceiving that through Quetzalcoatl, so fortunate an era had commenced, began to imitate him, and following his example, to practise self-denial, and to make

1 This is a curious caricature or distortion of the tradition which it gives, but is valuable as a confirmation of facts.