"The reader will be able to form some idea of the time, skill, and labour, required for making them [the edifices]; and more than this, to conceive the immense time, skill, and labour required for carving [sculpturing] such a surface of stone; and the wealth, power, and cultivation of the people who could command such skill and labour for the mere decoration of the edifices. Probably all these ornaments have a symbolical meaning; [they certainly have] each stone is part of an _allegory_ or _fable_ (?) hidden from us, inscrutable under the light of the feeble torch we may burn before it, but which, _if ever revealed, will shew that the History of the World yet remains to be written_." With all humility we have attempted to "reveal" one portion of the Sculpture, (others will follow)--but the emblems of Christianity and the Resurrection, can form no part "of an allegory or fable;" and truly has the History of the World yet to be written, when historians in ignorance of the Ruins, have traced the Aborigines, who built the gorgeous edifices of Palenque and Uxmal, to have lived and perished in a savage life! From the character of the Sculpture, and its devices, Uxmal is placed by us as the last built of all the Ancient Cities as yet discovered on the Western Continent. Having made sufficient extracts from Mr. Stephens's work on "Central America," in illustration of Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal, the principal Cities of Ruins; the Traveller's reflections upon his explorations will now be given, and his conclusions met and refuted. We desire, before we commence the following Chapter of refutation, to impress the reader's mind with the importance of a complete removal of the conclusions, arrived at by Mr. Stephens in regard to these Ruins;--for if he is right, we are stopped at the very threshold of our History. We confess this with all honesty, and desire thereby to arouse the minute attention of the reader to the several points of refutation,--to analyze them critically, and to yield nothing,--but from conviction of foregone errors and false conclusions. In conformity with the rule of argument with which this volume was commenced, we presume that the preceding Chapter completely establishes in the mind of the reader, that Ancient Cities and Ruins have been discovered in Mexican America; in this belief, the History will be continued, and the Builders and Architecture identified. CHAPTER VI. A REVIEW OF THE REFLECTIONS OF MR. STEPHENS UPON THE RUINS OF MEXICAN AMERICA--HIS CONCLUSIONS FOUNDED UPON FALSE PREMISES--HIS ERRORS DETECTED BY HIS OWN CONTRADICTIONS--RESTORATION OF THE TEMPLE OF UXMAL--HIS CHIEF MOTIVE APPARENT--HIS ARGUMENTS AND CONCLUSIONS REFUTED--AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RUINS IDENTIFIED AND ESTABLISHED--REMARKS UPON ROBERTSON'S HISTORY OF AMERICA. The interesting Traveller in his last chapter but one of his Second Volume on "Central America," says--