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, 
' a 
bore on its top a temple of Diana. Pausanias'f- 
^ Oriental Scenery, PI. 17. 
t Paiisanias, lib. 8, c. 35« 
