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276 moulded to carry off the water from the upper terrace. Bernal Diaz del Castillo informs us, that the chief teocalli of Tezcoco was ascended by one hundred and seventeen steps; and, from the quantity of obsidian fragments, images, vessels and heads of idols we found upon the sides of these structures, it is not unlikely, that they, like the teocallis of the capital were devoted to the same bloody and impious rites. In some of the private houses of this town, many larger idols or images cut from basalt are still preserved, and in 1825, Mr. Poinsett saw at the residence of the commandant several of these figures, which were better formed and designed than most of the Indian statues he had previously encountered in his Mexican travels.

About three miles across the gently sloping levels which spread out east of the town of Tezcoco, a sharp, precipitous conical mountain rises abruptly from the plain, which is stripped of the forests that once probably clothed its sides, and is now only covered with a thick growth of nopals, bushes and aloes. From the quantity of Indian remains found on this elevation and in its vicinity, there is no doubt that it was the site of an Aztec palace, or was connected with the adjacent plain by some architectural works that have been destroyed in the centuries that have elapsed since the conquest. The traveller climbs this steep mountain with great labor, and finds nearly every part of it covered with the débris of ancient pottery and obsidian; and, in many parts of his ascent, he is aided by the remains of the spiral road, cut in the solid rock, which evidently once wound from its base to its top. Fifty feet below the summit, looking exactly north, the massive stone of the mountain has been cut into seats surrounding a recess leading to a steep wall which is said to have been covered with a Toltec or Aztec calendar. The sculptures upon the rock have, however, been destroyed by the Indians, who cut through it as soon as they found the spot an object of interest to strangers. These simple and superstitious beings imagined that the quest of gold, alone, could induce travellers to leave the capital, cross the lake, and toil up to the summit of this elevation, and, accordingly they bored through the carved rock to obtain the buried treasure, until they have formed a hole in the mountain, which is now the hiding place and probably the home of a large number of squalid wretches. On the absolute top of the mountain no traces of an edifice are now observable; but as the Spaniards supposed it had been desecrated by Indian rites in the olden