Tenochtitlan

“ Night had fallen on the island-city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of Anahuac, and the splendid metropolis of the Western world. The evening air was heavy with the scent of myriads of flowers which the Aztec people loved so well, and which their religion bade them cultivate in lavish profusion. From every quarter came the sounds of feasting, of laughter, and of music. The numerous canals of salt-water from the broad lake that washed the foundations of the city on all sides, were alive with darting canoes filled with gay parties of light-hearted revellers. ”

“ Thus ended the bitter siege of Tenochtitlan, a siege unsurpassed in the annals of war for the heroic fortitude, bravery, and persistence shown on both sides.
That night the fall of the Aztec capital, and the overthrow of its gods, was signalized by one of the most fearful storms ever known in the Mexican valley. For hours the rain descended in torrents, the heavens were rent by incessant flashes of blinding lightning, and the continuous crash of thunder shook the encircling mountain-walls to their foundation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is neither honour nor wealth to be had in Tenochtitlan. But if a true soldier and a right noble gentleman, as the world esteems Don Amador de Leste, should seek a path worthy of himself, he has but to say the word, and there is one to be found from which he may return with more gold than has yet been gathered by any fortunate adventurer, and more renown than has been won by any other man in the new world: ay, by St. James, and diadems may be found there! ”

“ The timid dove of Chapoltepec shall be transformed to the royal eagle of Tenochtitlan.”
“That cannot be. I rather fear that the deep cloud of my doom will overshadow and darken your life. Better far that I should suffer and perish alone.”
“It must be, Tecuichpo, it shall be. Have not the gods given you to me? Have they not made me the defender of the Aztec throne? How then can you doubt that they call you to share and adorn it?”
“Oh! my lord! those terrible omens—they are but half fulfilled, and the promised light is yet far in the distance. ”

“ To bring home captives to grace his coronation was ever the first duty of an Aztec monarch, and Montezuma II., who led his armies at once against a rebel tribe, returned in triumph with a goodly throng of victims for the gods. Never had Tenochtitlan known so brilliant a scene. With music and games and dances, and the awful pomp of priestly ceremonies, the exultant Aztecs celebrated the coronation of their emperor. From far and near the people flocked to see the magnificent sight, and even some noble Tlascalans, the hereditary enemies of the Aztecs, were present in disguise. ”

“ The Youth of Toxcatl is a captive of Quauhnahuac. He fought bravely; he will die bravely that the city and all Mexico may prosper. Should he falter, he will live as a vile slave unworthy of a bright death; he will live as a vile slave condemned to life—beneath the whip. Daughters of Tenochtitlan may not mate with slaves. ”

“ The capital rapidly increased in population, the original houses being replaced by substantial stone buildings. There are documents showing that Tenochtitlan was of much larger dimensions than the modern capital of Mexico, on the same site. Just before the arrival of the Spaniards, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, [Pg 58] the kingdom extended from the gulf across to the Pacific; and southward under the ruthless Ahuitzotl over the whole of Guatemala and Nicaragua. ”

“ A mere handful of men, cut off from all communication with their own race, they had traversed the breadth of a wealthy and populous kingdom, overcome its hostile armies, captured one after another of its strongholds, and were now about to make a triumphant entry into its capital city. Their record was without a parallel in the history of the world. Thus it was with swelling hearts and a proud bearing that they stepped on the superb stone causeway spanning the waters of the salt lake, at the distant end of which lay the queenly city of Tenochtitlan. ”

“ Tenochtitlan, later the city of Mexico, was founded by the primitive Mexicans (Aztecs) , early in the fourteenth century, about two hundred years prior to the advent of the Spaniards on the Anahuac. The city was situated, originally, on a group of small islands in the southwestern portion of lake Tezcuco, nearly one league from the shore, and was, for more than a century, a very frail and peculiarly constructed place. ”

“ Fig. 67 is Inixiuhcan, 'birth-place,' the picture representing a woman who has just given birth to a child. Fig. 74 is Tenochtitlan, 'place of tenochtli,' the tenochtli being a species of nopal represented in the figure, and being also the sign of the name of Tenoch, one of the original chiefs of the group in fig. 12, and also seen in the group in fig. 81. Six of the original tribes seem to have reached Tenochtitlan, afterwards Mexico, with the tribe that joined them at Chapultepec; nine having perished or been scattered on the way, which agrees with the historical tradition. ”

“ They knew that the pride of the Mexican warrior was, not to slay, but to capture; as if, indeed, these demi-barbarians made war less for the glory of taking life, than for the honour of offering it in sacrifice to the gods. Such, in truth, was the case; and to this circumstance was it owing that the Christians were not utterly destroyed, in any one encounter in the streets of Tenochtitlan. The fury of their foes was such as may be imagined in a people goaded to desperation by atrocious tyranny and insult, and fighting with foreign oppressors at their very firesides ”

“ The additions to the population in Tenochtitlan were chiefly Culhuas, who came in so large numbers as to outnumber, perhaps, the original Mexicans; while Tlatelulco received a corresponding influx of Tepanecs, and many from other neighboring nations. We have no further details of their history down to the death of the emperor Techotl, at Tezcuco, except that the establishment of a monarchy in each of the two cities. The Mexicans were at first ruled by the priests, with certain chiefs not definitely named; although by some Tenuch is still spoken of as alive and ruling down to 1357. ”

