r not believing that it is an artificial mound at all.

The pyramid is built of rows of bricks baked in the sun, and cemented
together with mortar in which had been stuck quantities of small
stones, fragments of pottery, and bits of obsidian knives and weapons.
Between rows of bricks are alternate layers of clay. It was built in
four terraces, of which traces are still to be distinguished; and is
about 200 feet high. Upon the platform at the top stand some trees and
a church. The sides front the four cardinal points, and the base line
is of immense length, over thirteen hundred feet, so that the ascent is
very gradual.

When we reached Cholula we sent the two men to enquire in the
neighbourhood for antiquities, of which numbers are to be found in
every ploughed field round. At the top of the pyramid we held a market,
and got some curious things, all of small size however. Among them was
a mould for making little jackal-heads in the clay, ready for baking;
the little earthen heads which are found in such quantities in the
country being evidently made by wholesale in moulds of this kind, not
modelled separately. We got also several terra-cotta stamps, used in
old times for stamping coloured patterns upon the native cloth, and
perhaps also for ornamenting vases and other articles of earthenware.
Cholula used to be a famous place for making pottery, and its
red-and-black ware was famous at the time of the Conquest, but the
trade now seems to have left it. We were struck by observing that,
though there was plenty of coloured pottery to be found in the
neighbourhood of the pyramid, the pyramid itself had only fragments of
uncoloured ware imbedded in its structure; which seems to prove that it
was built before the art of colouring pottery was invented.

They have cut a road through one corner of the pyramid, and this
cutting exposed a chamber within. Humboldt describes this chamber as
roofed with blocks, each overlapping the one before, till they can be
made to meet by a block of ordinary size. This is the false arch so
common in Egypt and Peru, and in the ruined cities of Central America.
Every child who builds houses with a box of bricks discovers it for
himself. The bridge at Tezcuco, already described, is much more
remarkable in its structure. Whether our inspection was careless, or
whether the chamber has fallen in since Humboldt's time, I cannot say,
but we missed this peculiar roof.

There are several legends about