Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/198

158 as all these remains consist of buildings devoted to religious purposes, a few words may be said here concerning the actual habitations of the people. Mexico city was utterly destroyed by the Spanish, but from the accounts left by the first visitors a good idea can be gathered of the,nature of the buildings. The houses of the chiefs were spacious, built on terraces, and constructed of stone and lime. The buildings usually enclosed a court, and there was often a garden attached where the girls of the household could walk under the supervision of duennas. The women's apartments were separated from the rest; two storeys were sometimes seen, and in the most important structures the roofs were flat and battlemented. Nezahualcoyotl's palace at Tezcoco, of which a native plan is shown in Fig. 13, p. 89, was constructed on a terrace, and the roofbeams were supported by wooden pillars on stone bases. The terrace formed a court in front, approached by steps, and there were many small buildings for guests, the women of the household, and the retainers. Diaz mentions the palaces of Iztapalapa "how well-built they were, of beautiful stone-work and cedar-wood and the wood of other sweet-scented trees; with great rooms and courts, wonderful to behold, covered with awnings of cotton cloth." He also mentions the "great halls and chambers, canopied with the cloth of the country," of the palace of Axayacatl, and the "beds of matting with canopies above" which were provided for the Spaniards. Earth and unfired bricks ("adobes") were also used for the walls of buildings, and the houses of the poorer classes were of reeds and mud roofed with thatch of straw or maguey-leaves. In Mexico city, owing to the marshy nature of the ground, a large proportion of the buildings rested on pile foundations, and, in consequence of the growth of the town beyond the limit of land-accommodation, many were built over