ABORIGINAL SACRED ENCLOSURES. 143 



assertion of Cortez, that it might contain a town of five hundred houses. It was 

 paved with pohshed stones, so smooth, says Bernal Diaz, that " the horses of the 

 Spaniards could not move over them without shpping." The four walls of this 

 enclosure corresponded with the cardinal points, and gateways opened midway upon 

 each side, from which, according to Gomera, led off broad and elevated avenues 

 or roads. — (Purchas, Vol. III., p. 1133.) In the centre of this grand area rose the 

 great temple, an immense pyramidal structure of five stages, faced with stone, 

 three hundred feet square at the base, and one hundred and tvyenty feet in height, 

 truncated, with a level summit, upon which were situated two towers, the shrines 

 of the divinities to which it was consecrated. It was here the sacrifices were per- 

 formed and the eternal fire maintained. One of these shrines was dedicated to 

 Tezcatlipoca, the other to Huitzlipochtli ; which divinities sustained the same 

 relation to each other, in the Mexican mythology, as Brahma and Siva in that of 

 the Hindus. Both are the same god, under diflerent aspects, and with the God of 

 the Rain, Tlaloc, constitute a Triad, almost identical with that which runs through 

 all the mythologies of the East. 



Besides this great pyramid, according to Clavigero, there are forty other similar 

 structures, of smaller size, consecrated to separate divinities ; one was called Tez- 

 cacalli, " House of the Shining Mirrors," which was covered with brilliant materials, 

 and sacred to Tezcatlipoca, the God of Light, the Soul of the World, the Vivifier, 

 the Spiritual Sunj another to Tlaloc, the God of Water, the Fertilizer; another 

 to Quetzalcoatl, said to have been the God of the Air, whose shrine was distin- 

 guished by being circular, " even," says Gomera, " as the winds go round about 

 the heavens : for that consideration made they his temple round." 



Besides these, there were the dwellings of the priests (amounting, according to 

 Zarate, to 5,000) and of the attendants in the temples, and seminaries for the instruc- 

 tion of youth ; and, if we are to credit some accounts, houses of reception for stran- 

 gers who came to visit the temple and see the grandeur of the court ; ponds and 

 fountains, groves and gardens, in which flowers and " sweet smelling herbs " were 

 cultivated for use in certain sacred rites, and for the decoration of the altars. " And 

 all this," says Solis, "without retracting so much from that vast square but that eight 

 or ten thousand persons had sufficient room to dance in, upon their solemn festivals." 

 The area of this temple was consecrated ground ; and it is related of Montezuma, 

 that he only ventured to introduce Cortez within its sacred limits, after having con- 

 sulted with and received the permission of the priests, and then only on the condi- 

 tion, in the words of Solis, that the conquerors " should behave themselves with 

 respect." The Spaniards having exhibited, in the estimation of Montezuma, a 

 want of due reverence and ceremony, he hastily withdrew them from the temple, 

 while he himself remained to ask the pardon of his Gods for having permitted the 

 impious intrusion. 



There is a general concurrence in the accounts of this great temple given by the 

 early authorities, among whom are Cortez, Diaz, and others, who witnessed what 

 they described. They all unite in presenting it as a type of tlie multitude of simi- 

 lar structures which existed in Anahuac. Their glowing descriptions, making due 

 allowance for the circumstances under which they wrote, are sustained by the 



