A note on the position and extent of the great temple enclosure of Tenochtitlan, / and the position, structure and orientation of the Teocolli of Huitzilopochtli.

Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
ALFRED P. MAUDSLAY.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY TAYLOR & FRANCIS, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1912.
Extracts from the works of the earliest authorities referring to the Great Temple Enclosure of Tenochtitlan and its surroundings are printed at the end of this note, and the following particulars concerning the authors will enable the reader to form some judgment of the comparative value of their evidence.
The Anonymous Conqueror.—The identity of this writer is unknown. That he was a companion of Cortés during the Conquest is undoubted. His account is confined to the dress, arms, customs, buildings, &c. of the Mexicans. The original document has never been found, and what we now possess was recovered from an Italian translation.
Motolinia.—Fray Toribio de Benavento, a Franciscan monk, known best by his assumed name of Motolinia, left Spain in January 1524 and arrived in the City of Mexico in the month of June of the same year. From that date until his death in August 1569 he lived an active missionary life among the Indians in many parts of Mexico and Guatemala.
He was in fullest sympathy with the Indians, and used his utmost efforts to defend them from the oppression of their conquerors.
Motolinia appears in the books of the Cabildo in June 1525 as “Fray Toribio, guardian del Monesterio de Sor. San Francisco”; so he probably resided in the City at that date, and must have been familiar with what remained of the ancient City.
Sahagun, Fr. Bernadino de, was born at Sahagun in Northern Spain about the last year of the 15th Century. He was educated at the University of Salamanca, and became a monk of the Order of Saint Francis, and went to Mexico in 1529. He remained in that country, until his death in 1590, as a missionary and teacher.