64 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



lished at Texcoco or Acolliuacan, the " Ancestral City " ; but in 1325 the rival 

 city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan rose on an island amid the waters of the lake. 



The Aztec founders of this place were themselves of the same Nahua race as 

 their Toltec and Chichimec predecessors. They had reached the Anahuac plateau 

 towards the close of the twelfth century, having a hundred and twenty-five years 

 previously quitted their insular home of Aztlan, which has not yet been identified 

 with certainty by geographers. During those years of wanderings they had dwelt 

 in the mythical land of Chicomoztoc, that is, the " Seven Caves," and traversed 

 many strange regions in search of the " Land of Promise." The legend also speaks 

 of them as the " inventors of fire," that is, as an ingenious people, rivalling the 

 Toltecs in their knowledge of the arts and sciences. 



Thanks to its insular position, easily defended against all sudden attack, the 

 lacustrine city grew rapidly, and round it were formed the famous chinampas, or 

 floating gardens, which supplied the people with provisions during times of siege. 

 Even after it was divided into two hostile towns, the old and democratic Tenochtit- 

 lan and the modern trading town of Tlatelulco, it continued to develop rapidly,thanks 

 to the inflow of immigrants from all parts, seeking refuge in these strongholds. 



When the Chichimec ascendency was finally destroyed, in 1431, by intestine 

 wars and the revolt of the oppressed populations, Mexico succeeded to the power 

 hitherto exercised by Texcoco. It stood at the head of the confederacy formed by 

 the three cities of Mexico, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. 



Under the hegemony of the Aztec capital their conquests soon spread beyond 

 the limits of Anahuac proper. The annals of this period, which agree on all the 

 essential points, despite the partial accounts of writers of diiïerent nationalities, 

 describe the Mexicans as reducing the surrounding populations for the twofold 

 purpose of increasing their store of gold, precious stones, and ornamental feather- 

 work, and procuring victims for the altars of their gods. Westwards they failed 

 to subdue the tribes of Michoacan, and towards the north-west they scarcely 

 advanced beyond the limits of the Anahuac valley. But in the direcdon of the 

 south and south-east they had conquered the whole region as far as the coast, from 

 the mouth of the Panuco to the Alvarado bar. But on the plateau they left the 

 independent nation of the Tlaxcalans, who, with hundreds of revolted tribes, greatly 

 facilitated the overthrow of the Mexican empire by the Spanish invaders. 



Prodigies and scourges of all kinds, say the chronicles, foreboded the approaching 

 ruin of the Aztec power, which had already been seriously threatened by the insur- 

 rection of its own subjects, when Cortes and his Tlaxcalan allies presented them- 

 selves before the doomed capital. Nevertheless the name of this opulent city has 

 been extended not only to all the surrounding territory, but also to an aggregate 

 of provinces or states far more extensive than the empire of Montezuma. The 

 term " Mexican," formerly restricted to a fraction of the Aztecs, themselves 

 merely one of the numerous branches of the Nahua race, is now claimed by a great 

 nation of about twelve million souls. 



The Spanish conquerors could not fail to recognise in Mexico an empire like 

 that of their native land, where the will of a potent ruler was implicitly obeyed 



