“Builded on the ruins of dead thrones Whose temple walls were old when Thebes was new; On altars whose weird sacrificial stones With ghastly offerings were crimsoned through; Oblivion hides and holds thy secrets fast— The dust of ages lies upon thy past, All wonderful, mysterious Mexico.”[1] Mexico is a land of ruins and the footprints of former races can be traced all over the southern half of the country. These ruins teach us that it must have taken many centuries to develop the land into the condition in which it was found by the Spaniards. It was not only the growth of a long time, but it was the product of the civilization developed by many different races and tribes. Otherwise Mexico would not be filled to-day with a hundred tribes speaking as many distinct dialects. There are many ruins of cities extending from the Valley of Mexico to the remotest corner of Yucatan, and many of them show evidences of wonderful structures that are the amazement of even the present generation. Not buried beneath volcanic lava, like Pompeii and Herculaneum, yet all are silent cities, for their inhabitants departed hundreds, perhaps, thousands of years ago. A few broken columns now remain where doubtless whole cities once stood. Nothing is known of the history of these cities. The Spanish priests, with fanatical frenzy, destroyed all of the picture writings of the Aztecs that they could lay their hands upon. So many were destroyed, some chroniclers say, that great bonfires were made. What light these manuscripts might have cast upon the history of these early races cannot even be conjectured. As Prescott says, “it is impossible to contemplate these mysterious monuments of a lost civilization without a strong feeling of curiosity as to who were their architects and what is their probable age.” They are undoubtedly very old, and some claim they are as old as the architecture of Egypt and Hindoostan. They have marked Eastern characteristics, as in the hieroglyphical writings at Palenque, in Yucatan, where are ruins of a palace and supposed holy city, with many sculptured figures of human and animal beings. The same is true of Uxmal, also in that same quaint and interesting corner of Mexico. These writings never have been and probably never will be deciphered. Then at Palenque can be traced the outline of the Roman cross which has greatly mystified antiquarians. We can only speculate on the origin of these monuments; whence came the people who constructed them; and in what period of the earth’s history they were built; but speculation proves nothing and convinces nobody.