454 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



ing in all 1,600 paces. On the other side of this promenade toward 

 the wall of the garden are hedges of lattice work made of cane, 

 behind which are all sorts of plantations of trees and aromatic 

 herbs. The pool contains many fish and different kinds of water- 

 fowl * * *." 



The observant Bernal Diaz, who accompanied Cortes, wrote enthu- 

 siastically about Iztapalapa as follows : 



The garden and orchard are most admirable. I saw and walked about in 

 them and could not satiate myself sufficiently looking at the many kinds of 

 trees and enjoying the perfume of each. And there were walks bordered with 

 the roses of this country and flowers and many fruit trees and flowering 

 shrubs; also a pool of fresh water. There was another thing worth seeing, 

 namely, that large canoes could enter into the flower garden from the lagoon 

 through an entrance they had made of many kinds of stone covered with pol- 

 ished stucco and painted, which gave one much to think about. * * * 

 Again I say that I do not believe that in the whole world there are other 

 countries known to compare with this one. 



It may well be that the gardens of Iztapalapa were in his mind 

 when, 30 years after the Conquest, he wrote how he and his com- 

 panions " had been tilled with wonder at what they saw and said to 

 each other that all seemed to be like the enchantments written about 

 in Amadis of Gaul * * *, for the things they were seeing never 

 had been seen, heard, or ever dreamed of." It is interesting to learn, 

 through Hernandez, that " many trees of a kind of cypress had been 

 raised from seed at Iztapalapa by one of its lords who took infinite 

 pains to have them cultivated for his enjoyment." 



In a chapter entitled " Of the gardens in which Montezuma went 

 for recreation " the scholarly Dr. Cervantes de Salazar, who wrote 

 his famous and long-lost Chronicle in Mexico in 1565 and derived 

 his information from the most reliable sources, records as follows : 



This great monarch had many pleasances and spacious gardens with paths 

 and channels for irrigation. These gardens contained only medicinal and aro- 

 matic herbs, flowers, native roses, and trees with fragrant blossoms, of which 

 there are many kinds. He ordered his physicians to make experiments with 

 the medicinal herbs and to employ those best known and tried as remedies in 

 healing the ills of the lords of his court. These gardens gave great pleasure 

 to all who visited them on account of the flowers and roses they contained and 

 of the fragrance they gave forth, especially in the mornings and evenings. It 

 was well worth seeing with how much art and delicacy a thousand figures of 

 persons were made by means of leaves and flowers, also the seats, chapels, and 

 the other constructions which so greatly adorned these places. 



In these flower gardens Montezuma did not allow any vegetables or fruit to 

 be grown, saying that it was not kingly to cultivate plants for utility or profit 

 in his pleasance. He said that vegetable gardens and orchards were for slaves 

 or merchants. At the same time he owned such, but they were at a distance, 

 and he seldom visited them. 



Outside the City of Mexico he had houses in extensive groves of trees 

 surrounded by water so that the game could not escape and he could be cer- 

 tain of his quarry. In these woods there were fountains, rivers, tanks with 

 fish, rabbit warrens, steep high rocks among which were stags, fallow deer, 



