THE PYRAMIDS. 



161 



a passage inclining downward for about ten yards, 

 when I found myself in a more open gallery, at the ter- 

 mination of which, not many paces distant, I found De 

 Pourtales and M'Euen at the brink of two wells, which, 

 considering the height at which we entered, might per- 

 haps be in the centre of the pyramid. The latter 

 valorously allowed himself to be lowered by a rope 

 into the aperture on the left hand, to the depth of per- 

 haps fifteen feet, without making any further discovery. 

 The other pit was still shallower, and no signs of any 

 other passage could be discovered. Both the walls of 

 the passage and the sides of the wells, as far as we could 

 see, were constructed of unburnt bricks ; and a plentiful 

 mouthful of dust was our only recompense. Other and 

 more important cavities there may be, if they could be 

 hit upon. No entrance has been discovered in the 

 House of the Sun. 



Of the Indians, to whom our adventure was a subject 

 of both curiosity and awe, we purchased a hundred or 

 more of those singular terra cotta heads, which, inter- 

 mingled with fragments of obsidian knives and arrows, 

 are discovered in such inexhaustible quantity in many 

 parts of Mexico, but principally in the vicinity of these 

 pyramids, and on the neighbouring plain of Otumba. I 

 am not aware of any light having been thrown as yet, 

 either upon the uses to which these models of the human 

 countenance were put by the people with whose cus- 

 toms and ceremonies their fabric and use in such quan- 

 tities were seemingly connected. By far the greater 

 majority of those which came under my observation 

 bore an extraordinary resemblance to one another, both 

 in the strongly marked features of the face, the facial 

 angle, and the height and formation of the forehead. 



I should explain, that the hinder part of the head is 

 never given in its full proportions, so that the phrenolo- 

 gist is quite at fault. The physiognomy has nothing in 

 common with the present tribes of Indian descended 

 from the Aztec race. Several of the heads were crowned 

 with a broad and ornamented tiara or head dress ; but 

 in general there was no ornament about them ; and with 



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