32 
]\I E X I C , 
These masses of stone are 
not only interesting on ac- 
count of their connection with 
the Mexican Mythology, but 
they are beautiful specimens 
of Azteck art. The carv- 
ing with which they are cov- 
ered is executed with a neat- 
ness and gracefulness that 
would make them, as mere 
ornaments, worthy of the 
chisel of an ancient sculptor. 
The present town of Cho- 
lula is scarcely more than a 
village, and seems gradually 
still more decaying. At the 
conquest it was a city of much 
splendor, as we gather from 
the accounts of Cortez, who, 
in his letters to the Emperor 
speaks of it thus : 
" This-city of Churultecal* 
is situated on a plain, and contains twenty thousand houses within the body 
of the town, and as many in the suburl. Its people are well dressed, and 
its neighboring field.vare exceedingly fertile ; and I certify to your ma- 
jesty, that, from one of the temples I have counted more than four hundred 
towers, and they are all the toioers of temples /" 
Such was Cholula when it fell under the Spanish sway, and there seems 
to be no reason to doubt, that, " sacred city" as it was held to be by the 
Indians of the period, the account of Cortez was indeed correct. But the 
temple is year after year crumbling, more and more, to decay ; its outlines 
are becoming more and more indistinct ; and of the race that worshipped on 
that pyramid, there now remains nothing but a few servile Indians who till 
the adjacent fields, and the women who throng the market-place with their 
fruits and flowers. I wanted some relics of the spot, and commissioning 
a proud-looking fellow, who may have been, for aught I know, a great 
great-great-great-grandson of some of the lords of Cholula, to hunt uf 
a few antiquities ; he brought me, after an hour's search among the ruins 
a quantity of pottery, heads of animals, fragments of vases, and a smal 
idol sculptured in white marble. These are my souvenirs of Cholula. 
* The ancient name of Cholula. 
