miles in nearly a straight line through the centre of the city. A spectator standing at one end of it, as his eye ranged along the deep vista of temples, terraces, and gardens, might clearly discern the other, with the blue mountains in the distance, which, in the transparent atmosphere of the table-land, seemed almost in contact with the buildings.”[93] Near the centre of the city rose a huge pyramidal pile, dedicated to the war-god of the Aztecs, the tutelary deity of the city: second in size only to the great pyramid-temple of Cholula, and occupying the area on which now stands the Cathedral of modern Mexico. Beyond the Lake of Tezcuco stood the rival capital of that name, resplendent with a corresponding grandeur and magnificence; and the whole Mexican valley burst on the eyes of the conquerors as a beautiful vision, glittering with towns and villages, with rich gardens, and broad lakes crowded with the canoes of a thriving and busy populace. Three centuries and a half have intervened since Cortes entered the gorgeous capital of Montezuma; and what remains now of its ancient splendour, of the wonders of its palaces, the massive grandeur of its temples, or the cyclopean solidity of its conduits and causeways? Literally, not a vestige. The city of Constantine has preserved, in spite of all the destructive vicissitudes of siege and overthrow, enduring memorials of the grandeur that pertained to the Byzantine capital more than a thousand years ago. Rome has been sacked by Goth, Hun, Lombard, and Frank; yet memorials not only of three or four centuries, but of generations before the Christian era, survive. Even Jerusalem appears to have some stones of her ancient walls still left one upon another. In spite, therefore, of the narrative of desolating erasure which describes to us the final siege and capture of Mexico, we must assume its edifices and causeways to have been for the most part more slight and fragile than the description of its conquerors implies, or some evidences of such extensive and solid masonry must have survived to our time. Yet if we look in vain for its architectural remains, evidence of another kind shows what its civilisation really was. Mr. Tylor describes the ploughed fields around it as yielding such abundance of obsidian arrow-heads, pottery, and clay figures, that it is impossible to tread on any spot where there is no relic of old Mexico within reach. He left England full of doubts as to the credibility of the historians of the conquest; but personal observation inclines him rather “to blame the chroniclers for having had no eyes for the wonderful things that surrounded them.”[94]