I stepped out over the low sill and stood on the leads.  The night was soft and cool.  The sky, full of the light of a rising moon, shewed beautifully, against its luminous violet, the outlines of dome and minaret and spire, and far out beyond the crowded city’s confines, the two incomparable mountains, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, the huge volcanoes, shrouded in eternal snow, rising a sheer ten thousand feet from the level plain, standing like sentinels guarding the city.

It was a magnificent panorama that surrounded me, a view to remember for all time.  Dome upon dome, rising one behind the other, of all sizes and shapes, their beautiful tiles gleaming here and there as the light from the rising moon touched them, delicate spires, pointing upwards, tipped with silver light, low roof of the commoner’s dwelling and pillared facade of old and stately palace intervening, and, far away, those cold white, solitary peaks overtopping all else, rising into the region of the stars, made up a grand, impressive scene.

As I looked all sense of petty annoyance dropped from me.  I walked forwards with a grateful sense of relief and took my seat on a projecting ledge of one of the roofs and let my eyes wander over the maze of dim outlines and shapes below me.

How strange it was to think of the past history of the city!

Far back in the dim ages, a clear and glorious lake had lain here where now the city reared itself so majestically.  In the centre of this vast table-land, eight thousand feet above the sea, the blue waters rested tranquilly, reflecting in their surface the fires and the flames of those now silent, burnt-out volcanoes.

The lake was inhabited by the lake-dwellers, quaint little people living in their curious structures built on poles sunk in the water.  There they fished and made their nets and traded with each other, passing backwards and forwards in their tiny dug-outs—­whole crafts made from a single hollowed-out log—­on the gleaming waters, secure from the raids of wild beasts or savages that the black, impenetrable forests on the shore might harbour.

Then came the Toltecs and the Aztecs with their refinement, their civilisation, and the lake dried gradually through the years, and causeways were built across the swamp, and one by one dwellings appeared on the hardest, driest places, and step by step there grew to be a city.  Then came the Spaniards in later days, with the flaming pomp of religion and the loathsome spirit of cruelty.  They killed the people by thousands with torture, and set up their churches to peace and good-will.  They overthrew the temples with murder and slaughter, and reared altars to the Most High on the blood-soaked earth.

And this city, as we see it to-day, with its countless beautiful churches, its exquisite tiled domes flashing in the sun, is the work of the Spaniards.  And each church stands there to commemorate their awful crimes.