Disillusionment
That some such palace existed on the spot in question it would be absurd to deny, as its stupendous pillars and remains still litter the terraces of Tezcotzinco. But, alas! we must not listen to the vapourings of the untrustworthy Ixtlilxochitl, who claims to have seen the place. It will be better to turn to a more modern authority, who visited the site about seventy-five years ago, and who has given perhaps the best account of it. He says:
“Fragments of pottery, broken pieces of obsidian knives and arrows, pieces of stucco, shattered terraces, and old walls were thickly dispersed over its whole surface. We soon found further advance on horseback impracticable, and, attaching our patient steeds to the nopal bushes, we followed our Indian guide on foot, scrambling upwards over rock and through tangled brushwood. On gaining the narrow ridge which connects the conical hill with one at the rear, we found the remains of a wall and causeway; and, a little higher, reached a recess, where, at the foot of a small precipice, overhung with Indian fig and grass, the rock had been wrought by hand into a flat surface of large dimensions. In this perpendicular wall of rock a carved Toltec calendar existed formerly; but the Indians, finding the place visited occasionally by foreigners from the capital, took it into their heads that there must be a silver vein there, and straightway set to work to find it, obliterating the sculpture, and driving a level beyond it into the hard rock for several yards. From this recess a few minutes’ climb brought us to the summit of the hill. The sun was on the point of setting over the mountains on the other side of the valley, and the view spread beneath our feet was most glorious. The whole of the lake of Tezcuco, and the country and mountains on both sides, lay stretched before us.
“But, however disposed, we dare not stop long to gaze and admire, but, descending a little obliquely, soon came to the so-called bath, two singular basins, of perhaps two feet and a half diameter, cut into a bastion-like solid rock, projecting from the general outline of the hill, and surrounded by smooth carved seats and grooves, as we supposed—for I own the whole appearance of the locality was perfectly inexplicable to me. I have a suspicion that many of these horizontal planes and grooves were contrivances to aid their astronomical observations, one like that I have mentioned having been discovered by de Gama at Chapultepec.
“As to Montezuma’s Bath, it might be his foot-bath if you will, but it would be a moral impossibility for any monarch of larger dimensions than Oberon to take a duck in it.
“The mountain bears the marks of human industry to its very apex, many of the blocks of porphyry of which it is composed being quarried into smooth horizontal planes. It is impossible to say at present what portion of the surface is artificial or not, such is the state of confusion observable in every part.
“By what means nations unacquainted with the use of iron constructed works of such a smooth polish, in rocks of such hardness, it is extremely difficult to say. Many think tools of mixed tin and copper were employed; others, that patient friction was one of the main means resorted to. Whatever may have been the real appropriation of these inexplicable ruins, or the epoch of their construction, there can be no doubt but the whole of this hill, which I should suppose rises five or six hundred feet above the level of the plain, was covered with artificial works of one kind or another. They are doubtless rather of Toltec than of Aztec origin, and perhaps with still more probability attributable to a people of an age yet more remote.”