Caxton's Book: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Tales, and Sketches Part 13

Finally, I was ushered into one of the most magnificently decorated audience-chambers that the eye of man ever beheld.

We were surrounded by immense tablets of _bas-reliefs_ sculptured in white and black marble, and presenting, evidently, a connected history of the ancient heroes of the race. Beside each tablet triple rows of hieroglyphics were carved in the solid stone, unquestionably giving in detail the history of the hero or chief whose likeness stood near them.

Many of these appeared to be females, but, judging from the sceptre each carried, I was persuaded that the old _Salique_ law of France and other European nations never was acknowledged by the aboriginal Americans.

The roof was high, and decorated with the plumage of the Quezale and other tropical birds, whilst a throne was erected in the centre of the apartment, glittering in gold and silver ornaments, hung about with beautiful sh.e.l.ls, and lined with the skins of the native leopard, prepared in the most exquisite style.

Seated upon a throne, I recognized the princess whose morning devotions I had just witnessed. At a gesture, I was carried up close to the foot of the throne.

After closely inspecting her features, I satisfied myself that she was not the companion of my mysterious journey, being several years older in appearance, and of a darker complexion. Still, there was a very striking resemblance between them, and it was evident that they not only belonged to the same race, but to the same family. I looked up at her with great respect, antic.i.p.ating some encouraging word or sign. But instead of speaking, she commenced a low, melodious whistle, eying me intently during the whole time. Ceasing, she evidently antic.i.p.ated some reply on my part, and I at once accosted her in the following terms:

"Most beautiful Princess, I am not voluntarily an invader of your realm.

I was transported hither in a manner as mysterious as it was unexpected.

Teach me but to read these hieroglyphics, and I will quit your territories forever."

A smile flitted across the features of the Princess as I uttered these words; and she gave an order, by a sharp whistle, to an officer that stood near, who immediately disappeared. In a few moments, he returned, bringing with him a native dressed very coa.r.s.ely in white cotton cloth, and who carried an empty jar, or water tank, upon his head. He was evidently a laborer, and, judging from the low obeisances he constantly made, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the courtiers standing around, I am satisfied that he never before in his whole life had been admitted to the presence of his sovereign.

Making a gesture to the officer who had introduced him, he spoke a few low words to the native, who immediately turned toward me, and uttered, slowly and distinctly, the following sentence:

"Ix-itl hua-atl zi-petl poppicobatl."

I shook my head despairingly. Several other attempts to communicate with me were made, both by the Princess and the interpreter, but all to no purpose. I could neither understand the melodies nor the jargon. But I noticed throughout all these proceedings that there seemed to be two entirely distinct modes of expression; the first by whistling, and the second by utterance. The idea at once flashed across my mind, that there were two languages used in the country--one sacred to the blood royal and the n.o.bility, and the other used by the common people. Impressed with this thought, I immediately set about verifying it by experiment.

It is unnecessary to detail the ingenious methods I devised to ascertain this fact. It is sufficient for the present purposes of this narrative to state, that, during the day, I was abundantly satisfied with the truth of my surmise; and that, before night, I learned another fact, equally important, that the hieroglyphics were written in the royal tongue, and could be read only by those connected by ties of blood with the reigning family.

There was at first something ludicrous in the idea of communicating thought by sound emitted in the way indicated above. In my wildest dreams, the notion of such a thing being possible had never occurred to my imagination. And when the naked fact was now demonstrated to me every moment, I could scarcely credit my senses. Still, when I reflected that night upon it, after I retired to rest, the system did not appear unnatural, nor even improbable. Birds, I knew, made use of the same musical tongue; and when but a boy, on the sh.o.r.es of the distant Albemarle, I had often listened, till long after midnight, to the wonderful loquacity of the common mocking-bird, as she poured forth her summer strains. Who has not heard the turtle dove wooing her mate in tones that were only not human, because they were more sadly beautiful?

