232 MEXICO. 
cas, we gathered together under the shelter of the trees, and partook of 
a dinner of dried kid, peppers and pulque, preparatory to our visit to 
Tezcosingo.* 
Directly at the foot of the eminence on which we rested, there was an 
extensive Indian remain. By an able system of engineering, the water 
had been brought by the ancients from the eastern sierra, for a distance, 
probably, of three leagues, by conduits across barrancas and along the 
sides of the hill ; and the ruin below us was that of one of these aque- 
ducts, across a ravine about a hundred feet in elevation. 
You will find a view of this work in the opposite picture. The base of 
the two conduit pipes is raised to the required level on stones and masonryy 
and the canals for the water are made of an exceedingly hard cement, 
of mortar and fragments of pounded brick. Although, of course, long 
since abandoned, it is, in many places, as perfect as on the day of its com- 
pletion ; and perhaps as good a work, for all the necessary purposes, as 
could be' formed at the present day by the most expert engineers. 
The view over the valley, to the north, toward the Pyramids of Teoti- 
huacan, and across the lake to Mexico, was uninterrupted ', and the city 
(beyond the waters, surrounded by a mirage on the distant plain,) seemed 
placed again, as it was three hundred years ago, in the midst of a beauti- 
ful lake. 
After we had finished our meal, we gave a small compensation to the 
conscientious Indian, (who seemed delighted to escape from the medita- 
ted sacrilege,) and resumed our route toward Tezcosingo. The road, 
for a long distance, lay over an extensive table-land, with a deep valley 
north and south, filled on both sides with haciendas, villages, and planta- 
tions. We crossed the shoulder of a mountain, and descended half way 
a second ravine, near the eighth of a mile in extent, until we struck the 
level of another ancient aqueduct that led the waters directly to the hill 
of Tezcosingo. This elevation was broader, firmer, and even in better 
preservation, than the first. It may be crossed on horseback — three 
abreast. 
As soon as we struck the celebrated hill we began ascending rapidly, 
by an almost imperceptible cattle-path, among gigantic cacti, whose thorns 
tore our sidns as we brushed by them. Over the whole surface, there 
were remains of a spiral road cut from the living rock — strewn with frag- 
* After my return to Mexico, tio Ignacio pei-sisted in obtaining some of these "ancestral io7ics" from the bar- 
rancas, and, although, tlie liagfull lie sent was nearly ground to powder before it reached me, there were still 
some considerable fragments which I desired to submit to our naturalists for their opinion. They ha^ e not yet, 
however, arrived in the United States from Vera Cruz. 
Latrobe, at page 144, of his Rambles in Mexico, relates that some workmen in excavating for a canal at Cha- 
pingo, (a hacienda near Tezcoco,) reached, at the distance of four feet below the surtiice, " an ancient cause- 
way, of the existence of which there had not been tlie remotest suspicion. The cedar piles by which the sides 
were supported were still sound at heart ; and three feet below the edge of this ancient work they struck upon the 
entire skeleton of a Mastodon imbedded in blue clay. The diameter of the tusk was eighteen inches. Wherever 
extensive excavations have been made on the table-land and in the valley, of late yeare, remains of this animal 
have almost always been met with. In the foundation of the Cliurch of Guadalupe— on the estate of St. Wich- 
olas, four leagues to the south, and in Guadalaxara, portions of the skeleton have been discovered." Had the 
aacients some means of taming these beasts into laborers for their gigantic architecture 1 
