Note 450 — Chapter XV · FROM CHOLULA TO IZTAPALAPAN. October-November, 1519.

Peter Martyr, dec. v. cap. ii.; Gomara, Hist. Mex., 99; Cortés, Cartas, 82. What with the retreating waters and the removal of native lords in whose interest it lay to preserve the gardens and palaces, her glories are now departed. The evaporation of the lake waters had been observed before the conquest. After this it increased rapidly, owing to the thoughtless destruction of forests in the valley, as Humboldt remarks. In Bernal Diaz’ time already Iztapalapan lay high and dry, with fields of maize growing where he had seen the busy traffic of canoes. Hist. Verdad., 65. The fate of the lake region was sealed by the construction of the Huehuetoca canal, which drained the big lake to a mere shadow of its former self, leaving far inland the flourishing towns which once lined its shore, and shielding the waters, as it were, from further persecution by an unsightly barrier of desert salt marshes—and all to save the capital from the inundations to which blundering locators had exposed her. Humboldt has in his map of the valley traced the outline of the lake as it appeared to the conquerors, and although open to criticism it is interesting. Essai Pol., i. 167, 173-5.