Aztec Land by Maturin Murray Ballou (best summer books TXT) 📕

of the prowling, thieving peons climbed the wall and attempted to abstract the cap,--not because he was in want of a brass cap to a dynamite bomb; he would have stolen a railroad spike or an iron tie all the same. He hadn't fooled with this instrument more than sixty seconds before it was discharged in his hands with a report like a cannon. The consequence was, that not enough of that would-be thief could be found to give the body Christian burial! It was observed thereafter that peons didn't feel sufficient interest in the company's affairs to climb the wall which incloses the depot, and meddle with the articles of railroad property lying about the yard. This was a pretty severe dose of medicine, but it wrought a radical cure.


CHAPTER XIV.


Ancient Cholula.--A Grand Antiquity.--The Cheops of Mexico.--Traditions relating to the Pyramid.--The Toltecs.--Cholula of To-Day.-- Comprehensive View.--A Modern Tower of Babel.--Multiplicity of Ruins. --Cortez's Exaggerations.--Sacrifices of Human Beings.--The Hateful Inquisition.--A Wholesale Murderous Scheme.--Unreliable Historians. --Spanish Falsification.--Interesting Churches.--Off the Track.-- Personal Relics of Cortez.--Torturing a Victim.--Aztec Antiquities. --Tlaxcala.--Church of San Francisco.--Peon Dwellings.--Cortez and the Tlaxcalans.


In leaving Puebla for Cholula, which lies at a distance of only a couple of leagues to the westward, we first pass on the left the fine architectural group formed by the church of San Javior and Guadalupe, with its attractive cluster of domes, spires, and pinnacles. Our course lies through broad maguey fields and across the Atoyac River, a shallow stream most of the year; but at times it becomes a rushing torrent. The country hereabouts is under excellent cultivation, though the awkward plough introduced by the Spaniards centuries ago still does service here. Almost as soon as the city disappears from view, there looms in the distance the grand pyramid of Cholula, crowned by a lofty modern chapel, its dome of enameled and parti-colored tiles glistening in the warm sunshine. Far beyond the pyramid the volcanoes are seen in their lonely grandeur. Cholula lies upon a perfectly level plain, broken only by the great artificial mound called the pyramid, situated on the eastern outskirt of the present city. The town, Spanish history tells us, once contained over two hundred thousand inhabitants; but to-day there are less than nine thousand, while of its four hundred reputed temples, scarcely a trace now remains.

When Cortez made his advent here he found Cholula to be the sacred city of the Aztecs, where their main body of high priests and their most venerated temples were located. Is it possible that these mud-built cabins represent a city once so grand and so populous? Can it be that these half-clad, half-fed peons whom we see about us, exhibiting only a benighted intelligence, represent Aztecs and Toltecs who are supposed to have possessed a liberal share of art and culture; a people, whose astronomers were able to determine for themselves the apparent motion of the sun and the length of the solar year: who had the art of polishing the hardest of precious stones; who cast choice and perfect figures of silver and gold in one piece; and who made delicate filigree ornaments without solder? These are achievements belonging to quite a high state of civilization. The cabins consist mostly of one room, in which lives a whole family, with the bare earth for a floor, the open door often affording the only light which reaches the interior. There are some better dwellings here, to be sure; but all are adobe, and this brief description is applicable to nine tenths of the people and their rude dwellings.

Cholula has one grand antiquity, which even the ruthless finger of Time has made little impression upon, being the remains of one of those remarkable earth-pyramids which was probably built by the Toltecs; though how they could erect a mountain without beasts of burden is an endless puzzle. The rains, winds, and storms of ages have opened crevices in the sides of the artificial hill; but these have only served to show what labor it must have cost to build the structure in stout layers of sun-dried brick, so substantially that it has lasted thus intact for many centuries. It is not at all unreasonable to fix the date of its completion at a thousand years ago. This peculiar elevation rises a little over two hundred feet above the plain, and measures about a thousand feet square at the base, forming one of the most interesting relics in all Mexico; though its height is less than half that of Cheops in Egypt, its base is twice as large, covering about as many acres as Boston Common. In its composition it strongly resembles the pyramids of Upper Egypt. On its summit is a level space one hundred and sixty feet square, the view from which is one of vast breadth and beauty, embracing the entire valley of Puebla. The four sides of the huge mound face the cardinal points, the whole being composed of alternate strata of adobe bricks and clay. The sides are mostly overgrown with trees and shrubs; but a winding road, well paved with stones laid in broad, deep steps, leads to the top. The constant wear of centuries has thrown the original shape somewhat out of harmony with the supposed idea; but there is quite enough extant to establish the original design. One corner has been excavated to a considerable extent to make room for the railway, an exposure which has served a double purpose, since it has proven the whole elevation to be artificial, constructed in layers, and not a natural hill, as some casual observers have declared it to be. The material of which the pyramid is composed is earth, sun-dried bricks, limestone, and lava. It is thought by some that besides having the apex crowned originally with a temple of worship, the sides were covered by adobe houses from base to near the summit, accommodating a large population. That there were once terraces and steps here which would carry out such an idea is very clear from the portions which have been laid bare by excavation.

