[Illustration: SECTION OF RUINS AT COMALCALCO.]
If baked bricks mixed with thick layers of lime and mortar were substituted for stones, it is because none are to be found in that alluvial plain. As to the blocks necessary for the construction of columns, statues, altars, etc., they were brought by river from the mountains. But these modifications never destroy the typical outline of the Toltec calli, to be found in the chapter on Tula, and all the monuments which we shall meet with in our explorations will have the same type and the same architecture.
But to return. The walls of the palace were without any ornamentation, save a layer of smooth painted cement; they rose perpendicularly nine feet to a very projecting cornice, then sloping in a line parallel to the corbel vault, they terminated in a second cornice less salient than the first, both serving as frame to a frieze richly decorated, so far at least as could be ascertained from the fragments strewing the ground. Above this, towards the centre of the roof, rose a decorated wall, a peculiarly Toltec device, which existed already in the temples of the high plateaux, and which we shall observe in most structures, whether temples or palaces, terra-cotta models of which are to be found in the Trocadéro.
The building, including the walls, measures some 26 feet, the walls are 3 feet 9 inches in thickness, the size of the apartments is about 8 feet, and the depth of the vault inside some 23 feet (see Plate). The palace was brightly painted, as may yet be seen in the north corner, which is of a deep red. The miscellaneous compound to be met at Tula and Teotihuacan is not observable here, where obsidian came from a great distance and was accordingly rare; pottery was consequently replaced by fruit-shells, which had the advantage of being more durable, cheaper, and lighter. These shells are worked into a variety of shapes differing in size and value: there are the _jicaras_, small cups, pure and simple; _tecomates_, large cups; _atotoniles_, _cubiletes_, _cocos_, etc.; then the _jicara-flor_, or half-shell cut crosswise; the most prized of all, the _jicara-boton_, half upper shell; the _jicara-barba_, or shell cut lengthwise. All these shells are given elegant shapes whilst growing on the tree, and when dry are ornamented with pretty devices either sunk or in relief. A calabash having a very large shell is also fashioned into a vase called _atecomate_ by the Indians, and painted with fast colours of which the natives alone seem to have the secret.