Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/234

202 lofty wall of hills from whose summit the sea in the neighborhood of Nautla is distinctly visible. The table lands upon which the ruins are found is only approachable by the gentler declivities in the direction of the hill of Estillero; and, at all other points, the lonely eminence appears to have been sundered from the surrounding regions by some volcanic convulsion.

As the mountain plain on the summit is approached, the traveller first discovers a broken wall of massive stones, feebly united by cement, which seems to have served for the boundary of a circular plaza or area in whose centre rises a pyramid eighty feet high, forty-nine feet broad, and forty-two deep. It is divided into three stories or stages, and along the sloping sides of the lower and broadest terrace, a stairway leads to the first offset. The second stage is ascended by a stair at the side, and the top of the third is reached by steps niched into the corner of the pyramid. In front of the edifice, on the second story, are two pilastral columns, which it is supposed may have been portions of the stairway; but this part of the teocalli, and its upper story are so wildly overgrown with trees and tropical vegetation that the outline of the structure is greatly obliterated. On the summit, a gigantic tree, has sent its roots deep into the spot which was doubtless once the shrine of the Indian temple.