Tehuacán

“ Meanwhile the first Mexican Congress, like many another, was not harmonious; divisions arose between its deputies and its general. The patriot was learning that it is harder to keep a government well in hand than it is to seize it by force.
In 1815 this Congress decided it would like to move to Tehuacan, and assigned to Morelos the task of escorting it thither with all the troops he held at his disposition. This strange march set forth in mystery and concealment on the 29th of September; but in spite of the stratagems of Morelos, the royalist forces discovered its route, and intercepted it. ”

“ The other towns of this State are:—Cholula, adjacent to the remains of the Pyramid of Cholula, which will be subsequently noticed;—Atlixco; Guauchinango, in the northern valley of the State, where the Indians still indulge in their ancient sport of the Juégo del Volador or flying game;—Tehuacan de las Granadas, containing near 6,000 inhabitants; Tepeaca or Tepéyacac, where Cortéz laid the foundations of a city which he called "Segura de la Frontéra;"—Huajocingo or Huexotzingo; Chiautla, Tlapan, Tlacotepec, Amozoqué, San Martin, Nopaluca, Acajete, Ojo de Agua. ”

“ And so disappeared a man who owed his rise to the partiality of Morelos rather than to ability [10] as a leader, and who chose to sacrifice the cause of his country and the blood of his adherents to satisfy a selfish ambition and indulge a choleric temperament.
Calleja considered this a good opportunity to seize upon Tehuacan, the centre of Rosains' district. The task was intrusted to Governor Alvarez of Oajaca, who on the way laid siege to Teotitlan. Teran came to the rescue and managed to surprise the royalists, inflicting so severe a chastisement that they retired whence they came. ”

“ The delay had enabled the royalist troops to approach from Tlacotalpan and Oajaca, and the rivers being swollen by rain, it was thought imprudent to venture farther, to struggle with a threatening famine, and perhaps to be cut off by pursuers. [23] During the retreat the royalist column from Tlacotalpan was bravely repulsed, and Juan Teran came in time to check two Oajaca expeditions which had been organized with the intent of attacking his brother in the rear. The latter reached Tehuacan September 22d. ”

“ Cerro San Gregorio and Cerro del Sombrero; in Tehuacan District: Cerro Colorado, Tepeji, and Teotitlan; and in Vera Cruz: Monteblanco and Palmillas, besides a number of temporary strongholds, Robinson expresses some views respecting the value of the troops on both sides, Mem. Rev., 182-3. ↑ The royalists numbered about 1,000, and claimed that the insurgents lost 200 in killed on the battle-field alone, out of a force of 1,300. Gaz. de Mex., 1815, vi. 123-9, 99-100. Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., iii. 300-2, and Rosains, Rel. Hist., 13-14, belittle the affair; but Teran speaks more plainly. ”

“ Before the Spaniards conquered Mexico it was one of the most cherished and frequented sanctuaries of the Mexicans, and known as Teohuacan, or dwelling-place of the Miztec gods. Its houses are of stone, in the Spanish style, with grated windows and open courts; its suburbs are pretty gardens surrounded by green fields of alfalfa traversed by vine-bordered lanes. Above the town, a league or so away to the east, is a range of hills, the Cerro Colorado, famous in revolutionary annals as having been held by General Teran, an insurgent chief, for three or four years ”

“ It is a good place to study the people and get snap-shots of quaint life. Its principal distinction is that it was a proud city when Tetlepanquetzaltzin was king once upon a time. Texcoco at the time of the conquest was the capital of the Tezcucans, who were a race in alliance with the Aztecs, but it is now principally in ruins, for its glory has passed away. El Desierto was once the home of the Carmelite monks and is frequently visited now in its decay. Coyoacan was the first capital of Mexico, for Cortez established the seat of government there for a time while the new city was being built. ”