Many a belated traveler has placed his hand upon his sword-hilt, and looked suspiciously behind him, as the deep ba.s.s note of the owl has startled the dewy air. The c.o.c.k's crow has become a synonym for a paean of triumph.

Remembering all those varieties in sound that the air is capable of, when _cut_, as it were, by whistling, I no longer doubted that a language could easily be constructed by a.n.a.lyzing the several tones and giving value to their different modulations.

The ludicrousness of the idea soon gave place to admiration, and before I had been domiciliated in the palace of the Princess a month, I had become perfectly infatuated with her native language, and regarded it as the most beautiful and expressive ever spoken by man. And now, after several years have elapsed since its melodious accents have fallen upon my ears, I hesitate not to a.s.sert that for richness and variety of tone, for force and depth of expression, for harmony and sweetness--in short, for all those characteristics that give beauty and strength to spoken thought--the royal tongue of the aboriginal Americans is without a rival.

For many days after my mysterious appearance in the midst of the great city I have described, my fate still hung in the balance. I was examined and re-examined a hundred times as to the mode of my entrance into the valley; but I always persisted in making the same gestures, and pointed to the sky as the region whence I had descended. The guards stationed at every avenue of entrance and exit were summoned to the capital, and questioned closely as to the probability of my having pa.s.sed them unawares; but they fully exculpated themselves from all blame, and were restored to their forfeited posts.

Gradually the excitement in the city subsided, and one by one the great n.o.bles were won over to credit the story of my celestial arrival in their midst, and I believed the great object of my existence in a fair way to be accomplished.

Every facility was afforded me to learn the royal tongue, and after a little more than a year's residence in the palace, I spoke it with considerable fluency and accuracy.

But all my efforts. .h.i.therto were vain to obtain a key to the hieroglyphics. Not only was the offense capital to teach their alphabet to a stranger, but equally so to natives themselves, unconnected with the blood royal. With all my ingenuity and industry, I had not advanced a single letter.

One night, as I lay tossing restlessly upon my bed, revolving this insoluble enigma in my mind, one of the mosaic paving-stones was suddenly lifted up in the middle of the room, and the figure of a young man with a lighted taper in his hand stood before me.

Raising my head hastily from the pillow, I almost sank back with astonishment when I recognized in the form and features of my midnight visitor, Pio the Carib boy.

CHAPTER V.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

--SHAKSPEARE.

I sprang to my feet with all the eagerness of joy, and was about to rush into the arms of Pio, when he suddenly checked my enthusiasm by extinguis.h.i.+ng the light. I stood still and erect, like one petrified into stone. That moment I felt a hand upon my arm, then around my waist, and ere I could collect my thoughts, was distinctly lifted from the ground. But I was carried only a few steps. On touching the floor with my feet, I was planted firmly, and the arms of my companion were tightly drawn around my own so as to prevent me from raising them. The next instant, and the stone upon which we stood suddenly slid from its position, and gradually sank perpendicularly,--we still retaining our position upon it.

Our descent was not rapid, nor did I deem it very secure; for the trap-door trembled under us, and more than once seemed to touch the shaft into which we were descending. A few moments more and we landed securely upon a solid pavement. My companion then disengaged his hold, and stepping off a few paces, p.r.o.nounced the words "_We are here_!" in the royal tongue, and immediately a panel slid from the side of the apartment, and a long pa.s.sage-way, lighted at the further end by a single candle, displayed itself to view. Into that pa.s.sage we at once entered, and without exchanging a single word, walked rapidly toward the light.

The light stood upon a stone stand about four feet high, at the intersection of these pa.s.sages. We took the one to the left, and advanced twenty or thirty yards, when Pio halted. On coming up to him, he placed his mouth close to the wall, and exclaimed as before. "We are here." A huge block of granite swung inward, and we entered a small but well-lighted apartment, around which were hanging several costly and magnificent suits of Palenquin costume.

Hastily seizing two of them, Pio commenced arraying himself in one, and requested me by a gesture to don the other. With a little a.s.sistance, I soon found myself decked from head to foot in a complete suit of regal robes--_panache_, sash, and sandals inclusive.

