height, without the use of horses. The terraces supporting the spiral path, and their bastion-like bulwarks, were subjects of equal labor; while the broad deep ditch, surrounding the whole, was in itself a work exacting the most patient industry. Few nations have probably devoted more time and toil to a work which was perhaps partly religious and partly defensive.
These are the external works upon the Cerro of Xochicalco, but it appears from good authority, and from the report of the neighborhood, that the hill itself was partly hollowed into chambers. Some years since a party of gentlemen, under the orders of government, explored these subterranean retreats, and, after groping through dark and narrow passages, whose side walls are covered with a hard and glistening gray cement, they came to three entrances between two enormous pillars cut from the rock of which the hill is formed. Through these portals they entered a chamber, whose roof was a cupola of regular shape, built of stones placed in circles, while at the top of the dome was an aperture, which probably led to the surface of the earth or the summit of the pyramid. Nebel, who visited the ruins some years ago, relates an Indian tradition, that this aperture ascended immediately above an altar placed in this chamber, and that the sun's rays fell directly on the centre of the shrine when that luminary was vertical!