To turn now to the Totonac region; the island of Sacrificios off Vera Cruz has produced a store of pottery which is in no respect inferior to that of Cholula with the exception that fewer colours are employed in ornament and the surface is not highly burnished. The paste is either pale red, grey or cream, admirably mixed and fired, and the shapes exhibit considerable variety (Fig. 36, 5–9, and Pls. XVIII and XIX). Especially characteristic are footed beakers and vases, tripod bowls with cylindrical or cascabel feet containing rattles, standing-bowls, bowls with slightly flattened bases, and plates. Handles are not common, but a type of vase with single long projecting handle seems confined to this area. Ornament is most commonly applied in the form of slip, white, cream, red (more than one shade), yellow, brown and black. In the most characteristic specimens the designs, monsters or formal patterns, are painted in thick white slip, and usually outlined with red or brown, or, especially in the case of plates, in deep orange on a brown background or _vice versa_. Engraved ornament is far more common in Totonac pottery than Cholulan; sometimes the engraving merely follows the outline of a painted design, sometimes it constitutes the sole ornament. In more elaborate specimens the entire background is cut away, or an intaglio design produced which is filled with a coloured slip. Fragments of the “champ-levé” ware, with its blue-green filling, have also been found. Moulded ornament again is very common, ranging from the mere gadrooning of a vase-body (Fig. 36, 5) to animal heads in relief, with the other details painted in slip on the sides of the vase (Pl. XIX). The vases with a bird’s (or beast’s) head in relief, and the details of the body incised, as figured on Pl. XVIII, 2, are very characteristic, and are, further, of particular interest since they, as well as vases in other forms, are often found to be coated with a leaden-coloured glaze hard enough to resist the point of a knife. This is of course an accidental earth-glaze, produced in firing by the action of the smoke or heat on the surface of the slip. Vases, identical in form and with the same accidental glaze, have been found at Atlixco, and also in the neighbourhood of Coban in the Alta Vera Paz district of Guatemala. It seems probable that they have reached these localities as articles of trade. Many vase-feet also are moulded in the form of animal heads (Pl. XIX). [Illustration: _PLATE XVI_ _British Museum_ MEXICO 1. STONE SACRIFICIAL KNIFE; WOODEN HANDLE ENCRUSTED WITH MOSAIC TOTONAC 2–10. POTTERY FROM THE ISLAND OF SACRIFICIOS, VERA CRUZ (Scale: 1, ¼th; 2–10, ⅙th)]