Spent the day with Mr. Niven at Atcapazalco about half an hour out by
tram, and a couple of miles from the tramway. It was real “wilds” with
here and there an Indian village. Mr. Niven works indefatigably. All
during the week his workmen prepare the ground for him and dig the
trenches, and on Sundays he comes out himself, with a small pickaxe
and goes over the ground. He has done this for twenty-seven years,
and a great many things in the National Museum are of his discovery
and presentation. There are three civilizations buried in layers, and
because nothing is known of them, they are called the Aztec (three feet
below the ground), the pre-Aztec and the primitives. The principal and
most valuable of the layers is the middle one. Unfortunately, ours
was not as productive a Sunday as it should have been, for Mr. Niven
allowed a Mrs. Gould to turn Saturday into Sunday and she had all
the benefit of the week’s digging, and unearthed a little Xochipili
(The Goddess of Spring and Flowers). Nevertheless the soil yielded up
innumerable little terra-cotta heads of Egyptian design, and incense
burners, and obsidian knives. At the last, he came upon the wall of a
building, it was an outer wall, and he had great hopes of what it might
contain, but the hour was then late, and a thunder storm threatening
and we had to abandon the pursuit. One learns patience at this job.