ed from the hopeful promise of a better faith that he had
offered to them--but obeyed the order meekly and so held his peace. That
what he had spoken had taken hold upon the hearts of some at least among
his hearers I was well assured by their grave look of thoughtfulness,
and especially did Tizoc seem to be deeply moved; but--as I supposed for
fear of the barge-master--there was no open comment upon what had
passed.

By this time, the barge being all the while urged rapidly forward by the
steady strokes of the twenty oarsmen, the city rose so broadly and so
openly before us that we could see the whole of it distinctly with our
naked eyes. And what at this nearer view seemed most impressive about it
was its gloominess; that was due not less to the prison-like effect of
its heavily built houses and its massive walls than to the dull
blackness of the stone whereof these same were made. Nowhere was there
sparkle, or glitter, or bright color, or brightness of any sort to be
seen; and it seemed to me, as I gazed upon this sombre stronghold, that
dwelling always within it well enough might wear a man's heart out with
a consuming melancholy begotten of its cold and cheerless tones.

That it was indeed a stronghold was the more apparent to us the nearer
that we came to it. The plan of it was that of a great fan, spread open
upon the hillside, and extending also across the broad sweep of level
land between the base of the promontory and the lake. The promontory had
been so cut and shaped that its gentle slope had been transformed into
six broad semicircular terraces, above the highest of which was a
semicircular plateau of very considerable size, on which stood the
Treasure-house, that also was the great temple. Along the face of each
terrace, and around the face also of the plateau, a heavy defensive wall
rose to a height of twenty feet or more; and from the base of the
crowning plateau, thence accessible by a single broad flight of
stairs--being led through openings in the rampart walls of the terraces,
and down each terrace face by means of stair-ways--twelve streets
descended, of which the central six ended at the water-side and the
remainder against the great outer wall. It was this outer line of
strong defence that gave the city--which otherwise would have
corresponded curiously closely with the fortified city of Quetzaltepec,
described by the Mexican chronicler Tezozomoc--its most distinctive
characteristic. Such a vastl