CHAPINGO. 



137 



dition states to have been the case on various occasions 

 prior to the conquest ; and even since the seventeenth 

 century, the waters of Tezcuco have risen to such a 

 height, that the city has been greatly endangered by it, 

 most of the streets on one occasion remaining many feet 

 under water for between four and five years consecu- 

 tively.* The pavement of the Plaza Major itself, the 

 highest ground in the city of Mexico, is several feet lower 

 than the surface of Lake Chalco. 



Nevertheless, such is the combined effect of the ex- 

 traordinary evaporation from the dry and naked surface 

 of the table land, raised above the clouds, and fully ex- 

 posed to the sun's rays ; the diminished power of re- 

 plenishment; the decreasing infiltration, from the de- 

 struction of woods and forests both on the plains and 

 the surrounding mountains, laying the unprotected soil 

 bare to the action of the ardent sun and rarified air ; 

 and lastly, the effect of the artificial means employed by 

 the Spaniards two centuries ago, to carry off the super- 

 abundant w 7 aters of the lake to the northward, that all 

 the lakes have retired on every side into narrower limits, 

 and the surface of Tezcuco in particular has become 

 circumscribed far within its original bounds. 



The present shore is already 14,763 feet from the cen- 

 tre of the city, which it once surrounded ; and on every 

 side, as I have described, wide flats and marshy meadows 

 mark its ancient bed. 



The great Hacienda of Chapingo, which we reached 

 shortly afternoon, lies some miles distant from the shore 

 of the lake, directly opposite Mexico. By the circuitous 

 route w 7 e had taken, that city lay about nine leagues dis- 

 tant, but as the bird flies, it could not have been more 

 than eleven or twelve miles. The intendant of the ha- 

 cienda, to whom we had brought a letter of introduction, 

 was from home ; but we were courteously received and 

 entertained by .one of the upper domestics of this spa- 



* A.D. 1553, 1580, 1605-1607 were years of inundation ; and on 

 June 20, 1627, the capital was laid under water from such a combination, 

 of causes, and remained so till the year 1634. 



M 2 



