CHAPTER VI.
1607–1621.
SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF DON LUIS VELASCO—HIS GREAT WORK FOR THE DRAINAGE OF THE VALLEY.—LAKES IN THE VALLEY—DANGER OF INUNDATION.—HISTORY OF THE DESAGUE OF HUEHUETOCA.—OPERATIONS OF THE ENGINEERS MARTINEZ AND BOOT.—THE FRANCISCANS.—COMPLETION OF THE DESAGUE.—LA OBRA DEL CONSULADO.—NEGRO REVOLT.—EXTENSION OF ORIENTAL TRADE.—GUERRA VICEROY.—DE CORDOVA VICEROY.—INDIAN REVOLT.—CORDOVA FOUNDED.
Don Luis Velasco,—the Second,—Conde de Santiago and
First Marques de Salinas,
XI. Viceroy of Mexico. His Second Administration.
1607–1611.
Don Luis Velasco had been seven years viceroy of Peru since he left the government of Mexico, when he was summoned once more to rule a country of which he felt himself almost a native. [35] He was tired of public life, and being advanced in years would gladly have devoted the rest of his existence to the care of his family and the management of his valuable estates in the colony. But he could not refuse the nomination of the king, and at the age of seventy, once more found himself at the head of affairs in New Spain.
The government of this excellent nobleman has been signalized in history by the erection of the magnificent public work, designed for the drainage of the valley, of which we spoke during the last viceroyalty. The results of Velasco's labors were permanent, and as his work, or at least a large portion of it remains to the present day, and serves to secure the capital from the floods with which it is constantly menaced, we shall describe the whole of this magnificent enterprise at present, though our description will carry us, chronologically, out of the period under consideration, and lead us from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.
The valley of Mexico is a great basin, which although seven thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and of course subject to constant and rapid evaporation, is yet exceedingly humid for so elevated a region. No stream, except the small arroyo, or rivulet of Tequisquiac, issues from the valley, whilst the rivers Papalotla, Tezcoco, Teotihuacan, Guadalupe, Pachuca and Guautitlan pour into it and form the five lakes of Chalco, Xochimilco, Tezcoco, San Cristoval and Zumpango. "These lakes rise by stages as they approach the northern extremity of the valley; the waters of Tezcoco, being, in their ordinary state, four Mexican varas and eight inches lower than the waters of the lake of San Cristoval, which again, are six varas lower than the waters of the lake Zumpango, which forms the northernmost link of this dangerous chain. The level of Mexico in 1803 was exactly one vara, one foot and one inch above that of the lake of Tezcoco, [36] and, consequently, was nine varas and five inches lower than that of the lake of Zumpango; a disproportion, the effects of which have been more severely felt because the lake of Zumpango receives the tributary streams of the river Guautitlan, whose volume is more considerable than that of all the other rivers which enter the valley combined.
"In the inundations to which this peculiarity in the formation of the valley of Mexico has given rise, a similar succession of events has been always observed. The lake of Zumpango, swollen by the rapid increase of the river Guautitlan during the rainy season, forms a junction with that of San Cristoval, and the waters of the two combined burst the dykes which separate them from the lake of Tezcoco. The waters of this last again, raised suddenly more than a vara above their usual level, and prevented from extending themselves to the east and south-east, by the rapid rise of the ground in that direction, rush back towards the capital and fill the streets which approach nearest to their own level. This was the case in the years 1553, 1580, 1604 and 1607, in each of which years the capital was entirely under water, and the dykes which had been constructed for its protection destroyed." [37]
Such is a topographical sketch of the country accurately given by a careful writer; and to protect an important region so constantly menaced with inundation, the viceroy now addressed himself. Accordingly he commissioned the engineer Enrique Martinez, in 1607 to attempt the drainage of the lake of Zumpango, by the stupendous canal now known under the name of the Desague de Huehuetoca.