318 



REMAINS OF ANTIQUITY IN ZACATECAS. 



the foundations of which are still visible, running first to the south 

 and afterwards to the east. Off its south-western angle stands a 

 high mass of stones which flanks the causeway. In outward ap- 

 pearance it is of a pyramidal form, owing to the quantities of stones 

 piled against it either by design or by its own ruin ; but on close 

 examination its figure could be traced by the remains of solid walls 

 to have been a square of thirty-one feet by the same height: the heap 

 immediately opposite is lower and more scattered, but, in all pro- 

 bability, formerly resembled it. Hence the grand causeway runs 

 to. the north-east till it reaches the ascent of the cliff, which, as I 

 have already observed, is about four hundred yards distant. Here 

 again are found two masses of ruins, in which may be traced the 

 same construction as that before described; and it is not improba- 

 ble that these two towers guarded the entrance to the citadel. In 

 the centre of the causeway, which is raised about a foot and has its 

 rough pavement uninjured, is a large heap of stones, as if the re- 

 mains of some altar, round which we can trace, notwithstanding the 

 accumulation of earth and vegetation, the paved border of flat slabs 

 arranged in the figure of a six rayed star. 



"We did not enter the city by the principal road, but led 

 our horses with some difficulty up the steep mass formed by the 

 ruins of a defensive wall, inclosing a quadrangle two hundred and 

 forty feet by two hundred, which to the east, is sheltered by a strong 

 wall of unhewn stones, eight feet in thickness and eighteen in height, 

 A raised terrace of twenty feet in width passes round the northern 

 and eastern sides of this space, and on its south-east corner is yet 

 standing a round pillar of rough stones, of the same height as the 

 wall, and nineteen feet in circumference. 



" There appear to have been five other pillars on the east, and 

 four on the northern terrace ; and as the vein of the plain which lies 

 to the south and west is very extensive, I am inclined to believe 

 that the square has always been open in these directions. Adjoin- 

 ing to this we entered by the eastern side to another quadrangle, 

 surrounded by perfect walls of the same height and thickness as the 

 former one, and measuring one hundred and thirty-four feet by one 

 hundred and thirty-seven. In this w T ere yet standing fourteen very 

 well constructed pillars, of equal dimensions with that in the adjoin- 

 ing enclosure, and arranged four in length and three in breadth of 

 the quadrangle, from which, on every side, they separated a space 

 of twenty-three feet in width, probably a pavement of a portico of 

 which they once supported the roof. In their construction, as well 

 as that of all the walls which we saw, a common clay having straw 



