*

est summit of the Nevado de Toluca, is 4620 metres (2370 toises). No mountain in this intendancy equals the height of Mont Blanc.

The valley of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, of which I publish a very minute map, is situated in the centre of the Cordillera of Anahuac, on the ridge of the porphyritical and basaltic amygdaloid mountains, which run from the S.S. E. to the N.N.W. This valley is of an oval form. According to my observations, and those of a distinguished mineralogist, M. Don Luis Martin, it contains from, the entry of the Rio Tenango into the lake of Chalco, to the foot of the Cerro de Sincoque, near the Desague Real of Huehuetoca, 18+ leagues in length, and from S. Gabriel, near the small town of Tezcuco, to the sources of the Rio de Escapusalco, near Guisquiluca, 12 leagues in breadth. † The territorial extent of the valley is 244 square leagues, of which only 22 square leagues are occupied by the lakes, which is less than a tenth of the whole surface.

The circumference of the valley, reckoning

15156 feet. Trans.

The maps of the valley of Mexico hitherto published are so false, that in that of M. Mascaro, annually repeated in the almanac of Mexico, the above distances are 25 and 17 instead of 18 and 12 leagues. It is from this map undoubtedly that the archbishop Lorenzana gives the whole valley a circumference of more than 90 leagues, while the amount is almost one-third less.

from the crest of the mountains which surround it like a circular wall, is 67 leagues. This crest is most elevated on the south, particularly on the south-east, where the great volcanos of La Puebla, the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, bound the valley. One of the roads which lead from the valley of Tenochtitlan to that of Cholula and La Puebla passes even between the two volcanos, by Tlamanalco, Ameca, La Cumbre, and La Cruz del Coreo, The small army of Cortez passed by this road on his first invasion.

Six great roads cross the Cordillera which incloses the valley, of which the medium height is 3000 metres above the level of the ocean. 1. The road from Acapulco to Guchilaque and Cuerva, racca by the high summit called la Cruz del Marquest; 2. the road of Toluca by Tianguillo and Lerma, a magnificent causeway, which I could not sufficiently admire, constructed with great art, partly over arches ; 3. the road of Queretaro, Guanaxuato and Durango el camino de tierra adentro, which passes by Guautitlan, Huehue

* 9842 feet. Trans.

It was a military position in the time of the conquest, When the inhabitants of New Spain pronounce the word el Marques, without adding a family name, the name of Hernan Cortes, Marques de el Valle de Oaxaca, is understood. In the same way, el Almirante designates, in Spanish America, Christopher Columbus. This native manner of expressing themselves proves the respect and admiration which they preserve for the memory of these great men,

toca, and the Puerto de Reyes, near Bata, through hills scarcely 80* metres above the pavement of the great square (place) of Mexico; 4. the road of Pachuco, which leads to the celebrated mines of Real del Monte, by the Cerro Ventoso, covered with oak, cypress, and rose trees, almost continually in flower; 5. the old road of La Puebla, by S. Bonaventura and the Llanos de Apan; and, 6. the new road of La Puebla by Rio Frio and Tesmelucos, south-east from the Cerro del Telapon, of which the distance from the Sierra Nevada, as well as that from the Sierra Nevada (Iztaccihuatl) to the great volcano (Popocatepetl,) served for bases to the trigonometrical operations of MM, Velasquez and Costanzo,

From being long accustomed to hear the capital of Mexico spoken of as a city built in the midst of a lake, and connected with the continent merely by dikes, those who look at my map will be no doubt astonished on seeing that the centre of the present city is 4500 metres† distant from the lake of Tescuco, and more than 9000+ from the lake of Chalco. They will be inclined, therefore, either to doubt the accuracy of the descrip. tions in the history of the discoveries of the new world, or they will believe that the capital of

262 feet. Trans.

† 14763 feet. Trans. 29527 feet. Trans.

Mexico does not stand on the same ground with the old residence of Montezuma*: but the city has certainly not changed its place, for the cathedral of Mexico occupies exactly the ground where the temple of Huitzilopochtli stood, and the present street of Tacuba is the old street of Tlacopan, through which Cortez made his famous retreat in the melancholy night of the 1st of July, 1520, which goes by the name of Noche triste. The difference of situation between the old maps and those published by me arises solely from the diminution of water of the lake of Tez

cuco.

It may be useful in this place to lay before the readers a passage from a letter addressed + by. Cor. tez to the emperor Charles the Fifth, dated 30th October, 1520, in which he gives the description of the valley of Mexico. This passage, written with great simplicity of style, gives us at the same time a very good idea of the sort of police which prevailed in the old Tenochtitlan. "The province in which the residence of this great lord Mutec. zuma is situated," says Cortez, "is circularly sur

* The true Mexican name of this king is Moteuczoma. There are two kings of the name in the genealogy of the Aztec sultans. The first was called Huehue Moteuczoma, and the second, who died prisoner of Cortez, Moteuczomą Xocojot. The adjectives before and after the proper name signify older and younger.

+ Lorenzana.

rounded with elevated mountains, and intersected with precipices. The plain contains near 70 leagues in circumference, and in this plain are two lakes which fill nearly the whole valley; for the inhabitants sail in canoes for more than 50 leagues round."-(We must observe that the general speaks only of two lakes, because he knew but imperfectly those of Zumpango and Xaltocan, between which he hastily passed in his flight from Mexico to Tlascala, before the battle of Otumba.) "Of the two great lakes of the valley of Mexico, the one is fresh and the other salt water. They are separated by a small range of mountains (the conical and insulated hills near Iztapalapan); these mountains rise in the middle of the plain, and the waters of the lakes mingle together in a strait between the hills and the high Cordillera (undoubtedly the eastern declivity of Cerros de Santa Fe). The numerous towns and villages constructed in both of the two lakes carry on their commerce by canoes, without touching the continent. The great city of Temixtitan* (Tenochtitlan) is situated in the midst of the salt-water lake, which has its tides like the sea; and from the city to the continent there are

Temistitan, Temixtitan, Tenox titlan, Temihtitlan, are ail vicious alterations of the true name of Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs, or Mexicans, called themselves also Tenochques, from whence the denomination of Tenochtitlan is derived.