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Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America: Resulting in the Discovery of the Idolatrous City of Iximaya, in an Unexplored Region; and the Possession of two Remarkable Aztec Children, Descendants and Specimens of the Sacerdotal Caste, (now nearly extinct,) of the Ancient Aztec Founders of the Ruined Temples of that Country, Described by John L. Stevens, Esq., and Other Travellers. — John Shaqi

History

Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America: Resulting in the Discovery of the Idolatrous City of Iximaya, in an Unexplored Region; and the Possession of two Remarkable Aztec Children, Descendants and Specimens of the Sacerdotal Caste, (now nearly extinct,) of the Ancient Aztec Founders of the Ruined Temples of that Country, Described by John L. Stevens, Esq., and Other Travellers.

Name: Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America: Resulting in the Discovery of the Idolatrous City of Iximaya, in an Unexplored Region; and the Possession of two Remarkable Aztec Children, Descendants and Specimens of the Sacerdotal Caste, (now nearly extinct,) of the Ancient Aztec Founders of the Ruined Temples of that Country, Described by John L. Stevens, Esq., and Other Travellers.
Author: Velasquez, Pedro

Velasquez, Pedro

Aztecs; Central America -- Antiquities; Central America -- Description and travel; Indians of Central America

And the following profile, from the same work, is pronounced by
Velasquez to be equally characteristic of the female faces of that
region, making due allowance for the superb head dresses of tropical
plumage, with which he describes the latter as being adorned, instead of
the male galea, or close cap, retained in the engraving.

[Illustration]

These illustrations, slight as they are, are deemed interesting, because
the Iximayans assert their descent from a very ancient Assyrian colony
nearly co-temporary with Nineveh itself--a claim which receives strong
confirmation, not only from the hieroglyphics and monuments of Iximaya,
but from the engravings in Stevens' volumes of several remarkable
objects, (the inverted winged globe especially,) at Palenque--once a
kindred colony.

It should have been stated in the following Memoir, that Senor
Velasquez, on his return to San Salvador, caused the two Kaana children
to be baptized into the Catholic Church, by the Bishop of the Diocese,
under the names of Maximo and Bartola Velasquez.




  MEMOIR
  OF A RECENT
  EVENTFUL EXPEDITION
  IN
  CENTRAL AMERICA.


In the second volume of his travels in Central America--than which no
work ever published in this country, has created and maintained a higher
degree of interest, both at home and abroad--Mr. Stevens speaks with
enthusiasm of the conversations he had held with an intelligent and
hospitable Padre, or Catholic priest, of Santa Cruz del Quiche, formerly
of the village of Chajul; and of the exciting information he had
received from him, concerning immense and marvellous antiquities in the
surrounding country, which, to the present hour, remain entirely unknown
to the world. The Padre told him of vast ruins, in a deserted and
desolate region, but four leagues from Vera Paz, more extensive than
Quiche itself; and of another ruined city, on the other side of the
great traversing range of the Cordilleras, of which no account has been
given. But the most stimulating story of all, was the existence of a
_living_ city, far on the other side of the great sierra, large and
populous, occupied by Indians of the same character, and in precisely
the same state, as those of the country in general, before the discovery
of the continent and the desolating conquests of its invaders.

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