From the plain of Cholula,—which is now known as the fruitful vale of Puebla,—the conqueror ascended the last ridge of mountains that separated him from the city of Mexico; and, as he turned the edge of the Cordillera, the beautiful valley was at once revealed to him in all its indescribable loveliness.
1 It lay at his feet, surrounded by the placid waters of Tezcoco. The sight that burst upon the Spaniards from this lofty eminence, in the language of Prescott, was that of the vale of Tenochtitlan, as it was called by the natives, "which, with its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated plains; its shining cities and shadowy hills, was spread out like some gay and gorgeous panorama before them. In the highly rarefied atmosphere of these upper regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of coloring and a distinctness of outline which seems to annihilate distance. Stretching far away at their feet, were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar; and beyond, yellow fields of maize and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens; for flowers, in such demand for their religious festivals, were even more abundant in this populous valley, than in other parts of Anahuac. In the centre of the great basin, were beheld the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its surface than at present; their borders thickly
studded with towns and hamlets, and, in the midst,—like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls,—the fair city of Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the waters—the far-famed 'Venice of the Aztecs.' High over all rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, belted with the same grove of gigantic cypresses, which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance, to the north, beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital of Tezcoco; and, still further on, the dark belt of porphyry, girdling the valley around, like a rich setting which Nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels."