Part 5

When Maxtla found that his rival was not dead, like a prince in a fairy tale, he gave up secret plots, and boldly sent a band of armed soldiers to the old palace at Texcuco, to seize the young man whose popularity he feared. The tutor, always on the watch, arranged everything as usual, and when the emissaries of Maxtla arrived, they found the prince playing ball in the court of the palace. He received them courteously, as if he thought they came on a friendly visit, and invited them to come in, while he stepped into a room which opened on the court, as if to give orders for refreshments for them. They seemed to be seeing him all the time, but, by the directions of the old tutor, a censer which stood in the passage was so fed and stirred by the servants that it threw up clouds of incense between the guests and their host, between which Nezahualcoyotl disappeared into a secret passage which communicated with a great pipe made of pottery, formerly used to carry water into the palace. He stayed there till after dark, when he could escape without being seen, and found safety in a cottage belonging to an old subject loyal to his father's name. A price was set upon his head, and a reward offered to him who should take him dead or alive, in the shape of a marriage with some lady of birth and broad possessions. This bride never came to her wedding, for the prince was not found. Too many faithful vassals watched over him, in spite of the temptation of such a brilliant match; they hid him under heaps of magueys, and furnished him with every means of escape. They turned their heads away when they saw him pass, lest they should be forced to betray the knowledge; they put food for him in places where he might steal forth and find it. They hid him once in a large thing like a drum, around which they were dancing as if to amuse themselves. In fact, no one would give him up; the whole population connived to protect him and hide him from his half-hearted pursuers, forced to the task by their sovereign. It was a poor sort of life he led, and his own sufferings were increased by his tender heart for the difficulties these caused his loyal protectors.

Most of the chiefs of the regions round about were, from policy, allied to the usurper, but the dethroned prince had friends, and the party on his side grew large as the tyranny of Maxtla and his oppressions caused defections among his followers. When the time came for a general rising, Nezahualcoyotl found himself at the head of a courageous band which gained in size and strength, until it seemed safe to attack the regular forces of Maxtla. In the battle which took place the tyrant was routed, and the true prince triumphant. As soon as this was known all the chiefs flocked to do him homage, and he entered his capital in triumph, crossing to the sound of military music the spot where he had passed an evening under a drum, and entering by the royal gates the palace he had left through a water-pipe. Horses were not known in Anahuac until after the advent of the Conquistadores. The young victor was borne in a sort of palanquin by four of the chief nobles of the kingdom.

Thus did Nezahualcoyotl return to the throne of his fathers. The Mexicans, who had helped his former enemies to overthrow the rule of his father, now joined forces with him, abandoning without hesitation Maxtla, whose oppression and exaction made him an uncomfortable ally. A league of the other neighboring tribes, combining with the Mexicans, under the lead of the true prince of Texcuco, utterly routed the forces of Maxtla, and this tyrant who himself assassinated the father was slain by the hand of the son.

Maxtla was killed in 1428. The usurpation of the throne of the Chichimecs by Tezozomoc first, and afterwards by Maxtla, his son, had lasted ten years. By this event the kingdom of Atzcapotzalco came to an end, having lasted not more than two hundred and sixty years.

The kingdom which Nezahualcoyotl regained from the usurpers, whose kings traced their lineage back to the Chichimec Xolotl (Eye of great Vigilance), now became the kingdom of Texcuco Aculhuacan, by which it was known when Cortés, with his conquering legions, appeared on the plains of Anahuac.

VI.

TEXCUCO.

Now followed the Golden Age of Texcuco. The Fox, no longer hungry nor hunted, proved himself a very Lion, a King of Beasts; he ruled his kingdom with wisdom, as he had fought with bravery, and endured adversity with patience.

On coming to the throne, he proclaimed a general amnesty, pardoned the rebels, and even gave some of them posts of honor. He repaired the ruin wrought by the usurper, and revived what was worth revival in the old form of government. He made a code of laws well suited to the demands of his time, which was written in blood. It was accepted by the two other powers with whom he now entered into alliances, Mexico and Tlacopan. His adjustment of the different departments of government was remarkable for the time, or indeed for any time, providing councils for every emergency; of these the most peculiar was the Council of Music, devoted to the interests of all arts and science. Its members were selected from the best instructed persons of the kingdom, without much reference to their ranks. They had the supervision of all works of art, all writings, pictorial or hieroglyphic, and had an eye on all professors to keep them up to their work. This Council of Music had sessions when it listened to poems and historical compositions recited by their authors, who received prizes according to the merit of their work.

