Babylon are ancient.

He had calculated his course very carefully, and he knew that it would
lead through this desert, volcanic region, but on the whole he was not
sorry. Mexicans would be scarce in such a place. He remained a lad of
stout heart, confident that he would succeed.

He ate sparingly and reckoned that with self-denial he had food enough
to last three days. He might obtain more on the road by some happy
chance or other. Then becoming impatient he started again, keeping well
among cypress and cactus, and laying his course toward the small
mountain that he saw ahead. He pressed forward the remainder of the
afternoon, coming once or twice near to the great road that led to Vera
Cruz. On one occasion he saw a small body of soldiers, deep in dust,
marching toward the port. All except the officers were peons and they
did not seem to Ned to show much martial ardor. But the officers on
horseback sternly bade them hasten. Ned, as usual, had much sympathy for
the poor peasants, but none for the officers who drove them on.

About sunset he came to a little river, the Teotihuacan he learned
afterward, and he still saw before him the low mountain, the name of
which was Cerro Gordo. But his attention was drawn from the mountain by
two elevations rising almost at the bank of the river. They were
pyramidal in shape and truncated, and the larger, which Ned surmised to
be anywhere from 500 to 1000 feet square, seemed to rise to a height of
two or three hundred feet. The other was about two-thirds the size of
the larger, both in area and height.

Although there was much vegetation clinging about them Ned knew that
these were pyramids erected by the hand of man. The feeling that this