Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/191

 in their progress. They had a farther oracle saying that they were to stop when they should arrive where an eagle was sitting on a nopal plant; and this they found at Mexico, on the very spot which now is the plaza of San Domingo. The whole district became filled in time with small kings and princes tributary to the Montezumas. The most refined and peaceable type of them all arose at Texcoco.

In the Cerro of Texcocingo, some ten or twelve miles back of the town, remain extensive vestiges of an architectural magnificence which show that the accounts of the historians are not made of whole cloth. We had a trooper appointed us, as an escort and guide, by the Jefe Politico, and rode out to visit them. Ascending the hill, of perhaps two thousand feet in height, overgrown with "hardy nopal and maguey, you come to excellent flights of steps cut in the solid rock, giving access to aqueducts, bathing tanks, cisterns, and caverns, heavily sculptured within and without, which are remains of temples and palaces. Our trooper had little ambition in these matters, and after showing us a part declared that there was no more, and went comfortably to sleep. It was only by climbing alone to the top that I found the principal display. Here the philosophic Nezhualcoyotl, in his retirement, hung in the air, above the wide prospect of his capital, the lake, and his rival of Mexico. And here, in the deserted mountain, with a guide who had gone fast asleep below, his ghost might be half expected to be met with wandering in the still sunshine, but unfortunately it was not. He wrote poems of a pensive cast. He reflected even in his time as to whether life is worth living, and his general theme was the vanity of all things mortal. "Where is Chalchintmet, the Chicameca?" he asks.