These peaceful and agricultural people were succeeded by the Chichimecs, a more barbarous race, who came from the north. They in turn were followed by the Nahuals. Lastly came the Aztecs, who entered the valley about 1196, and reached a higher state of civilization than any of their predecessors. War was their choicest profession, for they considered that warriors slain in battle were immediately transported to scenes of ineffable bliss. They offered human sacrifices to their gods. Prescott tells us of a procession of captives two miles long, and numbering seventy thousand persons who were sacrificed at one time. This is incredible, for at that rate the population would soon have been exhausted even in this prolific land. Furthermore we know that the Aztecs were not always successful in war, and may have furnished victims from their own numbers, for sacrifice to the gods of the other nations in the same land.
THE CALENDAR STONE
The Aztecs were clever workers in gold and silver, and were acquainted with a number of arts that are lost to-day. Their picture writings bear witness to a clever fancy and fertile invention of symbols. The numerous idols show their skill in carving and a true artistic instinct. Many antiquities have been exhumed from the swampy soil on which the capital city is built, in making excavations for improvements. The National Museum is a treasure house of these relics and it would take a volume to describe them. The huge Sacrificial Stone, which is generally supposed to have been placed on the top of the great altar, is preserved there. It also houses the horrible image of the god Huitzilopochtli, and a varied assortment of inferior gods, goddesses, and other objects of worship. But the most celebrated antiquity—the one showing the greatest advancement—is the Calendar Stone. This stone was buried for centuries, and when resurrected was placed in the west tower of the cathedral. From this place it was removed a few years ago and placed in the museum. It is a mighty stone, eleven feet and eight inches in diameter, and weighs more than twenty tons. The Aztecs divided the year into eighteen months of twenty days each, and then arbitrarily added five days to complete the year.
“Let us follow the cross, and if we have faith we will conquer,” was the motto on the banner of Cortez. It was with this spirit that he led his little band over the mountains and into the heart of the empire of Montezuma, late in the fall of 1519. He was met by that sovereign, tradition says, on the site of the present Hospital of Jesus, with every manifestation of friendliness. For several months they were the honoured guests of the Aztec chief, but at length the aggressions of the Spaniards changed friendship to hate and the Aztecs, rising in their wrath, chased the invaders from the city. Driven before the infuriated natives like sheep, they fled over the present road to the suburban village of Tacuba, and many were those who fell. This rout of the Spaniards has been painted with wonderful vividness by Gen. Lew Wallace in “The Fair God.”
It was an awful night of despair, that first day of July, 1520, and the Spaniards who escaped named it La Noche Triste, “the sorrowful night.” The pursuit stopped at the little town of Popotla. In this village is a great cypress tree whose branches are blasted by the storms of centuries. For a moment the strong will of Cortez gave way and he sat down upon a stone under the spreading branches of this tree and wept. Whether he wept most for his fallen soldiers or disappointment over his ignominious defeat, we are not told by the chroniclers. This tree is now noted as el arbol de la noche triste, or “the tree of the sorrowful night.” A high iron fence protects the ancient relic from the souvenir vandals.
The Spaniards retreated beyond the valley to their allies, the Tlaxcalans, at Cholula. Reinforcements and supplies arriving, they returned a few months later and began the memorable siege of Tenochtitlan, and made a triumphal entry into that city on the 13th of August, 1521. Then Guatemotzin, the last of the Aztec emperors, wept in his turn, because the sacred fires of the temple had for ever gone out, and his people would henceforth be slaves. “Take that dagger,” he said, “and free this spirit.” But, no, torture must come before death, for Cortez fain would learn where the gold was hidden that had so suddenly disappeared. To-day, in the City of Mexico, a statue stands in one of the circles of the famous Paseo, which commemorates this great warrior and his torture by the Spanish chieftain. This monument is greatly cherished by the Indians, who hold annual festivals in his honour and decorate it with a profusion of flowers and wreaths.
The great Valley of Mexico is without a natural outlet, and this fact has caused seven inundations of the capital during exceptionally rainy seasons. One of the lakes, Zumpango, is twenty-five feet higher than the city and drains into Texcoco, from which the waters spread over the city. When the first serious inundations came in 1553, 1580 and 1604, the project of removing the city to a higher level was strongly agitated. It was only the loss of millions of dollars of property that prevented this action. Then the idea of draining this valley was definitely adopted and the work was begun in 1607. A tunnel was decided upon and fifteen thousand Indians were set at work sinking shafts and driving the tunnel in both directions. Within a year a tunnel four miles long had been completed. This tunnel eventually caved in, so that very little good was realized from it and efforts were made to convert it into an open cut. But this undertaking was not finished until two centuries later. It is a great trench, however, with an average depth of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, and from three hundred to seven hundred feet in width at the top. It is called the Tajo de Nochistongo, or Nochistongo cut, and its only use now is as an entrance for the Mexican Central railway. Even this waterway did not drain the valley, remarkable engineering feat as it was, but a new canal was constructed by American engineers a few years ago which successfully accomplishes the work of draining these shallow lakes and carrying off the sewerage of the city.
The first Aztecs who settled in this valley lived almost entirely in the marshes and lakes, we are told, because of the hostility of their fierce neighbours. They were thus obliged to depend almost wholly upon the products of these watered lands for their sustenance, and they acquired some strange and—we would say—depraved tastes. A reminder of those days is seen in the cakes made of the eggs of a curious marsh-fly, which are sold in the market of the City of Mexico to-day. The flies themselves are pounded into a paste and sold after being boiled, but the eggs are preferred. The Indians collect the eggs in a systematic manner. Bundles of a certain kind of sedge are planted in Lake Texcoco and the insects deposit their eggs thereon in great quantities. These bundles as soon as covered are shaken over pieces of cloth and replaced for another supply. The eggs thus collected are made into a paste and form a favourite article of food, especially during Lent.