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barbarous sacrifices (Papahua Tlemacazque or Teopixqui) opened the chest of the human victims. We know that the obsidian (itzli) was the object of the great mining undertakings, of which we still see the traces in an innumerable quantity of pits between the mines of Moran and the village of Atotonilco el Grande, in the porphyry mountains of Oyamel and the Jacal, a region called by the Spaniards the mountain of knives, el Cerro de las Navajas*.

It would be undoubtedly desirable to have the question resolved, whether these curious edifices, of which the one (the Tonatiuh Ytzaqual), according to the accurate measurement of my friend M. Oteyza, has a mass of 128,970 cubic toisest, were entirely constructed by the hand of man, or whether the Toultecs took advantage of some natural hill which they covered over with stone and lime. This very question has been recently agitated with respect to several pyramids of Giza and Sacara; and it has become doubly interesting from the fantastical hypotheses which M. Witte has thrown out as to the origin of the monuments of colossal form in Egypt, Persepolis, and Palmyra. As neither

* I found the height of the summit of the Jacal 3124 metres (10,248 feet); and la Rocca de las Ventanas, at the foot of the Cerro de las Navajas, 2590 metres (8496 feet) above the level of the sea.

33,743,201 cubic feet. Trans.

the pyramids of Teotihuacan, nor that of Cholula, of which we shall afterwards have occasion to speak, have been diametrically pierced, it is impossible to speak with certainty of their interior structure. The Indian traditions, from which they are believed to be hollow, are vague and contradictory. Their situation in plains where no other hill is to be found renders it extremely probable that no natural rock serves for a kernel to these monuments. What is also very remarkable (especially if we call to mind the assertions of Pococke, as to the symmetrical position of the lesser pyramids of Egypt) is, that around the houses of the sun and moon of Teotihuacan we find a group, I may say a system, of pyramids, of scarcely 9 or 10 metres of elevation*. These monuments, of which there are several hundreds, are disposed in very large streets which follow exactly the direction of the parallels, and of the meridians, and which terminate in the four faces of the two great pyramids. The lesser pyramids are more frequent towards the southern side of the temple of the moon than towards the temple of the sun : and, according to the tradition of the country, they were dedicated to the stars. It appears certain enough that they served as buryingplaces for the chiefs of tribes. All the plain

29 or 32 feet. Trans.

which the Spaniards, from a word of the language of the island of Cuba, call Llano de los Cues, bore formerly in the Aztec and Toultec languages the name of Micaotl, or road of the dead. What analogies with the monuments of the old continent! And this Toultec people, who, on arriving in the seventh century on the Mexican soil, constructed on a uniform plan several of those colossal monuments, those truncated pyramids divided by layers, like the temple of Belus at Babylon, whence did they take the model of these edifices? Were they of Mongol race? Did they descend from a common stock* with the Chinese, the Hiong-nu, and the Japanese ?

Another ancient monument, worthy of the traveller's attention, is the military entrenchment of Xochicalco, situated to the S. S. W. of the town of Cuernavaca, near Tetlama, belonging to the parish of Xochitepeque. It is an insulated hill of 117 metres of elevation, surrounded with ditches or trenches, and divided by the hand of man into five terraces covered with ma sonry. The whole forms a truncated pyramid, of which the four faces are exactly laid down

* See a work of Mr. Herders: Idea of a philosophical History of the Human Species, Vol. II. page 11, (in German), and Essay towards a Universal History by M. Gatterer, p. 489, (in German).

according to the four cardinal points. The porphyry stones with basaltic bases are of a very regular cut, and are adorned with hierogly. phical figures, among which are to be seen crocodiles spouting up water, and, what is very curious, men sitting cross-legged in the Asiatic manner. The platform of this extraordinary monument* contains more than 9000 square metres, and exhibits the ruins of a small square edifice, which undoubtedly served for a last retreat to the besieged.

I shall conclude this rapid view of the Aztec antiquities with pointing out a few places which may be called classical, on account of the interest they excite in those who have studied the history of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

The palace of Motezuma occupied the very same site on which at present stands the hotel of the Duke de Monteleone, vulgarly called Casa del Estado, in the Plaza Mayor, S. W. from the cathedral. This palace, like those of the Empe. ror of China, of which we have accurate descriptions from Sir George Staunton and M. Barrow, was composed of a great number of spacious but very low houses. They occupied the whole ex

* Descripcion de las antiguedades de Xochicalco dedicada a los Señores de la Expedicion maritima baxo las ordenes de Don Alexandro Malaspina por Don Jose Antonio Alzate Mexico, 1791, p. 12.

† 96,825 square feet. Trans.

tent of ground between the Empedradillo, the great street of Tacuba, and the convent de la Professa. Cortez, after the taking of the city, fixed his abode opposite to the ruins of the palace of the Aztec kings, where the palace of the viceroy is now situated. But it was soon thought that the house of Cortez was more suit, able for the assemblies of the audiencia, and the government consequently made the family of Cortez resign the Casa del Estado, or the old hotel belonging to them. This family, which bears the title of the Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca, received in exchange the situation of the ancient palace of Motezuma, and they there constructed the fine edifice in which the archives del Estado are kept, and which descended with the rest of the heritage to the Neapolitan Duke de Monteleone.

At the first entry of Cortez into Tenochtitlan on the 8th November, 1519, he and his small army were lodged not in the palace of Motezuma, but in an edifice formerly possessed by king Axajacatl. It was in this edifice that the Spaniards and the Tlascaltecs, their allies, sustained the assault of the Mexicans; it was there that the unfortunate king Motezuma perished

*It is from one of his sons, called Tohualicahuatzin, and after baptism Don Pedro Motezuma, that the Counts of Motezuma and Tula in Spain are descended. The Cano Mote zuma, the Andrade Motezuma, and, if I am not mistaken,

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