El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-11-16

covered with carving. On one side is
woman figure take my tape meas
ure and find that the face is about
foot thick. 1t is evidently that of
queen, for the head has a crown, and in
the lady's ears are plugs, which remind
me Of the women Of Burma, who wear
(, eat plugs in their ears.
The lady who sat as a model for this
engraving may have been a Mayan
princess, and she was probably vain.
Many ear plugs made of jade have been
found among the ruins. This monument
IS as big as the CabOOSe of d freight
standing its 1900 years of life. is still
beautiful
But let US go on through the jungle.
We walk a few rods along the path that
has been cut and come to a stone which
has a WOman'S fac on one side and that
of monkey on the other. This is like
some of the East Indian monuments. 1t
makes one wonder whether the ances-
tors Of these people did not come from
Asia
Still farther on is the leading mOnu-
ment of which I have spoken. 1t is as
high as two story house and has a
gigantic head carved out near the top.
The face is of wonderful workmanship,
and it seems Is though the thing might
talk The eyes are fat and bulgy, the
nose is that of a Jew. the forehead is
low, and the beard, which hides the
chin. is like that which one sees on the
statues Of the Egyptian kings. The
great ears on each side of the face are
halI hidden by plugs of Jade, and the
features remind us of those OF the As
syrians or Egyptians.
The Original Bull Moose.
Stranger than all these. however. is the
monument which has been recently eX-
humed- 1t IS a great stone upon which
in alto-relievO. is carved a great round
face which bears the happy expression
so often seen m the cartoons Of Thep-
dore Roosevelt The open mouth shows
great teeth and a joyful grin is seen at
the corners. The arChae biologists. here say
that this is the SimOR-pUre origin of
the Roosevelt smile 1t proves the an
uquity of the genealogical tree of OEF
former president. and 1t may be that
when the cartoons of the man who
heads the Bull Moose party are eN-
hence the archaeOlOgist o. the future
may connect the two in their long mar
rative of past civiliZa tiOns.
Like the Chinese.
Other monuments make me- think of
the Tartars. They have Tartar features,
and they look not unlike the giants in
stone which guard the Ming tOmbs at
Marking ana near the NankO pass
through the great wall of China. In
connection with this is the evident del
ficatiOn of the turtle, which has always
been the Chinese emblem of longevity,
as is shown by gigantic stone turtles in
many parts of north China. One of the
biggest monuments I have seen here
outside the great shafts is turtle
which weighs about 20 tons and is at
least eight feet in height 1t is entirely
covered with hierOglyphics and is one
great mass of carving.
How the Monuments Were Built.
These monuments which surround the
ancient city of Quirigua are said to be
the largest of their kind upon the
American continent. and the wonder is
how the people of those ancient times
could have lifted such enormous
weights. We have no record that they
had beasts Of burden. and machinery
was as vet uninvented. They proba-
bly, used levers puleys and cables and
rolled the stones into place upon in
clined planes. There are evidences that
the great stones were brought down
uDOn RATS at the time of the floods,
and the remains of an ancient canal is
shown The stone itself is such that
it hardens with age, being compare
lively soft when il comes from the
quarry, and the carving may have been
done with stone axes and stone chiSels,
aided By knives of obsidlan-
IN QuiriEua City.
So much for the monuments about
Quirigua. Now let us look at the
main part of the city. 1 found the
men working there when ] visited it
yesterday. They were labOring in the
heart of the jungle. Palms and ma
hogany trees, some of the latter $50
feet high, shaded them. and the trunks
Of great trees lay among the debris
of the temple mounds which they were
cutting out They have already cleared
a space of six or eight acres which is
flled with great mounds, under which
lie some mighty temples of the past
The mounds are 20 or so feet high, and