Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/106

100 head on this slippery roof-side), and take in this scene. Everywhere a green valley, everywhere dahlia hills—the true dahlia—that deep purple sliding into black, and yet never losing its royal bloom, the finest color of all for the garments of men and women, as well as for Greek and Aztec mountains.

I am now looking southward; so may you. The city lies all about us, its limits being equidistant in all directions. Its flat roofs extend for a mile, domed twice or thrice with spacious churches. Then comes a flat gray field for several miles: it is probably more than ten miles, but distances are as deceitful as is every thing else in this clime. It is sprinkled with trees, especially to the west, and at its farther termination. To its right, or westward, the trees grow denser, and evidently line thoroughfares and fill gardens. A village glistens under the hills in which it is ending. Then comes a mass of dark and rugged peaks, soft in their ruggedness, and light in their darkness, the fields creeping well up their sides, and sometimes, but rarely, climbing on and over their heads.

This southern route was the one chosen by Cortez and Scott for entering the town. Between the two snow volcanoes they came over a lofty pass, around the western edge of that broad, flashing lake, by the side of the canal that you see stretching out, lined with trees and floating gardens. Along well-built causeways, amidst a frightened mass of living people, the invaders marched. Cortez had more than one bloody fight on that passway; and Scott made a rough lava height and Cherubusco, a not wide plain, famous with his victories. There, too, you note a purple hill, two hundred feet high, where the Aztec priests kindled the sacred fire at the close of each half century. They thought the world had come to an end. Light was never to come again; everywhere it was extinguished. The people march in solemn procession from the city to this hill; the priests take the chosen human victim to its summit. His heart is extracted. A new flame is kindled upon it. It is transmitted to waiting torches, and sent through the whole nation, re-illumining the face of society, and keeping fresh the hope and heart of man. One can hardly fancy that low and silent, and