ving will give you an accurate idea of their position and present appearance from this point.
After we passed through the village, the high-road was soon lost among paths leading between the walled fields of Indian farmers. At short distances, as we advanced in the direction of the pyramids, I observed evident traces of a well made ancient road, covered with several inches of a close and hard cement, which, in turn, was often overlaid with a foot or two of soil. We crossed the plain, and, in a quarter of an hour, stood at the foot of the Tonatiuh Ytzagual, or, "House of the Sun," the base line of which is six hundred and eighty-two feet, and the perpendicular height, two hundred and twenty-one.[1]
There is no other description of these monuments to be given than by saying that they are pyramids, three stories or stages of which are yet distinctly visible. The whole of their exteriors is covered with a thick growth of nopals or prickly pears; and, in many places, I discovered the remains of the coating of cement with which they were incrusted in the days of their perfection. A short distance, northwestwardly, from the " House of the Sun," is the Metzli Ytzagual, or "House of the Moon," with a height of one hundred and forty-four feet. On the level summits of both of these, there were erected, no doubt, the shrines of the gods and the places of sacrifice.
I ascended, clambering among the bushes and loose stones with uncertain footing, to the top of the "House of the Sun.". The view from it was exceedingly picturesque over the cultivated fields to the east and south. Immediately to the south were a number of mound-like clusters, running toward a number of elevations arranged in a square, beyond the streamlet of Teotihuacan, and bordering the road that leads to Otumba. On the western front there were also five or six tumuli extending toward a long line of similar mounds, running from the southern side of the "House of the Moon." These lines were quite distinct, and the whole plain was more or less covered with heaps of stones. It is extremely probable, that at one time they all formed the sepulchres of the distinguished men of the Empire, and constituted the Micoatl or "Path of the Dead"—a name which they bore in the ancient language of the country. It was perhaps the Westminster Abbey of the Toltecs and Aztecs.
You will, however, obtain a much better idea of the arrangement of these pyramids and smaller tumuli by reference to the opposite plan, made some years since by a scientific friend of mine, and compared by me with the remaining ruins on the spot, in 1842.
An examination of the "House of the Moon," or lesser pyramid, affords no more information to the inquirer than the "House of the Sun." Like its neighbor, it is a mass of stones, rocks and cement; but, within a few years past, an entrance has been discovered between the second and third terraces, leading through a narrow passage, that may be traversed on hands and knees on an inclined plane for about twenty-five feet, to
- ↑ Gkunis
