after sailing to the end of these great evaporating
pans, and found horses waiting to take us to the Bosque del Contador.
This is a grand square, looking towards the cardinal points, and
composed of ahuehuetes, grand old deciduous cypresses, many of them
forty feet round, and older than the discovery of America. My
companion, not content with buying collections at secondhand, wished to
have some excavations made on his own account, and very judiciously
fixed on this spot, where, though there were no buildings standing, the
appearance of the ground and the mounds in the neighbourhood, together
with the historical notoriety of the place, made it probable that
something would be found to repay a diligent search. This expectation
was fully realized, and some fine idols of hard stone were found, with
an infinitude of pottery and small objects.

When I look through my notes about Tezcuco, I do not find much more to
mention, except that a favourite dish here consists of flies' eggs
fried. These eggs are deposited at the edge of the lake, and the
Indians fish them out and sell them in the market-place. So large is
the quantity of these eggs, that at a spot where a little stream
deposits carbonate of lime, a peculiar kind of travertine is forming
which consists of masses of them imbedded in tho calcareous deposit.

The flies[14] which produce these eggs are called by the Mexicans
"_axayacatl_" or "water-face." There was a celebrated Aztec king who
was called Axayacatl; and his name is indicated in the picture-writings
by a drawing of a man's face covered with water. The eggs themselves
are sold in cakes in the market, pounded and cooked, and also in lumps
_au naturel_, forming a substance like the roe of a fish. This is known
by the characteristic name of "_ahuauhtli_", that is "water-wheat."[15]

The last thing we did at Tezcuco, was to witness the laying down of a
new line of water-pipes for the saltworks. This I mention because of
the pipes, which were exactly those introduced into Spain by the Moors
and brought here by tho Spaniards. These pipes are of glazed
earthenware, taper at one end, and each fitting into the large end of
the next. The cement is a mixture of lime, fat, and hair, which gets
hard and firm when cold, but can be loosened by a very slight
application of heat. A thousand years has made no alteration in the way
of making these pipes. Here, however, the ground is so level that one
great characteristic of Mo