1521 THERE was no occasion to resort to artificial means to precipitate the ruin of the Aztecs. It was accelerated every hour by causes more potent than those arising from mere human agency. There they were,—pent up in their close and suffocating quarters, nobles, commoners, and slaves, men, women, and children, some in houses, more […]

1521 IN the course of three or four days, the Spanish general furnished the Tlascalans with the opportunity so much coveted, and allowed their boiling spirits to effervesce in active operations. He had, for some time, meditated an expedition to reconnoitre the capital and its environs, and to chastise, on the way, certain places, which […]

1520. TRAVERSING the southern causeway, by which they had entered the capital, the little party were soon on their march across the beautiful Valley. They climbed the mountain screen which Nature had so ineffectually drawn around it ; passed between the huge volcanoes that, like faithless watch-dogs on their posts, have long since been buried […]

1521. THE City of Tezcuco was the best position, probably, which Cortés could have chosen for the headquarters of the army. It supplied all the accommodations for lodging a numerous body of troops, and all the facilities for subsistence, incident to a large and populous town. It furnished, moreover, a multitude of artisans and laborers […]

WHEN, in 1910, like several of its sister republics, Mexico celebrated the centennial anniversary of its independence, the era of peace and progress inaugurated by Porfirio Diaz seemed likely to last indefinitely, for he was entering upon his eighth term as President. Brilliant as his career had been, however, and greatly as Mexico had prospered […]

FLOATING over the public buildings of Mexico may be seen the national flag of the Republic, a tricolor of red, white and green which in some cases bears the arms of Mexico, the traditional eagle on the cactus, and the letters “E. U. de M.” (Estados Unidos de Mexico), meaning the United States of Mexico. […]

“Go to Cuernavaca,” said an American friend, as I sat by a diminutive oil stove in his office in Mexico City one morning, discussing the cold weather which had lasted through the first weeks of November. “Cuernavaca,” he continued, “is a place of orange groves and flowers; it is always warm, and it has the […]

THE difference between the American and his neighbor the Mexican is strikingly illustrated in the names and history of their respective cities. In a past age many a shrewd Yankee, with an eye to business, induced his friends to start a town, and while growing rich by speculating in real estate, perpetuated his memory by […]

WHEN a European is suffering from “liver” or kindred ailments, he betakes himself, if he has the means, to Carlsbad or some other popular and expensive health resort. The Mexican also has his little maladies, and likewise a cure to which he hies, and it is known as Tehuacan. I first heard of the fame […]

IN Mexico City a visitor sees Mexican social life scarcely at its best, if, he is anxious to learn something of the real manners and customs of the people. For the capital is not truly Mexico — at any rate, so far as the richer classes are concerned. It is a city of motley civilizations; […]