270 VIEW FKOM CIIAPOLTEPEC. 



archives of the Viccroyaltv, and pored over its hoard of 

 Aztec manuscrij^ts. These hieroglyphs were written 

 either on agave pajDcr, or on stag-skins. They were fre- 

 quently from sixty -live to seventy feet in length, and 

 each page contained from two to three feet of surface 

 They were folded here and there in the form of a rhomb, 

 and thin wooden boards fastened to the extremities 

 formed their binding, and gave them a resemblance to 

 our volumes in quarto. No nation of the old continent 

 ever made such an extensive use of hieroglyphical writ- 

 ing as the Aztecs, and in none of them were real books 

 bound in this way. Humboldt procured several frag- 

 ments of similar manuscripts during his stay in Mexico. 



But mysterious manuscripts which he could not read, 

 and uncouth idols with which he could have no sym- 

 pathy, were soon laid aside for the great Book of Nature, 

 and the thousands of men around him. One of his favour- 

 ite haunts was the famous hill of Chapoltepec. From 

 the centre of this solitude his eye swept over a vast plain 

 of cultivated fields which extended to the feet of the dis- 

 tant mountains covered with perpetual snow. Below 

 him were old cypress trunks fifty feet in circumference, 

 and off to the east the city. It appeared as if washed by 

 the waters of the lake of Tezcuco, whose basin, sur- 

 rounded with villages and hamlets, brought to his mind 

 the most beautiful lakes of the mountains of Switzerland. 

 Large avenues of elms and poplars led to it in every 

 direction ; and two aqueducts, constructed over arches 

 of great elevation, crossed the plain like walls. The 

 magnificent convent of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared 

 joined to the mountains of Tepe3'acac, among ravines, 

 which sheltered date and yucca trees. Towards the 



