Could these everlasting hills speak, what a tale they could unfold of the awful tragedies they have witnessed in this valley; of crimes and bloodshed and migrations and banishments; of nations who wrought while Phœnician commerce was young; of cities built and crumbled to dust; of opulence and power and intrigue! They might tell us who carved the Calendar Stone, and who evolved its astronomical knowledge, and who wrote the hieroglyphics of Tula, and in what language are the facade and tablet inscriptions of Palenque and Uxmal, and, before the Aztecs, whence came the Toltecs, and Tlascalans, and their forerunners the Tezcucans, who in turn were driven out by the Acolhuas in the inverse order by Tepanecs, and Chalcos, and Xochimilcos, and who built the seven mysterious cities of Cibola, and the pyramid of Bholula, and the mounds and the pyramids of Tampico, and Panuco and the pyramids to the sun and moon at Teotihuacan, and why was the stately avenue of pillars left at ancient Mitla, and why, O Sphinx of the Valley! dost thou not reveal the secrets of the dead past whose unmultiplied aeons are to thee as but an open book? But the sphinx answered never a word. My tears and eloquence turned to thin air in the morning frost, and after waiting a reasonable time for an answer, I thought of that old tale about Mahomet and the mountain, and that decided my course. I determined to go find out for myself, and as the engineer had dropped one engine behind he said if I was going with him I had better get a move on myself, so I set forth to solve the mysteries that have baffled the world in the Valley of Mexico.
CHAPTER VI.
THE VALE OF ANAHUAC.
THE time is four hundred years ago; the place, the present site of the City of Mexico. In its stead was Tenochtitlan. In this beautiful valley were four kingdoms, three aristocratic republics, a number of minor states and the independent monarchy of Yucatan. Of the four kingdoms in the valley, the Aztec or Mexican was chief, and dictated terms to the other three—Colhuacan, Tlascopan and Michoacan. The three republics were Tlaxcala, Cholula and Huexotzinco, the ancient enemies of the Aztecs, and with whose combined aid Cortez finally conquered them.
On the shores of Lake Texcoco, the Athens of Mexico, stand Cortez and his band of pirates, gazing across the blue waters of the lake towards an island on its bosom, twenty-five miles away. Upon that island is a city, Tenochtitlan, the Rome of Mexico, and the capital of the Aztecs, which the Spaniards called “the most beautiful city on earth.”
Upon the bosom of that lake float thousands of boats, and connecting the city to the mainland are two mighty causeways, guarded by drawbridges and portcullis. According to Spanish authority, within that city were two thousand temples, one hundred palaces and a thousand sumptuous dwellings and hanging gardens, aqueducts and irrigating canals, sculpture and architecture, an elaborate system of religion and philosophy, a priesthood, a written language by means of ideographic paintings, artistic jewelers and a hundred other elements of civilization that have since been swept away by the bigoted Spaniards as the dewdrops before the sirocco.
Within the great plaza there arose a mighty temple, the teocalli, erected to the war-god Huitziloptchli. This temple was a truncated pyramid, whose base was three hundred and eight feet each way, and whose height was one hundred feet, and was reached by a spiral stairway passing four times around. Five thousand priests officiated in this temple, and on its summit was a block of jasper, the sacrificial stone, which is now in the national museum. Upon this stone were sacrificed daily, human victims taken in war, and offered to appease the war-god who had made them successful against their enemies, and twenty thousand victims a year had their hearts cut out by the priests and laid smoking on this altar.
Each morning as the sun rose behind Popocatapetl, the huge drum of serpent skins resounded, the white-robed priests with their wild minstrelsy wound slowly round the pyramid in sight of every inhabitant in the city, and, arriving at the top, turned their faces to the rising sun, stretched their victims across the convex surface of the sacrificial stone, tore the palpitating hearts from the writhing bodies, and, having first offered them to the sun, laid them smoking upon the altar and hurled the bodies down the sides of the pyramid.
Before the altar in the sanctuary stood the colossal image of Huitziloptchli, or Mexitle the “left-handed warrior,” the tutelary deity and war-god of the Aztecs. In his right hand he wielded a bow, and in his left a bunch of golden arrows to denote their victories. Around his waist were the huge folds of a serpent, consisting of pearls and precious stones, and the same ornaments were sprinkled all over his body. Upon the left foot were the feathers of a humming bird whose name the dread deity bore. Around his neck was suspended a chain of alternate gold and silver hearts, to denote the sacrifice in which he most delighted.