RUINS OF THE CITY OF OTOLUM, DISCOVERED IN NORTH AMERICA.
“Some years ago, the Society of Geography, in Paris, offered a large premium for a voyage to Guatemala, and for a new survey of the antiquities of Yucatan and Chiapa, chiefly those fifteen miles from Palenque.”
“They were surveyed by Captain Del Rio, in 1787, an account of which was published in English in 1822. This account describes partly the ruins of a stone city, of no less dimensions than seventy-five miles in circuit, length thirty-two, and breadth twelve miles, full of palaces, monuments, statues, and inscriptions; one of the earliest seats of American civilization, about equal to Thebes of ancient Egypt.”
It is stated in the Family Magazine, Vol. I., p. 266, as follows: “Public attention has been recently excited respecting the ruins of an ancient city found in Guatemala. It would seem that these ruins are now being explored, and much curious and valuable matter in a literary and historical point of view is anticipated. We deem the present a most auspicious moment, now that the public attention is turned to the subject, to spread its contents before our readers, as an introduction to future discoveries during the researches now in progress.”
The following are some particulars, as related by Captain Del Rio, who partially examined them as above related, 1787: From Palenque, the last town northward in the province of Ciudad Real de Chiapa, taking a southwesterly direction, and ascending a ridge of high land that divides the kingdom of Guatemala from Yucatan, at the distance of six miles, is the little river Micol, whose waters flow in a westerly direction, and unite with the great river Tulija, which bends its course towards the province of Tabasco. Having passed Micol, the ascent begins; and at half a league, or a mile and a half, the traveller crosses a little stream called Otolum; from this point heaps of stone ruins are discovered, which render the roads very difficult for another half league, when you gain the height whereon the stone houses are situated, being still fourteen in number in one place, some more dilapidated than others, yet still having many of their apartments perfectly discernible.
Here is a rectangular area, three hundred yards in breadth by four hundred and fifty in length, which is a fraction over fifty-six rods wide, and eighty-four rods long, being, in the whole circuit, two hundred and eighty rods, which is three-fourths of a mile, and a trifle over. This area presents a plain at the base of the highest mountain forming the ridge. In the centre of this plain is situated the largest of the structures which has been as yet discovered among these ruins. It stands on a mound or pyramid twenty yards high, which is sixty feet, or nearly four rods in perpendicular altitude, which gives it a lofty and beautiful majesty, as if it were a temple suspended in the sky. This is surrounded by other edifices, namely, five to the northward, four to the southward, one to the southwest, and three to the eastward—fourteen in all. In all directions the fragments of other fallen buildings are seen extending along the mountain that stretches east and west either way from these buildings, as if they were the great temple of worship, or their government house, around which they built their city, and where dwelt their kings and officers of state. At this place was found a subterranean stone aqueduct, of great solidity and durability, which in its course passes beneath the largest building.
Let it be understood, this city of Otolum, the ruins of which are so immense, is in North, not South America, in the same latitude with the island of Jamaica, which is about eighteen degrees north of the equator, being on the highest ground between the northern end of the Caribbean sea and the Pacific ocean, where the continent narrows towards the isthmus of Darien, and is about eight hundred miles south of New Orleans.
The discovery of these ruins, and also of many others, equally wonderful, in the same country, is just commencing to arouse the attention of the schools of Europe, who hitherto have denied that America could boast of her antiquities. But these immense ruins are now being explored under the direction of scientific persons, a history of which, in detail, will be forthcoming doubtless, in due time; two volumes of which, in manuscript, we are informed, have already been written, and cannot but be received with enthusiasm by Americans.
By those deeply versed in the antiquities of past ages, it is contended that the first people who settled America came directly from Chaldea, immediately after the confusion of language at Babel.—(See Description of the Ruins of the American City, published in London, 1832, p. 33, by Dr. Paul Felix Cabrera.) Whoever the authors of the city may have been, we seem to find, in their sculptured deities, the idolatry of even the Phœnicians, a people whose history goes back nearly to the flood, or to within a hundred and fifty years of that period.
It appears from some of the historical works of the Mexicans, written in pictures, which fell into the hands of the Spaniards, that there was found one which was written by Votan, who sets himself forth to be the third Gentile, (reckoning from the flood or family of Noah,) and lord of the Tapanahuasec, or the sacred drum. In the book above alluded to, Votan says that he saw the great house which was built by his grandfather, meaning the tower of Babel, which went up from the earth to the sky. In one of those picture books, the account is given by the Indian historian, whoever he was, or at whatever time he lived, that Votan had written it himself. He gives the account that he made no less than four voyages to this continent, conducting with him at one time seven families. He says that others of his family had gone away before himself, and that he was determined to travel till he should come to the root of heaven, the sky, (in the west,) in order to discover his relations the Culebras, or Snake people, and calls himself Culebra, (a snake,) and that he found them, and became their captain. He mentions the name of the town which his relation had built at first, which was Tezequil.