105 
DETACHED MASS 
; 
OF THE 
PYRAMID OF CHOLULA. 
PLATE VIII. 
The pyramid of Cholula is so covered with 
vegetation, that it is extremely difficult to ex- 
amine the structure of the great terraces. The 
Spanish historians of the sixteenth century, 
several of whom visited Mexico in the time of 
I 
Montezuma, or a few years after his death, 
assert, that the whole edifice is built with bricks. 
In looking through the manuscripts of Pedro de 
Los Rios in the Vatican at Rome*, I found, as 
I have already stated, that the inhabitants of 
Cholula believed, according to an ancient tradi- 
tion, that the bricks with which the teocalli was 
built were made in the province of Tlalmanalco, 
at the foot of mount Cocotl ; and that prisoners, 
* Cod. Vat. anonjfm. n. 3738, fol. 10. 
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