Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/319

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
248
MEXICO.
click on this image to enlarge it.
click on this image to enlarge it.

Fountain at Tusapan.


It is a statue, nineteen feet high, cut from the solid rock. The dress clearly indicates the figure to be that of a squatting woman, with her head inclining on one side. Behind the head, there are remains of a pipe conveying water to the body, through which it passed somewhat in the style of the celebrated fountain of Antwerp. From this figure, the stream was carried by a small canal to the neighboring city, and the whole is supposed, by Monsieur Nebel, to have been dedicated as the idol of some god or goddess of the waters.

There is a tradition extant that the people who once inhabited Tusapan, finding their soil comparatively steril, and their springs failing, emigrated to Papantla,—to which we come next in the course of our antiquarian ramble.


PAPANTLA.


The village of that name lies sixteen leagues from the sea, and fifty-two north from Vera Cruz, at the base of the eastern mountains, in the midst of fertile savannahs, constantly watered by streams from the neigh