276 TESCOCINGO HILL ITS ANCIENT ADORNMENTS. 



moulded to carry off the water from the upper terrace. Bernal 

 Diaz del Castillo informs us, that the chief teocalli of Tezcoco was 

 ascended by one hundred and seventeen steps ; and, from the quan- 

 tity of obsidian fragments, images, vessels and heads of idols we 

 found upon the sides of these structures, it is not unlikely, that they, 

 like the teocallis of the capital were devoted to the same bloody and 

 impious rites. In some of the private houses of this town, many 

 larger idols or images cut from basalt are still preserved, and in 

 1825, Mr. Poinsett saw at the residence of the commandant several 

 of these figures, which were better formed and designed than most 

 of the Indian statues he had previously encountered in his Mexican 

 travels. 



TESCOCINGO. 



About three miles across the gently sloping levels which spread 

 out east of the town of Tezcoco, a sharp, precipitous conical moun- 

 tain rises abruptly from the plain, which is stripped of the forests 

 that once probably clothed its sides, and is now only covered with 

 a thick growth of nopals, bushes and aloes. From the quantity of 

 Indian remains found on this elevation and in its vicinity, there is 

 no doubt that it was the site of an Aztec palace, or was connected 

 with the adjacent plain by some architectural works that have been 

 destroyed in the centuries that have elapsed since the conquest. 

 The traveller climbs this steep mountain with great labor, and finds 

 nearly every part of it covered with the debris of ancient pottery 

 and obsidian ; and, in many parts of his ascent, he is aided by the 

 remains of the spiral road, cut in the solid rock, which evidently 

 once wound from its base to its top. Fifty feet below the summit, 

 looking exactly north, the massive stone of the mountain has been 

 cut into seats surrounding a recess leading to a steep wall which is 

 said to have been covered with a Toltec or Aztec calendar. The 

 sculptures upon the rock have, however, been destroyed by the In- 

 dians, who cut through it as soon as they found the spot an object 

 of interest to strangers. These simple and superstitious beings 

 imagined that the quest of gold, alone, could induce travellers to 

 leave the capital, cross the lake, and toil up to the summit of this 

 elevation, and, accordingly they bored through the carved rock to 

 obtain the buried treasure, until they have formed a hole in the 

 mountain, which is now the hiding place and probably the home of 

 a large number of squalid wretches. On the absolute top of the 

 mountain no traces of an edifice are now observable ; but as the Span- 

 iards supposed it had been desecrated by Indian rites in the olden 



