[321] “C’est sur le chemin qui mène a Tanepantla et aux Ahuahuetes que l’on peut marcher plus d’une heure entre les ruines de l’ancienne ville. On y reconnaît, ainsi que sur la route de Tacuba et d’Iztapalapan, combien Mexico, rebâti par Cortéz, est plus petit que l’était Tenochtitlan sous le dernier des Montezuma. L’énorme grandeur du marché de Tlatelolco, dont on reconnaît encore les limites, prouve combien la population de l’ancienne ville doit avoir été considerable.” Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 43.
[322] A common food with the lower classes was a glutinous scum found in the lakes, which they made into a sort of cake, having a savor not unlike cheese. (Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 92.)—[This “scum” consists in fact of the eggs of aquatic insects, with which cakes are made, in the same manner as with the spawn of fishes. Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega), tom. i. p. 366.{*}]
{*} [Little can be inferred, in regard to the difference of population, from the use of the ahuähutle, as these cakes are called, since it is still a favorite article of food at Tezcuco, where the eggs are found in great abundance, and sold in the market both in the prepared state and in lumps as collected at the edge of the lake. “The flies which produce these eggs are called by the Mexicans axayacatl, or water-face,—Corixa femorata, and Notonecta unifasciata, according to MM. Meneville and Virlet d’Aoust.” Tylor, Anahuac, p. 156.—K.]
[323] One is confirmed in this inference by comparing the two maps at the end of the first edition of Bullock’s “Mexico;” one of the modern city, the other of the ancient, taken from Boturini’s museum, and showing its regular arrangement of streets and canals; as regular, indeed, as the squares on a chess-board.{**}
{**} [The doubts so often excited by the descriptions of ancient Mexico in the accounts of the Spanish discoverers, like the similar incredulity formerly entertained in regard to the narrations of Herodotus, are dispelled by a critical investigation in conjunction with the results of modern explorations. Among recent travellers, Mr. Edward B. Tylor, whose learning and acumen have been displayed in various ethnological studies, is entitled to especial confidence. In company with Mr. Christy, the well-known collector, he examined the ploughed fields in the neighborhood of Mexico, making repeated trials whether it was possible to stand in any spot where no relic of the former population was within reach. “But this,” he says, “we could not do. Everywhere the ground was full of unglazed pottery and obsidian.” “We noticed by the sides of the road, and where ditches had been cut, numbers of old Mexican stone floors covered with stucco. The earth has accumulated above them to the depth of two or three feet, so that their position is like that of the Roman pavements so often found in Europe; and we may guess, from what we saw exposed, how great must be the number of such remains still hidden, and how vast a population must once have inhabited this plain, now almost deserted.” “When we left England,” he adds, “we both doubted the accounts of the historians of the Conquest, believing that they had exaggerated the numbers of the population, and the size of the cities, from a natural desire to make the most of their victories, and to write as wonderful a history as they could, as historians are prone to do. But our examination of Mexican remains soon induced us to withdraw this accusation, and even made us inclined to blame the chroniclers for having had no eyes for the wonderful things that surrounded them. I do not mean by this that we felt inclined to swallow the monstrous exaggeration of Solís and Gomara and other Spanish chroniclers, who seemed to think that it was as easy to say a thousand as a hundred, and that it sounded much better. But when this class of writers are set aside, and the more valuable authorities severely criticised, it does not seem to us that the history thus extracted from these sources is much less reliable than European history of the same period. There is, perhaps, no better way of expressing this opinion than to say that what we saw of Mexico tended generally to confirm Prescott’s History of the Conquest, and but seldom to make his statements appear to us improbable.” Anahuac, p. 147.—K.]
[324] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 274.
[325] “Era tan barrido y el suelo tan asentado y liso, que aunque la planta del pie fuera tan delicada como la de la mano no recibiera el pie detrimento ninguno en andar descalzo.” Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 7.
[326] Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 108.—Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.—Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 309.
[327] These immense masses, according to Martyr, who gathered his information from eye-witnesses, were transported by means of long files of men, who dragged them with ropes over huge wooden rollers. (De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 10.) It was the manner in which the Egyptians removed their enormous blocks of granite, as appears from numerous reliefs sculptured on their buildings.
[328] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 309.