Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/292

 Rh On the plain which had been the scene of this wonderful incantation and miraculous result, the descendants of the race consecrated two temples to the Sun and Moon, and the pyramids I have just described were, doubtless, the bases of their shrines and altars.

It was late when we turned our horses' heads homeward, from the pyramids. At the base of that of the Moon, I met several old Indians who brought me a number of obsidian sacrificial knives, and small heads of a finely tempered clay, of which the opposite figures are specimens. They have evidently never been attached to bodies, and their purposes are entirely unknown by the Mexican antiquarians, although they have hitherto been discovered in great quantities at the foot of these Teocallis.

As we were just departing, an old woman lugged from beneath her petticoat a singular box of mottled marble, divided into four compartments, and covered on its exterior with very elaborate carving. The figures appeared to be those of Spaniards, and, in one place, there was a symbol resembling the cross. She said it had been dug up in an old field by her husband, when planting his last year's crop. Having purchased it for a dollar, it was forthwith deposited in the folds of a serape on my pillion, with the sonorous title of "Montezuma's inkstand!"

We rode merrily home, and reached Tezcoco by a brilliant moonlight, meeting troops of Indians returning from their Sunday's frolic in the town. As we passed through the numerous corn-fields with which the road-side is bordered, we heard the loud crack of the milperos' whip, as, seated on his high perch in the midst of the acres, he waved it, during the whole night, in terrorem, over the flocks of robber black-birds that infest the neighborhood as the grain is ripening.

10th October.—Monday, An idle day, as Tio Ignacio, (as he is familiarly called,) was unable to accompany us to Tezcosingo.

Last night a young woman died in the house next to us, and her body is exposed to-day on a bier, surrounded with flowers and candles, in the entrance of the dwelling, so that it may be seen by every passer.

Approaching death, and the funeral services, are matters of considerable pomp in Mexico with almost all classes—and, especially, with the rich.