Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/281

222 after its reception, and I scarcely regret the occurrence now, as one of the best antiquarians of Mexico cast considerable doubt on its genuineness. It is the fashion here, as in Italy, to manufacture antiquities by the gross, and it requires a keen eye to detect the imposture.

As we left the Pyramids of Tezcoco, after our morning's examination, we were beset by several of the burghers who professed to sell large collections of interesting fragments and statues. Among these worthies was an old Indian who lived directly opposite the largest of the pyramids, and spent his leisure hours in groping among the ruins. We accompanied them, one after the other, to their houses, but found scarcely anything worthy of purchase except a few small idols of serpentine and some personal ornaments cut from an exceedingly hard and brittle stone. As to the Indian—his idols were the dolls of all his progeny, and had been pounded about the yard of his mud hovel for so many years that their features were entirely obliterated.

In the evening, the person who was to be our guide in the neighborhood, came into town and immediately visited us. I found him to be an honest, open-hearted, rollicking fellow; who passed his time in catching cattle—looking after a small milpa, or corn-field—and hunting in the neighboring mountains. His hands and face were scarred by his numerous encounters with the beasts; yet before he left us he made one of the girls of the family tune her guitar, and leading out another, danced a fandango, while he chanted a song in a patois that I could not understand, but which seemed highly amusing from the merriment of the company.

9th October.—Sunday. A night passed in fleadom! We were, consequently, abroad early—and the day was beautiful. At half-past nine we were in our saddles, and on our way to the

On leaving the town our road lay in a northeasterly direction, through a number of picturesque villages buried in foliage, and fenced with the organ cactus, lifting its tall pillar-like stems to a height of twenty feet above the ground. The country was rolling, and we passed over several elevations and a stream or two before we turned suddenly to the right, and saw the village of St. Juan with an extensive level beyond it, bordered on all sides by mountains, except toward the east, where a deep depression in the chain leads into the plains of Otumba. In the centre of this level are the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, and the opposite