Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/161



MONG the many northern tribes which invaded the lovely valley of Anahuac in the twelfth century were the Aztecs or Mexicans. After leading a nomadic life for more than a century—weary from their wanderings—they rested on the borders of Lake Tezcuco. The remarkable revelation of an eagle with outspread wings, standing upon a tunal that grew from a fissure in a rock on the water's edge, holding in his talons a serpent, impressed them as a favorable omen of future sovereignty, and indicated this spot as a permanent abiding place. At once they began preparations for building their city. Upon a slender foundation of reeds, rushes, and piles in the spongy marshes of Tezcuco the Aztecs built their huts, to be replaced in time by the solid structures which adorned the city at the coming of the Spaniards. This was the beginning of Tenochtitlan ("cactus on a stone"), named in honor of its supernatural origin—the capital of the most powerful empire of the Western world. To-day the hoary superstition is sacredly embodied as the national emblem on the escutcheon of Mexico.

From these humble beginnings, by subjugations of the weak and alliances with the strong, this Indian empire extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from unknown limits on the north to the Gulf.

This city was the great center of government, law, and religion to