Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/194



1607—1621.



had been seven years viceroy of Peru since he left the government of Mexico, when he was summoned once more to rule a country of which he felt himself almost a native. He was tired of public life, and being advanced in years would gladly have devoted the rest of his existence to the care of his family and the management of his valuable estates in the colony. But he could not refuse the nomination of the king, and at the age of seventy, once more found himself at the head of affairs in New Spain.

The government of this excellent nobleman has been signalized in history by the erection of the magnificent public work, designed for the drainage of the valley, of which we spoke during the last viceroyalty. The results of Velasco's labors were permanent, and as his work, or at least a large portion of it remains to the present day, and serves to secure the capital from the floods with which it is constantly menaced, we shall describe the whole of this magnificent enterprise at present, though our description will carry us, chronologically, out of the period under consideration, and lead us from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.