Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/465

 Rh the base of the pyramid of Teotihuacan. The Pyramid of Asychis, the largest known of the Egyptians, has a base of 800 feet, and is, like that of Cholula, built of brick. The Cathedral of Strasbourg is eight feet, and the cross of St. Peter's at Rome forty-one feet, lower than the top of the Pyramid of Cheops.

"Pyramids exist throughout Mexico—in the forests of Papantla, at a short distance above the level of the sea; on the plains of Cholula



and of Teotihuacan, at an elevation which exceeds those of the passes of the Alps.

"In the most widely different nations and in climates the most different, man seems to have adopted the same style of construction, the same ornaments, the same customs, and to have placed himself under the government of the same political institutions."

A contemplation of this pyramid naturally led us to think of those other wondrous structures, Papantla, Misantla, and Mapilca, erected by the Totonacs, and situated between Jalapa and the Gulf coast; and also Xochicalco, Uxmal, Palenque, and others in other parts of the republic.