these ruins long since."
Charnay, _The Ancient Cities of the New World_, London, 1887,
p. 248. The gallant explorer's indignation is certainly quite
pardonable.]

[Footnote 148: Some of his remarks are worth quoting in detail,
especially in view of the time when they were written: "I
repeat my opinion that we are not warranted in going back to
any ancient nation of the Old World for the builders of these
cities; that they are not the work of people who have passed
away and whose history is lost, but that there are strong
reasons to believe them the creations of the same races who
inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or
some not very distant progenitors. And I would remark that we
began our exploration without any theory to support.... Some
are beyond doubt older than others; some are known to have been
inhabited at the time of the Spanish conquest, and others,
perhaps, were really in ruins before; ... but in regard to
Uxmal, at least, we believe that it was an existing and
inhabited city at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards."
Stephens, _Central America_, etc., vol. ii. p. 455.]

[Footnote 149: Charnay, _The Ancient Cities of the New World_,
p. 260.]

[Sidenote: They are probably not older than the twelfth century.]

These edifices are not so durably constructed as those which in Europe
have stood for more than a thousand years. They do not indicate a high
civilization on the part of their builders. They do not, as Mr. Andrew
Lang says, "throw Mycenae into the shade, and rival the remains of
Cambodia."[150] In pictures they may seem to do so, but M. de Charnay,
after close and repeated examination of these buildings, assures us that
as structures they "cannot be compared with those at Cambodia, which
belong to nearly the same period, the twelfth century, and which,
notwithstanding their greater and more resisting proportions, are found
in the same dilapidated condition."[151] It seems to me that if Mr.
Lang had spoken of the Yucatan ruins as rivalling the remains of Mycenae,
instead of "throwing them into the shade," he would have come nearer the
mark. The builders of Uxmal, like those of Mycenae, did not understand
the principle of the arch, but were feeling their way toward it.[152]
And here again we