“ The reign of Nezahualcoyotl is the most glorious period of the kingdom of Texcuco, and of all the kingdoms of Anahuac.
Its splendors have been confounded with those of the Aztec Court, and, as we see in the names now given to the ruins of the king's garden, even the name of the Montezumas is mixed up with the Texcucan annals. It is well, however, to keep the different dynasties distinct, in order to understand, when we come to the Conquest, the various parts these distinct peoples played in that exciting drama. ”

“ That portion of the plain of Teotihuacan immediately about the pyramids is rather sterile, but about the little village of San Juan, where clear streams have their birth, near an ancient templo, the soil is fertile, and the dwellers there seem contented and happy. At all events, they are contented and lazy, and it is only by very active skirmishing that one may eventually capture a boy as guide to the ruins, and it requires equally hard work to find a horse. ”

“ At once they began preparations for building their city. Upon a slender foundation of reeds, rushes, and piles in the spongy marshes of Tezcuco the Aztecs built their huts, to be replaced in time by the solid structures which adorned the city at the coming of the Spaniards. This was the beginning of Tenochtitlan ("cactus on a stone") , named in honor of its supernatural origin—the capital of the most powerful empire of the Western world. To-day the hoary superstition is sacredly embodied as the national emblem on the escutcheon of Mexico. ”

“ Subduing some and enrolling others under his banner, he advanced to the city of Mexico—Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecâ—by far the most powerful people in the land, who lived in houses of stone or marble, clothing themselves in fine cotton dyed in many colours or in wonderful feather cloaks made from the plumage of brilliant-hued birds. This people possessed a religion as picturesque as it was terrible in rite and sacrifice, and legal and political systems which in most of their provisions were, perhaps, equal in enlightenment to those of seventeenth-century Europe. ”

“ Then he thought it would be well to beautify the capital, one of the results of which was the alameda, for centuries the favorite resort of all classes in search of relaxation and recreation, and remaining such to-day, a beautiful certificate to the taste and liberality of this ruler. [3] The city now contained about three thousand Spanish families, besides a numerous Indian and mixed population. During the successive decades it had slowly unfolded into magnificent proportions from the ruins of old Tenochtitlan. ”

“ Tezcuco, the city second in importance, lies to the north-east of the lake, and is somewhat more isolated, the other pueblos (towns) clustering round the southern or western shores. To the north of Tezcuco is Teotihuacan, the sacred city of the gods. To the south-east of Mexico is Tlaxcallan, or Tlascala, the city which assisted Cortés against the Mexicans, and the inhabitants of which were the deadliest foes of the central Nahua power. To the north lie the sacred city of Cholula and Tula, or Tollan. ”

“ The remains of some of the works of the departed emperor still exist, near Tezcoco, in the limits of the city that yet bears its name. A few miles distant from the ancient city are the ruins of Tezcosingo, the pleasure retreat of Nezahualcoyotl and his son. There is there a reservoir hollowed from solid rock, near which is a stone bench or seat, and into which a pipe once conducted water from an aqueduct. ”

“ Somewhat farther to the south, the eye passes across the beautiful plains lying around the city of Puebla de los Angeles, founded by the old Spaniards, and still rivalling, in the splendor of its churches, the most brilliant capitals of Europe; and far in the west he may behold the Valley of Mexico, spread out like a map, with its diminished lakes, its princely capital rising in still greater glory from its ruins, and its rugged hills gathering darkly around it, as in the days of Montezuma. ”

“ The monuments of San Juan Teotihuacan are, with the exception of the temple of Cholula, the most ancient remains, probably, on the Mexican soil. They were found by the Aztecs, according to their traditions, on their entrance into the country, when Teotihuacan, the habitation of the gods, now a paltry village, was a flourishing city, the rival of Tula, the great Toltec capital. The two principal pyramids were dedicated to Tonatiuh, the Sun, and Meztli, the Moon. ”

“ Nezahualcoyotl himself was a poet, and very beautiful are some of the songs which have come down to us in the Spanish translation of the Tezcucan chronicler.
No wonder that under such a king the Tezcucans became the most refined and civilised of all the people of Anahuac. The Mexicans, their rivals in luxury, splendour, and power, were but humble disciples in the crowning glory of science and culture. ”

