always formed a favorite retreat for
an Indian tribe, whether among the everglades of Florida, or the
wild-rice swamps of north-western Canada. Such a retreat is still more
desirable when, in addition to the security it affords from an enemy,
it is likewise a resort for wild ducks, as was and is the case with the
laguna of the Mexican valley. Hence, probably, the Aztecs selected this
place as the site of their village; and to reach it, it was necessary
to make one or more footpaths across the marsh. As the Aztecs had no
beasts of burden, this must have been a task of no little magnitude. To
have made it thirty feet wide would not only have been a work of
immense difficulty, but would have destroyed the defensive character of
their position. Still, we can, upon this occasion, afford to be a
little liberal with the statements of Cortez, as we have had to cut his
hundreds of thousands of warriors down to a few thousand of
miserably-armed Indians, and reduce his magnificent cities to small
Indian villages. In order to make the island of Mexico at all
inhabitable, we have had to reduce his lakes from navigable basins of
twelve feet or more in depth to mere evaporating ponds. His floating
islands have been transformed into garden-beds built upon the mud; and
his canals have sunk to mere ditches. Now I propose to be liberal to
the old Conquistador in the matter of his famous causeways, and will
therefore admit that they might have been twelve feet in width--as
broad as the tow-path of the Erie Canal.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Street of Tacuba.--The Spaniards and the Indian Women.--The
Retreat of Cortez.--The Aqueducts of Mexico.--The English and
American Burying-grounds.--The Protestant President.--The rival
Virgins.--An Image out of Favor.--The Aztecs and the Spaniards.

As I rode along the street to the gate and causeway of Tacuba, over
which Cortez retreated on the "sorrowful night" (_triste noche_),
I naturally fell into reflections upon the righteous retribution that
overtook a portion of the Spanish robbers on that night, and upon the
mysterious ways of Providence in allowing Cortez and a remnant to
escape being burned alive by the Indians after the infamous lives
which, by their own admissions, they had been leading in the city. The
Indians had made a feeble resistance when Alvarado murdered their
chiefs, and had cringed into submission when Cortez returned. But now
their wrongs had reached that point where even Az