Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/196

160 Montezuma had also plantations of medicinal and useful herbs, gardens for the culture of flowers and trees, where countless birds sang and nested among the branches, and ponds and baths of fresh water where the water came in at one end and flowed out at the other. All the ponds and tanks were substantially walled with masonry, well cemented, as was also the theatre where his singers, dancers and clowns performed.