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appendix:: 
several hundreds, are disposed in very large streets which f6t* 
low exactly the direction of the parallels, and ol the meridians**, 
and which terminate in the four faces of the two great pyramids. 
The lesser pyramids are more frequent towards the southern! 
side of the temple of the moon than towards the temple of the 
sun and, according to the tradition of the country, they were 
dedicated to the stars. It appears certain enough that they serv¬ 
ed as burying places for the chiefs of tribes. All the plum 
which the Spaniards, from a word of the language of the island 
of Cuba, call Llano de los Cues , bore formerly in the Aztec 
and Toultec languages the name of Micaotl , or road of the 
dead. What analogies with the monuments of the old continent! 
And this Toultec people, who, on arriving in the seventh cen¬ 
tury on the Mexican soil, constructed on a uniform plan several 
of those colossal monuments, those truncated pyramids divided 
by layers, like the temple of Belus at Babylon, whence did they 
take the model of these edifices ? Were they of Mongol race l 
Did they descend from a common stock* with the Chinese, 
the Hiong-nu, and the Japanese ? 
Another ancient monument, worthy of the traveller’s atten¬ 
tion, is the military intrenchment of Xochicalco, situated to the 
S. S. W. of the town of Cuernavaca, near Tetlama, belonging 
to the parish of Xochitepeque. It is an insulated hill of 11 7 
metres of elevation, surrounded with ditches or trenches, and 
divided by the hand of man into five terraces covered with ma¬ 
sonry. The whole forms a truncated pyramid, of which the four 
faces are exactly laid down according to the four cardinal points. 
The porphyry stones, with basaltic bases, are of a very regular 
cut, and are adorned with hicroglyphieal figures, amohg which 
are to be seen crocodiles spouting up w r ater, and, what is very 
curious, men sitting croos-legged in the Asiatic manner. The 
* See a work of Mr. Herders: Idea of a Philosophical History of the 
human species, Vol. II. page 11, (in German,) and Essay towards a Uni« 
V.ersal History, by M. GaUerer, page 4pp., (in German.) 