The literary men of Texcuco became celebrated throughout the country, and its archives were preserved with the greatest care in the palace. These records, which would have told us all we want to know of the early story of the people of Anahuac, were, for the most part, inscribed upon a fine fabric, made of the leaves of the American aloe, the maguey which also gave them their favorite beverage. The sheets made from it were something like the Egyptian papyrus, and furnished a smooth surface like parchment, upon which the picture-writings were laid in the most brilliant tints. These manuscripts were done up in rolls sometimes, but were often folded like a screen, and enclosed in wooden covers, not very unlike our books. Quantities of such manuscripts were stored up in the country, not only by the Texcucans, but by all the inhabitants of the different kingdoms. Probably no race has made better provision for handing down its traditions and history than these people who wandered from the mysterious North. All this is lost to us by the infatuation of the Spanish Conquistadores, as we shall see later on.

As if barbarians, ignorant of types and bindings, should descend upon the British Museum or Bibliotèque Nationale, and, perceiving therein countless parallelograms of calf containing wicked little dots upon countless white leaves, should order them to be destroyed, as foolishness or blasphemy. So the first priests of the Christian religion arriving in New Spain destroyed these playthings of the idolaters, which they conceived to be probably precious, but at all events useless.

Only chance specimens of these wonderful picture-writings escaped the general destruction, and from which is gleaned whatever is surmised of the earliest life of the tribes of Anahuac.

Texcuco led all the other nations in its literary culture, or rather pictorial skill, since letters were unknown. The Texcucan idiom was the purest of all the many dialects from the Nahuatl root. Among its poets, the king himself, Nezahualcoyotl, was distinguished. He not only belonged to the Council of Music, but appeared before it with other competitors. Perhaps some folded screen enclosing an ode by his hand lies hidden yet somewhere in Mexico, or even among the dusty archives of Old Spain. Some few have come to light, and one of them exists in Spanish, translated by a Mexican. It is hard to be sure of the import of the original through the change of expression inevitable in translating, but we may guess something of it.

"Rejoice," he says, "O Nezahualcoyotl, in the enjoyable, which now you grasp. With the flowers of this lovely garden crown thy illustrious brows, and draw pleasure from those things from which pleasure is to be drawn."

This garden of the no longer hungry Fox was a wonderful Place of Delights, and the remains of it may be seen to this day. About three miles from the capital rises the Laughing Hill of Tezcotzinco. Here are left the remains of terraced walls, and stairways wind around the hill from the bottom to the top. In shady nooks among the rocks seats are hollowed out of the stone, and ingenious contrivances can be traced on all sides for enhancing the natural advantages of the situation. The most curious of all the vestiges of Nezahualcoyotl's garden is a round reservoir for water at an elevation of eighty or one hundred feet. It is about five feet across and three feet deep. Channels led from it in all directions to water and refresh the terrace-gardens below.

The country all about is full of artificial embankments, reservoirs and aqueducts for leading water about, and developing the attractions of the place. A magnificent grove of lofty _ahuehuetes_, at some distance from the central part of the grounds, surrounds a large quadrangle, now dry, which was probably an artificial lake in the time of the great king, for whose pleasure these things were planned. He was rich enough to pay for all the costly works he commanded, by reason of successful wars and judicious management of domestic industry, and so was justified in indulging his taste for magnificence in architecture. The ruins of Tezcotzinco faintly attest the truth of the descriptions of this royal residence, which tell of hanging gardens approached by steps of porphyry, reservoirs sculptured with the achievements of the monarch, and adorned with marble statues. There stood a lion of solid stone more than twelve feet long, with wings and feathers carved upon them. He was placed to face the east, and in his mouth he held a stone face, which was the very likeness of the king himself. This was his favorite portrait, although many other representations of him had been made in gold, wood, or feather-work. On the summit of the hill was the carved representation of a _coyotl_, the hungry fox which gave to the monarch his name so tedious to us to pronounce.

The remains of Tezcotzinco are now shown as the Baths of Montezuma; but this is a purely modern application of the title of a chief more commonly known. The baths belonged to Nezahualcoyotl, and if by chance any Montezuma made use of them, it was only as a passing guest.

Nezahualcoyotl, this wise, good, æsthetic king, committed a deed which his descendant and historian regards as a great blot upon his fame. He remained unmarried for a long time, on account of an early disappointment in love, and was no longer young when he conceived a violent passion for a noble maiden whom he met at the house of one of his vassals. This vassal wished the fair lady for his own bride; he had in fact brought her up with that intent, but the king, regardless of the laws of honor, caused the old man to be killed by his own men in a battle with the Tlaxcallans, which he set on foot chiefly for this purpose. The young princess was then invited to the royal palace, where she received in due form and time an offer of marriage from the monarch. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp, not long after the funeral of the vassal.

This is the only anecdote that reflects discredit on the monarch, and there are many which tell to his advantage. It was his custom, as with the Eastern Khalif, to go about in disguise among his people to find out their wants in order to alleviate them.

