180 MEXICO. 
In half an hour we were again in motion, after a fruitless effort to shoot 
a young buck we had started in a neighboring corn-field. The sun was 
now intensely hot, and from its influence and the exercise of the morn- 
ing, I was drenched with perspiration, nor was it disagreeable to find the 
pores of the skin thus relieved, after a residence of eight months in the 
Valley of Mexico, where the sensation is scarcely known. 
I put up my umbrella to screen myself as much as possible from the 
direct rays, but the heat was reflected as scorchingly from the naked 
plain and shrubless hills. Nevertheless, wearied by the fatigue of six 
hours in the saddle without food, I soon fell into a doze, which lasted 
until we entered the bai'e gorge between the hills through which com- 
mences the ascent to the ruined pyramid. 
Here, among some scanty bushes which afforded shade and shelter, 
we dismounted to breakfast; but, unluckily, water had been entirely 
forgotten by our servants ; there was not a drop in the gourds or can- 
teens. Our pic-nic feast of sardines, ham, sausage, and corned -beef, con- 
sequently but added to a parching thirst which there was no hope of 
allaying but by slow draughts of claret and sherry that had been exposed 
for hours to a blazing sun on the backs of mules. Nor was this all. 
Scarcely had we seated ourselves, when clouds of black-flies and mosqui- 
tos came down from their nests among the ruins, and I write this memo- 
rial of them with hands inflamed by their inexorable stings. 
In a bad humor, as you may naturally suppose, for antiquarian re- 
searches, I nevertheless mounted my horse as soon as breakfast was over, 
and ascended the hill with Pedro, while my companions, who had less 
anxiety about such matters, laid down under an awning of scrapes 
stretched from tree to tree, to finish the nap that had been interrupted 
at half-past three in the morning. 
THE RUINS OF THE PYRAMID OF XOCHICALCO. 
At the distance of six leagues from the city of Cuernavaca lies a cerro, 
three hundred feet in height, which, with the ruins that crown it, is known 
by the name of Xochicalco, or " the Hill of Flowers." The base of 
this eminence is surrounded by the very distinct remains of a deep and 
wide ditch ; its summit is attained by five spiral terraces ; the walls 
that support them are built of stone, joined by cement, and are still quite 
perfect ; and, at regular distances, as if to buttress these terraces, there 
are remains of bulwarks shaped like the bastions of a fortification. The 
summit of the hill is a wide esplanade, on the eastern side of which are 
still perceptible three truncated cones, resembling the tumuli found among 
many similar ruins in Mexico. On the other sides there are also large 
