[995] On the character of the Tecpan (council house, or official house) of the Mexicans, which the early writers translate “palace,” with its sense of magnificence, see Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Repts. ii. 406, 671, etc.), with his references. Morgan holds that Stephens is largely responsible for the prevalence of erroneous notions regarding the Mayas, by reason of using the words “palaces” and “great cities” for defining what were really the pueblos of these southern Indians. Bancroft (ii. 84), referring to the ruins, says: They have “the highest value as confirming the truth of the reports made by Spanish writers, very many, or perhaps most, of whose statements respecting the wonderful phenomena of the New World, without this incontrovertible material proof, would find few believers among the skeptical students of the present day.” Bancroft had little prescience respecting what the communal theorists were going to say of these ruins.
[996] Cf. Bancroft’s Cent. America, i. 317. Sir J. William Dawson, in his Fossil Men (p. 83), contends that Morgan has proved his point, and he calls the ruins of Spanish America “communistic barracks” (p. 50). Higginson, in the first chapter of his Larger History, which is a very excellent, condensed popular statement of the new views which Morgan inaugurated, says of him very truly, that he lacked moderation, and that there is “something almost exasperating in the positiveness with which he sometimes assumes as proved that which is only probable.”
[997] Bancroft in his foot-notes (vol. ii.) embodies the best bibliography of this ancient civilization. Cf. Wilson’s Prehistoric Man, i. ch. 14; C. Hermann Berendt’s “Centres of ancient civilization and their geographical distribution,” an Address before the Amer. Geog. Soc. (N. Y. 1876); Draper’s Intellectual Development of Europe; Brasseur’s Ms. Troano; Humboldt’s Cosmos (English transl. ii. 674); Michel Chevalier in the Revue de deux Mondes, Mar.-July, 1845, embraced later in his Du Méxique avant et pendant la Conquête (Paris, 1845); Brantz Mayer’s Mexico as it was; The Galaxy, March, 1876; Scribner’s Mag. v. 724; Overland Monthly, xiv. 468; De Charency’s Hist. du Civilisation du Méxique (Revue des Questions historiques), vi. 283; Dabry de Thiersant’s Origine des indiens du Nouveau Monde (Paris, 1883); Peschel’s Races of Men, 441; Nadaillac’s Les premiers hommes et les temps préhistoriques, ii. ch. 9, etc.
[998] For the bibliography of his works see Brunet, Sabin, Field, etc. The octavo edition of his Vues has 19 of the 69 plates which constitute the Atlas of the large edition. See the chapter on Peru for further detail.
[999] John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Lond. and N. Y. 1841,—various later eds., that of London, 1854, being “revised from the latest Amer. ed., with additions by Frederick Catherwood.” Stephens started on this expedition in 1839, and he was armed with credentials from President Van Buren. He travelled 3000 miles, and visited eight ruined cities, as shown by his route given on the map in vol. i. Cf. references in Allibone, ii. p. 2240; Poole’s Index, p. 212; his Incidents of Travel in Yucatan will be mentioned later.
Frederick Catherwood’s Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (Lond. 1844) has a brief text (pp. 24) and 25 lithographed plates. Some of the original drawings used in making these plates were included in the Squier Catalogue, p. 229. (Sabin’s Dict. iii. no. 11520.) Captain Lindesay Brine, in his paper on the “Ruined Cities of Central America” (Journal Roy. Geog. Soc. 1872, p. 354; Proc. xvii. 67), testifies to the accuracy of Stephens and Catherwood. These new developments furnished the material for numerous purveyors to the popular mind, some of them of the slightest value, like Asahel Davis, whose Antiquities of Central America, with some slight changes of title, and with the parade of new editions, were common enough between 1840 and 1850.
[1000] Viollet le Duc, in his Histoire de l’habitation humaine depuis les temps préhistoriques (Paris, 1875), has given a chapter (no. xxii.) to the “Nahuas and Toltecs.” Views more or less studied, comprehensive, and restricted are given in R. Cary Long’s Ancient Architecture of America, its historic value and parallelism of development with the architecture of the Old World (N. Y. 1849), an address from the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc. 1849, p. 117; R. P. Greg on “the Fret or Key Ornament in Mexico and Peru,” in the Archæologia (London), vol. xlvii. 157; and a popular summary on “the pyramid in America,” by S. D. Peet, in the American Antiquarian, July, 1888, comparing the mounds of Cholula, Uxmal, Palenqué, Teotihuacan, Copan, Quemada, Cohokia, St. Louis, etc. John T. Short summarizes the characteristics of the Nahua and Maya styles (No. Amer. of Antiquity, 340, 359). There are chapters on their architecture in Bancroft, Nat. Races, ii.; but the references in his vol. iv. are most helpful.
[1001] Vols. v. vi. vii. on “Ancient Mexican Civilization,” “Pyramid of Teotihuacan,” “Sacrificial Calendar Stone,” “Central America at time of Conquest,” “Ruins at Palenque and Copan,” “Ruins of Uxmal,” etc.
[1002] Duplicates were placed in the Nat. Museum at Washington by the liberality of Pierre Lorillard.
[1003] The English translation is condensed in parts: The ancient cities of the New World: being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882. Translated from the French by J. Gonino and Helen S. Conant. (London, 1887.) Some of his notable results were the discovery of stucco ornaments in the province of Iturbide, among ruins which he unfortunately named Lorillard City (Eng. tr. ch. 22). The palace at Tula is also figured in Brocklehurst’s Mexico to-day, ch. 25. The discovery of what Charnay calls glass and porcelain is looked upon as doubtful by most archæologists, who believe the specimens to be rather traces of Spanish contact.