The ancient Anahuac corresponds mainly to the valley of Mexico city.[1016] Bancroft (iv. 497) shows in a summary way the extent of our knowledge of the scant archæological remains within this central area.[1017]
In the city of Mexico not a single relic of the architecture of the earlier peoples remains,[1018] though a few movable sculptured objects are preserved.[1019]
OLD MEXICAN BRIDGE NEAR TEZCUCO.
After a sketch in Tylor’s Anahuac, who thinks it the original Puente de las Bergantinas, where Cortes had his brigantines launched. The span is about 20 feet, and this Tylor thinks “an immense span for such a construction.” Cf. H. H. Bancroft, Native Races, iv. 479, 528. Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Reports, ii. 696) doubts its antiquity.
Tezcuco, on the other side of the lake from Mexico, affords some traces of the ante-Conquest architecture, but has revealed no such interesting movable relics as have been found in the capital city.[1020] Twenty-five miles north of Mexico are the ruins of Teotihuacan, which have been abundantly described by early writers and modern explorers. Bancroft (iv. 530) makes up his summary mainly from a Mexican official account, Ramon Almaraz’s Memoria de los trabajos ejecutados por la comision cientifica de Pachuca (Mexico, 1865), adding what was needed to fill out details from Clavigero, Humboldt, and the later writers.[1021]
Bancroft (iv. ch. 10), in describing what is known of the remains in the northern parts of Mexico, gives a summary of what has been written regarding the most famous of these ruins, Quemada in Zacatecas.[1022]
THE INDIO TRISTE.