[Illustration: STATUE OF TLALOC FOUND AT CHICHEN-ITZA.]
We will end our comparisons with a description of the following statues, which ought to convert the most obstinate to our theory. One was discovered at Chichen-Itza five or six years ago, by Leplongeon, an American explorer; the other in the neighbourhood of Tlascala, close to Mexico, at a considerable distance from the former. The two statues represent the Toltec god Tlaloc, according to Mr. Hamy, whose view I take. This view receives additional probability from the existence of a third statue, which was found I know not where, and which is the property of Mr. Baron of Mexico, who bought it among several other Aztec antiquities, and had it placed in his beautiful garden at Tacubaya, whence it has, I suppose, been removed to Spain. “This statue,” says Jesus Sanchez, “is smaller than the other two, measuring but 3 feet by 1 foot 7 inches by 2 feet high. It also represents a man lying on his back, his legs drawn up, his feet on the ground, and holding with both hands a vase which rests against his body.”
[Illustration: STATUE OF TLALOC OF TLASCALA (IN THE MUSEUM OF MEXICO).]
There is no doubt that the same deity is figured in these three statues, whatever the ornamentation, which varies according to the epoch, the locality, or the imagination of the artist. But Sanchez adds, “recollecting that a number of Mexican statues were sculptured also beneath their base, I turned this, when I discovered several devices in relief. The sculptor had carved on the surface of the stone _a sheet of water, aquatic plants, two frogs, and a fish_; while the bank was occupied by _beans and grains of maize_, which are among the attributes of Tlaloc.[138] The statue in the Mexican Museum, although found at Tlascala, must necessarily be Toltec from its archaic character, and determines the origin of the second at Chichen-Itza. When we add that the same customs, the same institutions, the same manner of computing time, the same religion, and the same arms, were common to both the tribes of the plateaux and the Mayas of the peninsula, as recorded by all ancient writers so often quoted in the course of this work, we think we may even more positively affirm that the Yucatec civilisation is both Toltec and recent.