deliberated four or five months on the matter, and at last decided in favour of the old site, giving as his reason that “the city of Tenochtitlán had become celebrated, its position was wonderful, and in all times it had been considered as the capital and mistress of all these provinces.”
The invaders were old hands at slave-driving, and so hard did they drive the conquered Mexicans, that in four years there had arisen a fine Spanish city, with massive stone houses of several storeys, having the indispensable inner courts, flat roofs, and grated windows,—every man’s house literally his castle, when once the great iron entrance-gates were closed. The Indians had, of course, been converted en masse, and churches were being built in all directions. The great pyramid where Huitzilopochtli, the God of war, was worshipped, had been razed to the ground, and its great sculptured blocks of basalt were sunk in the earth as a foundation for a cathedral. The old lines of the streets, running toward the four points of the compass, were kept to; and to this it is that the present Mexico is indebted for much of its beauty. Most of the smaller canals were filled up, and the thoroughfares widened for carriages, things of course unknown to the Mexicans, who had no beasts of burden. In the suburbs the natives settled themselves after their own fashion, baking adobes, large mud bricks, in the sun, and building with them one-storey houses with flat roofs, much as they do at the present day. And thus a new Mexico, nearly the same as that we are now exploring, came to be planted in the midst of the waters. Three centuries have elapsed since; the city has grown larger, churches, convents, and public buildings have increased, but the architectural character of the place has scarcely altered. It is the situation that has changed. The lake of Tezcuco is four miles off, though the causeways which once connected the city with the dry land still exist, and have even been enlarged. They look like railway-embankments crossing the low ground, and serve as dykes when there is a flood, a casualty which still often happens.
This change is interesting to the student of physical geography; and Humboldt’s account of the causes which have brought it about is full