CHAPTER XVI.
MEETING WITH MONTEZUMA.
November, 1519.
Something of the City — The Spaniards Start from Iztapalapan — Reach the Great Causeway — They are Met by many Nobles — And presently by Montezuma — Entry into Mexico — They Are Quartered in the Axayacatl Palace — Interchange of Visits.
From Iztapalapan the imperial city of the great plateau could clearly be seen, rising in unveiled whiteness from the lake. Almost celestial was its beauty in the eyes of the spoilers; a dream some called it, or, if tangible, only Venice was like it, with its imposing edifices sparkling amid the sparkling waters. Many other places had been so called, but there was no other New World Venice like this.
Sweeping round in sheltering embrace were the green swards and wood-clad knolls on the shore, studded with tributary towns and palatial structures, crowned with foliage, or peeping forth from groves, some venturing nearer to the city, and into the very lake. "We gazed with admiration," exclaims Bernal Diaz, as he compares with the enchanted structures described in the Amadis their grand towers, cues, and edifices, rising in the lake, and all of masonry.
Let us glance at the people and their dwellings; for though we have spoken of them at length elsewhere, we cannot in this connection wholly pass them by.
Two centuries back, the Aztecs, then a small and
