[189] Veytia carries back the foundation of the city to the Ulmecs, a people who preceded the Toltecs. (Hist. antig., tom. i. cap. 13, 20.) As the latter, after occupying the land several centuries, have left not a single written record, probably, of their existence, it will be hard to disprove the licentiate’s assertion,--still harder to prove it. [190] Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 2.{*} {*} [“We find that, according to tradition, the territory of Cholula was, up to the year 1519, necessarily occupied by at least three different stocks. The modes of burial, so far as ascertained, reveal an equal number of distinct customs. The architecture, so far as it is possible to investigate it, shows at least two separate types.... Finally we may ask if the facts, that the adobe bricks of the great mound contain pottery and obsidian, and that skulls have been found beneath its projecting western apron, do not hint at a still older population, with perhaps a different style of architecture.” Bandelier, Archæological Tour, p. 261.--M.] [191] Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 58.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 3, cap. 19. [192] Veytia, Hist. antig., tom. i. cap. 15, et seq.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 1, cap. 5; lib. 3. [193] Later divines have found in these teachings of the Toltec god, or high-priest, the germs of some of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, as those of the Incarnation, and the Trinity, for example. [194] Such, on the whole, seems to be the judgment of M. de Humboldt, who has examined this interesting monument with his usual care. (Vues des Cordillères, p. 27, et seq.--Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 150, et seq.) The opinion derives strong confirmation from the fact that a road, cut some years since across the tumulus, laid open a large section of it, in which the alternate layers of brick and clay are distinctly visible. (Ibid., loc. cit.) The present appearance of this monument, covered over with the verdure and vegetable mould of centuries, excuses the scepticism of the more superficial traveller. [195] Several of the pyramids of Egypt, and the ruins of Babylon, are, as is well known, of brick. An inscription on one of the former, indeed, celebrates this material as superior to stone. (Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 136.)--Humboldt furnishes an apt illustration of the size of the Mexican _teocalli_, by comparing it to a mass of bricks covering a square four times as large as the Place Vendôme, and of twice the height of the Louvre. Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 152. [196] A minute account of the costume and insignia of Quetzalcoatl is given by Father Sahagun, who saw the Aztec gods before the arm of the Christian convert had tumbled them from “their pride of place.” See Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 1, cap. 3. [197] They came from the distance of two hundred leagues, says Torquemada. Monarch. Ind., lib. 3, cap. 19.