at night, guarded by police, that contained palaces, temples, courts of justice, schools of law, medicine, music, and literature, with parks, aqueducts, fountains, and artificial lakes.
The cities were connected by graded roads, on which were stations and relays of messengers for the rapid transmission of intelligence. The population was divided into various castes, including royalty, nobility, different grades of traders and artisans, and finally slaves. The country was cultivated with much agricultural skill, and in the towns were workers in gold, silver, copper, and bronze. Their military organization was thorough and effective, and strategic points were guarded by fortifications, some of which have had no rivals in magnitude in the history of the world.
This civilization, imposing as it was, at the advent of the Spaniards had passed its golden age, was then in its decadence, and has since, chiefly by the brute force, cruelty, and rapacity of the European invaders, been nearly driven from the earth.
So much has been written of these two American civilizations—that of the mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley, and that of the palace-builders of Central America–and their study has been pursued with so much interest and success, that it may seem presumptuous that I should venture to occupy the hour kindly granted me with a theme so broad and already so familiar. But it has happened to me to traverse much of the territory in Central America, Mexico, and the United States where the relics of these bygone races are most abundant, and as the subject has always been one of intense interest to me I have lost no opportunity of gathering by my own observation such information as came within my reach; hence, it is possible that I may be able to contribute something to what you may have learned of our predecessors in the occupation of this continent, and of the real and original American citizen.
The Mound-builders.—As has already been mentioned, traces of a people more advanced in the arts than the nomadic Indian are spread over the entire valley of the Mississippi and the Lake basin. These have been so fully described that you are familiar with their general character, but few of us have a just idea of their number and magnitude.
It is estimated (but I fear with little accuracy) that not less than ten thousand monuments of the mound-builders are contained within the limits of Ohio, and they are scarcely less numerous in the adjacent States of Indiana and Kentucky. In some places, as at Newark and Circleville, they cover square miles of surface, and it is hardly to be doubted that they are the work of a people or peoples not less numerous than the present population.
