Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/486

478 palace composed of rooms about six feet by eight! Such were about the dimensions of the apartments referred to, and which we photographed and rambled over that day.

Señor Cubas, in a paper, Ruinas de la Antigua Tollan, published in 1874, gives a list of the antiquities discovered near Tula, and lithographed figures of the most prominent sculptures, which included a "zodiac" and a "hieroglyph," now seen in the lintel of the principal entrance to the great church. In the Plaza are some great stones, taken from the ruins of the Toltec city. There are three colossal sculptures, perhaps of Caryatides, standing erect, and another lying down; this last is in two pieces, and was formerly united by tenon and mortise, even as I found the adornments on the palace at Uxmal. Near the office of the railroad superintendent is a great stone ring, like those found in the ruins of Chichen-Itza. At the door of the cathedral is a beautiful baptismal font,—at least, that is its use now,—taken from these same Toltec ruins. Doubtless, nearly all the buildings here were made from stone taken from the Toltec city, as you may find sculptured stones used for the pavement of courts, inserted into walls, etc.

I have thus roughly sketched the old city at which the great railroad arrived in April, 1881. Let tourists and archæologists visit it, now that they can do so with little fatigue. It does not need a more prophetic eye than belongs to ordinary man to discern the result of the opening of a country so rich in mineral and archaeological wealth. For a thousand years man has lived in this country,—a thousand that are chronicled,—and no one knows how many previously. The works of his hands lie scattered throughout valley and plain, crest many a hill, and adorn many a secluded vale. The time is coming when these buried cities shall again see the light. The time has come when it is possible to reach many hitherto hidden from