THE PYRAMID OF CHOLULA. 293 



Mexico, two busier men than the travellers were at this 

 time. They were up to their eyes in work, Humboldt 

 surrounded with rocks, ores, minerals, observations, 

 maps and road-books, and Bonpland with thousands of 

 strange plants, many of them unknown to botanists. 

 But busy as they were, the travellers found time to 

 mingle in the gay society of the capital, and to make 

 short excursions in the neighbourhood. 



Having made several journeys to the northern, west- 

 ern, and southern parts of the country, Humboldt now 

 determined to see some of the eastern portions, lying 

 along the gulf of Mexico. So in company with Bon- 

 pland he started off in January for Xalapa and Vera 

 Cruz. On their way the travellers stopped at the vol- 

 canoes of Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, and the pyramid 

 of Cholula. This famous pyramid, the largest in all 

 Mexico, stood in the vicinity of the old city of Cholula, 

 in the intendancy of Puebla. " The inhabitants of this 

 city," so writes Cortez, in his third letter to the Em- 

 peror Charles V., " are better clothed than any we have 

 hitherto seen. People in easy circumstances wear cloaks 

 above their dress. These cloaks differ from those of 

 Africa, for they have pockets, though the cut, cloth, and 

 fringes are the same. The environs of the city are very 

 fertile and well cultivated. Almost all the fields may be 

 watered, and the city is much more beautiful than all 

 those in Spain, for it is well fortified, and built on very 

 level ground. I can assure your highness, that from the 

 top of a mosque, I reckoned more than four hundred 

 towers all of mosques. The number of the inhabitants 

 is so great, that there is not an inch of ground unculti- 

 vated ; and yet in several places the Indians experience 



