106 
placed in files^ conveyed the bricks from hand to 
hand the space of several leagues, from Cocotl to 
Cholula. This tradition, which has the air of an 
Arabian tale, is found among the Peruvians. 
Those of Cuzco, who consider themselves as the 
inhabitants of a holy city, assert, that, when the 
Inca Tupac Yupanqui took possession of the 
kingdom of Quito (Quitu), he ordered immense 
masses of freestone to be taken from the quarries 
near Cuzco, in order to erect temples to the Sun 
in the newly conquered countries. 
I was enabled to ascertain the internal struc- 
ture of the pyramid of Cholula in two different 
places ; near the summit, on the front opposite 
the volcano of Popocatepetl ; and on the northern 
side, where the first terrace is cut through by 
the new road, which leads from Puebla to 
Mexico. In digging this road the end of the 
temple was detached from the rest of the mass. 
The eighth plate represents this detached part, 
in which the alternate layers of brick and clay 
are distinctly seen. The bricks were generally 
eight centimetres high, and forty in length ; and 
seemed to me not to have been burnt, but only 
dried in the Sun; they may, however, have 
undergone a slight baking, and the humidity of 
the air may have rendered them friable. Per- 
haps the strata of clay, which separate those of 
brick, are wanting on the inside of the pyramid, 
and in the parts which support the enormous 
