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Updated: June 27, 2025
In descending from the mountains of Chalco, the vast plain of Mexico opened gradually to their view, displaying a prospect the most striking and beautiful: fertile and cultivated fields, stretched out further than the eye could reach, a lake resembling the sea in extent, encompassed with large towns, and the capital city rising upon an island, adorned with temples and turrets.
On the 7th of August, 1847, the advance of General Scott's army, Twiggs' division, the engineer company leading, left Puebla and commenced the forward movement into the valley of Mexico. The company served with that division, until Worth's division was placed in the lead during the turning movement made by the army around Lake Chalco.
Nearly three hundred years had passed away before men ventured to question the truth of the statement that the gardens along the canal of Chalco ever floated, and then it seemed like temerity to raise the question, even if it were only a popular fallacy.
The Ponds Chalco, Xochimulco, and Tezcuco were never Lakes. My first view of the Valley of Mexico was from the point where the Acapulco road passes the Cross of the "Marquis of the Valley." I had read with eagerness the History of the Conquest, and of the adventures of the noble Conquistador.
This mound was strengthened by intrenchments at its base and summit, and rendered a direct attack impracticable. Scott's army was rapidly concentrated about Ayotla and other points near the eastern end of Lake Chalco.
Sandoval took several strongholds which threatened the security of Chalco, and all the while the work upon the canal was going rapidly forward, and the ships were nearing completion in spite of three attempts made by the enemy to burn them.
The Mexican, however, is hard to move from the customs of his ancestors; and we have Humboldt's word for it, that in his time there were some of these artificial islands still in the lake of Chalco, which the owners towed about with a rope, or pushed with a long pole. They are all gone now, at any rate, though the name of chinampa is still applied to the gardens along the canal.
The chinampas are formed on the fresh-water mud on each side of the canal of Chalco, from the southeast corner of the city to a point near the ancient village of Mexicalzingo, and for a part of the way they are on both sides of that beautiful but now neglected paséo, Las Vegas; there are also a small number near the causeway of Tacubaya, and in other parts of the marsh; their number might be extended without limit if it was not regulated by the demands of the vegetable market of Mexico.
More pleasing than a drive on the paséo is a boat-ride down the canal of Chalco at eventide, when the proprietor of each of these little estates is seen standing in the canal alongside, and throwing upon his thirsty plants a plentiful supply of the tepid canal water, which, from every leaf and flower, reflects back the rays of a setting sun, that have penetrated the long shadows of the trees of Las Vegas.
This mound was strengthened by intrenchments at its base and summit, and rendered a direct attack impracticable. Scott's army was rapidly concentrated about Ayotla and other points near the eastern end of Lake Chalco.
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