164 



HUEHUETOCA. 



achieving, though we sought it for a week in advance on 

 every hand. The possibility of rounding the southern 

 end of Lake Tezcuco to the town of that name, was 

 again and again positively denied. Distances were 

 tripled ; and as to the scheme of proceeding directly with 

 our train from San Juan Teotihuacan to Huehuetoca, 

 that was laughed at as quite chimerical. We found not 

 only no great difficulty, as you read, but discovered that 

 all the information we had received with regard to dis- 

 tances had been greatly overrated. 



The town of Zumpango, where we made our main 

 halt, presents nothing worthy of note so far as we could 

 discover. The northern shore of the lake of that name, 

 which we skirted in the course of the afternoon, is, how- 

 ever, very pretty. 



Passing one or two picturesque villages, we gained the 

 plains beyond. Our road led us close to the walls of the 

 great Hacienda of Jalpa ; and, in fine, at an early hour 

 of the evening, to the village of Huehuetoca, whose mas- 

 sive church had long served us as our landmark in ap- 

 proaching from the eastward. 



There is little either in the miserable town itself, or in 

 the surrounding country, as far as its general features are 

 considered, to allure the traveller to a halt ; or to tempt 

 me to put a tail to this long letter ; but, in the Desague 

 Real, this otherwise uninteresting corner of the valley of 

 Mexico contains one of the most gigantic monuments of 

 human design to be found in any country ; and to visit it 

 was the motive of our excursion thus far to the north- 

 ward. 



You may have gathered from what I have already 

 communicated, that nature has provided no natural out- 

 let for the waters of the five lakes of the valley ; and 

 that in times of extraordinary and sudden flood, the sur- 

 plus of waters of all the more elevated lakes to the north 

 and south must be discharged into Lake Tezcuco, which 

 forms the lowest level of the valley of Mexico. 



I have also remarked that both the ancient capital and 

 the present city, have been exposed from this cause to 



