COMPARATIVE LEVEL OF LAKES.
They crossed the plain of the Cazadero, which obtains its name from an incident of the Conquest. About the year 1540 the Indians organized a great cazadero (hunt) on this plain, to show their good-will towards the first viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. A great number of them assembled, and the game was driven in from all directions and duly slaughtered by the viceroy and his friends. Hunts of this sort are of very ancient date; they are practised by aborigines in all parts of the world, and even civilized man does not disdain them. Of the civilized class are the kangaroo hunts in Australia, elephant hunts in Ceylon and India, and the chase of wolves and other noxious animals in the Western States of North America and in the Siberian provinces of Russia.
At the edge of the plain of the Cazadero the train reached the foot of the mountain chain that surrounds the valley of Mexico. The locomotive breathed heavily as it ascended the slope dragging its burden behind it. The speed was materially reduced from that by which the plain had been traversed, and the reduction showed very plainly that the grade was steep. Every turn in the road gave a picturesque view, and the youths thoroughly enjoyed their ride towards the famous valley.
THE GREAT SPANISH DRAINAGE-CUT.
The top of the ascent was reached at Tula, of which we shall have something to say later on. Then the train entered a gorge, which Frank and Fred specially wished to look at. It was the Tajo de Nochistongo, the great Spanish drainage-cut, which was intended to save the city of Mexico from inundation.
From the windows of the car they shuddered as they looked into the cut, and wondered if never an accident had happened from the falling away of the earth. The cut is twelve and a half miles in length, and is the work of human hands, not of nature. The railway enters the valley of Mexico through this cut, and the track is laid on a shelf or bench along its sides and high above the bottom. Our friends visited it a few days later, and we will here include Frank's account of what he saw and heard.
"The city of Mexico stands in a valley which has no outlet, the water that accumulates from the rains being evaporated by the heat of the sun or absorbed in the volcanic soil. The city is in the lowest part of the valley, and is therefore liable to be overflowed whenever the evaporation and absorption are not sufficient to carry off the water that accumulates. There are several lakes that cover a tenth part of the area of the valley. The lowest of them is salt, as it has no outlet, but the others which discharge into it are fresh. This salt lake is called Tezcoco. It has an area of seventy-seven square miles, and its surface ordinarily is only two feet lower than the level of the Plaza Mayor, or great square of the city. In the days of the Aztecs the lake surrounded the city, but it is now three miles away from it, owing to the recession of the waters. Lake Chalco is three and a half feet higher than Tezcoco; while Zumpango, the most northerly of all the lakes, is twenty-nine feet higher than the Plaza Mayor. The lakes are separated by dikes, some of which were built by the Aztecs before the arrival of the Spaniards, but the greater number are of more recent construction, as we shall presently see.