I had been snatched from the altars of Tobasco that I might
grace the higher altars of Tenoctitlan, and that was all. My fate would
be to perish miserably far from my home, and in this world never to be
heard of more.
Musing thus sadly at last I slept. When I woke the sun was up. Rising
from my mat I went to the wood-barred window place and looked through.
The palace whence I gazed was placed on the crest of a rocky hill. On
one side this hill was bathed by the blue waters of Tezcuco, on the
other, a mile or more away, rose the temple towers of Mexico. Along the
slopes of the hill, and in some directions for a mile from its
base, grew huge cedar trees from the boughs of which hung a grey and
ghostly-looking moss. These trees are so large that the smallest of them
is bigger than the best oak in this parish of Ditchingham, while the
greatest measures twenty-two paces round the base. Beyond and between
these marvellous and ancient trees were the gardens of Montezuma, that
with their strange and gorgeous flowers, their marble baths, their
aviaries and wild beast dens, were, as I believe, the most wonderful in
the whole world.*
'At the least,' I thought to myself, 'even if I must die, it is
something to have seen this country of Anahuac, its king, its customs,
and its people.'
* The gardens of Montezuma have been long destroyed, but
some of the cedars still flourish at Chapoltepec, though the
Spaniards cut down many.
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