mb. It would require the discovery of such a burial near the
centre of the immense mound to indicate such a design.

The hoary-headed monarch, Popocatepetl, looms in the distance, proudly
dominating the scene, with Puebla and the hill of Cinco de Mayo on the
right. The exceeding transparency of the atmosphere brings these distant
objects seemingly close to the observer, as though he was looking at
them through a telescope.

The small city of Cholula is spread out at the base of the pyramid, and
beyond it are wide, fertile fields of grain and alfalfa, with gardens of
semi-tropical fruits. One large orchard seemed to be a very garden of
Hesperides, yellow with golden oranges and sweet with fragrant blossoms.
The pyramid originally stood near the centre of the town, the streets
radiating from it; but the dwellings which once lined these
thoroughfares have long since crumbled into dust, leaving standing only
the useless stone churches, of which there are forty dotting the plain
here and there, built without regard to any adjacent population. Two
lesser pyramids are visible near the main elevation. Farther away, small
villages, each with its church tower, add interest to the scene, while
the mellow notes of distant bells mingle and float upon the air. The
multiplicity of these churches shows how dense must have been the
population in the time of Cortez, as it was the practice of the invading
Spaniards to compel the natives not only to demolish their own temples,
but to build a Christian church in place of each one thus destroyed. A
number of the churches are abandoned and are gradually going to decay.
"Why," said a practical individual of our party, "it's all churches and
no town." The site of the ancient city is very evident from the lines of
its regular streets stretching away in all directions.

"I assure your majesty," wrote Cortez from Cholula to his sovereign in
Spain, "that I have counted from a mosque or temple four hundred mosques
and as many towers, all of which were mosques in this city." We have
here an example of this adventurer's style of exaggeration and
hyperbole. If we take three hundred and sixty from the four hundred
"mosques" which he pretends to have seen, there will be forty left,
which is probably about the truth. Cortez not only uses oriental words
to express himself, but is exercised by a truly oriental extravagance in
his stories. There are no "mosques" in Mexico, nor were the native
temples anyth