274 
APPENDIX. 
Th’eplatform of the truncated pyramid of Cholula hasa sur¬ 
face Ot 4.^06 square metres.* In the midst of it there is a church 
dedicated to Nuestra Senora de los fiemedios, surrounded with 
cypress, in which mass is celebrated every morning by an eccle¬ 
siastic of Indian extraction, whose habitual abode is the sum¬ 
mit of this monument. It is from this platform that we enjoy 
the delicious and majestic view of the Volcan de la Puebla, the 
Pic d’OriZaba, and the small cordillera of Matlacueye,f which 
formerly separated the territory of the Cholulans ■ from that of 
the Tlascalte'c republicans. 
the pyramid, Or teoealli, Of Cholula, is exactly of the same 
height as 1 the Toriatiuh Itzaqual of Teotihuacari, already describ¬ 
ed; arid it is three metres! higher than the Mycefinus, Or the 
third Of the great Egyptian pyramids of the group of Ghize.—■ 
As to the apparent length of its base, it exceeds that of all the 
edifices of the same description hitherto found by travellers in 
the old Continent', arid is almost the double of the great pyramid 
known by the name of Cheops Those who wish to form a clear 
idea of the great mass of this Mexican monument from a com¬ 
parison With objects more generally known, may imagine a 
square* four times' the dimensions of the Place Vendome, cover¬ 
ed with a heap of bricks of twice the elevation of the Louvre ! 
The whofe of the interior of the pyramid of Cholula is not, per¬ 
haps, composed ol brick These bricks, as was suspected by a 
celebrated antiquary at Rome, M. Zoega, probably form merely 
an incrustation of a heap of stones and lime, like many of the 
pyramids of Sakhara, visited by Pococke, and more recently by 
M. Grobert. Yet the road from Puebla to Mecumeca, carried 
across a part of the first stage of the teoealli, does not agree w itli 
this supposition. 
* 45.208 square feet English. Trans. 
f Called also the Sierra Malinche , or Dona Maria. Malinche ap¬ 
pears to be derived from Maiintzin^ a word (I know riot why) which is 
now the name of the Holy Virgin. 
i 9.8 feet. Trans . 
