PYRAMID V F XOCHICALCO, 
183 
The figures in both of these bassi-relievi are seated cross-legged; 
plumes depend from a cap of the one, and from an odd head-dress of the 
other ; and the left hand of the figure in the second drawing rests upon 
an ornament or symbol. In the figure of the first drawing the right hand 
is placed on the thigh ; the left holds a sort of crooked daggei*, and a cu- 
rious bandage, not unlike a pair of s-pectacles, is over the eyes. Four 
symbols cover the rest of the square — a rabbit, a figure precisely like 
the letter J, another like the letter V, on its side, and an oval in which 
there is a cross. These relievos, as I before observed, run round the 
whole of the remaining frieze, while the cornice above it is sculptured with 
the tasteful ovals represented in the drawing of the northwestern angle. 
I could not find any remains of color on the sculpture, which is gene- 
rally between three and four inches deep. I have represented the outlines 
of the stones of which the edifice is composed in the design of the north- 
western angle. They are laid upon each other without cement, and kept 
in place by their weight alone ; and as the sculpture of a figure is seen 
to run frequently over several of them, there can be no doubt that the bassi- 
relievi were cut after the pyramid had been erected. 
' Some idea may be formed of the immense labor with wnich this build- 
ing was constructed, from measurements I made of several of the masses 
of porphyry that compose it. The whole building occupies a space of 
three thousand seven hundred and twelve square feet — the middle stone 
in the first story at the north end, is seven feet eleven inches long, and 
two feet nine inches broad ; the stone at the northeast corner on the 
second story, repi'esented in the plate as bearing the figure of a rabbit, is 
five feet two inches long, and two feet six inches broad ; and the stone at 
