The Races of the Pacific Slates. By Hubert Rowe Bancroft.
Volume .IV. Antiquities. (Longmans.)—Mr. Bancroft deals in his own exhaus- tive fashion with a large subject,—a subject, however, which to the world at large is not of the greatest interest. The antiquities of Central America and Mexico are, for the most part, mute, and seem likely to re- main so. The romantic theories that attributed them to extinct races far advanced in civilisation and of peculiar aspect seem to be unfounded. There is little doubt that they were the work of the same people which we see, degraded by ages of subjection, in the present Indian population. Perhaps their chief interest lies in the wonder
that a people now sank in an indolent barbarism should ever have executed works so vast. The region most abounding in these antiquities is Yucatan—only to be called " a Pacific State " by a figure of speech. We are old enough to remember the appear- ance of Mr. Stephens's account of his explorations in this region, a work to the merits of which Mr. Bancroft does ample justice. With Mr. Bancroft himself no fault can be found. His industry and learning are beyond praise. Yet it is impossible to avoid comparing the lively pages of one of the most entertaining of travellers—for such is Stephens—with the somewhat dreary diligence of our author, whom wo may compare to a disembodied intelligence describing facts with an almost apathetic accuracy. Sometimes a doubtful gleam of humour shows itself, as when, speaking of certain tablets in the " Temple of the Cross" at Palenque, he says :—" Both Waldeck and Stephens entered into some negotiations with a view to remove these tablets; at the time of the former's visit, the condition of obtaining them was to marry one of the proprietresses; in Stephons's time, a purchase of the house in which they stood would suffice. Neither removed them." For the most part, we have a very dry light indeed. Mr. Bancroft goes beyond his limits in his two concluding chapters, one of which deals with the- remains of the Mississippi valley, the other, with Peruvian antiquities.
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