

FORTIFICATIONS AT ACAPULCO, MEXICO 



Acapulco is one of the principal west coast cities of Mexico, with harbor accommodations 

 for ioo ocean steamships and 200 lighter craft. Bret Harte, in his "Last Galleon," sings of 

 the day in 1641 when the regular yearly galleon was due to arrive in Acapulco, while the 

 limes were ripening in the sun for the sick on board. 



ity soon made them formidable to their 

 masters. 



THE FOUNDING OF TEXOCHTITLAX 



After a series of wanderings and ad- 

 ventures, which need not shrink from 

 comparison with the most extravagant 

 legends of the heroic ag'es of antiquity, 

 they at length halted on the southwestern 

 borders of the principal lake in the year 

 1325. They there beheld, perched on the 

 stem of a prickly pear, which shot out 

 from the crevice of a rock that was 

 washed by the waves, a royal eagle of ex- 

 traordinary size and beauty, with a ser- 

 pent in his talons, and his broad wings 

 opened to the rising sun. 



They hailed the auspicious omen, an- 

 nounced by the oracle as indicating the 



site of their future city, and laid its foun- 

 dations by sinking piles into the shallow r s, 

 for the low marshes were half buried 

 under water. On these they erected their 

 light fabrics of reeds and rushes, and 

 sought a precarious subsistence from 

 fishing and from the wild fowl which 

 frequented the waters, as well as from 

 the cultivation of such simple vegetables 

 as they could raise on their floating gar- 

 dens. The place was called Tenochtitlan, 

 in token of its miraculous origin, though 

 only known to Europeans by its other 

 name of Mexico, derived from their war- 

 god, Mexitli. The legend of its founda- 

 tion is still further commemorated by the 

 device of the eagle and the cactus, which 

 form the arms of the modern Mexican 

 Republic. 



