Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and ModernTylor, Edward B. (Edward Burnett)
History
Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern
Tylor, Edward B. (Edward Burnett)
Mexico -- Antiquities; Mexico -- Description and travel
There are other mounds near the pyramids, besides the Micaotli. Two
sides of the Pyramid of the Sun are surrounded by them; and there are
two squares of mounds at equal distances, north and south of it,
besides innumerable scattered hillocks. There are some sculptured
blocks of stone lying near the pyramids, and inside the smaller one is
buried what appears to be a female bust of colossal size, with the
mouth like an oval ring, so common in Mexican sculptures.
The same abundance of ancient remains that we found here characterizes
the neighbourhood of all the Mexican monuments in the country, with one
curious exception. Burkart declares that in the vicinity of the
extensive remains of temples known as _Los Edificios_, near Zacatecas,
no traces of pottery or of obsidian were to be found.
Before going away, we held a solemn market of antiquities. We sat
cross-legged on the ground, and the Indian women and children brought
us many curious articles in clay and obsidian, which we bought and
deposited in two great bags of aloe-fibre which our man carried at his
saddle-bow. Among the articles we bought were various pipes or whistles
of pottery, _pitos_, as they are called in Spanish, and just as we were
mounting our horses to ride off, a lad ran to the top of one of the
mounds, and blew on one of these pipes a long dismal note that could be
heard a mile off. Our friends had filled our heads so full of robbers
and ambushes, that we made sure it was a signal for some one who was
waiting for us, and the more so as the boy ran off as soon as he had
blown his blast; and when we looked round for the people whose
antiquities we had been buying, they had all disappeared. But nothing
came of it, and we got safely back to Tezcuco. As usual, we spent a
capital evening, and separated late. The owner of the glass-works, who
had been spending the evening with us, had an adventure on his road
home. He was peaceably riding along, when two men rushed out from
behind the corner of the street, and shouted “_alto ahí_!” (halte-là).
He thought they were robbers, and started at a gallop. His hat flew
off, and the men sent two bullets singing past his head, which sent him
on quicker than ever, till he reached his house. There he got his
pistols, and came back armed to the teeth to fetch the hat, which lay
where it had fallen. The supposed robbers turned out, on enquiry next
day, to have been national guards, patrolling the street; but certainly
their proceedings were rather questionable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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