l82 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



and spirals, and they fought with loud war whoops, like all the tribes 

 in those parts ; they had abundance of everything. In the village 

 of Cuihuitlan in this province they raise great quantities of the 

 mechoacan laxative. In this same province in the village of Toto- 

 machapa there is a cave of remarkable size, with its opening to the S. 

 There are many mines of gold, silver, lead, and copperas (copper 

 pyrites?) ; there is a root the size of an onion which the Indians 

 use for soap ; it forms much lather when they wash with it, and 

 makes the clothes very white. 



515. Five leagues from the city of Oaxaca are the mines of Chichi- 

 capa, from which a great amount of silver has been taken ; and near 

 these mines on the slopes of a high ridge, there is a cave which is 

 one of the most strange and remarkable in the world. The mouth 

 of the cave is like a great portal ; the doors which close it are made 

 of tiny tiles (tegitas) very intricately interlaced ; and inside the cave 

 two men can ride abreast ; the floor is paved with flagstones and 

 it is all decorated with numerous ancient paintings in very vivid 

 coloring. It runs for a distance of over 14 leagues, about E. and W., 

 and comes out at a village called Mitla in the Province of Zapotecas. 

 Certainly it is one of the wonders of the world, and those Indians 

 did it in the days of their heathendom. 



516. In the villages of Cuertlavaca and Tequixtepec there is a 

 very high sierra, and on its slopes there is another cave with a mouth 

 so narrow that a man can hardly get through it ; immediately one 

 enters a square room over 50 feet high, and beyond this reception 

 chamber there are flights of steps ; next there is a passage with many 

 turns like a labyrinth, through which one walks following a cord 

 which serves as a guide to keep one from getting lost and which is 

 fastened at the entrance. Beyond this labyrinth there is a large plaza 

 and in the midst of it a spring of excellent water ; the heathen did 

 not venture to drink it, for they considered that it was sacred and 

 that those who drank of it, would die ; at one side of this spring 

 runs a little stream. The cave goes much farther ; they have never 

 found the end of it; the heathen considered it a holy place. In this 

 same province there are some very high ranges named Sierras de 

 San Antonio, and some of the Indians live in hollows in the cliffs ; 

 these are large and can shelter over 100. In this district of the 

 Mixtecas there are two very high sierras which at their bases are 

 far apart from each other, but at the top their peaks come so close 

 that a man can stand with one foot on the one and one on the other, 

 like the Colossus of Rhodes. 



