Page:The Ancient Cities of the New World.djvu/180

142 have flat bottoms from six to seven inches wide, with open brims, and from two to three inches high. Close to them were found traces of skeletons, which we know to have been those of poor people, for the bodies of the rich were burnt and their ashes placed in tombs. The vases were often found in couples; they are unfortunately so old, the ground is so hard as to form one mass with the vase, and so notwithstanding all our precautions, all our care in digging the ground and taking it up with daggers, they were broken to pieces, and I was only able to save a few. As to the bodies, they were so far gone, that it was impossible to ascertain their position; they were generally found from one foot three inches to one foot nine inches, and three feet three inches deep. The children were buried in a kind of circular vases, with upright brims; two of the skeletons were almost perfect, but the skulls, as thin as a sheet of paper, fell to pieces at my touch. On the same day I unearthed a goodly number of terra-cotta figures, a fine moulded mask, an axe, a few pots, one of which is ribbed and beautifully moulded, a number of small round pebbles, evidently marbles buried with the children; besides a large quantity of obsidian knives, by far the finest and lightest I have seen; round pieces of slate, presumably used as currency, bezotes, rings worn on the lower lip, arrow-heads, whilst numerous sheets of mica were found in every tomb. Among human remains we also noticed those of the techichi, edible dog, parts of birds, and victuals, to sustain the dead on his long journey beyond the grave.

Leaving my men under my substitute, I went with Marcelino a little way beyond the village towards Pachucha, to visit the cuevas or pits of old quarries, which were subsequently used as catacombs; they are two miles and a half west of the Pyramid of the Moon. The first we visit has a circular aperture of considerable