Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/391

mixed with it has been used. Rich grass was growing in the spacious court where Aztec monarchs may once have feasted; and our cattle were so delighted with it that we left them to graze while we walked about three hundred yards to the northward, over a very wide parapet, and reached a perfect, square, flat-topped pyramid of large unhewn stones. It was standing unattached to any other buildings, at the foot of the eastern brow of the mountain which rises abruptly behind it. On the eastern face is a platform of twenty-eight feet in width, faced by a parapet wall of fifteen feet, and from the base of this extends a second platform with a parapet like the former, and one hundred and eighteen feet wide. These form the outer defensive boundary of the mountain, which from its figure has materially favored its construction. There is every reason to believe that this eastern face must have been of great importance. A slightly raised and paved causeway descends across the valley, in the direction of the rising sun, and being continued on the opposite side of a stream which flows through it, can be traced up the mountains at two miles distant, till it terminates at the base of an immense stone edifice which probably may also have been a pyramid. Although a stream (Rio del Partido) runs meandering through the plain from the northward, about midway between the two elevated buildings. I can scarcely imagine that the causeway should have been formed for the purpose of bringing water to the city, which is far more easy of access than in many other directions much nearer to the river, but must have been construted for important purposes between the two places in question; and it is not improbable once formed the street between the frail huts of the poorer inhabitants. The base of the large pyramid measured fifty feet, and I ascertained by ascending with a line that its height was precisely the same. Its flat top was covered with earth and a little vegetation: and our guide asserted, although he knew not where he obtained the information, that it was once surmounted by a statue. Off the south-east corner of this building, and about fifteen yards distant, is to be seen the edge of a circle of stones about eight feet in diameter, enclosing as far as we could judge by scraping away the soil, a bowl-shaped pit, in which the action of fire was plainly observable; and the earth from which we picked some pieces of pottery, was evidently darkened by an admixture of soot and ashes. At the distance of one hundred yards south-west of the large pyramid is a small one, twelve feet square, and much injured. This is situated on somewhat higher ground, in the steep part of the ascent to the mountain's brow. On its eastern face, which is towards the