ve an affection and solicitude regarding
her, which, under other circumstances, might have been quite touching,
but which, then, was thoroughly exasperating. While he cooked his own
supper, made chocolate for her, and heated hot water for her use, he
kept passing back and forth, between the kitchen and the sick chamber,
until later than two o'clock in the morning. The noise which he made,
and these repeated movements, kept us all awake the whole night long.
The night was hot and close, and new and unknown insects troubled
us extremely. We were glad to be dressed and mounted, the following
morning. Riding across the river, we made the ascent to the summit, on
which were the ruins of Tecomavaca Viejo. The ascent was so abrupt that
our horses were repeatedly compelled to stop for breath. The trail
passed through cactuses, and spiny shrubs and trees, which tore our
clothes more than all we had endured during weeks of travel. The ruins
are unquestionably old. The hilly slope presents a succession of
terraced platforms, one behind the other, at different heights. The
rock walls between these are banked up and faced with rock, coated with
plaster and mud; there are many pyramids and mounds; there are also
curious subterranean, stone-faced, graves. Many curious disks of stone
were found, a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, and three or four
inches thick; these were all reddish grit, and had plainly been piled
one upon another to form pillars. Along the forward edge of some of the
terraced platforms, we found the lower discs of some columns still in
place. While the amount of work, represented in these cut terraces,
banked rocks, and subterranean constructions, impressed us greatly, it
was difficult to get a clear idea of the relationship of the parts.

[Illustration: CACTUS NEAR CUICATLAN]

[Illustration: VIEW IN A TLAXCALAN BARRANCA]

When, however, we found ourselves at the station, waiting for the train,
we looked back across the river to our three ruin-crowned hills. Then,
for the first time, having visited the spot, we could clearly make out
the relations. Three natural mountains or hills, the greater, central
one flanked on both sides by lesser, had been utilized by the old
builders; the natural rock masses had been cut and walled, until they
practically formed masses of construction, rising terrace behind
terrace, to the very summit. When the terraces were entire, with their
temple-crowned pyramids, and with embankm