AN AZTEC RELIC.
"The present palace stands on the site of the one occupied by Montezuma. Chapultepec was called the 'Hill of the Grasshopper' by the Aztecs, and in their maps of the valley the hill is represented with a grasshopper as large as itself perched on the top. We are wondering whether they really had grasshoppers of that size. What a famine they would create if they were as numerous as they are to-day in some parts of the West!
"What a magnificent place this must have been in the time of Montezuma, according to the description in Prescott's History! Here was an aviary that alone required 300 attendants, and there was a menagerie of corresponding extent. Then the King had granaries of immense extent, to guard against suffering in case of famine; and there were armories with weapons sufficient for a military force of thousands. The halls of the palace were spacious, and the royal dining-table was supplied with delicacies of all kinds from every part of the dominions. Fresh fish were provided daily by a line of couriers in the same way that they were supplied to the Khan of Tartary in the days of Marco Polo, and also to the royal table of Japan. According to the accounts, the runners made the journey from the coast to the city in very nearly the same time that it is now made by the railway.
"We were shown through the palace, which has large halls and galleries, and is surrounded by terraces paved with marble and affording fine views of the valley and mountains. Some of the halls and galleries are elaborately ornamented, while others are quite plain; a portion of the decorations ordered by Maximilian still remain, and others have been covered or partly obliterated. The most interesting hall was the grand saloon, where banquets are occasionally given. It is memorable for having been the scene of Maximilian's 'Feast of Belshazzar,' as the Mexicans call it—his grand banquet on his return from Orizaba, just before he started for Queretaro, for capture, and for execution. Many of the porcelain dishes marked with the imperial cipher were broken at this banquet, and are kept as souvenirs by those who secured them. A friend of ours in New York has one of them; it is part of a saucer, and was given to him by a gentleman who was in Mexico shortly after the fall of the Empire.
"The national military college is at Chapultepec, and adjoins the palace building. We were told that it is conducted on a plan similar to that of our military academy at West Point, and contained between three and four hundred students. There was a military school here at the time of our war with Mexico. The cadets enlisted for the defence of Chapultepec, fought splendidly, and many of them were killed in the battle. A few years ago a monument commemorating their gallantry was erected in the garden on the side of the hill, and it should be visited in honor of the brave youths who fell here.
"And this brings us to the incidents of the capture of Chapultepec.
"'Do you see that large building back of the grove?' said our guide, pointing his finger in an easterly direction.
"We followed the direction with our eyes, and indicated that we saw it.