BOOK its usual operation here; it has reduced the overgrown, but LXXXV. insecure wealth of the rich, to an independent protected competence; but it has also wiped away the tears, and broken the chains which galled the innocent people whose labours had amassed it.*

Floating gardens.

M. de Humboldt saw erecting, in the great square of Mexico, an equestrian and colossal statue of the king of Spain, by M. Tolza, "a statue," says he, "which, by its imposing mass, and the noble simplicity of its style, might adorn the first cities of Europe. Even by the admission of Spanish authors, balls, and games of hazard, are pursued with ardour, while the more noble enjoyments of the drama are less generally relished. To vivid passions the Mexican Spaniard adds a great fund of stoicism. He enters a gaming-house, loses all his money upon a single card, and then takes out his segar from behind his ear, and smokes as if nothing had happened.†

The floating gardens, or Chinampas, a kind of raft, upon which flowers and vegetables are cultivated, give a singular appearance to the Mexican lakes, but their number diminishes every day. Yet with all this civilization, the Mechanic- mechanical arts thrive rather as encouraged by the proal arts. fusion of wealth among the rich, than from inherent im

provement. The use of the great saw is still unknown, and the modern Mexicans, like the Greeks in the days of Homer, are ignorant that one tree can afford more than one plank, or of other means of procuring this than by the hatchet. Their work in gold and silver-chasing, and the like, is all performed by the hand; and even the minting process is described as excessively awkward and tedious. Many of their best mines have been deserted from want of skill in the proper means of exhausting their water; and companies have been formed in England, on the Rhine, and in America, besides many private individuals,

*Bullock, p. 163.

† Description of Mexico, in the Viajero Universal of D. Estala, t. XXVI, r 251-380. Humboldt, Mexico. II. chap. 8. Chappe d'Anterache

such as the ingenious traveller from whom we derive our in- BOOK formation, who calculate on realising fortunes by more ju- LXXXV. dicious operations. The ascent from Vera Cruz to Perote is so steep as to require nineteen mules to draw the beam of a steam engine; but the enterprise of the above individuals is daily multiplying this powerful auxiliary to the miners in the empire of Mexico.*

numents.

miqai.

of the sun

Mexico preserves few monuments of antiquity. The ruins of aqueducts, the stone of sacrifices, and the calendar stone, both of which are placed in the great square of the Aztec macity; manuscripts, or hieroglyphical tables, badly preserved in the archives of the vice-regal palace; and finally, the colossal statue of the goddess Teo-Faomiqui, lying on its Teo-Yaoback in one of the galleries of the University, are all that remains worthy of notice in this city. But to the north-east of the town, and of the lake Tezcuco, on the little hills of Teotihuacan, are seen the imposing remains of two pyra- Pyramids mids, consecrated to the sun and moon, and, according to and mgon, some historians, constructed by the Olmecs, an ancient nation that came to Mexico from the east, that is to say, from some country situated on the Atlantic Ocean. The pyramid, or house of the sun, (Tonatiu-ytzaqual,) is 171 feet high, and its base measures 645 feet; that of the moon, (Meztli-ytzaqual,) is thirty feet smaller. These monuments appear to have served as models for the Teocallis, or houses of the gods, constructed by the Mexicans in the capital and other parts of the country; but the pyramids are incased by a thick wall of stone. They formerly supported statues covered with very thin leaves of gold. A few small pyramids, which appear to have been dedicated to the stars, surround the two great ones. Another ancient monument worthy of attention is the military intrenchment of Xochialco, not far from the town of Cuernavaca. This also is a truncated pyramid of five sides, surrounded by fosses, and faced with rocks of porphyry,

* Bullock, 434,425.

* Siguenza, guoted by A. de Humboldt. Mexico, II. 157,

BOOK upon which, amongst other pieces of sculpture, are to be LXXXV. distinguished figures of men, seated with their legs crossed, in the Asiatic fashion.* All these pyramids exactly face the four corners of the compass.

Different towns.

The handtree.

In that part of the province which is situated to the northeast of the capital, the town of Queretaro, peopled by 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants, rivals the finest cities of Europe in the architecture of its edifices. It is enriched by the manufacture of cloth and morocco leather. Formerly, according to the tradition of the Indians, Tula, or Tollan, was inhabited by giants. The bones that are found there are no doubt the remains of some great quadruped.

