Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/417

 by the very distinct remains of a deep and wide ditch; its summit is attained by five spiral terraces; the walls that support them are built of stone joined by cement, and are still quite perfect; and at regular distances, as if to buttress these terraces, there are remains of bulwarks shaped like the bastions of a fortification. The summit of the hill is a wide esplanade, on the eastern side of which are still perceptible three truncated cones, resembling the tumuli found among many similar ruins in Mexico.

The Castillo, on the top of the last terrace, is a rectangular building, measuring above the plinth sixty-four feet long by fifty-eight deep on the western points, and faces in exact correspondence with the cardinal points."

At a little hamlet called Xochitl, we found Senor Carpentero, a brother Methodist, who lived in a thatched hut with the eaves but three feet from the ground, and who furnished us with a guide for the pyramid. The guide demanded fifty cents for his services, expecting, apparently, that I would be deterred from my purpose by such an exorbitant price; but I closed the