When they arrived at the foot of the steps of the Temple they placed the litter [on which the image of the God was carried] there, and promptly taking some thick ropes they tied them to the handles of the litter, and, with great circumspection and reverence, some making efforts from above and others helping from below, they raised the litter with the Idol to the top of the Temple, with much sounding of trumpets and flutes, and clamour of conch-shells and drums; they raised it up in this manner because the steps of the Temple were very steep and narrow [in the tread] and the stairway was long and they could not ascend with it on their shoulders without falling, and so they took that means to raise it up. HERNANDO ALVARADO TEZOZOMOC, Cronica Mexicana, Ch. XXX, p. 319, writing of the Temple of Huitzilipochtli, says:— It could be ascended on three sides and would have as many steps as there are days in the year, for at that time the year consisted of eighteen months, and each month contained twenty days, which amounts to three hundred and sixty days, five days less than our Catholic religion counts. Others count thirteen months to the year. At all events the steps were arranged on three sides of the ascent. The principal ascent faced the south, the second the east, and the third the west, and on the north side were three walls like a chamber open to the south. It had a great court and Mexican plaza all surrounded by a stone wall, massive and strong, [of which] the foundations were more than a fathom and the height [of the wall] was that of four men’s stature. It had three gateways, two of them small, one facing the east and the other the west; the gateway in the middle was larger, and that one faced the south, and in that direction was the great market place and Tianguiz[19], so that it stood in front of the great palace of Montezuma and the Great Cu. The height of it [the Great Cu or Temple] was so great that, from below, persons [on its summit], however tall they might be, appeared to be of the size of children eight years old or less. IXTLILXOCHITL (‘Codice Goupil’).