the foot of a hill, some four hundred feet in height, extraordinarily regular in its conical shape, more so than any natural hill could be, unless it were the cone of a volcano.  At different heights upon this hill, we could see from below broad terraces running round and round it.  A little nearer we came upon a great ditch.  The sides had fallen in, in many places; sometimes it was quite filled up, and everywhere it was overgrown with thick brushwood, as was the hill itself.  It seems that this ditch runs quite round the base of the hill, and is three miles long.  Climbing up through the thicket of thorny bushes and out upon the terraces, it became quite evident that the hill had been artificially shaped.  The terraces were built up with blocks of solid stone, and paved with the same.  On the neighbouring hills we could discern traces of more terrace-roads of the same kind; there must be many miles of them still remaining.

But it was when we reached the summit, that we found the most remarkable part of the structure.  The top has been cut away so as to form a large level space, which was surrounded by a stone wall, now in ruins.  Inside the inclosure are several mounds of stone, doubtless burial-places, and all that is left of the pyramid.  Ruined and defaced as it is, I shall never forget our feelings of astonishment and admiration as we pushed our way through the bushes, and suddenly came upon it.  We were quite unprepared for anything of the kind; all we knew of the place when we started that morning being that there were some curious old ruins there.

The pyramid was composed of blocks of hewn stone, so accurately fitted together as hardly to show the joints, and the carving goes on without interruption from one block to another.  Some of these blocks are eight feet long, and nearly three feet wide.  They were laid together without mortar, and indeed, from the construction of the building, none was required.  The first storey is about sixteen feet high, including the plinth at the bottom.  Above the plinth comes a sculptured group of figures, which is repeated in panels all round the pyramid, twice on each side.  Each panel occupies a space thirty feet long by ten in height, and the bas-reliefs project three or four inches.  There is a chief, dressed in a girdle, and with a head-dress of feathers just like those of the Red Indians of the north.  Below the girdle he terminates in a scroll.  In the middle of the group is what may perhaps be a palm-tree, with a rabbit at its foot.  Close to the tree, and reaching nearly to the same height, is a figure with a crocodile’s head wearing a crown, and with drapery in parallel lines, like the wings of the creatures in the Assyrian bas-reliefs.  Indeed this may very likely be a conventional representation of the robes of feather-work so characteristic of Mexico.

[Illustration:  SCULPTURED PANEL.  From the ruined Pyramid of Xochicalco.  (After Nebel.)]