peror to Death.--The Children paying
the Penalty of their Fathers' Crimes.--The Aztecs and other
Indians.--The Difference is in the Historians.--The Superstitions
of the Indians.--The Valley of Mexico.--An American Survey of the
Valley.--A topographical View.--The Ponds Chalco, Xochimulco, and
Tezcuco were never Lakes.

My first view of the Valley of Mexico was from the point where the
Acapulco road passes the Cross of the "Marquis of the Valley." I had
read with eagerness the History of the Conquest, and of the adventures
of the noble _Conquistador_. Not a shadow of a doubt had then crossed
my mind in regard to the truth of all that had been so elegantly
written. Beautiful composition had supplied the place of evidence, and
that practice of writing romances of history which the Spaniards had
inherited from the Moors had completely captivated me, as it had
thousands of others. The aspect of the valley was all that my fancy had
painted it. The sun was in the right quarter to produce the greatest
possible effect. The unnumbered pools of surface-water that abound in
the valley appeared at that distance like so many lakelets supplied by
crystal fountains, as each one reflected the bright sun from its
mirror-like surface; these all were inclosed in the richest setting of
nature's green.

It was such a scene as would justify the extravagant language which
Spaniards have employed in describing it. While I recalled its
traditional history, I was tempted to exclaim as a native would have
done, and to give credence to the fables of which this valley has been
the scene. Here, as the story ran, amid floating gardens of rarest
flowers and richest fruits, lay, in olden time, another Venice--a
Venice in an inland mountain valley--a Venice upon whose Rialto never
walked a Shylock with his money-bags; for in this market-place the most
delicious fruits the world produces, the loveliest flowers, rich stuffs
resplendent with Tyrian dyes, and princely mantles of feather-work,
were bought with pretty shells, and such money as the sea produces. It
was a Venice with its street of waters and its central basin, where
jostled the gondolas of the Aztec nobles and the light canoes of birch
bark among the vessels of commerce which came laden with slaves and
other merchandise from the surrounding villages--a basin that
disappeared the same day that the Indian empire fell.

GUATEMOZIN.

This basin was the last vestige of Aztec dominion; and w