CHAPTER II

version which is supported by the Calendar-stone), states that Xelhua, the giant in question, escaped the deluge by ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and afterwards built the pyramid of Cholula. The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says of this story: “In this first age giants existed in that country.… They relate of one of the seven whom they mention as having escaped from the deluge, that, the earth becoming populous, he went to Chululan and there began to build a tower which is that of which the brick base is still visible. The name of that chief was Xelhua; he built it in order that should a deluge come again he might escape to it. Its base is 1,800 feet in circumference. When it had already reached a great height lightning from heaven fell and destroyed it. Those Indians who were under that chief who had escaped from the deluge, named Xelhua, made bricks out of a mountain in Tlalamanalco called Cocotle, and from Tlalamanalco to Chulula Indians were placed to pass the bricks and cement from hand to hand: and thus they built this tower, that was named Tulan Chulula, which was so high that it appeared to reach heaven. And being content, since it seemed to them that they had a place to escape from the