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    mtifuliv

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    cond is by Tincent Leigh Hunt , whose early death was a loss to literature as well as to his friends . It is curious to trace the father in the son , os in this sonnet : — AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE . " How sweet it were , if without feeble fright , t Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight , ¦ An angel came to us , and we could bear To see him issue from the silent air At evening in our room , and bend on ours His divine eyes , and bring" us from his bowers

    News of dear friends , and children who have never Been dead indeed , — -as we shall know for ever . Alas ! we think nofc what we daily see About our hearths , —angels , that are to be , Or may be if they will , and we prepare Their souls and ours to meet in happy air , —¦ A child , a friend , a wife whose soft heart sings In unison with ours , breeding its future wings . " Leigh Hunt

    THE DEFORMED CHILD . " An angel prisoned in an infant frame Of mortal sickness and deformity , Looks patiently from out that languid eye , Matured , and seeming large with pain . The name Of ¦ ' happy childhood' mocks his movements tame , So propped with piteous crutch ; or forced to lie Rather than sit , in its frail chair , and try

    To taste the pleasure of the unshared game . He does ; and faintly claps his withered hands To see how brother Willie caught the ball ; Kind brother Willie , strong yet gentle all : } T was he that placed him , where his chair now stands , In that warm corner ' gainst the sunny wall . — God , in that brother , gave him more than lands . " Vincent Leigh Hvnt

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    ^ 2 ^ S one special ly interested in American ethnology and archaeology , I © ifflo wish to make some remarks upon one of the most daring fabricaoii !« G > t * ons ever imposed upon public credulity , in the name of science—§§** 5 g a fabrication , too , which , I regret to see , has been received , if not with actual faith , at all events with the most courteous toleration , in the very highest social and scientific quarters . I had supposed it impossible that pretensions so extravagant , as those put forward in connexion with the so-called Aztec children , could have failed to meet with instant detection and exposure , in a great centre of learning like London , but , unfortunately , ethnology and archaeology are in so unformed and chaotic a condition , that nothing seems too absurd for credence , when brought forward under the sanction of their names .

    The following remarks were written , in substance , immediately after my first visit to these children , July 21 st ; circumstances having prevented their publication in the form originally intended , 1 have recast them , in the hope that , though late in their appearance , and in some degree anticipated «> y what has since been written by others , they may yet have some effect in convincin g the public of the true character of the absurd legend offered to its notice , under the seeming sanction of some of the highest names in science .

    A lie entire story of Iximaya , as now presented to the British public , "rough the means of placards , advertisements , and a shilling pamphlet , entitled , The History of the Aztec Lilliputians , is stated to be derived from a Spaniard , of tho name of Pedro Velasquez , of San Salvador , in Central " union , and compiled from his . original manuscript in the Spanish language . It therefore rests exclusively on the word , or , rather , on what is li ; l > uted to be the word , of a single individual , of whom the public knows nothing , except by vague report . It brings with it no collateral evidence wtever

    w ; it is so framed as to afford the fewest possible means of testing 1 s accuracy ; it specially contradicts some of the most notorious facts of "icrican arclucology , while it requires us to believe things not only at vnriunee- with the observed course of human affairs , but even with the JHMiinnental laws of human action and feeling . Though prolix enough matters of no importance , it is wonderfully concise in all those ^ ftses m which information is most required , and respecting which an Jj " « u observer would be the most apt to speak . Wit , h the exception of » at was necessary for the obvious aim of the story , we nrc furnished with lc lara to

    no urn- *; ,... i _ i . . .. . . J _ . ,, ( k l > IM ^ » relative the most interesting and critical part of the jour-^ < y , vlz .,- _ from t ] ie vjiiU £ e of Aguamasinta to Iximaya , though , by hyponnT * ' tIllS - WaS R vir B K » ¦ " » tio » s . Iu fllct > we ] Of ) jc m Vftin for , uly murks ^ "at individuality and vraiseniblance , which must necessarily distinguish « r y tr ue account , however rude , of a now and interesting region . ean onlv signalize one among tho many archaeological absurdities with

    which this narrative abounds . It describes Iximaya as having lofty parapeted walls , " inclined inwards , in the Egyptian style , its interior domes and turrets having an emphatically Oriental aspect . " This application to Iximaya of a style of architecture , of which not a trace has anywhere been detected on the continent of America , has been excused , on the ground of optical illusion , the statement having been made on the occasion of the first view of the city , from the top of the Cordillera ; hut the travellers

    were afterwards in the city itself ; and , besides , people who had such good eyes and telescopes , as to detect , at the distance of twenty leagues , the Egyptian character , and the slight inward inclination of walls forty feet high , were in no danger of mistaking American truncated pyramids , for Oriental looking , not to say even Christian looking , domes and turrets . The fact is , it is vulgarly believed that the antiquities of America have an especially Oriental character : hence this absurd allusion to domes , and turrets , and Egyptian walls .

