le
the commissariat capacity of barbaric tribes is not such as to provide
extensive supplies from a distance. Under such circumstances, we should
look for an extremely limited population. Yet the most surprising part
of the story of the conquest is the enormous population assigned to the
numerous large cities which they allege the valley contained. Diaz
says, "A series of large towns stretched themselves along the banks of
the lake, out of which [the lake] still larger ones rose magnificently
above the water." Cortez says that Iztapalapan contained "10,000
families," which would give the town 50,000 inhabitants; "Amaqueruca,
20,000 inhabitants;" "Mexicalzingo, 3000 families," or 15,000
inhabitants; "Ayciaca more than 6000 families;" "Huchilohuchico, 5000
or 6000." The population of Chalco he does not give, nor the population
of the very numerous villages whose names he mentions. At the present
day there are a few mud huts in nearly every locality named, but not
enough in any one instance to merit the name of a village. And this, I
am inclined to believe, was the real condition of things in the time of
Cortez. The city of Mexico alone would have exhausted the limited
resources of the valley. Old Thomas Gage was as much puzzled two
hundred years ago to account for this astonishing disappearance of the
numerous Indian cities of this valley as we are, and also for the
supposed filling up of the lakes, never appearing to suspect that the
story of Cortez was a fiction.

[31] There has been much speculation in regard to the origin of
the saline properties of this water; but the Artesian borings
going on while I was in Mexico, I think, sufficiently demonstrate
that the earthy bottom of the valley, for hundreds of feet,
contains an infusion of carbonate and muriate of soda.

[32] The atmosphere of Mexico is so intensely dry, that the
hygrometer of Deluc frequently descends to 15 deg..--HUMBOLDT'S
_Essai Politique_, vol. ii. p. 110.

[33] When the Artesian well, in process of construction near my
residence, had reached a depth of seventy yards, the water that
came up was slightly impregnated with this salt.

[34] _Comercio de Mexico_, 1852.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Chinampas or Water Gardens.--Laws of Nature not set aside.--Mud
will not float.--The present Chinampas.--They never could have been
floating Gardens.--Relations of the Chinampas to the ancie