When all was completed, Pio, for the first time, addressed me as follows: "Young stranger, whoever you may be, or to whatever nation you may belong, matters but little to me. The attendant guardian spirit of our race and country has conducted you hither, in the most mysterious manner, and now commands me to have you instructed in the most sacred lore of the Aztecs. Your long residence in this palace has fully convinced you of the danger to which we are both exposed; I in revealing and you in acquiring the key to the interpretation of the historical records of my country. I need not a.s.sure you that our lives are both forfeited, should the slightest suspicion be aroused in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Princess or the n.o.bility.

"You are now dressed in the appropriate costume of a student of our literature, and must attend me nightly at the gathering of the Queen's kindred to be instructed in the art. Express no surprise at anything you see or hear; keep your face concealed as much as possible, fear nothing, and follow me."

At a preconcerted signal given by Pio, a door flew open and we entered the vestibule of a large and brilliantly illuminated chamber.

As soon as we pa.s.sed the entrance I saw before me not less than two hundred young persons of both s.e.xes, habited in the peculiar garb of students, like our own. We advanced slowly and noiselessly, until we reached two vacant places, prepared evidently beforehand for us. Our entrance was not noticed by the cla.s.ses, nor by those whom I afterwards recognized as teachers. All seemed intent upon the problem before them, and evinced no curiosity to observe the new comers. My own curiosity at this moment was intense, and had it not been for the prudent cautions constantly given me by Pio, by touching my robes or my feet, an exposure most probably would have occurred the first night of my initiation, and the narrative of these adventures never been written.

My presence of mind, however, soon came to my a.s.sistance, and before the evening was over, I had, by shrewdly noticing the conduct of others, shaped my own into perfect conformity with theirs, and rendered detection next to impossible.

It now becomes necessary to digress a moment from the thread of my story, and give an accurate description of the persons I beheld around me, the chamber in which we were gathered, and the peculiar mode of instruction pursued by the sages.

The scholars were mostly young men and women, averaging in age about twenty years. They all wore the emblem of royalty, which I at once recognized in the _panache_ of Quezale plumes that graced their heads.

They stood in semi-circular rows, the platform rising as they receded from the staging in front, like seats in an amphitheatre. Upon the stage were seated five individuals--two of the male, and three of the female s.e.x. An old man was standing up, near the edge of the stage, holding in his hands two very cunningly-constructed instruments. At the back of the stage, a very large, smooth tablet of black marble was inserted in the wall, and a royal personage stood near it, upon one side, with a common piece of chalk in his right hand, and a cotton napkin in the left. This reminded me but too truthfully of the fourth book of Euclid and Na.s.sau Hall; and I was again reminded of the great mathematician before the a.s.sembly broke up, and of his reply to that King of Sicily, who inquired if there were no easy way of acquiring mathematics. "None, your Highness," replied the philosopher; "there is no royal road to learning." Labor, I soon found, was the only price, even amongst the Aztecs, at which knowledge could be bought. Each student was furnished with the same species of instruments which the old man before-mentioned held in his hands.

The one held in the left hand resembled a white porcelain slate, only being much larger than those in common use. It was nearly twenty inches square, and was divided by mathematical lines into thirty-six compartments. It was covered over with a thin crystal, resembling gla.s.s, which is found in great quant.i.ties in the neighboring mountains, and is perfectly transparent. The crystal was raised about the one eighth of an inch from the surface of the slate, and allowed a very fine species of black sand to move at will between them. The instrument carried in the right hand resembled the bow of a common violin, more than anything else. The outer edge was constructed of a beautiful yellow wood, polished, and bent into the arc of a quarter circle; whilst a ma.s.s of small cords, made of the native hemp, united the two ends.

