RUINSOFQUEMADA. 241 
be traced by the remains of solid walls, to have been a square of thirty- 
one feet by the same height : the heap immediately opposite is lower and 
more scattered, but in all probability formerly resembled it. Hence the 
grand causeway runs to the northeast until it reaches the ascent of the 
cliff, which, as I have already observed, is about four hundred yards dis- 
tant. Here again are found two masses of ruins, in which may be traced 
the same construction as that before described ; and it is not improbable 
that these two towers guarded the inner entrance to the citadel. In the 
centre of the causeway, which is raised about a foot and has its rough 
pavement uninjured, is a large heap of stones, as if the remains of some 
altar ; round which we could trace, notwithstanding the accumulation of 
earth and vegetation, a paved border, of flat slabs arranged in the figure 
of a six-rayed star. 
"We did not enter the city by the principal road, but led our horses 
with some difficulty up the steep mass formed by the ruins of a defensive 
wall, inclosing a quadrangle two hundred and forty feet by two hundred, 
which, to the east, is still sheltered by a strong wall of unhewn stones, 
eight feet -in thickness and eighteen in height. A raised terrace of twenty 
feet in width passes round the northern and eastern sides of this space, 
and on its southeast corner is yet standing a round pillar of rough stones, 
of the same height as the wall, and nineteen feet in circumference. 
" There appear to have been five other pillars on the east, and four on 
the northern terrace ; and as the view of the plain which lies to the south 
and west is hence very extensive, I am inclined to believe that the square 
has always been open in these directions. Adjoining to this, we entered 
by the eastern side to another quadrangle, entirely surrounded by perfect 
walls of the same height and thickness as the former one, and measurino- 
one hundred and fifty-four feet by one hundred and thirty-seven. In this 
were yet standing fourteen very well-constructed pillars, of equal dimen- 
sions with that in the adjoining inclosure, and arranged, four in length 
and three in breadth of the quadrangle, from which on every side they 
separated a space of twenty-three feet in width: probably the pavement 
of a portico of which they once supported the roof. In their construction, 
as well as that of all the walls which we saw, a common clay having 
straw mixed with it has been used, and is yet visible in those places 
which are sheltered from the rains. Rich grass was growing in the spa- 
cious court where Aztec monarchs may once have feasted ; and our cat- 
tle were so delighted with it that we left them to graze while we walked 
about three hundred yards to the northward, over a very wide parapet, 
and reached a perfect, square, flat-topped pyramid of large unhewn 
stones. It was standing unattached to any other buildings, at the foot of 
the eastern brow of the mountain, which rises abruptly behind it. On 
the eastern face is a platform of twenty-eight feet in width, faced by a 
parapet wall of fifteen feet, and from the base of this extends a second 
platform with a parapet like the former, and one hundred and eighteen 
feet wide. These form the outer defensive boundary of the mountain, 
16 
