He says also, that the metropolis of Cholola had as many temples as there were days in the year; and that one of them was the most famous in the world, the basis of the spire being as broad as a man could shoot with a cross bow, and the spire itself three miles high. The temples which the holy man speaks of, seem to have been only the dwelling-houses of strangers, who incorporated with the natives, differing a little in their form of structure, according to the usual custom of our northern Indians: and his religious principles not allowing him to go near the reputed shambles of the devil, much less to enter the supposed territories of hell, he has done pretty well by them, in allowing them golden suns and moons—vestry keepers, &c. The badness of his optic instruments, if joined with the supposed dimness of his sight, may plead in excuse for the spiral altitude, which he fixes at 15,480 feet; for from what we know of the northern Indians, we ought to strike off the three first figures of its height, and the remaining 40 is very likely to have been the just height of the spire, alias the red-painted, great, _war-pole_. The same writer tells us, that the Peruvian pontifical office belonged to the eldest son of the king, or some chief lord of the country: and that it devolved by succession. But he anoints him after a very solemn manner, with an ointment which he carefully mixes with the blood of circumcised infants. This priest of war dealing so much in blood himself, without doubt, suspected them of the like; though at the same time no Indian priest will either shed, or touch human blood: but that they formerly circumcised, may with great probability be allowed to the holy man. The temples of Peru were built on high grounds, or tops of hills, he says, and were surrounded with four circular mounds of earth, the one rising {205} gradually above the other, from the outermost circle; and that the temple stood in the center of the inclosed ground, built in a quadrangular form, having altars, &c. He has officiously obtruded the sun into it; perhaps, because he thought it dark within. He describes another religious house, on the eastern part of that great inclosure, facing the rising sun, to which they ascended by six steps, where, in the hollow of a thick wall, lay the image of the sun, &c. This thick wall having an hollow part within it, was no other than their sanctum sanctorum, conformably to what I observed, concerning the pretended holiest place of the Muskohge Indians. Any one who is well acquainted with the language, rites, and customs of the North-American Indians, can see with a glance when these monkish writers stumble on a truth, or ramble at large.