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 and their description rivals that of the fabled Toltec city of Tollan. Rare stones and beautifully coloured plaster mouldings alternated with wonderful tapestries of splendid feather-work to make an enchanting display of florid decoration, and the gardens which surrounded this marvellous edifice were delightful retreats, where the lofty cedar and cypress overhung sparkling fountains and luxurious baths. Fish darted hither and thither in the ponds, and the aviaries echoed to the songs of birds of wonderful plumage.

A Fairy Villa

According to Ixtlilxochitl, the king's villa of Tezcotzinco was a residence which for sheer beauty had no equal in Persian romance, or in those dream-tales of Araby which in childhood we feel to be true, and in later life regretfully admit can only be known again by sailing the sea of Poesy or penetrating the mist-locked continent of Dream. The account of it which we have from the garrulous half-blood reminds us of the stately pleasure-dome decreed by Kubla Khan on the turbulent banks of the sacred Alph. A conical eminence was laid out in hanging gardens reached by an airy flight of five hundred and twenty marble steps. Gigantic walls contained an immense reservoir of water, in the midst of which was islanded a great rock carved with hieroglyphs describing the principal events in the reign of Nezahualcoyotl. In each of three other reservoirs stood a marble statue of a woman, symbolical of one of the three provinces of Tezcuco. These great basins supplied the gardens beneath with a perennial flow of water, so directed as to leap in cascades over artificial rockeries or meander among mossy retreats with refreshing whisper, watering the roots of odoriferous shrubs and flowers Rh