The plate used in the 1572 edition of Porcacchi (p. 105) served for many successive editions. Another plan of the same year showing an oval lake surrounding the town, is found in Braun and Hogenberg’s Civitates orbis terrarum (Cologne, 1572), and of later dates, and the French edition, Théâtre des cités du monde (Brussels, 1574), i. 59. A similar outline characterizes the small woodcut (6×6 inches) which is found in Münster’s Cosmographia (1598), p. dccccxiiii.
Later views and plans appeared in Gottfriedt’s Newe Welt (1655); in Solis’s Conquista (1704), p. 261, reproduced in the English edition of 1724; in La Croix’ Algemeene Weereld Beschryving (1705); in Herrera (edition of 1728), p. 399; in Clavigero (1780), giving the lake and the town (copied in Verne’s De’couverte de la Terre, p. 248), and also a map of Anahuac, both reproduced in the London (1787) and Philadelphia (1817) editions, as well as in the Spanish edition published at Mexico in 1844; in Solis, edition of 1783 (Madrid), where the lake is given an indefinite extension; in Keating’s edition of Bernal Diaz, besides engraved plates by the Dutch publisher Vander Aa.
The account of Mexico in 1554 written by Francisco Cervantes Salazar, and republished with annotations by Icazbalceta in 1875 (Carter-Brown, i. 595) is helpful in this study of the ancient town. Cf. “Mexico et ses environs en 1554,” by L. Massbieau, in the Revue de géographie, October, 1878.
A descriptive book, Sitio, naturaleza y propriedades de la ciudad de México, by Dr. Diego Cisneros, published at Mexico in 1618, is become very rare. Rich in 1832 priced a copy at £6 6s.,—a great sum for those days (Sabin, vol. iv. no. 13,146; Carter-Brown, ii. 199).
Still the Aztec King, Quauhtemotzin, scorned to yield; and the slaughter went on from day to day, till finally, on the 13th of August, 1521, the end came. The royal Aztec was captured, trying to escape in a boat; and there was no one left to fight. Of the thousand Spaniards who had done the work about a tenth had succumbed; and probably something like the same proportion among the many thousand allies. The Mexican loss must have been far greater, perhaps several times greater.[1076] The Spaniards were no sooner in possession than quarrels began over the booty. Far less was found than was hoped for, and torture was applied, with no success, to discover the hiding-places. The captive prince was not spared this indignity. Cortés was accused of appropriating an undue share of what was found, and hot feelings for a while prevailed.
The conquest now had to be maintained by the occupation of the country; and the question was debated whether to build the new capital on the ruins of Mexico, or to establish it at Tezcuco or Coyohuacan. Cortés preferred the prestige of the traditional site, and so the new Spanish town rose on the ruins of the Aztec capital; the Spanish quarter being formed about the square of Tenochtitlan (known in the early books usually as Temixtitan), which was separated by a wide canal from the Indian settlement clustered about Tlatelulco. Two additional causeways were constructed, and the Aztec aqueduct was restored. Inducements were offered to neighboring tribes to settle in the city, and districts were assigned to them. Thus were hewers of wood and drawers of water abundantly secured. But Mexico never regained with the natives the dominance which the Aztecs had given it. Its population was smaller, and a similar decadence marked the fate of the other chief towns; Spanish rule and disease checked their growth. Even Tezcuco and Tlascala soon learned what it was to be the dependents of the conquerors.
