LOCAL FREIGHT TRAIN.
"The sides of the pyramid correspond to the cardinal points of the compass, north, south, east, and west; and in this respect the structure resembles the great pyramid of Cheops. Nobody can tell when it was built; the Aztecs found it here when they came, and the Indians whom they conquered said it was not the work of their ancestors. The Aztecs dedicated it to their god Quetzalcoatl, and every year they sacrificed on the summit of the mound thousands of victims in the manner we have described in our account of Tenochtitlan. When the Spaniards came here they found a statue of the Aztec deity on the place where the chapel now stands; one of the first acts of Cortez was to destroy the statue, and order the erection of a church in its place.
A RELIC OF THE PAST.
"In his report to the King, Cortez said the city of Cholula contained 20,000 houses and the suburbs as many more. The people received him kindly, but he learned, or pretended to learn, that they were plotting against him. So he called a meeting of all the dignitaries, under pretence of a consultation, and when they were assembled he ordered a general massacre. Six thousand of the people were slain, and for two days the city was given over to be pillaged by the Spaniards and their allies the Tlascalans, who were bitter enemies of the Cholulans. The Tlascalans were, of course, gratified with the slaughter and pillage, but Cortez offended them deeply when he refused to permit the sacrifice of the prisoners captured in the affair.
"We remained nearly two hours on the summit of the mound enjoying the magnificent view, and trying to picture the place as it was in and before the days of Cortez, and shuddering as we thought of the blood that had been shed there in sacrifices and by the swords of the conquerors. Fred made a sketch of the view, and then we descended and looked through the village, which contained very little of interest; next we took a Mexican dinner at the Fonda de la Reforma, a small but clean restaurant on the Plaza Mayor. The plaza is as large as that of the capital city, but so little used that it is grass-covered in many places. There were few people there when we saw it, but they told us that it is quite lively on market-day, when everybody in the town comes there; there is a Zocala in the centre of the plaza, but it offered so few attractions that we did not visit it. We strolled through the ruined churches, and our guide told us that one of them, the Capilla Real, which consists of three churches in one, was built for the especial accommodation of the Indians. The massacre which Cortez ordered is supposed to have begun on the plaza, but no one knows the exact spot.
INDIAN FARM LABORERS.