86 
zootli, or porous amygdaloid This construc- 
tion recalls to mind that of one of the Egyptian 
pyramids of Sakharah, which has six stories ; 
and which, according to Pocock, is a mass of 
pebbles and yellow mortar, covered on the out- 
side with rough stones. On the top of the great 
Mexican teocallis were two colossal statues of 
the Sun, and the Moon : they were of stone, 
and covered with plates of gold, of which they 
were stripped by the soldiers of Cortez. When 
bishop Zumaraga, a Franciscan monk, under- 
took the destruction of whatever related to the 
worship, the history, and the antiquities of the 
natives of America, he ordered also the demoli- 
tion of the idols of the plain of Micoatl. We 
still discover the remains of a staircase built with 
large hewn stone, which formerly led to the plat- 
form of the teocalli. 
On the east of the group of the pyramids of 
Teotihuacan, on descending the Cordillera to- 
wards the gulf of Mexico, in a thick forest, 
called Tajin, rises the pyramid of Papantia. 
This monument was by chance discovered 
scarcely thirty years ago, by some Spanish 
hunters ; for the Indians carefully conceal from 
the whites whatever was an object of ancient 
veneration. The form of this teocalli, which 
* Mandelstein of the German mineralogists. 
j 
