The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882 . ];as-relief in hall of tennis-court of chichen-itza. there was, twenty years ago, a series of paintings descriptiveof domestic and public life among the Mayas, now entirelydestroyed by barbarous explorers, or by the inhabitants ofPiste. Stephens, who saw them, says that they were paintedin bright colours of blue, red, yellow, and green. Fortunatelyfor us, three sides of the pillars at the entrance are stillcovered with sculptures, as also the lintels, and all are inbetter preserv
The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882 . ];as-relief in hall of tennis-court of chichen-itza. there was, twenty years ago, a series of paintings descriptiveof domestic and public life among the Mayas, now entirelydestroyed by barbarous explorers, or by the inhabitants ofPiste. Stephens, who saw them, says that they were paintedin bright colours of blue, red, yellow, and green. Fortunatelyfor us, three sides of the pillars at the entrance are stillcovered with sculptures, as also the lintels, and all are inbetter preservation than any at Chichcn-Itza, as may be seenin our drawing. Here also^ we find numerous analogies with Chichen-Itza. 3^3 Mexican monuments, which, it should be recollected, were the result of Toltec tigers bas-reliefs on portion of tennis-court of ciiicuen-itza. All the human figures seen on these monuments have theusual type of the Toltecs of the high plateaux. Their galadress, like that of the reliefs at page 362, is identical with thedress of the figures on Tizocs stone. It is always a head- 564 The Ancient Cities of the New World. dress of feathers, a heavy collar of precious stones, a bundleof arrows in the left hand, while the right carries a knifesimilar to that carried by the figures of the Cuauhxicalli, sothat we might almost fancy we are following in the train of aNahua pageant so vividly portrayed by Sahagun, when he says: ^ In the feast of the God ^-r^W-^j 41^^^^^*^^^ of Fire, which was held in the month IzcallV (theeighteenth month), thenobles wore a high-frontedpaper coronet, with no backto it, a kind of false noseof blue paper, a collar andmedallions around theirnecks, while in their handswas carried a wooden knife,the lower half of which waspainted red and the upp
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