CHAPTER VI.
SACRED PLACES AND PEOPLE.
ABOUT thirty miles north of Mexico are the remains of Teotihuacan, a city so old that it was falling into decay when the Aztecs entered the valley. The ground upon which it stood seems to have been built over by succeeding generations. Three successive concrete platforms for houses, one above the other, have been found buried under the cornfields which have flourished there for centuries. So large was this city that its ruins cover a space twenty miles in circumference. It was a shrine where of olden time the native worshipers flocked with their votive offerings—little clay images, men's heads, arrows and pottery decorated in bright colors. Thousands of these now strew the plain or are brought to light by the rude ploughs of the country. There are two large pyramids—one dedicated to the sun, the other to the moon—standing like grass-grown hills among these ruins. One wide, straight street—called "the Path of the Dead"—is raised above the level of the plain and leads up to the pyramid of the moon. This is bordered by many small pyramids, which are supposed to contain the now-nameless builders of these great monuments.
This worship of the sun and the moon seems to have at one time prevailed throughout Mexico, and was still
