t that the Aztecs created a remarkable centre of
semi-barbaric civilisation, and the descriptions given by the Spanish
historians--whether those who accompanied Cortes, as Bernal Diaz, or
those who drew their colouring from these accounts--are such as to
arouse the interest and enthusiasm even of the reader of to-day. In
this connection, of course, it is to be recollected that Cortes and his
followers were not all men of education or trained knowledge of the
great cities of the civilised world, and there is no doubt that they
lacked somewhat the faculty of comparison, and over-estimated what they
beheld. Let us translate from Clavijero, a Spanish historian and Jesuit
who wrote later, and who describes the scene which the Spaniards beheld
from the summit of the great Teocalli as "many beautiful buildings,
gleaming, whitened, and burnished; the tall minarets of the temples
scattered over the various quarters of the city; the canals; verdant
plantations and gardens--all forming a beautiful whole which the
Spaniards never ceased to admire, especially observing it from the
summits of the great temples which dominated not only the city
immediately below, but its environs and the large towns beyond. No less
marvellous were the royal palaces and the infinite variety of plants
and animals kept there; but nothing caused them greater admiration than
the great market plaza." "Not a Spaniard of them," according to Bernal
Diaz, the soldier-historian of the Conquest, who was there and saw it
all, although he wrote about it long afterwards, "but held it in high
praise, and some of them who had journeyed among European cities swore
they had never seen so vast a concourse of merchants and merchandise."

Returning to our history, it is not to be supposed that this powerful
Aztec nation, with their fine capital of Tenochtitlan, were the only
people inhabiting the land of Anahuac at that time. Several other
peoples held sway there. On the eastern side of Lake Texcoco, a few
leagues away, lived the Texcocans, already mentioned; one of the tribes
who also had come "from the north" in early days and who had settled
there. They also had developed or inherited a civilisation akin to that
of the Toltecs, far more refined and important than that of their
neighbours and kindred, the Aztecs. It was about the end of the twelfth
century when the Texcocans established themselves, building a splendid
capital and developing an extensive empire. But misfor