“The race to which they appear to belong—with precisely the remarkable conformation of skull—has hitherto been thought to be extinct. That it did once exist, and was a numerous and populous race, is proved, not so much by the sculptures of Yucatan—though these furnish corroborative proof—as by the skulls found in the ancient burial places of Peru and Brazil. These skulls have much occupied the attention of ethnologists, to whom they have furnished arguments and difficulties in the controversy concerning the unity of the human race. Until now, however, it has been agreed that no living sample of this extraordinary variety was remaining on the surface of the globe.
“The manner in which these specimens of a race supposed no longer to exist have been procured, is related in a pamphlet just printed, entitled ‘A Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America,’ partly compiled and partly translated from the Spanish of Pedro Velasquez, of San Salvador. Our readers will remember the account given in Stevens’s Travels in Central America, of a large city among the mountains of Central America, inhabited by a race which had never been subdued by the white man, and the inhabitants of which slew every white man who penetrated into their country.
“Two young men, Mr. Huertis, of Baltimore, and Mr. Hammond, a civil engineer, of Upper Canada, determined to visit this city. They landed at Balize, in the autumn of 1848, and proceeded to Copan, where they were joined by Velasquez, the author of the narrative. He accompanied them to Santa Cruz del Quiche, where the curate lived who gave Mr. Stevens the account of the mysterious and inaccessible city, the white limits of which he had seen from the mountains, glittering in the sun.
“They obtained a guide, climbed the mountains, and were rewarded with a view of the city—the city of Ivimaya. It was of vast dimensions, with lofty walls and domes of temples. They were not permitted to enter, however, without fighting for it, and an engagement took place between the inhabitants and the visiters, in which the former, who were without the use of fire-arms, were worsted, and consented to admit the strangers into the city.
“It was not expected, however, that the guests would ever leave the city, and accordingly they were carefully watched. Hammond died at Iximaya, but Huertis and Velasquez made their escape, carrying with them two orphan children—the children who are now in this city—of the ancient priestly race, who are described in the following paragraph—
“The place of residence assigned to our travellers, was the vacant wing of a spacious and sumptuous structure at the western extremity of the city, which had been appropriated, from time immemorial, to the surviving remnant of an ancient and singular order of priesthood, called Kaanas, which it was distinctly asserted, in their annals and traditions, had accompanied the first migration of this people from the Assyrian plains. Their peculiar and strongly distinctive lineaments, it is now perfectly well ascertained are to be traced in many of the sculptured monuments of the central American ruins, and were found still more abundantly on those of Iximaya. Forbidden, by inviolably sacred laws, from intermarrying with any persons but those of their own caste, they had dwindled down in the course of many centuries, to a few insignificant individuals, diminutive in stature, and imbecile in intellect. They were, nevertheless, held in high veneration and affection by the whole Iximayan community, probably as living specimens of an antique race so nearly extinct. Their position, as an order of priesthood, it is now known, had not been higher, for many ages, if ever, than that of religious mimes and bacchanals in a certain class of pagan ceremonies, highly popular with the multitude.”
Shown, unannounced, into a private room where these Aztec children were playing, we came upon them rather suddenly. The surprise was mostly on our own part, however. Two strange-looking little creatures jumped up from the floor and ran to shake hands with us, then darted quickly to a washstand and seized comb and hair-brush to give to the attendant, that they might be made presentable to strangers—and, with the entire novelty of the impression, we were completely taken aback. If we had been suddenly dropped upon another planet and had rang at the first door we came to, we should not have expected to see things more peculiar. There was nothing monstrous in their appearance. They were not even miraculously small. But they were of an entirely new type—a kind of human being which we had never before seen—with physiognomies formed by descent through ages of thought and association of which we had no knowledge—moving, observing and gesticulating differently from all other children—and somehow, with an unexplainable look of authenticity and conscious priority, as if they were of the “old family” of human nature, and we were the mushrooms of to-day. Their size and form—but we will save labor by copying a literal description of their appearance from the Journal of Commerce:—
“The race of priests to which they belong is supposed to have become Lilliputian by the degeneracy which results from limiting intermarriage to those of their own caste. The specimens brought here are perfect in form, though slight. Maximo, the boy, is only thirty-three inches in height, and Bartola, the girl, three or four inches shorter. Their ages can only be conjectured, but there are indications of maturity about the boy, that are seldom, if ever, witnessed at so early an age as twelve. The girl is supposed to be about nine. Their skin is of the Indian hue, hair and eyes jet black, the latter, large, brilliant and expressive. The hair is wavy and very beautiful. Their neat little figures were exhibited to great advantage, in black stockinet dresses, fitting closely to their bodies and limbs, and short fanciful tunics. They received us with easy gayety. Indeed, they seem to have perfect confidence in all who approach them. Nothing restrains their lively, juvenile propensities. They seemed to derive infinite amusement from their tin cups, presenting them, as in giving water, to all who were present, and finally to the cane on which they seemed to think it fun alive to ride horseback fashion. They are exceedingly docile and affectionate, and the little girl seemed quite emulous of receiving as much notice as her companion. Their heads are singularly formed—the forehead forming nearly a straight line with the nose, and receding to an apex which it forms with the back of the head—strikingly similar to the sculptured figures on Central American monuments. Nor are they less peculiar in their manners and carriage. In general, their attitudes exhibit perfect grace; but we noticed that whenever the boy sat upon the floor, as he frequently did, he invariably sat upon the inside of his legs and thighs, bending his knees outwards, and forming with his legs on the floor the letter W inverted. This attitude we have frequently seen exhibited in drawings from Egyptian sculptures.”
You do not charge to the original race, as you look at these little creatures, either their diminutive size, or their deficiency of room for brain. The type of a noble breed is in the aquiline nose and soft lustrous eye, and in the symmetrical frame and peculiar and indescribable presence; and, while you remember the intermarriage by which they have been kept sacred, and become thus homœopathic in size, you cannot but feel that the essence is still there, and the quality still recognizable and potent. With little intelligence, and skulls of such shape that no hope can be entertained of their being ever self-relying or responsible, they still inspire an indefinable feeling of interest, and a deference for the something they vaguely after-shadow.
We sat a half hour, studying these little wonders. The little girl, Bartola, held our hand, and looked us full in the eye with affectionate confidingness, while the boy backed in between the open knees of our partner, Gen. Morris, and signified his wish, with the careless authority of a little Emperor, to be taken into the lap. With no words of their own, they understood what the attendant said to them, and seemed to be relieved of their loneliness by our company. A band of music approaching while we were there, the little Aztecs showed the greatest excitement. We held the boy up to the window while the military company went by, and his little kitten frame trembled and jumped nervously to the measure of the march—music happily being of no language, and stirring brains of all stages of progress, from Kossuth’s, at the noon of a race’s developement, to the Iximayan’s, in its fading twilight.