a restaurant down below, where the son of the late Yturbide dines daily, and everybody points him out to us, and moralises over him.
Mr. Christy’s drawer-roll of letters of introduction has produced an immediate crop of pleasant acquaintances, whose hospitality is boundless. We are not idle, far from it; and a long day’s work is generally followed by a social dinner, and an evening spent in noting down the results of our investigations.
Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico has been more read in England than most historical works; and the Mexico of Montezuma has a well-defined idea attached to it. The amphitheatre of dark hills surrounding the level plain, the two snowy mountain-peaks, the five lakes covering nearly half the valley, the city rising out of the midst of the waters, miles from the shore, with which it was connected by its four causeways, the straight streets of low flat-roofed houses, the numbers of canals crowded with canoes of Indians going to and from the market, the floating gardens moved from place to place, on which vegetables and flowers were cultivated, the great pyramid up which the Spanish army saw their captured companions led in solemn procession, and sacrificed on the top—all these are details in the mental picture.
Much of this has changed since the Spaniards first saw it. Cortes tried all ordinary means to overcome the desperate obstinacy with which the Aztecs defended their capital. The Spaniards conquered wherever they went; but, as they moved forward, the Mexicans closed in again behind, and from every house-top showers of darts, arrows, and stones were poured down upon them. Cortes resolved upon the utter demolition of the city. He was grieved to destroy it, he said, for it was the most beautiful thing in the whole world; but there was no alternative. He moved slowly towards the great teocalli, his fifty thousand Tlascalan allies following him, throwing down every house, and filling the canals with the ruins. When the conquest was finished, but one district of the