We had already been struck by the appearance of the two pyramids of Teotihuacan, when we passed by Otumba on our way to Mexico.  The hills which skirt the plain are so near them as to diminish their apparent size; but even at a distance they are conspicuous objects.  Now, when we came close to them, and began by climbing to their summits, and walking round their terraces, to measure ourselves against them, we began gradually to realize their vast bulk; and this feeling continually grew upon us.  Modern architecture strives to unite the greatest possible effect with the least cost; and the modern churches of southern Europe and Spanish America, with their fine tall facades fronting the street, and insignificant little buildings behind, show this idea in its fullest development.  Pyramids are built with no such object, and make but little show in proportion to their vast mass of material; but then one gets from them a sense of solid magnitude that no other building gives, however vast its proportions may be.  Neither of us had ever seen the Egyptian pyramids.  Even in Mexico these of Teotihuacan are not the largest; for, though the pyramid of Cholula is no higher, it covers far more ground.  Were these monuments in Egypt, they would only rank, from their size, in the second class.

As has often been remarked, such buildings as these can only be raised under peculiar social conditions.  The ruler must be a despotic sovereign, and the mass of the people slaves, whose subsistence and whose lives are sacrificed without scruple to execute the fancies of the monarch, who is not so much the governor as the unrestricted owner of the country and the people.  The population must be very dense, or it would not bear the loss of so large a proportion of the working class; and vegetable food must be exceedingly abundant in the country, to feed them while engaged in this unprofitable labour.

We know how great was the influence of the priestly classes in Egypt, though the pyramids there, being rather tombs than temples, do not prove it.  In Mexico, however, the pyramids themselves were the temples, serving only incidentally as tombs; and their size proves that—­as respects priestly influence—­the resemblance between the two people is fully carried out.

Like the Egyptian pyramids, these fronted the four cardinal points.  Their shape was not accurately pyramidal, for the line from base to summit was broken by three terraces, or perhaps four, running completely round them; and at the top was a flat square space, where stood the idols and the sacrificial altars.  This construction closely resembled that of some of the smaller Egyptian pyramids.  Flights of stone steps led straight up from terrace to terrace, and the procession of priests and victims made the circuit of each before they ascended to the one above.

The larger of the two teocallis is dedicated to the Sun, has a base of about 640 feet, and is about 170 feet high.  The other, dedicated to the Moon, is rather smaller.