NOTE XXVIII. p. 196.

The Temple of Cholula, which was deemed more holy than any in New Spain, was likewife the most confiderable. But it was nothing more than a mount of folid earth. According to Torquemada, it was above a quarter of a league in circuit at the bafe, and rofe to the height of forty fathom. Mon. Ind. Lib. ii. c. 19.

From inspecting various figures of temples in the painting engraved by Purchas, there feems to be fome reafon for fufpecting that all their temples were conftructed in the fame manner, See Vol. iii. p. 1109, 1110. 1113:

NOTE XXIX. p. 197.

Not only in Tlafcala, and Tepeaca, but even in Mexico itself, the houses of the people were mere huts built with turf, or mud, or the branches of trees. They were extremely low, and flight, and without any furniture but a few earthen veffels. Like the rudeft Indians, feveral families refided under the fame roof, without having any feparatè apartments. Herrera, Dec. 2. lib. vii. c. 13. lib. x. c. 22. Dec. 3. lib. iv. c. 17. Torquem. lib. iii. c. 23.

NOTE

NOTE XXX. p. 197.

I am informed by a perfon who refided long in New Spain, and visited almost every province of it, that there is not, in all the extent of that vaft empire, any monument. or veftige of any building more ancient than the conqueft, nor of any bridge or highway, except fome remains of the causeway from Guadaloupe to that gate of Mexico by which. Cortes entered the city. MS. penes me. The author of another account in manufcript obferves,,, That at this day there does not remain even the smallest veftige of the existence of any ancient Indian building, publick or private, either in Mexico or in any province of New Spain. I have travelled, fays he, through all the countries adjacent to them, viz. New Galicia, New Bifcay, New Mexico, Sonora, Cinaloa, the New Kingdom of Leon, and New Santandero, without having obferved any monument worth notice, except the ruins near an ancient village in the valley de Cafas Grandes, in lat. N. 30°. 46' longit. 2589. 24' from the ifland of Teneriffe, or 460 leagues N. N. W. from Mexico." He defcribes this minutely, and it appears to have been a paltry building of turf and ftone plastered over with white earth or lime. A miffionary informed that gentleman, that he had difcovered the ruins of another fettlement fimilar to the forROBERTSON Vol. III. D d

mer, about an hundred leagues towards N. W. on the banks of the river St. Pedro. MS. penes me.

Thofe teftimonies derive great credit from one circumftance, that they were not given in fupport of any particular fyftem or theory, but as fimple anfwers to queries which I had propofed. It is probable, however, that when thefe gentlemen affert, that no ruins or monuments of any ancient work whatever are now to be difcovered in the Mexican Empire, they meant that there were no fuch ruins or monuments as conveyed any idea of grandeur or magnificence, in the works of its ancient inhabitants. For it appears from the teftimony of feveral Spanifh authors, that in Otumba, Tlafcala, Cholula, &c. fome veftiges of ancient buildings are ftill vifible. Villa Segnor Teatro Amer. p. 143. 308. 353. D. Fran. Ant. Lorenzano, formerly archbishop of Mexico, and now of Toledo in his introduction to that edition of the Cartas de Relacion of Cortes, which he published at Mexico, mentions fome ruins which are ftill vitible in feveral of the towns through which Cortes paffed in his way to the capital. p. 4. &c. But neither of thefe authors gives any defcription of them, and they feem to be fo very inconfiderable, as to fhow only that fome buildings had once been there. The large mount of earth at Cholula, which the Spaniards dignified with the

It is

name of temple, ftill remains, but without any steps by which to afcent, or any facing of ftone. It appears now like a natural mount, covered with grafs and fhrubs, and poffibly it was never any thing more. Torquem. lib. iii. c. 19. I have received a minute defcription of the remains of a temple near Cuernavaca, on the road from Mexico to Acapulco. compofed of large ftones, fitted to each other as nicely as thofe in the buildings of the Peruvians, which are hereafter mentioned. At the foundation it forms a fquare of 25 yards; but as it rifes in height, it diminishes in extent, not gradually, but by being contracted fuddenly at regular diftances, fo that it must have refembled the figure B in the plate. It terminated, it is faid, in a spire.

NOTE XXXI. p. 203.

The exaggeration of the Spanifh Hiftorians, with refpect to the number of human victims facrificed in Mexico, appears to be very great. According to Gomara, there was no year in which twenty thousand human victims were not offered to the Mexican Divinities, and in fome years they amounted to fifty thousand. Cron. c. 229. The fkulls of thofe unhappy perfons were ranged in order in a building erected for that purpose, and two of Cortes's officers who had counted them, informed Go

mara that their number was a hundred and thirty-fix thousand. Ibid. c. 82. Herrera's

account is ftill more incredible, that the number of victims was fo great, that five thousand have been facrificed in one day, nay, on fome occafions, no less than twenty thousand. Dec. iii. lib. ii. c. 16. Torquemada goes beyond both in extravagance, for he afferts, that twenty thousand children, exclufive of other victims, were flaughtered annually. Mon. Ind. lib. vii. c. 21. The most respectable authority in favour of fuch high numbers is that of Zummaraga, the first bishop of Mexico, who, in a letter to the chapter general of his order, A. D. 1631, afferts that the Mexicans facrificed annually twenty thousand victims. Davila, Teatro Ecclef. 126. In oppofition to all these accounts, B. de las Cafas obferves, that if there had been fuch an annual waste of the human fpecies, the country could never have arrived at that degree of populousness, for which it was remarkable when the Spaniards first landed there; and he pofitively afferts, that the Mexicans never facrificed more than fifty or a hundred perfons in a year. See his dispute with Sepulveda, fubjoined to his Breviflima Relacion, p. 100. Cortes does not specify what number of victims was facrificed annually, but B. Diaz del Castello relates, that an enquiry having been made, with refpect to this, by the Francifcan Monks, who were