Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/257

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HUMBOLDT.
225

it for Mexico, arriving by water at Acapulco at the beginning of 1803. Acapulco is on the Pacific Coast in the state of Guerrero. Humboldt had letters from the court of Spain, which gave him every facility then accessible for travelling in Mexico. TEMPLE OF XOCHICALCO. They passed through Cuernavaca, stopping to see the monument of Xochicalco in its vicinity. Humboldt notes the heads of crocodiles spouting water carved among the ornaments of this temple, with the comment that it was strange to find such figures employed on a plain four thousand feet