The first narrative of observations made among the ruins at Palenque, to which we have referred, were mysteriously withheld from the public for nearly forty years. After having been written out by the explorer, in conformity with public orders, it can only be supposed that the extraordinary facts communicated by him exceeded belief, or that, if thought true, and they should be made public, they would induce visits from strangers which might be annoying to the Spanish authorities. Visitants from foreign countries would thus become acquainted with the internal policy, the tyrannical misrule of the government over the virtuous natives, and with the natural resources of their rich and extensive country. For these, or other reasons past conjecture, the description of the ruined city was suppressed; and it remained secreted in a convent at Guatemala, from 1786 to 1822, when, after the revolution in that ill-fated country, it was discovered thus hidden, by a foreign traveller, taken to London and published in the above last-mentioned year. Copies of this work have for many years been extremely scarce in London. To the particulars there made known were added an ingenious and learned treatise by a distinguished Catholic priest upon the origin of the Tultecan people, with many other highly interesting facts and speculations connected therewith.
This subject has since received enthusiastic attention from several individuals, whose names have been mentioned. It was from having been employed to engrave the illustrations of the above work, that Waldrick, the most indefatigable of them all, was induced to cross the Atlantic for the purpose of visiting the ruins himself. Particulars respecting the adventures and researches of this devoted man, during twelve years' seclusion among the ruins; the base and outrageous robbery committed upon him, 'by order of the Mexican government,' in wresting from his possession all the valuable drawings that he had been for years employed in making; together with other facts and illustrations collected by other adventurous inquirers; the records of the arts, the singular dresses, hieroglyphics, symbols, and particularly the great Teöculi, and other immense structures, will follow, in order of time and place.
'Ages and realms are crowded on this span,
This mountain, whose obliterated plan
The pyramids of ages pinnacled.'
From the hasty sketch here given of these remarkable people and their structures, it will be seen, that comparatively little attention was given to them by the Spanish government, or their agents. This is justly attributable to the well-known suspicion and habitual indolence of both the authorities and their subjects, either of which, on a topic like this, stamps them with disgrace, in the opinion of all enlightened men. The government itself seems not to have been satisfied with the account given of these extensive ruins by Del Rio; for, in 1805, Charles V. despatched a Captain Dupaix on the same duties; since which, two other voyages have been undertaken, by the same enterprising explorer, for the like purpose; and now, the accounts of this individual constitute the best we have of the ancient Palencian city. They were published in France about a year since, and form, with the accompanying splendid illustrations, an expensive and voluminous work. It was from this work that Lord Kingsbury gleaned the materials for his still more costly, but, it need not be said, less valuable, work. The sole effort of the noble lord, in this ponderous treatise, is to prove that the people of whom we have been speaking, were none other than the nine-and-a-half lost tribes of the house of Israel; an effort contributing as little to truth as it does to the establishment of his absurd theory. It will appear a matter of surprise, to every impartial inquirer, and to those at all acquainted with the facts in the case, that such an opinion has been endorsed by others: but it might be stated, that the character, not less than the expense, of the book in question, will effectually preclude it from general perusal. We shall elsewhere state the curious facts on which this theory is based; one of which, we may remark, en passent, is, that the temple, of which we have given a partial description, closely resembles the far-famed temple of Solomon, a fact which, though not denied, proves nothing, abstractly. Reasons exist why this isolated truth cannot be made available in a hypothesis so plainly opposed to the first principles of physiology, not to say probability. Whatever theory men may devise, to account for the origin of the Tultecans—and there have been others not less crude and chimerical than this—it is philosophically true, that they differed from all others in those distinguishing characteristics which have ever been assumed as the criteria of distinct species of men. The accompanying representation, which is an exact copy, shows in a striking manner the peculiar form of the Tultecan head, and the curious symbolical designs with which they are generally ornamented. The peculiar physiognomy of this people is not less forcibly delineated in the drawing. Both the characteristic conformation of the head and facial outline is preserved in all the specimens of sculpture hitherto found. In connection with the Tultecan peculiarities alluded to, those of their dress were not less remarkable. These, if we except perhaps the sandals worn on their feet, exhibit a strange combination of splendor, ingenuity, and oddness. So unlike were they to those of any other nation, that we can perceive no reason for supposing them derived from any prëexistent people. They were so designed and executed, as to represent the most notable data in individual and national history. This may be seen in the form and embellishments of their dress, as sculptured, and evidently described by phonetic characters, upon the various tablets found among the ruins of Tulteca. Curiously interwoven, and yet highly ornamental, are the personal achievements, civil records, and religious faith, supposed to appear in the paraphernalia of their habiliments; and these are observable in the head-dress represented below. Some, however, were much more complicated, and when exhibited on solemn religious occasions, as at the great annual ceremony on the plains of Cholula, in all the varieties of form and gorgeousness of coloring, and, as it is supposed, by millions of people at once, presented, altogether, the most grand and imposing spectacle the world has ever witnessed.
It may in truth be affirmed, that in no people have distinctive characteristics been more apparent, and more clearly defined. For the present, therefore, they must stand by themselves as a part of the human family; and they should be treated as a distinct and peculiar race of men. This fact gives to our subject, as before remarked, a romantic and unique character. Finding this people, as we do, so far advanced in a knowledge of the useful and ornamental arts as to preclude any rational inferences in respect to their derivation from previously extant people, and so completely and so widely detached, in a geographical point of view, from all other nations, bearing resemblance in their arts, their social institutions, and in many striking physical peculiarities, as to afford no plausible theory by which to trace their oriental connections, we are left entirely disenthralled from speculative opinions; and, hereafter, we may be allowed to dwell upon novel and animating truths, without being warped by prejudice, or swayed by conjecture.