Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/406

398 rising sun. Ah, glorious valley! right willingly would I be thumped and pounded by a hundred diligences, could I transport myself at will back to thy eastern or thy western brim! How sorry am I that I was not with Cortés and his knights when they first peered within its precincts, that I might give vent to my admiration; but now, coming at this late day, others have preceded me, and have exhausted the vocabulary of praise in its description.

Yet consolation comes in the thought that great minds have been quickened by these same scenes,—Cortés, Humboldt, Clavigero, Prescott, Southey. Recall, now, the poet's description of the vale of Aztlan, as it burst upon the view of the astonished and delighted Madoc:—

 From early morning till the midnoon hour We travelled in the mountains; then a plain Opened below, and rose upon the sight, Like boundless ocean from a hill top seen. A beautiful and populous plain it was; Fair woods were there, and fertilizing streams, And pastures spreading wide, and villages In fruitful groves embowered, and stately towns, And many a single dwelling specking it As though for many a year the land had been The land of peace. Below us, where the base Of the great mountain to the level sloped, A broad blue lake extended far and wide. Its waters dark beneath the light of noon. There Aztlan stood, upon the farther shore; Amid the shade of trees its dwellings rose, Their level roofs with turrets set around, And battlements all burnished white, which shone Like silver in the sunshine."

I do not wish to administer doses of Cortés ad nauseam; but this journey has as its special object a visit to the country-seat of the famous conquistador, acquired after he had subjected the Aztecs and had been created Marquis of the Valley. The scene of his most remarkable exploits lies before us, not only in the city we have just left, but at the foot of the hills we are now climbing. Nearest to us now is the town of Xochimilco, on the borders of the lake of the same name, where the brave