some remains of which are still visible, was at Tezcozinco, on a conical hill lying about two leagues from Tezcuco. A broad road, running between high hedges, and probably winding spirally round the hill, appears to have led up to the summit,<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> which, however, could be reached in a shorter time by means of a flight of steps, many of which were cut into the living rock, and the remainder made of pieces of stone firmly cemented together. Dávila Padilla, who wrote in the latter part of the sixteenth century, says that he counted five hundred and twenty of these steps, without reckoning those that had already crumbled to pieces.<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> He furthermore adds that for the last twelve steps in the ascent the staircase was tunneled through the solid rock, and became so narrow that only one person could pass at a time. Dávila Padilla inquired the reason of this of the natives, and was told by them, as they had heard it from their fathers, that this narrow passage enabled the Tezcucan monarch to assert his rank by taking precedence of his royal visitors when they went in a body to worship the idol that stood upon the summit; not a very polite proceeding certainly.<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Water was brought over hill and dale to the top of the mountain by means of a solid stone aqueduct. Here it was received in a large basin, having in its centre a great rock, upon which were inscribed in a circle the hieroglyphics representing the years that had elapsed since Nezahualcoyotl's birth, with a list of his most noteworthy achievements in each.<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>