“ A second stage of the myth depicts the journey of the Aztec from Tollan, through many stops, back to Colhuacan, until at last they came to the site of Tenochtitlan. It is said that as the tribes halted by the waters of Tezcuco they beheld a great eagle perched on a cactus growing from a wave-washed rock; and while they gazed the bird ascended to the rising sun with a serpent in his talons. This was regarded as a divine augury, and here Tenochtitlan was founded. Such is the tradition which gives modern Mexico its national emblem. ”

“ Map of Lake Tezcoco. they marched forward with a buoyant step, as they felt they were treading the soil of Montezuma. They had not advanced far, when, turning an angle of the sierra, they suddenly came on a view which more than compensated the toils of the preceding day. It was that of the Valley of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, as more commonly called by the natives; which, with its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, was spread out like some gay and gorgeous panorama before them. ”

“ The new dynasty fostered the inherited culture in every way, and made the city not only the political capital, but the Athens of the country. The rise of the Aztecs gave it a rival in Mexico, which in course of the fifteenth century assumed the political sceptre, but Tezcuco still maintained the precedence in culture and elegance. It was said to contain one hundred and forty thousand houses, distributed among different suburbs, and extending with their smiling gardens from the border of the lake to a distance of from three to four leagues. ”

“ And now, since we are pledged, let us, every man, be up and doing. Let no loyal Tezcucan be overlooked. Move silently and quickly, ceasing not the work until the fire of patriotism, which has been enkindled in our hearts to-night, shall have spread to the farthest borders of Anahuac, and every true friend of Tezcuco has espoused her cause, and enrolled himself under the banner of Hualcoyotl and liberty. ”

“ With such roundelays as these, echoed at a distance by the rowers in the fleet and by many barbarians from the buildings that projected into the lake, Techeechee urged the light canoe through a sluice in the northern dike, and approached that long neck or peninsula, once the island of Tlatelolco, but long since united to that of Tenochtitlan, which gave its name to the fifth quarter of the city, and, as it afterwards appeared, was the site of the noblest of the many palaces, built at different periods, by the kings of Mexico. ”

“ The subject of the Aztec, or Nahuatl, religion, their gods, and the practice of offering human sacrifices, have been briefly described in a former chapter; but a more minute account of the principal temples and idols formerly existing, compiled from several ancient authorities, may not be inappropriate.
The great temple of Teocalli, or Mexith (from which the city of Mexico derived its name) , was at first a humble cabin built of mud and hardened clay; but by the munificence of successive Aztec kings, it at length became the richest and most extensive building in ancient America. ”

“ One Spanish historian informs us that these innocent victims of this repulsive religion were generally bought by the priests from parents who were poor.
We may now resume the traditional settlement of the ancient Mexicans on the region called Anahuac, including all the fertile plateau and extending south to the lake of Nicaragua. The chief tribes of the race were said to have come from California, and after being subject to the Colhua people asserted their independence about A. D. 1325. Soon afterward, their first capital, Tenochtitlan, was built on the site of Mexico, their permanent center. ”

“ The first beginnings of Mexico, a cluster of huts built on wooden piles, must have borne some likeness to those curious settlements of early tribes in the shallow part of the lakes of Switzerland and the British Isles, of which numerous remains are still to be found. As the nation increased in numbers, Tenochtitlán, as the inhabitants called their city (they called themselves Tenochques) , came to be a great city of houses built on piles, with canals running through the straight streets, along which the natives poled their flat-bottomed canoes. ”

“ At full gallop we rode into the town of Tequilla: considerably fatigued, for I had not slept in forty hours, excepting perhaps now and then a brief cat-nap in the saddle—of a second or two duration—wherein one may dream of years of adventure. However, I determined to hold on twelve leagues beyond, to Guadalajara. It was daylight, and I found Tequilla quite a large place: with picturesque church, clusters of fine trees, all snugly posed in a bowl-like valley—fertile and well watered, with extensive plantations of the argave extending far as the eye could compass, over the neighboring country. ”