[255] M. de Humboldt has dotted the _conjectural_ limits of the ancient lake in his admirable chart of the Mexican Valley. (Atlas géographique et physique de la Nouvelle-Espagne (Paris, 1811), carte 3.) Notwithstanding his great care, it is not easy always to reconcile his topography with the itineraries of the Conquerors, so much has the face of the country been changed by natural and artificial causes. It is still less possible to reconcile their narratives with the maps of Clavigero, Lopez, Robertson, and others, defying equally topography and history. [256] Several writers notice a visit of the Spaniards to Tezcuco on the way to the capital. (Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap. 42.--Solís, Conquista, lib. 3, cap. 9.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 4.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 74.) This improbable episode--which, it may be remarked, has led these authors into some geographical perplexities, not to say blunders--is altogether too remarkable to have been passed over in silence in the minute relation of Bernal Diaz, and that of Cortés, neither of whom alludes to it. [257] “E me diéron,” says Cortés, “hasta tres, ó quatro mil Castellanos, y algunas Esclavas, y Ropa, é me hiciéron muy buen acogimiento.” Rel. Seg., ap. Lorenzana, p. 76. [258] “Tiene el Señor de ella unas Casas nuevas, que aun no están acabadas, que son tan buenas como las mejores de España, digo de grandes y bien labradas.” Ibid., p. 77. [259] The earliest instance of a Garden of Plants in Europe is said to have been at Padua, in 1545. Carli, Lettres Américaines, tom. i. let. 21. [260] Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ubi supra.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 44.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, MS., lib. 12, cap. 13.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 5.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 87. “There Aztlan stood upon the farther shore; Amid the shade of trees its dwellings rose, Their level roofs with turrets set around, And battlements all burnished white, which shone Like silver in the sunshine. I beheld The imperial city, her far-circling walls, Her garden groves and stately palaces, Her temples mountain size, her thousand roofs; And when I saw her might and majesty, My mind misgave me then.” SOUTHEY’S Madoc, Part 1, canto 6. [261] [Alaman objects to my speaking of the “gray mists of morning” in connection with the Aztec capital. “In the beginning of November,” he says, “there is no such thing as a mist to be seen in the morning, or indeed in any part of the day, in the Valley of Mexico, where the weather is uncommonly bright and beautiful. The historian,” he adds, “has confounded the climate of Mexico with that of England or the United States.” Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega), tom. i. p. 337.]