Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/345

Rh Ascending the one hundred and twenty-one feet of the house of the Sun, we reach a level platform on the summit, whence a charming prospect extends for many miles to the south and east over cultivated fields. At the southern base of this pyramid, which measures six hundred and eighty-two feet, there are four small mounds, and beyond these there is a range of lesser tumuli running towards an elevated square of mounds lying between the stream west of Teotihuacan and the present road to Otumba. On the west front, five tumuli surround an oval mound whose centre is depressed, and all of these jut out westwardly towards a line of similar grave-like elevations lying on both sides of the avenue that leads to the house of the Moon. This road is the Micoatl, or path of the dead, which the ancient writers locate in the valley of San Juan.

The other pyramid, or house of the Moon is smaller, and like its neighbor is composed of rock, stones, pottery and cement,—covered with the debris of obsidian and terra catta images which lie scattered from the top to the base amid the tangled aloes and creepers that have struck their roots deeply into the crevices. The house of the Sun is not known to have any cavity within its body, but in the house of the Moon, between the second and third terraces, a narrow passage has been detected, through which two wells or sunken chambers, about fifteen feet deep, may be reached by crawling on hands and knees over an inclined plain for a distance of about eight yards. The walls of this cryptic entrance, and of the sunken chamber are made of the common sun dried bricks, but there are no remains of sculpture, painting, or bodies to reward an antiquarian for groping through the dark and dusty aperture.

South of this pyramid of the Moon, is the Micoatl or path of the dead, to which we have already alluded. Two elliptical elevations rise at the south-east and south-west corner of the Teocalli, upon each of which there are three mounds, whilst their diameters are bisected by other rectilinear elevations upon each of which there are five similar mounds. Four circular and one square mound lie within the area of this inclosure, and the whole appears to form a massive portal of tumuli to the majestic pyramid. A long double line of minor mounds stretches away to the south on the sides of the avenue, until all traces of them are lost in the field in front of the temple of the sun with whose groups of tumuli this path was in all likelihood formerly united. The student will obtain a better idea of the localities of these remains by examining the plan which was carefully prepared by the author, on the spot, in 1842. At B, on the plan, there is a large globular mass of granite measuring