The Indians of North America. 83 
Human sacrifices of the prisoners taken in war were offered up 
in the temples of the Aztecs. It is stated by Clavigero, that the 
Tlascan general Tlahuical, captured by the Ottomies, was presented 
to Montezuma, who offered him the post of commander of the 
Mexican armies. He refused to become a traitor to his country, 
and said he preferred to die a gladiatorial sacrifice upon the 
‘<'Temelacotl,’’ or round stone. Several bold men attacked him, 
of whom he is reported to have killed eight and wounded many 
others: when, fainting from a severe wound in the head, he was 
carried before the idol Huitzilopotchli, where the priests tore out his 
heart, and threw his body down the steps of the temple. 
Of the religious structures erected by the semi-civilized Indians, 
the pyramida! temple of Cholula is the largest. It was dedicated 
to Quetzalcoatl, god of the air. It has four stories of equal height. 
It is oriented. Its perpendicular height is one hundred and sev- 
enty-seven feet, and each side of the base is fourteen hundred and 
twenty-three feet. it is, then, twice as broad as the Great Pyramid. 
Its height is a third more than the pyramid of Mycerinus. 
The two pyramids of Teo-tihuacan, which are twenty-four miles 
northeast of the City of Mexico, were originally of four stories. 
The one erected to the sun is now one hundred and eighty feet 
high and six hundred and eighty-iwo feet broad at the base. The 
pyramid of the moon is much smaller than that of the sun. 
The numerous small temples of the Mexicans were composed of 
a small single mound with steps leading directly to the top. 
It is generally admitted that the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Hindoos, 
Phoenicians and others possessed a mythology based upon a sys- 
tem once common to all ancient nations, and from the dissimilarity 
of their analogies, we can assert that it is a great length of time 
since they have been separated. Among the traditions of the Mex- 
icans, I will speak of one narrated by Humboldt. 
The people of Mechoacan had a tradition in relation to their 
Noah, whom they call Coxcox or Tezpi, who embarked in a 
spacious vessel with his wife, children, various animals and vegeta- 
bles, whose use was important to man. After the water began to 
assuage, Tezpi sent out of the ark a vulture, to ascertain the state 
of the waters, but this bird, enticed by the carrion so plentifully 
strewed about, did not return. ‘Tezpi sent out other birds; only 
the humming-bird returned, holding in its beak a branch covered 
with leaves. * * Tezpi, knowing the earth had begun to pro- 
duce vegetation, left his vessel on the mountain of Colhuacan. 
