RUINS OF QUEMADA. 



323 



which may once have formed materials for the town ; and around 

 the cattle farms there are extensive modern walls which, not impro- 

 bably, were constructed from the nearest street. At all events, 

 whatever end' these causeways answered, the citadel itself still re- 

 mains, and by its size and strength confirms the accounts given by 

 Cortez, Bernal Diaz, and others of the conquerors of the magnitude 

 and strength of the Mexican edifices, but which have been doubted 

 by Robertson, De Pau, and others. We observed also in some 

 sheltered places, the remains of good plaster, confirming the ac- 

 counts above alluded to; and there can be little doubt that the pre- 

 sent rough, yet magnificent buildings were once encased in wood, as 

 ancient Mexico, the towns of Yucatan, Tabasco, and many other 

 places are described to have been in the voyage of Juan De Gri- 

 jalvis in 1518, and also in the writings of Diaz, Cortez and 

 Clavigero. 



" The Cerro de Edificios and the mountains of the surrounding 

 range, are all of gray porphyry, easily fractured into slabs, and this, 

 with comparatively little labor, has furnished materials for the edi- 

 fices which crown its summit. We saw no remains of obsidian 

 among the ruins or on the plain — which is remarkable, as it is the 

 general substance of which the knives and arrow-heads of the 

 Mexicans were formed ; but a few pieces of very compact por- 

 phyry were lying about and some appeared to have been chipped 

 into a rude resemblance of arrow-heads. 



" Not a trace of the ancient name of this interesting place, or that 

 of the nation which inhabited it, is now to be found among the 

 neighboring people, who merely distinguished the isolated rock and 

 buildings by one common name, £ Los Edificios.' I had inquired of 

 the best instructed people about these ruins ; but all my researches 

 were unavailing until I fortunately met with a note in the Abbe 

 Clavigero's history of Mexico which appears to throw some light on 

 the subject. 'The situation of Chico-moztoc, where the Mexicans 

 sojourned nine years is not known, but it appears to be that place, 

 twenty miles distant from Zacatecas, towards the south, where there 

 are still some remains of an immense edifice, which, according to the 

 tradition of the ancient inhabitants of that district was the work of 

 the Aztecs during their migration; and it certainly cannot be 

 ascribed to any other people, the Zacatecanos themselves being so 

 barbarous as neither to live in houses nor to know how to build 

 them.' " 



