Identifier: ancientcitiesofn00char (find matches)
Title: The ancient cities of the New World : being travels and explorations in Mexico and Central America from 1857-1882
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Charnay, Désiré, 1828-1915
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indians of Central America
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ault was introduced by them in allpublic edifices, temples, and palaces. With the testimony ofthese writers, we may consider the vault question definitelysettled. The town, or rather the plaza, with its diminutive garden,planted with a few consumptive shrubs and fiowers, with itsporticoes giving access to the Town Hall, the Law Courts,the Church and shops, only gets animated on Sundaysand market - days, when the population of the surroundingdistricts pours in for the purpose of buying or selling. Exceptmeat, all articles are sold on the ground, spread on plantainleaves or clean cloths; where vendors dispose themselves inlong rows about the plaza, offering their goods, crockery, andfruit. Customers stand about in groups, surveying the animatedscene, enjoying a little gossip, or trying to drive a hard bargain ;whilst Indian matrons ply from one vendor to another in almostsilent dignity, accompanied by their daughters, who look at this * Humboldt, Vue des Cordilleres, p. 29. t Id. p. 27.
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Antiquities of Tula. 103 and handle that, sometimes with the intention of buying, oftento exchange a few words with the merchant or an acquaint-ance. Some look quite pretty, with their glorious eyes, theirlonfj hair reaching below the waist in two lono: plaits, withglass or stone beads around their necks ; their scanty costumeleaving uncovered their shapely arms, necks, and ankles. Onlooking at them, I seem to myself to be carried back athousand years amidst that grand old race whose ruins I amhere to study. Further on, under a monumental ash-tree,primitive kitchens have been set up, round which a densethrong of customers, settled on the ground, are enjoying theirtortillas, or when they are well-to-do, their portion of blackbeans, frijoles, pork or turkey, in jicaras, the whole highlyseasoned with Chili pepper; the best dinner not costing morethan threepence. Every human type seems to have congregated here, fromthe Egyptian sharp outline of features to the flat-nosed, flat-faced Kalmu

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