| | 1 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Infidel, Or, the Fall of Mexico  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The traveller, who wanders at the present day
along the northern and eastern borders of the Lake
of Tezcuco, searches in vain for those monuments
of aboriginal grandeur, which surrounded it in the
age of Montezuma. The lake itself, which, not so
much from the saltness of its flood as from the
vastness of its expanse, was called by Cortes the
Sea of Anahuac, is no longer worthy of the name.
The labours of that unhappy race of men, whose
bondage the famous Conquistador cemented in the
blood of their forefathers, have conducted, through
the bowels of a mountain, the waters of its great
tributaries, the pools of San Cristobal and Zumpango;
and these, rushing down the channel of
the Tula, or river of Montezuma, and mingled with
the surges of the great Gulf, support fleets of
modern argosies, instead of piraguas and chinampas,
and expend upon foundering ships-of-war the
wrath, which, in their ancient beds, was wasted
upon reeds and bulrushes. With the waters,
which rippled through their streets, have vanished
the numberless towns and cities, that once beautified
the margin of the Alpine sea; the towers have
fallen, the lofty pyramids melted into earth or air,
and the palaces and tombs of kings will be looked
for in vain, under tangled copses of thistle and
prickly-pear. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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