File:Travels over the table lands and cordilleras of Mexico. During the years 1843 and 44; including a description of California and the biographies of Iturbide and Santa Anna (1846) (14759299476).jpg

Identifier: travelsovertable00gill (find matches)
Title: Travels over the table lands and cordilleras of Mexico. During the years 1843 and 44; including a description of California ... and the biographies of Iturbide and Santa Anna
Year: 1846 (1840s)
Authors: Gilliam, Albert M
Subjects: Iturbide, Agustín de, 1783-1824 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 1794?-1876 Mexico -- Description and travel Pacific Coast (Calif.) Pacific Coast (Mexico)
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Moore (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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with a beautysurprising to one raised in a more dense and a lower cli-mate. Hence it is, I have no doubt, that that plain has bor-rowed half its charms. Yet to the minds of the conquerors to whom Americawas a new world, and when the valley of Mexico was in astate of nature, not as now, mainly presenting a parchedand barren waste, but under the dominion and care of theAztecs, the forest of ages towering high in the air, and cast-ing up its umbrageous branches, relieved and freshened ascene the loveliness of which perhaps might have been un-rivalled; for nature, like the beauty of a woman, is moreadmirable when beheld in its native simplicity ; and it caneasily therefore be accounted for, why the early Spaniardslooked upon the valley of Tenochtitlan, so called by the In-dians, as the promised land—the Elysium upon earth. I here quote the scientific outlines of the geographyof the Mexican Valley, by Mr. Prescott, as they could nothave come under the immediate knowledge of a traveller.
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TRAVELS IN MEXICO. 75 Midway across the continent, somewhat nearer the Pacificthan the Atlantic ocean, at an elevation of nearly seventhousand five hundred feet, is the celebrated valley of Mex-ico. It is of an oval form, about sixty-seven leagues in cir-cumference, and is encompassed by a towering rampart ofporphyritic rocks, which nature seems to have provided,though ineffectually, to protect it from invasion. He alsoremarks that five lakes are spread over the valley, occu-pying one-tenth of its surface. Thus, as it were, at oneview, bursts upon the astonished traveller, village, city, lakes,plains, and mountains, together with a view of the culture,and the different kinds of crops, as husbanded by the Mexi-cans, to interest the beholder, as he journeys along. I could only admire the extensive fields spread out beforeme, for the valley»of Mexico is justly renowned for its fer-tility ; all the lands are said to be capable of cultiva-tion by irrigation, from the abundance of water af

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