One day as he was walking through a field with one of his friends he met a small boy picking up sticks here and there. "There are many more in the forest yonder," he said; "why do not you go there to get them?"

"The forest belongs to the king," said the boy, "and it would be worth my life to take his property."

The king advised him to disregard the law and go and take what wood he wanted, as nobody would find him out, but the boy was too honest or too cautious to follow the advice, and steadily went a gleaning as he could in the open field.

When the king returned to the palace he sent for the boy and his parents. The parents were praised for bringing up such a boy, the boy was praised and rewarded, and the king passed a law allowing unlimited picking up chips.

In short, Nezahualcoyotl was a model monarch. He pardoned all his enemies, was humane and clement; he formed a code of wise and just laws, and instituted tribunals for the prompt administration of justice; he established schools and academies for the diffusion of all sorts of knowledge, and generously encouraged science and art. As for his religious belief, he abjured the barbarous creed which prevailed at the time, and announced his conviction of the existence of one God, author of the universe. He erected a superb temple to this deity, and composed hymns in his praise.

Nezahualcoyotl died in 1472. It was nearly half a century since he had rescued his throne from the usurper. He had raised his kingdom from the anarchy in which he found it to a brilliant station, and saw it, at the close of his life, growing stronger and going farther in the path of advanced civilization. He had brought this about by his wise and judicious rule and might well contemplate with satisfaction the results of his wisdom and judgment.

His only legitimate son was about eight years old at the time of his father's death. His name was Nezahualpilli. He became as learned as his father, was liberal and charitable; even more severe in the administration of justice, going so far as to condemn to death two of his own sons who had infringed the law. In his time he was held to be the wisest monarch of the epoch, and amongst his subjects he had moreover the reputation of being a magician.

He reigned forty-four years, and died in 1516, leaving the kingdom to the oldest of his four legitimate sons.

The reign of Nezahualcoyotl is the most glorious period of the kingdom of Texcuco, and of all the kingdoms of Anahuac.

Its splendors have been confounded with those of the Aztec Court, and, as we see in the names now given to the ruins of the king's garden, even the name of the Montezumas is mixed up with the Texcucan annals. It is well, however, to keep the different dynasties distinct, in order to understand, when we come to the Conquest, the various parts these distinct peoples played in that exciting drama.

Texcuco maintained for some time its place and distinction, but never surpassed the height it reached in the fifteenth century. After that it began to diminish; family dissensions in the royal house, and external warfare, together with too much prosperity and the relaxation that comes with it, were preparing this nation for the tempest and change already gathering afar off.

This glowing account of the splendors of Texcuco is gathered by Prescott from the writings of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, who traced his descent, in direct line, from the royal house of Texcuco. He lived in the sixteenth century, occupying the position of interpreter to the Viceroy, being familiar with the Indian dialects, and of course with the Spanish language.

He was in other respects a man of cultivation and learning, had a library of his own, and pursued diligently the study of the picture-writings, hieroglyphics, and legends of his ancestors, with the object of throwing light on the obscure places of their story. He wrote, in Spanish, various books about the primitive races of Anahuac, among them the "Historia Chichimeca," which has been used as a source of authority since it was first written.

As a Christian, Ixtlilxochitl has given to the legends of the Quetzalcoatl and other mysteries of the early Mexican races, a color evidently borrowed from the light of Christian traditions, and the author has cast over his picture of the Golden Age a glow which is hardly justified by the cold light of modern research. His story is now regarded as unreliable in many particulars. Yet as a legend it retains its charm; and as history the graceful fabric need not be utterly destroyed while the monuments at Texcuco and the manuscripts of Nezahualcoyotl attest the existence of such a king and such a court. Until the diligent research of those explorers who are now busy in searching for the facts of early Mexican history, have fully established them, we may enjoy the tale of past magnificence upon the plateau of Anahuac.

The period of the Golden Age of Texcuco is ascribed to the fifteenth century; the date assigned to Nezahualcoyotl's accession being 1430. The Spanish invasion took place in 1516 A. D.

During that century the red rose of Lancaster was warring with the white rose of York; Joan of Arc, in France, grew up in her village home, to win back for the French king his lost provinces. Isabella and Ferdinand, by uniting the two houses of Castile and Aragon, made Spain the powerful kingdom, which was to discover the New World.

All these princes and potentates, busy with their own wars and marriages, lived their lives without thought of any form of high civilization across an untravelled ocean. Even Columbus, as he urged upon the queen his longing to cross that ocean to find out what was beyond it, did not suggest to her the vision of a cultivated court with a king who wrote poetry in an unknown tongue, and had carved lions upon his marble stairways.

VII.

MICHOACAN.