    To account for the ease with which 35 or 38 men , all but three of them Indians , entered as conquerors into a vast city under Imperial government , seemingly full of inhabitants , and defended with massive granite walls 40 feet high , and some 12 or 14 miles in circuit , the writer has been compelled to have recourse to contrivances which necessarily involve endless contra * dictions . Thus we learn that the Iximayans , though maintaining three centuries of independence , where almost all besides were slaves , and overawing their neighbours into unexampled silence and discretion for the same long period > are nevertheless a timid aad quiet people , whose whole military force consists of a rural police of 200 men . Thus , too , thev

    were wholly unacquainted with the use of fire-arms , the weapons that had conquered all the states around them , and filled with terror and amazement every civilized or partially civilized spot on the entire continent of America , the things of all others most likely to interest a new people , and which even among savages pass , by barter , from tribe to tribe , to vast distances . Yet Iximaya was within 20 or 30 leagues of Spanish settlements in various directions . The maps present a network of rivers and streams , some of whrch must have approached ^ within a few miles of it , let it be placed where it may : it was surrounded with tribes speaking its own tongue , a widely spread language in Yucatan : it traded with a tribe of its own race , at some distance—distance and direction , of course , not specified ; while many other

    things much less likely to penetrate there than a knowledge of fire arms had yet found their way . They had herds of deer and cattle ; horses and bloodhounds of the purest Spanish breed ; they cultivated oats , wheat , flax , and hemp ; they had vineyards and fruit orchards , and understood , it seems , the manufacture of iron , for we hear incidentally of rusty spears in the hands of some of the peasant women . Most of these things , however , were required for the story—the horses and bloodhounds to enable 200 men to scour a range of country some 200 miles in circuit ; the advanced state of agriculture to maintain a large population within a very limited space ; and so on . The thing has been ingeniously got up in many respects , but every fallacy must carry with it its own refutation , as soon as it speaks in detail .

    I must pass without comment a variety of parallel inconsistencies , such as the totally unfortified condition in which a people so timid , and so skilful in building , had left the pass by which the travellers entered the amphitheatre of hills enclosing the plain of Iximaya ; the readiness with which they were admitted into the city itself ; the absurd facility with which they , in their turn , laid aside their arms and became virtual captives at the very moment in which they were actual masters , and so on . In fact , the whole account , viewed as a history , whatever may be said of it in other respects , is a mere tissue of inconsistencies from first to last , lint independently of all this , irrespective of the narrative of Velasquez altogether , a moment ' s reflection must make it evident that the secret

    isolation of a great populous and civilized , or semi-civilized city , is a physical impossibility , under nil circumstances . Such a city implies a large surrounding agricultural district to feed it , and the less advanced the agriculture , the greater the space required ; it implies wealth , and wealth commerce , and commerce travelling ; it implies knowledge , and knowledge curiosity , and this again restlessness and travelling ; it implies a great diversity of occupations , conditions , and dispositions ; conflicts of interests and passions , acts of oppression and resistance , revenge , defection , &c , &e . Add to all this , Iximaya in the centre , the Spaniards around within 20 or XO leagues , the Maya language between the two , and three centuries of coexistence , and the true character of the entire story will be at once apparent .

    That there exists an Indian tradition relative to some such city as Iximaya is evident from the accounts of Stephens and others , but such u tradition may easily have been suggested by some now forgotten fragment of American mythology . All mythologies have their Elysian fields , Islands of . the Blessed , or Paradisaical , or other fabulous cities which are occasionally visited by mortals , or beheld from a distance ; . Thus lly lirasail , the Paradise of the Pagan Irish , which lies out in the Atlantic ocean , is still occasionally seen , in fine weather , from tho western shores of Arran More , as Iximaya is from the top <> f the Cordillera . — ( Vaij-ancy , Collectanea do . rebus Hibernicis , vol . iii ., p . 282 . )'

    I have now to speak of the two children said to have been brought from that fabulous city . These children are two little doll-like creatures , extremely diminutive , and very interesting as anatomical and physiological curiosities ; hut the pretension of their representing « i distinct nice of men ,

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    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe .

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    August 27 , 1853 , ] THE LEADER . 835

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 835, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2001/page/19/