Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/390

318 the foundations of which are still visible, running first to the south and afterwards to the east. Off its south-western angle stands a high mass of stones which flanks the causeway. In outward appearance it is of a pyramidal form, owing to the quantities of stones piled against it either by design or by its own ruin; but on close examination its figure could be traced by the remains of solid walls to have been a square of thirty-one feet by the same height: the heap immediately opposite is lower and more scattered, but, in all probability, formerly resembled it. Hence the grand causeway runs to the north-east till it reaches the ascent of the cliff, which, as I have already observed, is about four hundred yards distant. Here again are found two masses of ruins, in which may be traced the same construction as that before described; and it is not improbable that these two towers guarded the entrance to the citadel. In the centre of the causeway, which is raised about a foot and has its rough pavement uninjured, is a large heap of stones, as if the remains of some altar, round which we can trace, notwithstanding the accumulation of earth and vegetation, the paved border of flat slabs arranged in the figure of a six rayed star.

"We did not enter the city by the principal road, but led our horses with some difficulty up the steep mass formed by the ruins of a defensive wall, inclosing a quadrangle two hundred and forty feet by two hundred, which to the east, is sheltered by a strong wall of unhewn stones, eight feet in thickness and eighteen in height, A raised terrace of twenty feet in width passes round the northern and eastern sides of this space, and on its south-east corner is yet standing a round pillar of rough stones, of the same height as the wall, and nineteen feet in circumference.

"There appear to have been five other pillars on the east, and four on the northern terrace; and as the vein of the plain which lies to the south and west is very extensive, I am inclined to believe that the square has always been open in these directions. Adjoining to this we entered by the eastern side to another quadrangle, surrounded by perfect walls of the same height and thickness as the former one, and measuring one hundred and thirty-four feet by one hundred and thirty-seven. In this were yet standing fourteen very well constructed pillars, of equal dimensions with that in the adjoining enclosure, and arranged four in length and three in breadth of the quadrangle, from which, on every side, they separated a space of twenty-three feet in width, probably a pavement of a portico of which they once supported the roof. In their construction, as well as that of all the walls which we saw, a common clay having straw