I say stands, but alas! it stands no
more. Cortes has destroyed it, and with it all those glorious cities
which my eyes beheld that day.
At Xoloc we began to enter the city of Tenoctitlan or Mexico, the
mightiest city that ever I had seen. The houses on the outskirts,
indeed, were built of mud or adobe, but those in the richer parts were
constructed of red stone. Each house surrounded a courtyard and was
in turn surrounded by a garden, while between them ran canals, having
footpaths on either side. Then there were squares, and in the squares
pyramids, palaces, and temples without end. I gazed on them till I was
bewildered, but all seemed as nothing when at length I saw the great
temple with its stone gateways opening to the north and the south,
the east and the west, its wall carven everywhere with serpents, its
polished pavements, its teocallis decked with human skulls, thousands
upon thousands of them, and its vast surrounding tianquez, or market
place. I caught but a glimpse of it then, for the darkness was falling,
and afterwards we were borne on through the darkness, I did not know
whither.
A while went by and I saw that we had left the city, and were passing
up a steep hill beneath the shadow of mighty cedar trees. Presently we
halted in a courtyard and here I was bidden to alight. Then the prince
Guatemoc led me into a wondrous house, of which all the rooms were
roofed with cedar wood, and its walls hung with richly-coloured cloths,
and in that house gold seemed as plentiful as bricks and oak are with
us in England.
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