VALLEY OF MEXICO. 35 
Conceive yourself placed on a mountain nearly two thousand feet above 
the valley,andnine thousand above the level of the sea. A sky above you 
of the most perfect azure, without a cloud, and an atmosphere so trans- 
parently pure, that the remotest objects at the distance of many leagues 
are as distinctly visible as if at hand. The gigantic scale of everything 
first strikes you — you seem to be looking down upon a world. No other 
mountain and valley view has such an assemblage of features, because 
nowhere else are the mountains at the same time so high, the valley so 
wide, or filled with such variety of land and water. The plain beneath 
is exceedingly level, and for two hundred miles around it extends a 
barrier of stupendous mountains, most of which have been active volcanos, 
and are now covered, some with snow, and some with forests. It is laced 
with large bodies of water looking more like seas than lakes — it is dotted 
with innumerable villages, and estates and plantations ; eminences rise 
from it which, elsewhere, would be called mountains, yet there, at your 
feet, they seem but ant-hills on the plain ; and now, letting your eye fol- 
low the rise of the mountains to the west, (near fifty miles distant,) you 
look over the immediate summits that wall the valley, to another and 
more distant range — and to range beyond range, with valleys between 
each, until the whole melts into a vapory distance, blue as the cloudless 
sky above you. 
I could have gazed for hours at this little world while the sun and 
passing vapor chequered the fields, and sailing off" again, left the whole 
one bright mass of verdure and water — bringing out clearly the domes of 
the village churches studding the plain or leaning against the first slopes 
of the mountains, with the huge lakes looming larger in the rarified at- 
mosphere. Yet one thing was wanting. Over the immense expanse 
there seemed scarce an evidence of life. There were no figures in the 
picture. It lay torpid in tlie sunlight, like some deserted region where 
Nature was again beginning to assert her empire — vast, solitary and 
melancholy. There were no sails — no steamers on the lakes, no smoke 
over the villages, no people at labor in the fields, no horsemen, coaches, 
or travellers but ourselves. The silence was almost supernatural ; one 
expects to hear the echo of the national strife that filled these plains with 
discord, yet lingering among the hills. It was a picture of " still life " 
inanimate in every feature, save where, on the distant mountain sides, the 
fire of some poor coal-burner, mingled its blue wreath with the bluer sky, 
or the tinkle of the bell of a solitary muleteer was heard from among the 
dark and solemn pines. 
What a theatre for the great drama that has been performed within the 
limits of this valley ! When Cortez first stood upon these mountains, 
and looked down on the lovely scene, peaceful then and rich under the 
cultivation of its Indian children ; the hills and plains covered with for- 
ests, and much of what is now dry land hidden by the extensive lake, in 
the midst of which rose the proud city of the Aztec kings filled with pal- 
aces and temples ; in site, another Venice on its inland sea \ in art, the 
