Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/498

490 depicted by the later historian. Where was the grand palace erected, and where that temple to the "Unknown God of Causes"? or did they exist solely in the fertile fancy of the Indian chronicler, Ixtlilxochitl, himself a descendant of the monarch of Tezcoco he fain would magnify? But whether exaggerated or not, there was sufficient remaining at the time the Spaniards came here to excite their wonder; and there are ruins enough now to testify to an ample city and magnificent buildings.

"Nezahualcoyotl's royal palace measured nearly three quarters of a mile in length, by half a mile in width. Its vast courts were not wholly occupied by affairs of state, but were open for the reception of foreign embassies, and as retreats for men of science and all literary culture; and here was gathered the literature of the past. The saloons of the royal wives glittered with walls of alabaster, or were rich with gorgeous hangings of feather-work. These opened into gardens of great beauty, enlivened by fountains and the varied plumage of tropical birds. Like Solomon, the king had gathered to his court and capital specimens of all known living animals. The annual supply of grain and fowls and fruit for the royal tables was enormous. In the midst of this luxury, the king ruled in the main with great justice. And according to the superstitions which he held, he might be counted an unusually religious man, as well as a philosopher and poet."

In passing, I would call attention to some modern ruins, not far south of Tezcoco, in the town of Tlalmanalco, which surpass any remains, in the former place, of the more ancient palaces.

Back of the present city of Tezcoco and at the foot-hills of the mountains supplying the streams which fertilize the plain, the wise king constructed a buen retiro, a palace and a garden, and here to-day may be found the remains of vast hydraulic works,—an aqueduct passing from hill to hill over an embankment two hundred feet high, a bath cut from solid stone; and in former years the face of a cliff had sculptured on it what was thought to be an Aztec or Toltec calendar.