Page:The Rambler in Mexico.djvu/147

Rh From this recess, a few minutes' climb brought us to the summit of the hill. The sun was on the point of setting over the mountains on the other side of the valley, and the view spread beneath our feet was most glorious. The whole of the lake of Tezcuco, with the country and mountains on both sides, lay stretched before us.

But, however disposed, we dared not stop long to gaze and admire, but descending a little obliquely, soon came to the so-called bath, two singular basins, of perhaps two feet and a half diameter, cut into a bastionlike, solid rock, projecting from the general outline of the hill, and surrounded by smooth carved seats and grooves, as we supposed; for I own the whole appearance of the locality was perfectly inexplicable to me. I have a suspicion, that many of these horizontal planes and grooves were contrivances to aid their astronomical observations, like that I have mentioned having been discovered by De Gama at Chapultepec.

As to Montezuma's Bath—it might be his foot bath if you will, but it would be an impossibility for any monarch of larger dimensions than Oberon to take a duck in it.

This mountain bears the marks of human industry to its very apex, many of the blocks of porphyry of which it is composed being quarried into smooth horizontal planes. It is impossible to say at present what portion of the surface is artificial or not, such is the state of confusion observable in every part.

By what means nations unacquainted with the use of iron constructed works of such a smooth polish, in rocks of such hardness, it is extremely difficult to say. Many think tools of mixed tin and copper were employed; others, that patient friction was one of the main means resorted to. Whatever may have been the real appropriation of these inexplicable ruins, or the epoch of their construction, there can be no doubt but the whole of this hill, which I should suppose rises five or six hundred feet above the level of the plain, was covered with artificial works of one kind or another. They are, doubtless, rather of Toltec than of Aztec origin, and perhaps with