Even now, though the lake is so much smaller than it was then, the city, with its domes and battlemented roofs, seems to rise from the water itself, for the intervening flat is soon foreshortened into nothing.

At the present moment it is evident that the level of the lake is much higher than usual.

A little way off, on our right, is the Penon de los Banos--"the rock of baths"-- a porphyritic hill forced up by volcanic agency, where there are hot springs.

It is generally possible to reach this hill by land, but the water is now so high that the rock has become an island as it used to be.
When the first two brigantines were launched on the Lake of Tezcuco by the Spaniards, Cortes took Montezuma with him to sail upon the lake, soon leaving the Aztec canoes far behind.

They went to a Penon or rocky hill where Montezuma preserved game for his own hunting, and not even the highest nobility were allowed to hunt there on pain of death.