Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/516

508 is little variety of scenery, and nothing of great interest until the hill, or pyramid, is reached. To understand the historic and traditional value of this pyramid, we must refer to the historian. After mentioning the gods of the ancient Mexicans, he says: "A far more interesting personage in their mythology was Quetzalcoatl, god of the air, a divinity who, during his residence on earth, instructed the natives in the use of metal, in agriculture, and in the arts of government. . . . . Quetzalcoatl incurred the wrath of one of the principal gods, and was obliged to quit the country. On his way he stopped at the city of Cholula, where a temple was dedicated to his worship, the massy ruins of which still form one of the most interesting relics of antiquity in Mexico."

The car stops at the foot of this monument of the past, but you might need to be told what it was, if you had formed any preconceived ideas of it from reading in volumes of authors who have never seen it. At present it is not a true pyramid, and so many years have elapsed since its construction that it appears scarcely more than a natural elevation, or a hill that has been squared in places and levelled at the top. But the evidence of its artificial construction is plain enough to any one who will thoroughly