HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



337 



It is true that Solis was inconfiderate in afferting that 

 number of temples for a certainty which the firll hifto- 

 rians mentioned only from conjecture. But M. de Paw 

 fhews himfelf not very difcerning in including amongfi 

 the public buildings thofe chapels alfo which the Spani- 

 ards call temples. Of thefe the quantity was innumera- 

 ble ; all thofe who faw that country before the conqueft 

 teftify unanimoufly, that not only in the inhabited places, 

 but on the roads and mountains they faw fuch kinds of 

 buildings, which, although fmall and totally different 

 from our churches, were yet called temples, becaufe they 

 were confecrated to the worfhip of the idols. From the 

 letters of Cortes, as well as from the hiflory of Diaz, 

 we know that the conquerors hardly went a ftep in their 

 expeditions without meeting with fome temple or chapel. 

 Cortes fays he numbered more than four hundred tem- 

 ples in the city of Cholula alone. But there was a great 

 difference in the fize of the temples. Some were nothing 

 elfe than fmall terrafTes of little height, upon which was 

 a little chapel for the tutelar idol. Others were of ftu- 

 pendous dimenfions. Cortes, where he fpeaks of the 

 greater temple of Mexico, declares to the emperor, that 

 it is difficult to defcribe its parts, its grandeur, and the 

 things contained in it ; that it was fo large, that within 

 the inclofure of that llrong wail which furrounded it, a 

 village of five hundred houfes might be contained. This 

 and the other temples of Mexico, Tezcuco, Cholula, 

 and other cities, are fpoken of in the fame fiile by B. 

 Diaz, the anonymous conqueror, Sahagun, and Tobar, 

 who faw them, and the Mexican and Spaniih hiftorians, 

 who wrote after them and informed themfelves accurate- 

 ly on the fubjecL Hernandez defcribed one by one, the 

 feventy-eight parts of which the greater temple was com- 

 Vql. III. X x pofed. 



