The marvellous country, or, Three years in Arizona and New Mexico.: Containing an authentic history of this wonderful country and its ancient civilization ... together with a full and complete history of the Apache tribe of Indians .../ By Samuel Woodworth Cozzens. Illustrated by more than one hundred engravings.

LEGEND OF MONTEZUMA
Upon asking him if he could give us any reliable account
of these ruins, he replied, without a moment's hesitation,
"0 yes; they were built by Montezuma himself, who, as
be travelled over the country, was in the habit of building a town in a single night wherever he stopped; that he
also planted maize at night, which in the morning was
found to have grown and ripened, ready for his followers'
use; that he never failed to construct an estufa in each
town that he built, on the altar of which he kindled a
flame, ever after regarded as sacred. This flame his followers were never to allow to become extinguished until
his prophecies were all fulfilled; that for centuries his commands had been regarded, and the sacred flame was never
allowed to go out until after that portion of his prophecies
regarding the coming of the'pale faces from the place
where the sun rises,' had been literally fulfilled." *
Upon asking if he could give me any facts concerning
Montezuma's origin, he informed me that Montezuma was
the only son of the most beautiful woman that the Great
Sp)irit had ever created and permitted to bless the earth
with her presence.
So beautiful was she, that none but the bravest warriors
* There are, at the present time, Americans living in New Mexico who have
actually seen the "sacred flame" burning in the temple at Pecos, as well as
min the pueblo of Jemmez, and this some years after the United States had
wcquired possession of the Territory.
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