The top of this pyramid is reached by paths that climb its sides amid masses of debris and groves of bushes which have driven their roots deeply between the fissures of the bricks. The level summit protected by a parapet wall,—and once the shrine of Quetzalcoatl—the "Feathered Serpent," or "God of the Air,"—is now adorned with a small dome-crowned chapel, surrounded with cypresses and dedicated to the Virgin of Remedios; while, from all parts of the eminence, a magnificent panorama of the fruitful plain spreads out at the feet of the spectator.
The following extract from a communication by an officer of our army, in 1847, during the invasion of Mexico, contains some interesting facts, and corrects scientifically the measurements of the pyramid which were made by Baron Humboldt:
All the mornings of this elevated region, even in the rainy season, are bright and charming; the sun rises in unclouded splendor, gilding one of the most magnificent landscapes the imagination can conceive, whilst the atmosphere is so pure and elastic that it is a positive pleasure to breathe it. On such a morning, in company with the 4th regiment of artillery, acting as infantry, and a squadron of horse, we sallied from the city through the garita of Cholula, and soon found ourselves in the extensive plain skirting the base of the volcanoes of Puebla—Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl. Before us glittered in the morning's sun their snow-capped summits; on our right rose the Malinche, with its craggy crest partially enveloped in a wreath of mist; whilst behind us, in the far distance, towered the indistinct form of the Orizaba—that well-known landmark of the seaman, that serves to guide him in calm and in storm, hundreds of miles along the Mexican coast. The nearer landscape was as soft and picturesque as its more distant features were grand and sublime. A green meadow or prairie extended around us for some miles in every direction, dotted with villas and haciendas, and relieved by occasional patches of cultivation, and avenues and clusters of the beautiful shade willow. Herds of cattle and horses grazed as quietly on the surrounding estates as though "grim-visaged war" had long since "smoothed his wrinkled front," and our military escort, as it wound its way over the fair landscape, with glittering arms and glancing banners, seemed more like a holyday procession than a band of stern veterans so recently from the conflict, and so soon to enter it again. A ride of an hour and a quarter, which our horses, as they snuffed the morning breeze and scented the fresh grass of the meadows, seemed to enjoy as much as their riders, brought us to the base of the far-famed pyramid, which, independently of its historical recollection, and the great interest attached to it as a work of art, forms one of the most picturesque features of the landscape. At a short distance it presents the appearance of a natural mound, covered with a luxuriant growth of trees and shrubbery, and is surmounted by a simple chapel, whose belfry towers some eighty feet above the pyramid. A road winds round the pyramid from base to summit, up which we passed on horseback. This road is cut into the pyramid, in some places, six or eight feet, and here one sees the first evidence of the artificial construction of the latter. It is built of adobes, or sun-dried brick, interspersed with small fragments of stone—porphyry and limestone. Its dimensions, as stated by Humboldt, are: base 1,060, elevation 162 feet; but its altitude is much greater. On the day of our visit, Lieutenant Semmes, of the navy, who had provided himself with a pocket sextant and tape-line for the purpose, determined its altitude to be 205 feet. As this measurement differed so widely from that of Humboldt, Lieut. S. requested Lieut. Beauregard, of the engineers, who visited the pyramid a few days afterwards, to test his observations; which Lieut. B., using a longer base, did, making the altitude 203 feet. These two observations, from different points, with different bases, and both with the sextant, show conclusively that Humboldt, who used a barometer, is in error. The mean of the two is 204 feet, which we may henceforth regard as the true height of this extraordinary monument—being nearly half as great as that of the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. The pyramid of Cholula is quadrangular in form, and truncated—the area of the apex being 165 feet square. On this area formerly stood a heathen temple, now supplanted by the Gothic church of our Lady of Remedios. The temple on this pyramid was, in the days of Cortéz, a sort of Mecca, to which all the surrounding tribes, far and near, made an annual pilgrimage, held a fair, and attended the horrible human sacrifices peculiar to their superstition. Besides this great temple, there were, as we learn from the letters of Cortéz to Charles V., and also from the simple diary of his doughty old Captain, Bernal Diaz, some 400 others in the city, built around the base of the larger. The city itself contained 40,000 householders, and the whole plain was studded with populous villages. The plain is now comparatively a desert, and two or three thousand miserable leperos build their mud huts and practice their thievish propensities upon the site of the holy city.
THE TERRITORY OF TLASCALA.
The history of Mexico has ever held in sacred regard the region of this ancient republic, whence Cortéz and the Spaniards derived such eminent assistance in the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Immediately after that event it was erected into a province, under which character it was always regarded until the political emancipation of Mexico from Spain, and even after that event up to the period of the adoption of the Acta Constitutiva, when Tlascala was raised to the dignity of a State, as an integral part of the Mexican Republic. The constitution, sanctioned on the 4th of October, 1824, deferred defining absolutely the political character of this region; but on the 24th of November of the same year, it was constitutionally declared to be a Territory of the Confederation. When the Central Government was subsequently adopted, it was added, under the denomination of a district, to the Department of Mexico; but when the federal system was restored by the movement of the 6th of August, 1846, which was afterwards nationalized by the decree of the provisional government on the 22d of August of the same year, and confirmed by the sovereign congress on the 18th of May, 1847, Tlascala re-entered the federal association in its original character of a territory.
Tlascala comprehends within its limits a superficial extent of four hundred square leagues, and contains one city, one hundred and nine villages, eighteen settlements, one hundred and sixty-eight haciendas or large estates, ninety-four ranchos or small farms, eight grist mills, two iron works, and one woollen factory. It is divided into the three partidos of Tlaxco, Huamantla and Tlascala, the latter of which contains the capital town of the same name about seven leagues north of Puebla. The territory is of an oval form, lying between forty minutes and one degree thirty-three minutes east longitude from Mexico, and nineteen degrees, and nineteen degrees forty-two minutes of north latitude. Its climate is mild and healthful, and its population, which in 1837, was rated at about eighty thousand, has been found to increase, on comparison of a number of years, about one thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight annually, of which nine hundred and thirty-seven are males, and nine hundred and forty-one females.