e. What was manifest
in the physical man is corroborated by his archaeological remains. The
reiterated testimony of some of the early Spanish travellers, and
especially of Bernal Diaz and Herrera, is of the utmost importance to
this question; and all that is necessary in the chain of evidence, is
some link to connect the demi-civilized nations with the present
uncultivated and barbarous tribes. These links have been supplied by Mr.
Gregg. Those peculiar dwellings and other structures, with inclined or
parapet walls,[12-++] and with or without windows, which are common to
all epochs of Peruvian and Mexican architecture, are constructed and
occupied by the Indians of Mexico even at the present day. After
describing the general character of these modern domicils, Mr. Gregg
goes on to observe, that "a very curious feature in these buildings, is
that there is most generally no direct communication between the street
and the lower rooms, into which they descended from a trap-door from the
upper story, the latter being accessible by means of a ladder. Even the
entrance at the upper stories is frequently at the roof. This style of
building appears to have been adopted for security against their
marauding neighbors of the wilder tribes, with whom they were often at
war.
"Though this was their most usual style of architecture, there still
exists a Pueblo of Taos, composed, for the most part, of but two
edifices of very singular structure--one on each side of a creek, and
formerly communicating by a bridge. The base story is a mass of near
four hundred feet long, a hundred and fifty wide, and divided into
numerous apartments, upon which other tiers of rooms are built, one
above another, drawn in by regular grades, forming _a pyramidal pile_ of
fifty or sixty feet high, and comprising some six or eight stories. The
outer rooms only seem to be used for dwellings, and are lighted by
little windows at the sides, but are entered through trap-doors in the
_azoteas_ or roofs. Most of the inner apartments are employed as
granaries and storerooms, but a spacious hall in the centre of the mass,
known as the _estufa_, is reserved for their secret councils. These two
buildings afford habitation, as is said, for over six hundred souls.
There is likewise an edifice in the Pueblo of Picuris of the same class,
and some of those of Moqui are also said to be similar."[13-*]
The Indian city of Santo Domingo, which has an exclusive aboriginal
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