Note 768 — Chapter XVIII · ARCHITECTURE AND DWELLINGS OF THE NAHUAS.

The Anonymous Conqueror, Relatione, etc., ubi supra, Las Casas, Hist. Apologética, MS., cap. cxxiv., Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 119, and Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 145, all say that there was no ledge on the west side, merely steps, but this is, doubtless, a careless expression, for 23 steps allotted to each terrace would scarcely have extended over a length of about 300 feet, the breadth of the pyramid. Nearly all agree upon the number of the steps, namely 114. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 245, however, gives 160 steps; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., pp. 502-3, 60 steps; and Acosta, Hist. de las Ynd., p. 333, 30 steps, 30 fathoms wide, but the latter author has evidently mixed up the accounts of two different temples. Tezozomoc, Hist. Mex., tom. i., p. 152, states that the temple had three stairways, with 360 steps in all, one for every day in the Mexican year. According to Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte, tom. v., p. 155, the steps are on the south corner, but there is no authority for this statement; in the cuts they appear on the north.