Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/301

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
234
MEXICO.
click on image to enlarge.
click on image to enlarge.

bath of montezuma.


It will be observed in the drawing, that the rock is smoothed to a perfect level for several yards, around which seats and grooves are carved from the adjacent masses. In the centre there is a circular sink, about a yard and a half in diameter, and a yard in depth, and a square pipe, with a small aperture, led the water from an aqueduct, which appears to terminate in this basin. None of the stones have been joined with cement but the whole was chiselled from the mountain rock.

The origin and purpose of this work of art are entirely unknown. The view from it is secluded and picturesque, over a small glimpse of plain seen through a frame-work of narrow and shadowy valley;—but as Latrobe says, "As to being Montezuma's Bath—it might have been his foot-bath. if you will—but it would be an impossibility for any monarch, of larger dimensions than Oberon, to take a duck in it!"

Such, however, is the extent of general Mexican antiquarianism; their knowledge of history reaches to the reign of the last monarch but one of the ancient Empire, and if a monument or an idol is not referable to