Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/178

 is impossible to draw a definite line between the true and the false; nor do I feel it my duty to dogmatize in these matters, but rather to tell the tale as I find it, at the same time laying every shade of evidence before the reader.

The principal palace in the city of Mexico was an irregular pile of low buildings, enormous in extent, constructed of huge blocks of tetzontli, a kind of porous stone common to that country, cemented with mortar. The arrangement of the buildings was such that they enclosed three great plazas or public squares, in one of which a beautiful fountain incessantly played. Twenty great doors opened on the squares, and on the streets, and over these was sculptured in stone the coat of arms of the kings of Mexico,—an eagle gripping in his talons a jaguar. In the interior were many halls, each of immense size, and one in particular is said by a writer who accompanied Cortés, known as the Anonymous Conqueror, to have been of sufficient extent to contain three thousand men; while upon the terrace that formed its roof thirty men on horseback could have gone through the spear exercise. In addition to these there were more than one hundred smaller rooms, and the same number of marble baths, which together with the fountains, ponds, and basins in the gardens, were supplied with water from the neighboring hill of Chapultepec. There were also splendid suites of apartments retained for the use of the kings of Tezcuco and Tlacopan, and their attendants, when they visited Mexico,