Here is an excerpt from the book:
Within Montezuma's country were all the climates of the various zones. Along the seacoast is a wide tropical belt, known as the "hot countries, "-Mexico's garden of fruits. But as one travels inland, the country rises to high and still higher tablelands, the change in vegetation marking the change in climate, until one reaches the temperate region. Above this. rise the great mountain peaks, some of them higher than any mountain in Europe, fringed with pines and finally crowned with eternal snow. Far inland, more, than seven thousand feet above the sea, lay the beautiful valley of Mexico, some sixty miles in length and forty in breadth, surrounded by a high wall of mountains, guarded by a great volcano, ornamented with woods, fertile cornfields and flower-gardens, sparkling with lakes and thickly dotted with white cities and towns. Again the tablelands descend, but more abruptly, to the Pacific ocean.
In the midst of the valley stood Mexico, Montezuma's own native city and the capital of the country Ancient Mexico has been styled 11 the Venice of the new world." It was built on a small island in the salt water lake of Tezcuco, and connected with the mainland by great stone causeways, 'furnished with drawbridges, by means of which the city could quickly be turned 'Into a fortress. It had long outgrown the limits of the small island. Many of the buildings rested on, piles in the water, and many of the streets were. canals, crossed here and there by bridges and. alive with busy native canoes , loaded with merchandise of every sort. For a horse's hoof had, never clattered on the smooth pavements of Mexico, and the canoe was the only vehicle seen in her streets. The ruins discovered far outside the limits of the Mexico of to-day, prove that Montezuma's capital was a very large city. The plainer buildings were mere huts of adobe or sun-dried brick, and most of the streets were narrow, .but several great avenues ran through the city, ornamented withpalaces, gardens and temples,. and widening here and there into great public squares. The huts of the poorer class were nd the temples and finer buildings were frequently covered with a hard, polished stucco, which glistening in the sun, at a little distance,gave the city the appearance of a city of silver.
| Price | $25.00 |
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| Total | $28.00 |
