Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/86

78 There were thousands of temples in Mexico. They were built in the form of terraced pyramids with stairways on the outside leading to a paved platform on the top, where all worship was carried on. The great temple of Mexico was three hundred and seventy-five feet high. Each of its lofty terraces had its own flight of steps, rising one above the other on the southern side of the pyramid. In their worship the priests, with the victims chosen for sacrifice, climbed the first of these stairways and passed entirely around the terrace until they reached the next flight of steps, and so, ascending in solemn procession, they wound on up and up to the great altar in sight of multitudes assembled on housetops and in the great square which surrounded the building. Three storied towers arose on the flattened top, and between these was the awful stone of sacrifice. The weight of this stone was twenty-five tons. It was an immense round block of green porphyry elaborately carved with strange figures illustrating acts of worship, and humped on its upper surface, so that the breast of the victim, bound and stretched upon it, could better be reached by the sacrificial knife. In the centre was a dishlike cavity with a groove running from it to the edge of the altar, to lead away the blood. The whole was a mute but eloquent witness to the character of the sacrifices offered upon it.

Each temple was not only a place of worship, but a watch-tower from whose commanding height priestly guardians overlooked their congregation. Like watchmen, they used to call out the hours of the night through their trumpets. The sacred fires were in two stoves near the altar. These were fed with wood, and, burning all night, shone out over the city. Here, too, were the