In the southern part of the province we first of all meet with Toluca, where our admiration is excited by a very old tree of the species denominated Cheirostemon, or the handtree, a member of the Malvacea. The extraordinary shape of its flowers, imitating the figure of a hand, and its enormous thickness, render it an object of curiosity to the Indians. But it is not a solitary specimen, as was imagined, for the species is spread over the mountains of Guatimala. Tasco boasts of an elegant parish church, built and endowed by Joseph de la Borde, a Frenchman, who had accumulated immense wealth by working the mines of Mexico. The mere construction of this edifice cost him two millions of francs. Reduced some time afterwards to extreme poverty, he obtained from the Archbishop of Mexico permission to sell to the Metropolitan church of the capital, the magnificent sun, ornamented with diamonds, which, in happier times, he had consecrated to the tabernacle of his church at Tasco. These reverses of fortune, improbable as they would be in a romance, are, nevertheless, common in Mexico.

On the shores of the Pacific Ocean, under a burning sky, we find the two ports of Zacatula and Acapulco. An opening in the mountains, by giving access to the winds

A. de Humboldt. ibid. p. 162.

from the north, has diminished the unhealthiness of the lat- BOOK ter of these ports, one of the finest in the world.

LXXXV.

The Inten

dency of

The province of Puebla de los Angelos likewise bears the name of Tlascala, from the ancient republic which maintained itself there, independent of the despots of Mexi- Puebla de los Angeco. The territories of this republic, and of that of Cholula, los. contain monuments of ancient civilization. The truncat- Pyramid of ed pyramid of Cholula, a hundred and seventy-two feet in Cholula. height, on a base of thirteen hundred and fifty-five feet in length, is constructed of brick. To form an idea of the size of this monument, let us figure to ourselves a square four times larger than the Place Vendome at Paris, covered with a pile of bricks, which rises to double the height of the Louvre.* This pyramid formerly supported an altar, consecrated to Quetzalcoatl, "or the god of the air," one of the most mysterious beings of the Mexican mythology. This deity, according to the traditions of the Aztecs, was a white man with a beard, like the Spaniards, who were imagined by the unfortunate Montezuma to be his descendants. Quetzalcoatl was the founder of a sect, who devoted themselves to severe penance, a legislator, and the inventor of several useful arts; but he could not, at last, resist an anxious desire which he felt to revisit his native country, called Tlapallan, probably identical with the Huehue-Tlapallan country, from which the Toltecs take their origin.t

The intendency of Puebla, very populous, and exceed- Towns. ingly well cultivated in its mountainous region, presents, towards the Pacific Ocean, vast countries, altogether abandoned, notwithstanding their natural fertility. The last poor remains of the Tlapanecs, inhabit the environs of Tlapa. In the inhabited district is situated the capital, La Puebla de los Angelos, or the "City of the Angels;" the fourth town in all Spanish America in respect of population, which is estimated at 68,000 individuals. Glass,

A. de Humboldt, Views and Monuments of America, p. 30, and the plates.

+ Idem, Mexico. II. n. 71.

BOOK and armourers cutlery, as sabres, bayonets, pikes, &c. are LXXXV. manufactured here. The town of Tlascala was formerly a species of federative republic. Each of the four little hills, Republic of Tlascala. on which it is built, had its own Cazique or principal warrior; but these depended on a senate chosen by the nation. The subjects of this republic are said to have amounted to 150,000 families. This nation, which enjoys some peculiar privileges, is at present reduced to 40,000 persons, who inhabit about a hundred villages. One would almost feel disposed to think that a fatal destiny avenges on their heads the crime of having assisted Cortez in subjugating the independence of Mexico. Cholula, a sacred town, anterior to the conquest, reckons a population of 16,000 souls. The environs of Zacatlan are peopled by the nation of the Totonacs. Like the Tlapanacs, these indigenous natives speak a language entirely different from that of the Mexicans, or Aztecs. They had adopted the barbarous and sanguinary mythology of the Mexicans; but a sentiment of humanity had made them distinguish, as being of a different race from the other Mexican divinities, the goddess Tzinteotl, the protectress of harvest, and who alone was satisfied with a simple offering of fruit and flowers. According to a prophecy current amongst them, this peaceful divinity was one day to triumph over the gods that were intoxicated with human blood. The introduction of Christianity has verified the prediction. Tezcuco, the Athens of ancient Mexico, and still affording a rich and almost unexplored field to the antiquary, in the number and richness of its ruined palaces, baths, and pleasure grounds,* contains 5000 inhabitants, only a tenth part of its population before the conquest. At Atlisco, the curiosity of the traveller is excited by an enormous cypress of seventy-three feet in circumfcrence, and consequently, almost equal in magnitude to the famous Baobab of Senegal, which it surpasses in the beauty of its form.†

Bullock, p. 210; Humb. Ess. Pol. II. 184.-TR.

A. de Humboldt. Mexico, II. p. 274.