The method of using the bow was this: The slate was shaken violently once or twice, so as to distribute the black sand equally over the white surface, and then the bow was drawn perpendicularly down the edge of the slate, very rapidly, so as to produce a quick whistling sound. The effect produced upon the grains of sand was truly wonderful to the uninitiated in the laws of acoustics. They arranged themselves into peculiar figures, sometimes in the form of a semicircle, sometimes into that of a spiral, sometimes into a perfect circle, or a cone, or a rhomboid, or an oval, dependent entirely upon two things: first, the place where the slate was held by the left hand; and second, the point where the bow was drawn across the edge. As the slate was subdivided into thirty-six compartments, by either one of which it could be held, and as there was a corresponding point, across which the bow could be drawn, there were seventy-two primitive sounds that might be produced by means of this simple contrivance. Each of these sounds inherently and necessarily produced a different figure upon the slate, and there were consequently just seventy-two initial letters in the Aztec alphabet.

The mode of instruction was extremely simple. A word was p.r.o.nounced by the aged teacher at the front of the stage, written upon his slate, exhibited to the scholar at the black tablet, and by him copied upon it.

The whole cla.s.s then drew down their bows, so as to produce the proper sound, and the word itself, or its initial letter, was immediately formed upon the slate.

After the seventy-two primitive letters or sounds had been learned, the next step was the art of combining them, so as not only to produce single words, but very often whole sentences. Thus the first hieroglyphic carved upon the tablet, on the back wall of the altar, in Casa No. 3 (forming the frontispiece of the second volume of Stephens's Travels in Central America), expresses, within itself, the name, date of birth, place of nativity, and parentage, of _Xixencotl_, the first king of the twenty-third dynasty of the Aztecs.

The hieroglyphics of the Aztecs are all of them both symbolical and phonetic. Hence, in almost every one we observe, first, the primitive sound or initial letter, and its various combinations; and, secondly, some symbolic drawing, as a human face, for instance, or an eagle's bill, or a fish, denoting some peculiar characteristic of the person or thing delineated.

But to return to the Hall of Students. The men and women on the stage were placed there as critics upon the p.r.o.nunciation of each articulate sound. They were selected from the wisest men and best elocutionists in the kingdom, and never failed to detect the slightest error in the p.r.o.nunciation of the tutor.

The royal tongue of the Aztecs is the only one now in existence that is based upon natural philosophy and the laws of sound. It appeals both to the eye and ear of the speaker, and thus the nicest shades of thought may be clearly expressed. There is no such thing as _stilted_ language amongst them, and logomachy is unknown.

And here I may be permitted to observe that a wider field for research and discovery lies open in the domain of _sound_ than in any other region of science. The laws of harmony, even, are but imperfectly understood, and the most accomplished musicians are mere tyros in the great science of acoustics. There is every reason to believe that there is an intimate but yet undiscovered link between _number_, _light_, and _sound_ whose solution will astonish and enlighten the generations that are to succeed our own. _When G.o.d spake the worlds into being, the globular form they a.s.sumed was not accidental, nor arbitrary, but depended essentially upon the tone of the great Architect, and the medium in which it resounded._

Let the natural philosophers of the rising generation direct their especial attention toward the fields I have indicated, and the rewards awaiting their investigations will confer upon them immortality of fame.

There is a reason why the musical scale should not mount in whole tones up to the octave; why the mind grasps decimals easier than vulgar fractions, and why, by the laws of light, the blood-red tint should be heavier than the violet. Let Nature, in these departments, be studied with the same care that Cuvier explored the organization of insects, that Liebig deduced the property of acids, and that Leverrier computed the orbit of that unseen world which his genius has half created, and all the wonderful and beautiful secrets now on the eve of bursting into being from the dark domain of sound, color, and shape, will at once march forth into view, and take their destined places in the ranks of human knowledge.

Then the science of computation will be intuitive, as it was in the mind of Zerah Colburn; the art of music creative, as in the plastic voices of Jehovah; and the great principles of light and shape and color divine, as in the genius of Swedenborg and the imagination of Milton.

I have now completed the outline of the sketch, which in the foregoing pages I proposed to lay before the world.