All splendor is comparative; the halls of the Montezumas, never in contact with the palaces of the Old World, were to be judged upon a scale of their own. Tenochtitlan was, undoubtedly, the richest city upon Anahuac. It was built, like Venice, in the midst of waters, upon an island intersected with canals, and communicating with the mainland by means of four broad causeways. An aqueduct from Chapultepec brought fresh water, as the lake was brackish. The streets were laid out in straight lines and at right angles, following the direction of the causeways; some of them were the intersecting canals themselves, with houses facing at once upon the water, and on the other side the street. Upon the canals floated canoas for pleasure or business, coming from the suburbs laden with food, vegetables, and fruit, the cargo heaped always with a profusion of flowers, bright-hued poppies, sweet peas, and the deep-red blossoms of clover. Above the houses, which were not high, with flat roofs, or azoteas, rose the lofty teocalli, and the walls of the royal palace which dominated the other buildings.
Bernal Diaz, the companion of Cortés, who is charged with much garrulity and exaggeration, says that when the Spaniards arrived at the great causeway leading to the capital they paused, struck with admiration on seeing so many cities and villages rising from the soil, with the splendid highway, perfectly level, stretching on to Mexico. They compared the scene to the enchanted castles described in "Amadis of Gaul," and as they gazed at the lofty towers, the great temples, and the white buildings gleaming in the sun and reflected in the waters of the lake, they asked each other if it was not all a dream. The old chronicler ends his account with this brief remark: "Now, the whole of this city is destroyed and not a bit of it left standing."
The life that Montezuma proposed to himself was one of enjoyment and pleasure. Upon his people he wasted little thought. The country was prosperous and they were happy, always a docile and domestic population busy with agriculture, their crops, and their families. It is said that he used to go out among them like the Sultan in the "Arabian Nights," disguised, to see what the occupations of his subjects were, and hear what they talked about. But this must have been chiefly to fill up his time, for there was no danger of sedition or conspiracy among the citizens of his capital. A walk incognito outside its walls, through the lanes of any one of the surrounding pueblos would have revealed to him a state of hostility and a longing for his overthrow which might have taught him something for the future.
In the palace was luxurious living; fruits of the warmer climate, and even fresh fish from the Gulf, it is said, were brought by swift-footed runners up the steep path that the steam-engine now requires fourteen hours to climb; music and the enjoyment of society, occupied leisure hours. The state correspondence of the Aztec court consisted in picture writings brought by messengers from all parts of the country, depicting in realistic forms the events requiring attention. Montezuma could go to the lovely Grasshopper Hill over the fine causeway under the aqueduct built by his ancestors; not as the gay, fashionable world now makes the excursion on horseback before breakfast, for air and exercise, but carried in a palanquin by four strong bearers. It has been thought that the Aztec kings had a royal villa at Chapultepec; but the wise men have given that up now, because they find no traces of any. Lately, however, have been discovered fragments of the effigy of Ahuitzotl, Montezuma's uncle and predecessor, who was doubtless buried there. It was carved in half-relief, a full-length figure life-size, stretched out on a ledge of natural rock. The carving is much mutilated, the top having been blasted off apparently, but beneath, distinctly visible, is the date corresponding to 1507, with the name, Ahuitzotl.
This chieftain died in 1502. The monument was erected therefore by the direction of his successor, Montezuma, in the spot well-beloved by all generations of Aztecs, under the trees protected and guarded by them.
There is now standing an ancient cypress, or ahuehuete, huge among the other great trees of the grove, which goes by the name of Montezuma's cypress. Its gnarled trunk must measure more than ten feet across, and its branches themselves are as big as trees. The leaves of this great tree are small and delicate, like those of the acacia; they hang from slender stems drooping over the great limbs down to the ground. Long trailing gray moss now droops from the branches, which, with the dense foliage, shuts out the rays of the sun, so that a gloomy half-light pervades the place. Perhaps it was more cheerful in the heyday of Mexico, or did coming events cast their shadows before, as Montezuma paced those silent alleys?
It may well have been, for misfortunes began to obscure the sky of his prosperity like little clouds coming up on the horizon. His almost constant wars were not always successful. Each victory left behind it bitterness and discontent, so that the same field had soon to be fought over again. In 1516, Nezahualpilli, the wise sovereign of Texcuco, who had always been a safe and strong adviser of the Aztec king, during his long reign of forty-four years, left the kingdom to the eldest of four sons, Cacamatzin; the honor was coveted by another son, Ixtlilxochitl, who contested the throne. Montezuma took the side of Cacamatzin, as rightful heir, in a civil war. The matter was settled by a division. Cacamatzin kept that part of the kingdom of the Aculhuas which stretched south of the capital Texcuco; while his rebellious brother obtained the part towards the north, among the mountains. This division of the kingdom becomes important to us by and by.
About this time all minds in Anahuac were occupied by sinister presages, constantly repeated, of dreadful events soon to occur. Temples were in flames, comets appeared unexpectedly; there were inundations, earthquakes all over the land, and the people dreamed strange dreams.
Above all hovered the rumor that men of great stature, white and with beards, were on their way to subjugate all the nations of the earth. This rumor was perfectly in accordance with the universal tradition about Quetzalcoatl (the Bright Shining Serpent), the bearded white man, clothed in raiment covered with crosses, who had taught the Toltecs awe, industry, and skill. He predicted with supreme authority before he disappeared from them, the arrival of men white and bearded as he was, who would take possession of the country, and destroy their temples and their gods.
This event was a part of the Mexican belief, a something in the future to be hoped for in a certain way, yet dreaded as the inception of great changes in the manners of the people. The races subjugated by the power of Montezuma might look forward to the coming of the strangers as to deliverance; but that monarch himself became penetrated with the conviction that his wealth and prosperity were to disappear in the course of his lifetime.