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Show 284 WESTERN WILDS. Stephens and Catherwood, and of Brasseur de Bourbourg, last and most thorough of explorers. The most important places mentioned are as follows : Palenque, in the Mexican State of Chiapas, extends for fifteen miles along the river Chacamas ; among the ruins are those of fourteen large edifices, handsomely built of hewn stone. " The Palace" has a raised foun-dation, 40 feet high, 310 long, and 260 wide; on it the building is 288 feet long, 180 wide, and 25 high, with fourteen door-ways on each side, and eleven at each end. Copan, in the western part of Honduras, is three miles in length, and contains stone buildings sixty feet high, richly carved with arabesque designs. Quiri-gtia ( Keereewah), on the river Motagua, consists of a vast array of broken columns and monoliths, with no building stand-ing. Mitla, in the Mexi-can State of Oaxaca, was evidently built in splendid style, but only three buildings remain entire. It abounds in carved figures and relievos. In the same region is an astronomical monu-ment; on it the sculptured profile of a man holding to his eye a tube which is directed to the stars. But Peru contains the most striking monuments of the ancient civilization. There once flourished a proud empire extending over twenty degrees of latitude. There was a paved road five hundred miles long, part of it remaining to this day. Beautiful monuments abound, and curious manufactures have lately been unearthed. There are gauzy articles of pure gold, so light that a breath will waft them from one's finger. There are fragments of the qwppus a knotted cord with threads of various colors, with which they kept accounts. AZTEC PRIEST AND WARRIORS. |