Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/346

338 At the extremity of Lake Chalco lies a most attractive town surrounded by a perfect halo of history. Chalco, the former residence of powerful native kings, is built upon a plain, and saw its best days many years ago, if we may judge by the ruinous state of the houses, with battered mud walls and going to decay. A fine old church, containing interesting paintings and statuary, is sharing the general ruin. There is no hotel in the village, and the market-place is almost always desolate. This town once stood on the borders of the great lake of Chalco, the body of fresh water that poured a volume into Lake Tezcoco, through the lake and canal of Xochimilco. But now the lake is miles away, and only reached by canals cut through the sea of marshes. The inhabitants of the place have commerce with Mexico by canoes, and carry there fruits and flowers, though it is a day's journey distant. Fields of pulque, gardens, and trees surround Chalco on three sides, and in front is the marsh.

Long before the arrival of the Spaniards was Chalco celebrated in Mexican history. Her cacique, or lord, was once an independent ruler, like those of Tezcoco and Mexico, but in the early part of the fifteenth century he arrogantly slew two royal princes of Tezcoco, and brought down upon himself and his people the vengeance of the three kings, of Mexico, Tezcoco, and Tlacopan. He richly merited, it seems, the punishment they dealt out to him, as he not only refused his royal victims burial, but caused their bodies to be cured and dried and placed in the principal room of his palace as torch-bearers. The united kings sacked the city, killed the cacique, and the people were added to the subjects of the Mexican crown. Some years later they provoked another invasion, when their city was destroyed and the inhabitants driven to the hills, where they lived for many years in caves;—and perhaps these cave dwellers of the same sierras may be their descendants. From the summits of the hills about us flashed the fires built by Montezuma to warn them of the war of extermination that he was about to wage upon them. But it was not many years later that these Chalchese had their revenge, when they assisted at