It was dark when we returned to our lodgings in _Otumba_, having consumed the whole day in seeing what we might have accomplished in a few hours; but our friends were so polite, that we were obliged to submit to their dilatory movements. DEC. 30. Provided again with horses, we set out at an early hour for the Pyramids, leaving our carriage to join us at _San Juan de Teotihuacan_. After a ride of nearly two leagues, we alighted at the foot of the smaller pyramid, which, although the ascent was steep, rough, and overgrown with weeds, we soon surmounted. This, more dilapidated than the larger one, still preserves its pyramidal shape, so as easily to be distinguished. The construction seems to be of stones thrown indiscriminately together, and, at occasional intervals, a layer of lime crosses it horizontally. Upon its summit are the remains of a small stone building, which bears abundant evidence of being the work of the Conquerors. It was probably a chapel, built to fill the place of the temple which it usurped. At the southern foot of this pyramid is a circle surrounded either by diminutive pyramids, or by the ruins of small edifices, or perhaps both intermingled. Near the centre of this circle is a similar ruin, from which proceeds a regular street forty or fifty feet wide, running north and south, and bounded on both sides by ruins of apparently small pyramids, on which are distinct traces of the walls of houses divided into small apartments. At the head of the street is a large rough stone, with a circle sculptured on one side of it; beyond the wall of this circle, on the west, we were shown a singularly cut stone of large size. It is ten feet three inches long, five feet one inch wide, and four feet five inches high above the ground, in which it seems partly buried. We collected every where various wrought pieces of obsidian. The larger pyramid is a little distant from the street to the east of it. As our time was limited I ascended it hastily, and found that, except in size it differs only in one respect from the other: about midway a terrace extends around it. The faces of both pyramids correspond with the four points of the compass. The view from them extends over the lake of _Tescuco_ to the city of Mexico, and beyond the western barrier of the plain to the snow-capped mountain of _Toluca_. The large pyramid of _Teotihuacan_ is called _Tonatiuh Ytzaqual_, or House of the Sun. According to _Oteyza's_ measurements[6] its base is 208 metres--682½ English feet--its perpendicular height is 55 metres--180.4 feet. The base of the other pyramid is much less than that of the former. This is called _Mextli Ytzaqual_, or House of the Moon: its height is 144.4 feet. [Footnote 6: Humb. T. 2. l. 3. c. 8. p. 66.]