RUINSOFQUEMADA. 245 
paved with rough stones, still visible in many places above the grass, and 
were perfectly straight. 
'• From the flatness of the fine plain over which they extended, I cannot 
conceive them to have been constructed as paths, since the people, who 
walked barefoot and used no animals of burthen, must naturally have 
preferred the smooth, earthy footways, which presented themselves on 
every side, to these roughly paved ones. If this be allowed, it is not dif 
ficult to suppose that they were the centre of streets of huts, which, being 
in those times constructed of the same kind of frail materials as those of 
the present day, must long since have disappeared. Many places on the 
plain are thickly strewed with stones, which may once have formed build- 
ing materials for the town ; and there are extensive modern walls round 
the cattle farms, which, not improbably, were constructed from the near- 
est streets. At all events, whatever end these causeways may have an- 
swei'ed, the citadel itself still remains, and from its size and strength 
confii'ms the accounts given by Cortez, Bernal Diaz, and others of the 
conquerors, of the magnitude and extent of the Mexican edifices, but 
which have been doubted by Robertson, De Pau, and others. We ob- 
served also, in some sheltered places, the remains of good plaster, con- 
firming the accounts above alluded to ; and there can be little doubt that 
the present rough, yet magnificent buildings, were once encased in wood 
and whitened, as ancient Mexico, the towns of Yucatan, Tobasco, and 
many other places are described to have been.* 
" The Cerro de los Edificios, and the mountains of the surrounding 
range, are all of gray porphyry, easily fractured into slabs, and this, with 
comparatively little labor, has furnished building-materials for the edifices 
which crown its summit. We saw no remnants of obsidian among the 
ruins or on the plain — which is remarkable, as being the general sub- 
stance of which the knives and arrow-heads of the Mexicans were 
formed ;■{■ but a few pieces of a very compact porphyry were lying about, 
and some appeared to have been chipped to a rude form resembling arrow- 
heads. 
" Not a trace of the ancient name of this interesting place, or that of 
the nation which inhabited it, is now to be found among the people in the 
neighborhood, who merely distinguished the isolated rock and buildings by 
one common name, 'Los Edificios.' I had inquired of the best instructed 
people about these ruins ; but all my researches were unavailing, until I 
fortunately met with a note in the Abbe Clavigero's History of Mexico, 
which throws some light on the subject. ' The situation of Chicomoztoc, 
where the Mexicans sojourned nine years, is not known ; but it appears 
to be that place, twenty miles distant from Zacatecas, toward the south, 
where there are still some remains of an immense edifice, which, accord- 
* See the Voyage of Juan de Grijalva, in 1518 ; also Bernal Diaz. Cortez, ClaviRero. and others. 
t It is not improbable, however, that this material was unknown to the nation who dwelt here, if, according 
to the Abbe Clavigero, this city was one of the earliest settlements of the Aztecs, before they estabhshed them- 
selves in the Valley of Mexico, near which (at Real del Monte urincipally) the obsidian is found in great abun- 
dance, although I believe that no traces of it are seen in the more northern provinces. 
