Stretching far away at their feet, were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, and beyond, yellow fields of maize and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens; for flowers, in such demand for their religious festivals, were even more abundant in this populous valley than in other parts of Anahuac. In the center of the great basin were beheld the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its surface than at present; their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets, and, in the midst--like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls--the fair City of Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the waters--the far-famed "Venice of the Aztecs." High over all rose the royal hill of Chapoltepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses, which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital of Tezcuco, and, still further on, the dark belt of porphyry, girdling the valley around, like a rich setting which nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels. [16] From the statements of Bernal Diaz we are also justified in believing that a somewhat similar state of civilization obtained in Yucatan and other parts of Central America. While the well-known works of Squier, [17] Baldwin, Rivero and Tschudi, [18] and the very excellent and popular volumes of Prescott on Peru, justify us in the belief that while differing somewhat in its character, the civilization of Peru was equal and even superior in some respects--to that of Mexico at the time of the conquest; and the empire of the Incas was even more extensive than that of the Montezumas.