REVIEWS—A NEW HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. 445 
observations. That famous cut-stone pyramid of Cholula, a print of which used 
to adorn every school geography of our country, had never other than an imagin- 
ary existence. The reality is an earthen mound, differing from the common sort 
only in its enormous size. We are indebted to fiction for all else that it possesses. 
The Spanish inventors of Indian traditions made Cholula the Mecca of the 
Anahuac, where of old an annual fair was held, the resort of merchants and pil- 
grims from all parts of the table-land; there, say they, sacrifices were offered and 
vows performed, while exchange and barter engrossed a busy multitude in its 
bazaars, and at the foot of the great pyramid. Cholula, by these apocryphal 
traditions, was in the time of Indian paganism! sacred to Quetzolcoatl, “ the 
god of the air,’ who, during his abode on earth, had taught mankind the use of 
metals, the practice of agriculture, and the arts of government. Other Spanish 
authors, presuming these traditions true, saw in them the mission of the Apostle 
Thomas to the Anahuac, and hence styled him the reformer of that people; and 
thus accounted for the cross, the Madonna, and the incense-burning, pictured on 
the temple-ruins of the hot country, Thus have hypotheses been piled upon each 
other, to account for the striking similarity that seems to have existed between 
antique paganism and Romish idolatry. i 
The account which Cortez gives of Cholula is even more extravagant than his 
description of Tlascala. According to him, the village of Cholula was a rich and 
opulent city of forty thousand houses. He says he counted “‘ from a mosque, or 
temple, four hundred mosques, and four hundred towers of other mosques.” He 
says, too, “the exterior of this city is more beautiful than any in Spain.” Diaz, 
more moderate in the use of numerals, reduces the eight hundred to one hundred 
very high towers, the whole of which were cues, or temples, on which the human 
sacrifices were offered, and their idols stood. The principal cw, here, was even 
higher than that of Mexico, though the latter, he says, was magnificent, and very 
high. “TI well remember when we first entered this town, and looking up to the ele- 
vated white temples, how the whole place put us completely in mind of Valladolid.” 
Other historians go yet further, and represent Cholula not only as the Mecca and 
commercial centre, but also the seat of learning for the whole Anahuac. Here, 
say they, the Indian philosophers met upon a common footing with Indian mer- 
chants. 
Its government, like that of Tlascala, was republican ; so that upon these plains, 
according to Spanish authors, more than three hundred years ago there flourished 
two powerful republics, Tlascala and Cholula, the first the Lacedemon, the second 
the Athens of the Indian world. When united, they had successfully resisted the 
arms of Montezuma; but Aztec intrigue was too powerful for the American 
Athens, and the polished city of Cholula was subdued by those arts with which 
Philip of Macedon won the sovereignty of Greece—a combination of intrigue and 
arms. Tlascala was left alone to resist the whole force of the Aztee empire, 
now aided by the faithless Cholulans. Yet Tlascala, undismayed by the new 
€ombination, did not readily listen even to the proposals of Cortez; and only after 
the terrible experience she received of his strength, did she admit the value of 
his alliance. Let us contemplate the simple truth. 
The ordinary representations of the city and republic of Cholula are allin a 
