[367] Ante, vol. i. p. 161.
[368] Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 7.—Rel. Seg., ap. Lorenzana, p. 104.—Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 10.—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, loc. cit.
[369] “There were amongst us,” says Diaz, “soldiers who had been in many parts of the world,—in Constantinople and in Rome and through all Italy,—and who said that a market-place so large, so well ordered and regulated, and so filled with people, they had never seen.” Hist. de la Conquista, loc. cit.
[370] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 27.
[371] Ante, vol. i. p. 94.—[A minute account of the site and extent of the ground covered by the great temple is given by Alaman (Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. pp. 246-248). The Mexicans are largely indebted to this eminent scholar for his elaborate researches into the topography and antiquities of the Aztec capital.]
[372] “Et di più v’ hauea vna guarnigione di dieci mila huomini di guerra, tutti eletti per huomini valenti, & questi accompagnauano & guardauano la sua persona, & quando si facea qualche rumore ò ribellione nella città ò nel paese circumuicino, andauano questi, ò parte d’ essi per Capitani.” Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 309.
[373] Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 40.—On paving the square, not long ago, round the modern cathedral, there were found large blocks of sculptured stone buried between thirty and forty feet deep in the ground. Ibid., loc. cit.
[374] Clavigero calls it oblong, on the alleged authority of the “Anonymous Conqueror.” (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 27, nota.) But the latter says not a word of the shape, and his contemptible woodcut is too plainly destitute of all proportion to furnish an inference of any kind. (Comp. Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.) Torquemada and Gomara both say it was square (Monarch. Ind., lib. 8, cap. 11;—Crónica, cap. 80); and Toribio de Benavente, speaking generally of the Mexican temples, says they had that form. Hist. de los Ind., MS., Parte 1, cap. 12.
[375] See the essay on the Origin of the Mexican Civilization. Ante.
[376] Clavigero, calling it oblong, adopts Torquemada’s estimate—not Sahagun’s, as he pretends, which he never saw, and who gives no measurement of the building—for the length, and Gomara’s estimate, which is somewhat less, for the breadth. (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 28, nota.) As both his authorities make the building square, this spirit of accommodation is whimsical enough. Toribio, who did measure a teocalli of the usual construction in the town of Tenayuca, found it to be forty brazas, or two hundred and forty feet, square. (Hist. de los Ind., MS., Parte 1, cap. 12.) The great temple of Mexico was undoubtedly larger, and, in the want of better authorities, one may accept Torquemada, who makes it a little more than three hundred and sixty Toledan, equal to three hundred and eight French feet square. (Monarch. Ind., lib. 8, cap. 11.) How can M. de Humboldt speak of the “great concurrence of testimony” in regard to the dimensions of the temple? (Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 41.) No two authorities agree.