Mr. Stephens then adds:
One look at that city is worth ten years of an every-day life. If he is right, a place is left where Indians and an Indian city exist as Cortez and Alvarado found them. There are living men who can solve the mystery that hangs over the ruined cities of America; perhaps, who can go to Copan and Palenque and read the inscriptions on their monuments.
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The moon, long past the meridian, was sinking slowly to her western goal, whilst the east was already beginning to blush and redden with the dawn. Before us rose high and clear three distinct mountain peaks, covered with a mantle of snow. I began to tremble with cold. But our pace did not slacken, nor our altitude diminish. On the contrary, we began to rise gradually, until we found ourselves nearly upon a level with the three peaks. Selecting an opening or gap betwixt the two westernmost, we glided through like the wind. I shivered and my teeth chattered as we skimmed along those everlasting snows. Here, thought I, the condor builds his nest in summer, and the avalanches find a home. The eagle's wing has not strength enough to battle with this thin and freezing atmosphere, and no living thing but "the proud bird, the condor of the Andes," ever scaled these hoary summits. But our descent had already commenced. Gradually, as the morning broke, the region of ice and snow was left behind us, and just as the first ray of the rising sun shot over the peaks we had but a moment before surmounted, I beheld, glittering in the dim and shadowy distance, the white walls of a magnificent city. An exclamation of surprise and pleasure involuntarily escaped my lips; but one glance at my companion checked all further utterance. She raised her rounded forefinger to her lip, and made a gesture, whose purport I well understood.
We swept over forests and cornfields and vineyards, the city growing upon the vision every moment, and rising like the Mexican capital, when first beheld by Europeans from the bosom of a magnificent lake. Finally, we found ourselves immediately above it, and almost at the same moment, began to descend. In a few seconds I stood alone, in a large open space, surrounded upon all sides by lofty stone edifices, erected upon huge pyramidal structures, that resembled the forest-covered mounds at Palenque. The day had fully dawned, but I observed no inhabitants. Presently a single individual appeared upon one of the towers near me, and gave a loud, shrill whistle, such as we sometimes hear in crowded theatres. In an instant it was echoed and re-echoed a thousand times, upon every side, and immediately the immense city seemed to be awake, as if by magic. They poured by thousands into the open square, where I stood petrified with astonishment. Before me, like a vision of midnight, marched by, in almost countless throngs, battalion on battalion of a race of men deemed and recorded extinct by the wisest historians.
They presented the most picturesque appearance imaginable, dressed apparently in holiday attire, and keeping step to a low air, performed on instruments emitting a dull, confused sound, that seldom rose so as to be heard at any great distance.
They continued promenading the square, until the first level ray of sunshine fell upon the great Teocallis—as it was designated by the Spaniards—then with unanimous action they fell upon their faces, striking their foreheads three times upon the mosaic pavement. Just as they rose to their feet, I observed four persons, most gorgeously dressed, descending the steps of the Temple, bearing a palanquin, in which sat a single individual. My attention was at once arrested by her appearance, for she was a woman. She was arrayed in a panache, or head-dress, made entirely of the plumage of the Quezale, the royal bird of Quiche. It was by far the most tasteful and becoming ornament to the head I ever beheld, besides being the most magnificent. It is impossible to describe the graceful movement of those waving plumes, as they were stirred by the slightest inclination of the head, or the softest aspiration of the breeze. But the effect was greatly heightened by the constant change of color which they underwent. Blue and crimson, and orange and gold, were so blended that the eye was equally dazzled and delighted. But the utmost astonishment pervaded me, when, upon closely scrutinizing her features, I thought I recognized the beautiful face of the Aztec Princess. Little leisure, however, was afforded me for this purpose, for no sooner had her subjects, the assembled thousands, bowed with deferential respect to their sovereign, than a company of drilled guards marched up to where I stood, and unresistingly made me prisoner.
It is useless to attempt a full description of the imposing ceremony I had witnessed, or to portray the appearance of those who took the most prominent parts. Their costume corresponded precisely with that of the figures in bas-relief on the sculptured monuments at Palenque. Each wore a gorgeous head-dress, generally of feathers, carried an instrument decorated with ribbons, feathers and skins, which appeared to be a war-club, and wore huge sashes of yellow, green, or crimson cotton cloth, knotted before and behind, and falling in graceful folds almost to the ground.
Hitherto not a word had been spoken. The ceremony I had witnessed was a religious one, and was at once interpreted by me to be the worship of the sun. I remembered well that the ancient Peruvians were heliolaters, and my imagination had been dazzled when but a child by the gorgeous description given by the historian Robertson, of the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Incas had worshiped the God of Day from the period when Manco Capac came from the distant Island of Oello, and taught the native Indians the rudiments of civilization, until the life of the last scion of royal blood was sacrificed to the perfidy of the Spanish invaders. These historical facts had long been familiar to my mind; but I did not recollect any facts going to show that the ancient Aztecs were likewise heliolaters; but further doubt was now impossible.
In perfect silence I was hurried up the stone steps of the great Teocallis, toward the palace erected upon its summit, into whose broad and lofty corridors we soon entered. These we traversed in several directions, leaving the more outward and gradually approaching the heart or central apartments.