attendant Nymphs in all their peerless beauty, and Nature's own attire, were grouped on every hill; from their coloured lips smiling Welcome breathed forth, her ceaseless incense from every mound and valley, which waft on Zephyr's wings enrapt with health and gladness the approaching Sons and Daughters of a distant Sea, whose wild songs of praise to gorgeous Apollo were borne by their Orient and faithful envoy to the wave-clad Shore:--Echo caught the subduing chorus of the heart, and bore it to her favourite haunts in mountain or in cave,--the human voice now first heard, aroused the reposing animals from glade and glen;--the feathery tribes in all their rainbow tinted plumage, arose high in air,--played their circles, and rested--music breathing--on "the fruit tree-tops," as in the Day of Innocence, to receive their names from the Adams and the Eves, of a new-found Eden in another Hemisphere! There arrived in joyous gladness, and welcomed by all the gifts of Nature,--like an heir to sudden fortune uncertain where to rest,--the Tyrian left the Shore of Florida and coasted the Gulf of Mexico, and so around the peninsular of Yucatan and into the Bay of Honduras; they thence ascended a River of shelter and safety, and above the rapids of which they selected the site of their first City,--now occupied by the Ruins, Altars, Idols, and Walls of Copan! After their first sacrifice to Apollo, they would naturally erect a Chief Altar, around which the Tyrian Pilgrims who had come from "afar off to sojourn," might gather in remembrance of the vital act from Sidonian friendship. As we firmly believe, so we repeat that belief,--that the sculpture of the Chief Altar of Copan (as seen at this day) portrays, from the hands of National Gratitude, a Religious tribute to Sidon, who, amid the desolating hurricane, had safely gathered the human "gleanings" from the last field of their ill-fated country; who had lifted up her prostrate "Daughter," and given her renewed strength and power, whereby-- "Her own feet _could_ carry her afar off to Sojourn." Another Altar (sacred to Apollo) would be erected to that Heavenly Science, the knowledge of which had aided them over their watery track in safety and to freedom. Their children would fail not to cherish the altar-fire of Astronomy; the flame of which has, to the human eye, not only illuminated the Earth, but unfolded the Mechanism of the Heavens! It became the ever-burning lantern to _their_ feet, until they could trace in Sculpture the annual glory of that refulgent Orb, which, in their Father-land, had been for a century of ages, the divine emblem of their Religion and their God![16] [16] Sculpture found in buried Ruins at Mexico; _i. e._ the Calendar mentioned by Baron Humboldt.