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When he was halfway across the Aztecs turned, reinforcements arrived from the city, swarms of canoes attacked the Spaniards in flank; and it was only after desperate fighting, and some loss, that they regained the mainland. Having accomplished their object, the force returned to Tezcuco, greatly harassed on the march by the enemy. Other expeditions were undertaken.
The most difficult of the three ways into the valley was the one Cortés chose; it led right across the mountain chain, and he judged wisely that he would be less likely to be annoyed by the enemy in that direction. Before long the army halted within three leagues of Tezcuco, which you will remember was upon the opposite shore of the lake to Mexico, and somewhat further north.
Marina who was not, like the Spaniards, confined to the palace had no difficulty in arranging for a canoe; and as soon as it became dark, Roger, dressed as an Aztec cazique, and with his face slightly stained, took his place in it. The lake was thronged with canoes, but the craft in which he was seated passed without notice through them, and after two hours' paddling reached Tezcuco.
Our last day at Tezcuco was spent in packing up antiquities to be sent to England, the express orders of the Government against such exportation to the contrary notwithstanding. Next morning we rode off to Miraflores, passing on our way the curious stratum of alluvial soil containing pottery, &c., which I have described already.
Now, standing here at Zoraida's side in this great still place, these thoughts winged to him swiftly, and for the moment he felt close to the past of Mexico. "What was once the country place of Nezahualcoyoti, the Golden King of Tezcuco," said Zoraida, "is now the favorite garden of Zoraida.
When morning dawned they were harassed by the enemy, who hovered round and discharged volleys of arrows and stones, so that it was with no small satisfaction that they presently found themselves once more within the walls of Tezcuco.
The whole number cannot have amounted to seven thousand, of which less than four hundred were Spaniards. For a short distance the army kept along the narrow tongue of land between the lakes, and then entered upon the great dyke which crosses the salt waters of Lake Tezcuco to the very gates of the capital.
However brilliant the zodiacal light in the dry valley of Tuy, I have observed it more beautiful still at the back of the Cordilleras of Mexico, on the banks of the lake of Tezcuco, eleven hundred and sixty toises above the surface of the ocean. In the month of January, 1804, the light rose sometimes to more than 60 degrees above the horizon.
And this is all that now remains of the great and magnificent city of Tezcuco, which had entered into alliance with Cortéz, and which, for more than a hundred years after the Conquest, was under the especial care of a Superintendent sent from Spain, as an Indian Reservation.
The savans of Europe have shown their profound ignorance of the first principles of canal navigation in taking it for granted that the canals of Mexico were filled with stagnant water, that had "set back" from the stagnant pond of Tezcuco; and that the level of the pond must at all times have been so high as to fill the canals, thus keeping the city in constant danger from any sudden rise in the laguna.
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