“ Yet an Aztec of the days of Montezuma, could lie behold the modern metropolis, which has risen with such phœnix-like splendour from the ashes of the old, would not recognise its site as that of his own Tenochtitlan. For the latter was encompassed by the salt floods of Tezcuco, which flowed in ample canals through every part of the city; while the Mexico of our day stands high and dry on the mainland, nearly a league distant, at its centre, from the water. ”

“ The lake suddenly swarmed with canoes full of fighting men, and when Don Hernan again turned his face towards Tenochtitlan, he beheld the causeway covered with warriors, who, besides disputing his passage with unappeasable rage, broke, as well as they could, the bridges over the sluices, seven in number, wherein were mingled the floods of Chalco and Tezcuco. His valour, however, or his good fortune, prevailed; and by night-fall he reached the square of Axajacatl, and fell with renewed fury upon the savages who still struggled with the garrison. ”

“ With an air of bold and martial triumph, their colors flying, and music briskly playing, the Spaniards, with the singular trail of half savage Tlascalans, the deadly enemies of the Aztecs, made their entrance into the southern quarter of the renowned Tenochtitlan, and were escorted by the brave Cuitlahua, to the royal palace of Axayacatl, in the heart of the city, once the residence of Montezuma’s father, and now appropriated to the accommodation of Cortez and his followers. ”

“ Here however they did not reside for long, but moved north first to Iztacalco and finally to Tenochtitlan. Even yet they were not strong enough to stand entirely by themselves, probably partly because they [18] were not yet under a single chief who could lay claim to kinship with the ruling houses of other cities, and they were now under the protection of Azcapotzalco, to the ruler of which they paid tribute. Not long after their settlement, dissensions broke out among themselves, and certain clans removed to the small island of Tlaltelolco adjoining Tenochtitlan on the north. ”

“ The veritable sacrificial stone of the great temple of Tenochtitlan, is said to lie buried under the Cathedral, where the great cross is now erected, and it is certain that the bones of many thousands of human beings supposed to have perished upon it, fill all the ground where the Cathedral stands.
It is believed by many, that nearly all the old city of Tenochtitlan—the Aztec name of Mexico—is buried under the present city, and some even assert that below that are to be found ruins of a still older city, built by a race before the Aztecs. ”

“ The allied army sallied forth to the encounter, but was driven back, and the city of Tenochtitlan was about to fall into the hands of Maxtla, when the three chiefs, Nezahualcoyotl, Itzcoatl and Motecuhzoma, followed by their bravest warriors, plunged into the thickest of the fray, and by the fury of their attack caused the Tepanecs to flee with all haste. ”

“ Here then the Aztecs sank piles in the shallows of the lake on which to build their huts, and a temple for their god, to whom they offered in sacrifice a human being. Thus arose Tenochtitlan, which means a cactus on a stone. ”

“ Let no man henceforth who values his life talk of surrender. We can at least die like warriors!"
The only answer the Spaniards received to their offers of peace was an assault so furious that but for their cannon they would have been overwhelmed. Indeed, these fiery monsters which the Aztecs must meet on causeway and lake and street made the struggle most unequal, and dreary, even in the telling, is the story of these latter days when proud Tenochtitlan became "a desolation among the nations." ”

“ In the proud city of Tenochtitlan the dead king was succeeded by his nephew, Guatamotzin, a young man of twenty-five, well instructed in the art of native warfare, fierce, energetic, and shrewd, hating the white men and their religion with a bitter hatred, fanatically devoted to the bloodthirsty gods of his own land, and influenced in all his actions by their priests. In him the white conquerors were to encounter their most formidable opponent. ”

“ Spanish historians often liken Tenochtitlan to the seat of an empire and speak of the ruler as one who had the power of an absolute monarch while other and more recent writers have declared that the tribal organization of the Aztecs was essentially democratic. The truth doubtless lies between these extremes. The people were warlike by nature and all men, except a few of the priesthood, were soldiers. ”

“ Under the smiles of the gods, whom countless victims kept propitiated, the city threw abroad its arms, and, before the passage of a century, became the emporium of the valley. Its people climbed the mountains around, and, in pursuit of captives to grace their festivals, made the conquest of “Mexico.” Then the kings began to centralize. They made Tenochtitlan their capital; under their encouragement, the arts grew and flourished; its market became famous; the nobles and privileged orders made it their dwelling-place; wealth abounded ”

“ It is believed that, two hundred years before the Aztecs subdued the more ancient people of the Mexican valley and founded Tenochtitlan, * a handful of rough, half-civilized adventurers from the wintery shores of Iceland and the neighboring main, driven by adverse winds they knew not whither, touched upon the bleak shores of Labrador, and traversed the American continent southward as far as Rhode Island, and, it may be, the capes of Virginia. ”

“ However that may be, it is evident that Tenochtitlan was built on an unhealthy marsh much below the level of the streets of Mexico, and nearly surrounded by water. The foundations of buildings in the present city are laid very deep, and the walls are immensely thick. All over the city, wherever an excavation is made for building, old Aztec relics are thrown up. Probably no city in the world now inhabited, has so many relics of ancient days buried beneath it. ”

“ 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. ”