272 TIIK FLOATIN<i GAllDENS. 



floating gardens. Tliei'c were two sorts of these gardens, 

 one wliich was movable, and driven about by the winds, 

 the other fixed and fastened to the shore. The ingeni- 

 ous invention of floating gardens appears to go back to 

 the end of the fourteenth century. It had its origin in 

 the extraordinary situation of a people surrounded with 

 enemies, and compelled to live in the midst of a lake 

 little abounding in fish, who were forced to fall upon 

 every means of procuring subsistence. It is even proba- 

 ble that Nature herself suggested to the Aztecs the first 

 idea of floating gardens. On the marshy banks of the 

 lakes of Xochimilco and Chalco, the agitated water in the 

 time of the great rises carries away pieces of earth 

 covered with herbs, and bound together by roots. 

 These, floating about for a long time as they are driven 

 by the wind, sometimes unite into small islands. A 

 tribe of men, too weak to defend themselves on the con- 

 tinent, would take advantage of these portions of ground 

 which accident put within their reach, and of w^hich no 

 enemy disputed the property. The oldest floating gar- 

 dens were merely bits of ground joined together artifi- 

 cially, and dug and sown upon by the Aztecs. Similar 

 floating islands are to be met with in all the zones. Hum- 

 boldt saw them on the river Guayaquil, twenty-five or 

 thirty feet long. 



Apropos of the markets of Mexico. Here is a pass- 

 age from a letter of Cortez to the Emperor Charles Y., 

 which gives a description of the valley of Mexico, and 

 the old city of Tenochtitlan, markets included. It is 

 dated the 30th October, 1530, nearly three hundred 

 years before the visit of Humboldt : 



" The province in which the residence of this great 



