Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/22

 16 built cities and cultivated land, instead of always fighting and wandering about from country to country.

We shall come to those wonderful cities they built by and by, for their ruins fill the forests of the southern portion of Mexico and Yucatan.

It is difficult to choose whether to follow first the history of these most ancient of people, or to commence with those that have filled a more prominent place in more recent times.

Let us go up into that vast table-land and seek out the abiding-place of the nation that ruled Mexico when first this country was discovered by Europeans, by white men. We shall find ourselves in the valley of Mexico, enclosed on all sides by spurs of mountains from that mighty chain that strides the whole length of the continent. We shall find a valley sixty miles in length and thirty in breadth, surrounded by a mountain wall two hundred miles in circumference. We shall find it a delightful region of lakes and valleys and wooded hills, bathed in tropic sunshine, yet with the pure atmosphere of the temperate zone. For it is the centre of that region lying in the tropics, yet at an altitude so high as to remove it from tropic heat. In the distance you may see the glittering domes of two great snow-crowned volcanoes. The valley itself is over seven thousand feet above the sea, while the volcanoes are more than seventeen thousand!

If we could occupy some commanding position, we should not fail to note the numerous lakes that stretch along this beautiful valley and form a glistening chain its entire length. It is they that have given it its Indian name, Anấhuac or by the water side, since the earlier towns and cities were built near their margins, or upon the islands in them.

And when were these first cities built?