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unfortunate Montezuma, on the site of which has arisen the modern Mexico. Though its glory has long passed away, the enormous ruins which still remain attest its past grandeur. Vast pyramids, on a scale and of a massiveness which vie with those of Egypt, still rear their lofty heads in great numbers throughout the country; while the ruins of other buildings prove that the architecture of Mexico in many points resembled that on the banks of the Nile. Some of these pyramids might rather be called towers. They consist of a series of truncated pyramids placed one above another, each successive one being smaller than the one on which it immediately rests--thus standing in reality upon a platform or terrace. The great pyramidal tower of Cholula is of this character, resembling somewhat the temple of Belus, according to the description given of it by Herodotus. It reaches a height of 177 feet, and the length of each side of its base is 1440 feet. In its neighbourhood are two other pyramids--teocalles, as they are called--of smaller dimensions. These temples, or teocalles, were very numerous, and in each of the principal cities there were several hundreds of them. The top, on which was a broad area, was reached by a flight of steps. On this area were one or two towers forty or fifty feet high, in which stood the images of the presiding deities. In front of the towers was the stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were kept burning, inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. In the great temple of Mexico there were said to be six hundred of these altars, the fires from which illuminated the streets through the darkest night. Deeply interesting as is the subject of the architecture and the remarkable state of civilisation of the Aztecs, we must not dwell longer upon it, except to mention the cyclopean roads and bridges, constructed of huge blocks of stone, and carried on a continuous level, across valleys, which still remain. There are also, in various parts of the country, excavations, rock-hewn halls, and caverns, generally dome-shaped, the centre apartment lighted through an aperture in the vault. They somewhat resemble the cyclopean fabric near Argos, called the Treasury of Atreus. Not only the buildings, but the hieroglyphics, of the Aztecs, so closely resemble those of the Egyptians, that there appears every reason to suppose they were derived from the same source. Among the natur
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