The mounds of our Western and Southwestern States are almost the counterpart of this grand elevation at Cholula, so far as the idea goes, except that they are mere pigmies in comparison. The fact is worth recalling that the same species of domestic implements of stone which are found from time to time deeply buried in portions of the United States are also exhumed here. So in the museum of the capital one sees stone hatchets, pestles, mortars, and arrowheads of the same shapes that we have been accustomed to find beneath the soil of our Northern States.

The most casual observer will be satisfied that this pyramid dates long before the time of the Spanish conquest, and that it was not built by the race of Indians whom Cortez found in possession. It may represent a race who existed even prior to the Toltecs, to whom the Aztecs were indebted for all their arts and refinements, and upon which it is doubted if they much improved. No one can possibly say how many centuries are looking down upon us from this colossal ruin. We are told of one tradition, recorded by a Jesuit priest named Torquemada, which ascribes the origin of this pyramid to a period contemporary with that of the Tower of Babel, in the land of Shinar. The tradition also speaks of a great deluge, and says that this artificial mound was originally designed to reach the clouds; but the gods were angered by the attempt, and dispersed the workmen with lightning, after it had got to its present height. With mountains close at hand, so much loftier than any human agency could achieve, it is a mystery what motive could have actuated a people to rear this colossal mound except it was for the foundation of a temple. The pretended legend of aboriginal origin is no doubt a pure fabrication, like nine tenths of the priestly records relating to Mexico.

The ancient builders erected a shrine and sacrificial stone on the summit of the pyramid. This idolatrous temple was promptly destroyed by Cortez, and the place where it stood is now occupied by a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Remedios. The present edifice is of quite modern construction, replacing the original chapel erected by the Spaniards, which was destroyed by fire. It struck us as being more than usually tawdry in it equipment. Its cupola is decidedly out of proportion to the small body of the structure. There are traditions among the natives here, as is usually the case in relation to all antique remains, telling of interior galleries and chambers of great extent; but no confidence is placed in such rumors. The excavation already referred to laid bare a tomb containing two skeletons, with a couple of idols in basalt, also a small collection of aboriginal pottery. The sepulchre was square, with stone walls supported by cypress beams. The discovery of these two skeletons in one corner and at the base of the pyramid does not indicate that it was reared for the purpose of a tomb. It would require the discovery of such a burial near the centre of the immense mound to indicate such a design.

The hoary-headed monarch, Popocatepetl, looms in the distance, proudly dominating the scene, with Puebla and the hill of Cinco de Mayo on the right. The exceeding transparency of the atmosphere brings these distant objects seemingly close to the observer, as though he was looking at them through a telescope.

The small city of Cholula is spread out at the base of the pyramid, and beyond it are wide, fertile fields of grain and alfalfa, with gardens of semi-tropical fruits. One large orchard seemed to be a very garden of Hesperides, yellow with golden oranges and sweet with fragrant blossoms. The pyramid originally stood near the centre of the town, the streets radiating from it; but the dwellings which once lined these thoroughfares have long since crumbled into dust, leaving standing only the useless stone churches, of which there are forty dotting the plain here and there, built without regard to any adjacent population. Two lesser pyramids are visible near the main elevation. Farther away, small villages, each with its church tower, add interest to the scene, while the mellow notes of distant bells mingle and float upon the air. The multiplicity of these churches shows how dense must have been the population in the time of Cortez, as it was the practice of the invading Spaniards to compel the natives not only to demolish their own temples, but to build a Christian church in place of each one thus destroyed. A number of the churches are abandoned and are gradually going to decay. "Why," said a practical individual of our party, "it's all churches and no town." The site of the ancient city is very evident from the lines of its regular streets stretching away in all directions.

"I assure your majesty," wrote Cortez from Cholula to his sovereign in Spain, "that I have counted from a mosque or temple four hundred mosques and as many towers, all of which were mosques in this city." We have here an example of this adventurer's style of exaggeration and hyperbole. If we take three hundred and sixty from the four hundred "mosques" which he pretends to have seen, there will be forty left, which is probably about the truth. Cortez not only uses oriental words to express himself, but is exercised by a truly oriental extravagance in his stories. There are no "mosques" in Mexico, nor were the native temples anything like such structures. There are sufficient remains of Aztec temples left to show that they were plain in construction, of pyramidal form, without towers, and that their altars were erected on