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.
These monuments were called _teocallis_, not because they were pyramids, but because they were temples; "Teocalli" means "god's house"-- (_teotl_, god, _calli_, house), a name which the traveller hears explained for the first time with some wonder; and Humboldt cannot help adverting to its curious correspondence with [Greek: theou kalia], _dei cella_.