was placed on
sloping terraces raised one above the other by small steps. Some of
these terraces are still entire and covered with cement.... From what is
known of the extensive foundations of this palace, it must have covered
some acres of ground."<6> This last statement is doubtless exaggerated.
From what we know of Indian architecture, these ruins were doubtless
long, low, and narrow, and placed on one or more sides of a square,
perhaps inclosing a court.

About three miles from the town of Tezcuco is a very singular group of
ruins. This is the Hill of Tezcocingo. This is very regular in outline,
and rises to the height of about six hundred feet. A great amount of
work has evidently been bestowed on this hill, and some very far-fetched
conclusions have been drawn from it. Probably as notable a piece of work
as any was the aqueduct which supplied the hill with water, and this is
really one of the most wonderful pieces of aboriginal work with which we
are acquainted.

The termination of the aqueduct is represented in our next cut. This is
about half-way up the hill, right on the edge of a precipitous descent
of some two hundred feet. "It will be observed in the drawing that the
rock is smoothed to a perfect level for several yards, around which
seats and grooves are carved from the adjacent masses. In the center
there is a circular sink, about a yard and a half in diameter and a yard
in depth, and a square pipe, with a small aperture, led the water from
an aqueduct which appears to terminate in this basin. None of the stones
have been joined with cement, but the whole was chiseled, from the
mountain rock."<7> This has been called "Montezuma's Bath," simply from
the custom of naming every wonderful ruin for which no other name was
known after that personage; but this was not a bath, but a reservoir of
water.

Illustration of Montezuma's Bath.--------

From this circular reservoir the side of the mountain is cut down so as
to form a level grade, just as if a railroad had been made. This grade
winds around the surface of the hill for about half a mile, when it
stretches out across a valley three-quarters of a mile wide, an elevated
embankment from sixty to two hundred feet in height. Reaching the second
mountain, the graded way commences again, and is extended about half-way
around the mountain, where it extends on another embankment across the
plains to a range of mountains, from which the water was obtained.