103 



the infancy of civilization, high places were 

 chosen by the people to offer sacrifices to the 

 gods. The first altars, the first temples, were 

 erected on mountains ; and when these moun- 

 tains were isolated, the worshippers delighted in 

 the toil of shaping them into regular forms, 

 cutting them by stories, and making stairs to 

 reach the summit more easily. Both conti- 

 nents afford numerous examples of these hills 

 divided into terraces, and supported by walls of 

 brick or stone. The teocallis appear to me to 

 be merely artificial hills, raised in the midst of a 

 plain, and intended to serve as a basis to the 

 altars. What more sublime and awful than a 

 sacrifice, that is offered in the sight of an assem- 

 bled nation ! The pagods of Indostan have 

 nothing in common with the Mexican temples. 

 That of Tanjore^ of which Mr. Daniell has given 

 beautiful drawings*, is a tower with several 

 stories, but the altar is not at the top of the mo- 

 nument. 



The pyramid of Bel was at once the temple 

 and tomb of this god. Strabo does not speak of 

 this monument as a temple, he simply calls it 

 the tomb of Belus. In Arcadia, the tumulus 

 which contained the ashes of Calisto, 

 bore on its top a temple of Diana. Pausanias-j- 



* Oriental Scenery, PI. 17. 

 t Pausanias, lib. 8, c. 35. 



