Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/203

Rh chief side to where the strata are lost in the trees and brush that grow upon them.

On this rising edge of the mound you note the number and size of the churches that once replaced in this now deserted city the old idolatry with the new. Churches are everywhere and of every size, hidden away among the trees, standing out to view in the plaza, and on the hill slopes surrounding the town. There is about one apiece for every family, if not for every soul; though in this latter list, if dogs were included—and John Wesley hints that they may be—the churches may not be too numerous, even now. All church and no people seems to be the present character of the town.

This was either a proof that the town had left the churches, or that Cortez and his successors were not content alone with building Puebla, or with having the angels do it, but thought it good policy to fill the old Aztec and Toltec city with their new gods. Whatever prompted them, the fact remains—and it is about all that does remain—that domes and towers rise everywhere in open fields, and pastures without inhabitant. I doubt if such a sort of desolation exists elsewhere on the earth.

We drive a short distance along a line of adobe huts, a single story high, and mostly opening on the street, sometimes used as little shops and stores, and sometimes containing a whole and not a small family in a single squalid room. The opposite side is a part of the inclosure of a gigantic church. A few moments and the Plaza Grande opens on us, as large as that of Mexico, but void of gardens, foliage, and folks, in all of which that place abounds.

Here or hereabouts occurred the crudest massacre of all that marked the march of Cortez. The cunning, priestly city welcomed him timidly, but with seeming cordiality. Forced by the superior warlike nature of the Mexican rulers, the officials plotted a surprise, making pits in the streets for his horses, and arranging the house roofs for assault. Malinche learned the secret through a wife of a cazique, and revealed it to Cortez. He had the plaza filled with the authorities and thousands of packmen, to see and help him off; and on just such a calm, sweet, glorious morning as