REMAINS AT NATIVIDAD.
On the summit of the Sierra de Malinche, which forms the boundary between Puebla and Tlascala, the existence of ruined walls and pyramids, with fragments of stone images, is mentioned without description.[IX-21] At San Pablo del Monte two kneeling naked females in stone, modestly covering the breasts with the hands, were sketched by Castañeda.[IX-22] Of an important group of remains in the vicinity of Natividad, between Puebla de los Angeles and Tlascala, a very unintelligible account has been written by Cabrera, for the Mexican Geographical Society. The ruins seem to cover a hill, different localities on the slopes of which are called Mixco, Xochitecatl, Tenexotzin, Hueyxotzin, and Cacaxtlan. The western slope has gigantic terraces, and among other relics five vertical stones called huitzocteme, supposed to have been used for sacrificial purposes. They are two varas high and three fourths of a vara wide. On the northern slope a concavity of stone and mud is mentioned, whose bottom is strewn with pottery and obsidian weapons. At Cacaxtlan, the site of the principal fortress in the wars between Tlascala and Mexico, are ditches and subterranean passages running in all directions. The chief ditch extends from north to south across the hill; it is about twenty-eight feet wide and eleven or twelve feet deep, with embankments formed of the earth thrown out. The subterranean passages are believed to penetrate the heights of Cacaxtlan. One has an opening among the rocks on the north, beginning at the cave of Ostotl; another begins on the east at San Miguel del Milagro, having for an entrance a square hole five or six yards deep, from the bottom of which it extends horizontally in a semicircular course; the third opening is on the south, and its top is supported by columns left in the volcanic stone; and finally, the fourth subterranean passage sends out vapor when it is about to rain. This is all I can glean from Cabrera's account—in fact, rather more than I can fully understand.[IX-23] Dupaix found at Natividad two wooden teponastles, or aboriginal musical instruments, similar to the one found at Tlascala by the same explorer and shown in the accompanying cut. The former were, however, less elaborately carved; the latter was three feet long and five inches in diameter, the cut showing a side and end view. Other relics found by Dupaix in the city of Tlascala and vicinity, are the following:—a lance-head, nine inches long, of green flint; a small stone statue, nine or ten inches in height, representing a seated female, whose head bears a strong resemblance to some of the Palenque profiles; a mask of green agate a little smaller than the natural size of the face, pronounced by Dupaix the finest specimen of sculpture seen in America; an earthen vase called popocaxtli, used in ceremonies in honor of the dead, found in connection with some human bones; two mutilated human heads carved from a gray stone; and a masked, bow-legged idol of stone, twenty-four inches high, standing on a small pedestal, covering the breasts with the hands.[IX-24]
Teponastle from Tlascala.
ABORIGINAL BRIDGES.
At Pueblo de los Reyes, northward from Tlascala, on the road to San Francisco, two aboriginal bridges over a mountain stream were sketched by Castañeda. One is eleven feet high and thirty-seven feet wide; the other fifty-five feet high and thirty-three feet wide; each being over a hundred feet in length. They are built of large irregular stones in mortar. The conduits through which the stream passes are from four to six feet wide and high, one of them having a flat top, while in the other two large blocks meet and form an obtuse angle. On the top of the bridges at the sides are parapets of brick four or five feet high, pierced at intervals to allow water to run from the road; and at each of the four corners stands a circular, symmetrical, ornamental obelisk, or pillar, over forty feet high, of stone and mortar, covered with burned bricks. It is quite probable that the brick-work of these bridges, if not the whole structure, is to be referred to Spanish rather than to aboriginal times. Sr Almaraz sketched at Xicotepec, in the north, some fifty miles west of Papantla, a teponastle of iron-wood, gracefully carved and brilliantly polished.[IX-25]
The famous wall that was found by Cortés, extending along the frontier of Tlascala, has been spoken of in another part of this work. Brasseur de Bourbourg tells us that many remains of this wall are still visible, and some other authors vaguely speak to the same effect; but as no modern traveler describes or locates these remains, I think it altogether likely that the statements referred to may be simply echoes of those made by the early writers, who represented the ruins of the wall as visible in the years immediately following the Conquest.[IX-26]
RELICS AT CUERNAVACA.