PYRAMID OF CHOLULA.
Every visitor to Puebla should go to Cholula, and particularly to its great pyramid, which is, in some respects, the most remarkable edifice on the American continent. In point of fact, very few visitors fail to see it, and many of them go to Cholula before doing anything else.
"It is an easy excursion," wrote Frank, "as Cholula is only six or seven miles from Puebla, and can be reached by a tram-way which deposits you at the very foot of the great pyramid. A special car for sixteen persons or a smaller number can be had for ten dollars, and it is as much subject to your orders as a private carriage would be. As we were three instead of sixteen, we decided to go in the ordinary way, paying fifty cents each for the round trip. The cars afford a fine view, and altogether we greatly enjoyed the excursion.
"We took a guide from the hotel, and he called our attention to the various buildings and other objects, of which there were so many that they are considerably confused in our recollection. We crossed the Attoyac Valley, which abounds in fields of grain, and is dotted with ruined churches and monasteries, one of the latter having been converted into an iron-foundery and another into a cotton-mill. There is an old Spanish bridge crossing the Attoyac River, and the Mexicans have shown their ability to utilize the water-power of the stream by building several mills upon it.
"We had not gone far before our eyes took in the mound, or pyramid of Cholula, and also the great volcanoes of Popocatepetl and the White Woman all in one view. The mound did not seem insignificant, although backed by these great mountains; they are thirty miles away, though they seem much nearer, while the pyramid is close upon our horizon and steadily swells into the sky as we approach it.
"This is a good place for a bit of history. Cholula was an important city, and covered a large area, when Cortez came to Mexico; under the conquerors it had at one time fifty churches and other ecclesiastical buildings, but now it has dwindled to a population of less than 5000, and most of its former edifices are in ruins. The great pyramid is the principal monument of the Aztecs, and in fact it is the best preserved of their monuments to-day in all Mexico. For a picture of what it was when Cortez looked from its summit, we have read with great interest the description in Prescott's History. Here it is:
VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE PYRAMID.
"'Nothing could be more grand than the view which met the eye from the truncated summit of the pyramid. Towards the north stretched the bold barrier of porphyry rock, which Nature has reared round the Valley of Mexico, with the huge Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl standing like two sentinels to guard the entrance of this enchanted region. Far away to the south was seen the conical head of Orizaba soaring high into the clouds, and nearer, the barren, though beautifully shaped Sierra de Malinche, throwing its broad shadows over the plains of Tlascala. Three of these volcanoes, higher than the highest peak in Europe, and shrouded in snows which never melt under the fierce sun of the tropics, at the foot of the spectator the sacred city of Cholula, with its bright towers and pinnacles sparkling in the sun, reposing amidst gardens and verdant groves. Such was the magnificent prospect which met the eye of the conquerors, and may still, with slight change, meet that of the modern traveller, as he stands on the broad plateau of the pyramid, and his eye wanders over the fairest portion of the beautiful plateau of Puebla.'