PYRAMID OF CHOLULA. 27 
posterity. If his ancestor celebrated, here, a bloody sacrifice of victims 
taken in battle, the modern Indian may purify the hill from the crime by 
the celebration of a peaceful mass, and the sermon of a worthy padre! 
There remain at present but four stories of the Pyramid of Cholula., 
risincr above each other and connected by terraces. These stories are 
formed, as I before said, of sun-dried bricks, interspersed with occasional 
layers of plaster and stone work. And this is all that is to be told or 
described. Old as it is — interestincr as it is — examined as it has been by ^ 
antiquaries of all countries — the result has ever been the same. The y-V 
Indians tell you that it was a place of sepulture, and the Mexicans give ^^y^ 
vou the universal reply of ignorance in this country: " Qulen SaheV — 'J'' HAf- 
who knows — who can tell ! 
For those who are interested particularly in Mexican antiquities since 
the recent publications of Mr. Stephens, and the beautiful drawings of 
Mr. Catherwood, have greatly familiarized almost all classes with the 
monuments of ancient American grandeur, I will translate some of the 
descriptive remarks of the Baron Humboldt, who visited these ruins near 
the beginning of our century. 
" The Pyi'amid of Cholula," says he, " is exactly of the same height 
as that of Tonatiuh Ytxaqual, at Teotihuacan," (which I shall describe 
hereafter.) " It is 3 metres higher than that of Mycerinus, or the third 
of the great Egyptian pyramids of the group of Djizeh. Its base, how- 
ever, is larger than that of any pyramid hitherto discovered by travellers 
in the old world, and is double of that known as the Pyramid of Cheops. 
" Those who wish to form an idea of the immense mass of this Mexican 
monument by the comparison of objects best known to them, may imagine 
a square, ybwr times greater than that of the Place Vendome in Paris, cov- 
ered with layers of bricks rising to twice the elevation of the Louvre ! Some 
persons imagine that the whole of the edifice is not artificial ; but as far 
as explorations have been made, there is no reason to doubt that it is en- 
tirely a work of art. In its present state (and we are ignoi'ant of its per- 
feet original height,) its perpendicular proportion is to its base as S to 1, 
while in the three great pyramids of Djizeh, the proportion is found to be 
1^ to 1^^ to 1 ; or, nearly, as 8 to 5." 
May not this have been but the base of some mighty temple destroyed 
long before the conquest, and of which even the tradition no longer lin- 
gers among the neighboring Indians ! 
In order to afford you additional means of comparison, I annex the fol- 
lowing table, also from Humboldt, of the relative proportions of several 
well known pyramids. 
The feet are jpieds du roi : 
PYRAMIDS BUILT OF STONE. PYRAMIDS OF BRICK. 
Cheops. 
Cephren. 
Mycerinus. 
Height 
448 feet. 
303 feet. 
162 feet 
Base. 
72a 
655 
580 
1 of5 stones in Egypt <— of4 stories in Mexico—- 
near Sakharah. Teotihuacan. Cholula 
150 feet. 171 feet. 172 f 
210 645 1355 