West of the city of Mexico and the state of the same name lies Michoacan, one of the largest of the present divisions of the country. It begins on the plateau, but stretches down the steep western slope to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, seamed with deep _barrancas_ between the upper and the lower portions, so steep and impassable that the railway which is already engineered to connect the capital with Colima on the western coast, waits long to gather courage for the leap. On the higher land mountain-peaks divide fertile lofty valleys, in which large lakes sparkle in the soft light of the climate. Michoacan signifies in Tarascan Land of Fish. These broad sheets of water are even now as still and lonely as when the early wanderers from the unknown North settled upon their borders, except when the shriek of a modern steam-engine disturbs their silence, and frightens the many birds who live there. As the train passes along the edge of Lake Cuitzao, eighteen miles long, clouds of winged creatures start up surprised, but not much frightened from the rushes by the water. Perhaps a rose-colored flamingo may be seen standing on one leg, undisturbed by the noise, because he is unaccustomed to fear. Across the lake glows a brilliant scarlet behind graceful mountain outlines. By the many curves of the road these forms appear, vanish, and recur, till the day has faded.

Farther from the capital, Patzcuaro and its lake have hidden their charms still longer. It was only in 1886 that the railroad penetrated to them. They are nearer the middle of the upper part of Michoacan, at an elevation of seven thousand feet above the sea. The heights in this region, though they seem hills, because their base is on so high a level, attain to numbers of measurement belonging to mountains. The Place of Delights, as the name of Patzcuaro is translated from the Tarascan language of its old inhabitants, is a lonely little city now, containing no more than eight thousand natives, many of whom are descended from the first inhabitants, and speak the Tarascan tongue. The town is built on hilly broken ground, with narrow crooked streets, from which glimpses are constantly to be had of the beautiful lake stretching out below. Abundant springs water the town and flow through the fountains in the market-place, an open square surrounded by noble ash-trees. Just outside the town stone seats have been placed at a point overlooking a lovely view of the clustering town, the long irregular lake with jutting points clothed throughout the year with verdure, and dotting islands upon its surface.

This place of delights was long the seat of the native chiefs of Michoacan, who, though they did not attain such a reputation for learning and cultivation as Ixtlilxochitl the Texcucan narrator has given his ancestors, had yet taste and intelligence enough to enjoy the beauty of their home.

In the beginning, wandering tribes may have settled on the borders of the lake for the mere casual advantages of satisfying their hunger, for the lake abounds with fish, and feathered game frequent its shores from time immemorial. The first have been supposed to be Chichimecs, either before or after their dealings with the Toltecs. The region was too attractive for one tribe to possess it unmolested. Other men, perhaps fresh from the same mysterious North, perhaps driven out by force or discontent from former homes upon Anahuac, came to dispute the fruitful territory. Such contests were decided by the triumph of the stronger; intermarriages healed the wound, and brief peace settled on the shore of the lake, to be broken by and by with similar incursions, followed by similar results. Out of such sequence, a name and date emerge as pegs to hang some facts on, in the hitherto accepted story.

Iré-Titatacamé was this first chief of this first people with a name which could last. He made friends with a neighboring chief, and married his daughter, the Princess of Naranjan. We may imagine her, like her remote descendants, a dusky maiden, rather small, with straight black hair, which she knew how to braid in two long tresses to hang along her back. Did her grandmother learn the art from the same coiffeur that prepared the mother of Ramses for her morning care? Her eyes were intelligent, piercing, but soft, two rows of brilliant white teeth lighted her face when she smiled, as she gathered herself poppies for a wreath on the borders of the Lake of Delights.

This princess became the mother of Sicuiracha, who was born in 1202, they say, about the time that the little English prince, Arthur, was being murdered at Rouen by the order of his wicked uncle. The little prince of Naranjan-Chichimeca was not ten years old when a tribe of Tarascans assaulted his father's city, and slew that monarch. He grew up to console his mother, avenge the deed, and to control his own subjects and the conquered tribe, which however impressed its language and dialect upon the nation, so that in that region, Tarascan survived.

Sicuiracha lived to a good old age, and in peace. He died at the close of the thirteenth century, leaving two sons.

One of these married an island woman of the lake, and her son preserved the royal line; for his father and uncle were put to death by a chieftain of the neighborhood who desired the fair Place of Delights for his own. But Tixiacurí was hidden by priests, who taught him the great art of war, so that in due time he came forth at the head of armies, destroyed his enemies, took to himself all the territory of the king who slew his father, and extended his own even beyond these, thus first really governing the wide kingdom of Michoacan, which goes down to the sea.

Tixiacurí, at his death, divided the territory, giving parts of it to two nephews, one of whom, Hicuxaxé, got Patzcuaro, and called himself king of it. Tangoxoan, the son of the late king summoned his court to Tzintzuntzan, fifteen miles up the lake. He is counted the fifth of the chiefs of Michoacan, and leaves no other record but that all his sons died violent deaths.