observatories where astrologers studied the heavens or in that more spiritual worship they had learned of the Toltecs adored the starry host circling overhead.
In the towers which formed the corners of the great enclosure were deposited, after cremation, the ashes of the dead heroes of the tribe. In one of these, also, was kept a huge snake-skin drum, which was used to call the people together to witness a sacrifice or for war. The sound of this drum could be heard, it is said, far beyond the city limits—sometimes to a distance of eight miles.
These houses of worship were always the principal buildings in every town or hamlet in the land. Besides, there were many others on hilltops and sacred places throughout Mexico. One of them stood in the centre of every settlement. It was surrounded by a wall, which was often turreted and always high and strong for in time of war it was around these temples that the battle raged most fiercely. Fronting the principal roadways, there were entrances to the enclosure on all four sides. These roads stretched, wide, clean and straight, several miles beyond the city, so that a retreating army, when pursued by the enemy, might have no hindrance if it sought the protection of the gods.
Standing on one of the lofty towers of the great temple in Mexico, Cortez counted four hundred places of worship in that city alone. Of the chief teocallis (house of the gods) he writes to Charles V., "The grandeur of its architectural details no human tongue is able to describe." The square in which it stood was surrounded with the great serpent-wall, each of whose four sides was a quarter of a mile long, giving room within the enclosure for a town of five hundred inhabitants. Forty high and well-built towers were along this wall. The
