just nestled among the reeds, rocks and marshes of the lake, was quickly spread beyond the mountain barrier that hemmed in the valley. Like the Hollanders, they became great by the very wretchedness of their site, and the vigilant industry it enforced. The Aztec arms were triumphant throughout all the plains that swept downward towards the Atlantic, and, as we have seen, even maintained dominion on the shores of the Pacific, or penetrated, under the bloody Ahuitzotl, the remotest corners of Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Such was the extent of Aztec power at