1032 Iconoclasm by the Conquerors of Mexico, | November, 
upon the summit of the justly famed hill of Texcocingo, a favor- 
ite resort of the most enlightened rulers of Texcoco. 
This cerro is upwards of 600 feet in height, and is a narrow 
ridge, nearly a mile in length, that projects into the valley of 
Mexico from the range forming its eastern rim. From Texcoco 
it assumes a somewhat conical shape as indicated in the accom- 
panying sketch, Fig. 1. The upper part is very steep, exhibiting 
cliffs and huge detached masses of a coarse pinkish-gray mod- 
erately hard rock, usually called porphyry, that proves, upon ex- 
amination under the microscope, to be a variety of andesite. 
This hill has been the witness of many important and thrilling 
events in pre-Spanish as well as in Spanish times. It gives un- 
mistakable evidence of having been at one time literally covered 
eel 
war! le gi 
Fic. 1.—Hill of Texcocingo from Texcoco, 
with artificial structures, and numerous recesses, niches, stairways 
and cisterns have been hewn in the living rock. It was a sad day 
to the despairing Texcocan when he saw his deities tossed over 
the cliffs, his shrines desecrated, and at the same time beheld afar 
off, across the plain, the smoke rising from the burning of his 
sacred records. 
At the present time this wonderful hill is almost denuded of — 
its artificial features. There remain but traces of walls and floors, 
the deep recesses cut in the solid rock and the great battered 
boulders that were once the images of gods, to tell imperfectly 
_ the story of a blasted culture. 
_ Among the most interesting of these remnants is a recess 4 
a short distance below the summit on the side facing Texcoco, and 
