162 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



the exception of a few, which had evidently served as 

 ornaments upon some earthen vessels, all seemed to have 

 been found in the state in which they were modelled. 

 The composition is a fine clay, well tempered and slightly 

 baked. 



Fragments of pottery of divers colours, and a small 

 baked mass of clay with two perforations side by side, 

 which, whatever were its original uses, would not make 

 a bad candlestick for those who had no better, are also 

 picked up in great numbers ; as well as an inconceivable 

 quantity of fragments of obsidian or rather jade arrows 

 and quadrangular knive blades, from one to two inches 

 long. I was greatly struck in observing the uniformity 

 of the angles presented by the majority of the latter, 

 and several circumstances combine to make me believe 

 that the people who fabricated them had some method 

 of working them into shape, by taking advantage of the 

 conchoidal fracture. 



In the vicinity of Real del Monte there are ancient 

 obsidian mines which must have been worked in very 

 ancient times. The mineral is disposed in thin beds al- 

 ternately, with fine sand, and was reached by means of 

 numberless small shafts or pits. It is said to lie there in 

 inexhaustible quantities, and from thence, doubtless, the 

 Toltecs drew much of the material for their weapons, 

 and for the beautiful masks with which they covered 

 the faces of their illustrious dead. But there is no lack 

 of it elsewhere in New Spain, both above and under 

 ground. 



By some unaccountable forgetfulness we left the te- 

 ocallis without visiting the so-called " Fainting Stone,* 1 ' 

 which lies in the hollow between two of the smaller pyr- 

 amids at the foot of the House of the Moon. It is a 

 large square mass with a sculptured face, and the popular 

 belief with regard to it is, that any one sitting down on it 

 faints dead away. We heard one anecdote, singularly 

 confirmatory of this incredible tradition, from some of our 

 European acquaintances in Mexico, and therefore re- 

 gretted the more having been so neglectful, as to have 

 omitted to set the matter at rest by our own experience. 



