plain celt or small hatchet blade was succeeded by a celt with flanges which grasped a handle; a transverse stop ridge was put between the flanges to prevent the handle from slipping too far; then a socket was made for the handle, and finally an eye was cast on the socket for tying the celt to its handle."

SEC. 161. Superiority of Iron.—As compared with iron, bronze is greatly inferior for general use in the industrial arts, and is more difficult to shape and temper, besides being, in our century, thirty times more costly. Moreover the ores required for its production are relatively rare, and the heat required to smelt them must be twice as great. Tin is found in few countries and iron in nearly all. The latter metal can be welded, shaped under the hammer, and mended when broken, with little delay, heat, and labor, and without deterioration in quality. Not so bronze. It requires melting heat, a recasting for the repair of any break; and at every fusion, the proportion of tin is reduced and the hardness and elasticity of the alloy changed. Besides, in these qualities bronze is so far inferior to steel, that knives, axes, chisels, and swords would never have been made of the former metal if the latter had been equally cheap, abundant and manageable. The art of tempering and welding iron, which are of immense importance, may not have been discovered until after the metal had been familiar to men for many centuries.

CHAPTER XI.

THE AZTECS.

SECTION. 162. Anahuac.-In the beginning of the XVIth century the highest culture of North America was found on the high table-land of Mexico between the 14th and 22nd degrees of latitude. Though within the tropics, this region has an equably warm climate, with a mean temperature at the city of Mexico, of 52 degrees in January and 65 degrees in July, leaving a difference of only 13 degrees between the two characteristic months; whereas London, which has the most equable climate among the capitals of Europe, has a difference of 25 and New York one of 45 degrees. The moderation of both summer and winter in the valley of Anahuac is highly favorable to physical and mental activity and perhaps contributed to give to its inhabitants a higher culture than that developed in the basins of the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Columbia and Sacramento.

When Cortes first landed at Vera Cruz, this high plain was occupied by about half a dozen nations of the Nahua blood, including the Aztecs, Acolhuans, Tepanecs, Chichimecs, Tarascos, and Tlascalans. Southward and southeastward of them, between the isthmuses of Tehuantepec and Panama, were the Maya nations, who were, as is supposed, of the same ethnological family with the Nahuas and yet were different from them in their dialect and in (17)

2

some of their institutions. The Mayas had invented alphabetic signs and in this respect were decidedly superior to the Nahuas; but in many respects, we know less about them. The name of Aztecs will be used here to include the Acolhuans and the Tepanecs, who were their allies and subordinates, in the most powerful and wealthy of the Nahua nations.

Before the Spanish conquest, the country was more populous than at present. When the city of Mexico was taken by Cortes it had as many inhabitants as it has now, about 300,000. The neighboring city of Tezcuco, the capital of the Acolhuans, then had as many people and now has only four thousand. In 1520 the valley of Anahuac had many other towns with more than 15,000 inhabitants and now has none. Clavigero' says that after the conquest there was a decrease of ninety per cent in the population, and according to one statement there were thirty great Aztec nobles each of whom could call out more than a hundred thousand soldiers; or 3,000,000 for all." Waitz3 tells us that "the conquest of the capital led here, as later in Peru, to the destruction of the irrigating ditches, and thereby a large part of the country was converted into a desert. With the overthrow of the nobility and priesthood, all the higher knowledge and culture of the Aztecs disappeared; by the destruction of the chief city and the enslavement of the people, the useful and ornamental arts were ruined; and with the dissolution of the political and social systems, came a general demoralization of the people.”

SEC. 163. Crops.—A great majority of the people devoted themselves to tillage. Maize was the chief article of cultivation, and after it came beans, pumpkins, maguey or American aloe, red pepper, tomato, cotton, nopal,

cactus.

plum, cherry, lettuce, chian, cress, onion, tobacco, and in the warm districts, cacao, plantain, manioc, and cochineal A wooden spade, pressed into the soil by the foot, was used in loosening the ground. Irrigation was employed extensively and ashes were used for purposes of fertilization. Fields were inclosed with lines of stone or of maguey plants. In the lakes of Anahuac floating islands, each about three hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, were made by covering an interlaced frame of poles, first with reeds and then with soil. Such an island would support a garden, several small trees, a thatch hut, and sustain a small family. These floating homes might be moved about by pushing with poles or towing with boats, and as "an archipelago of wandering islands," so Prescott calls them, they made a lively impression on the minds of the Spanish conquerors.

Its sap

The root of the maguey was roasted for food. was boiled down into a syrup or into sugar, or was fermented into an intoxicating drink. Its leaves yielded paper, thread, cord, cloth, and thatching material. Its thorns served as pins, awls, and needles. Prescott1 remarks that it supplied the Aztecs with "meat, drink, clothing and writing material," and he adds that "surely never did nature enclose within so compact a form so many of the elements of human comfort and civilization." Valuable as the maguey was to the Aztecs and as it is to the Mexicans of the present time, the plant is cultivated in Europe and in California exclusively for ornament so far as my observation and information go. It is only in Mexico that people like the taste of its fermented and distilled juice, and its roasted root, and find a valuable fiber in its leaves.

Maize was eaten green, in hominy, in porridge, in thin

cakes or tortillas, and in bread. It was the staff of life to the Nahuas and Mayas. It was also used with or without honey to make a kind of beer; and the sap of its green stalk was boiled down into a syrup. The cacao was made into a palatable and nutritious drink which has now been adopted in all civilized countries. The Aztecs drank their chocolate cold; the Mayas took theirs hot. Red pepper occupied a prominent place in the fields and kitchens of the Aztecs as it does in those of their Mexican descendants. The vanilla collected from wild plants was prized for its flavor.

The people had no large ruminant animal, but they had tame dogs, deer, hare, rabbits, turkeys, pigeons, quails, geese, and ducks. The American buffalo, goat, and sheep ran wild in regions not far from the territory of the Nahuas, but were never domesticated. Fish were kept in ponds or brought by runners for the tables of the nobles from the Gulf of Mexico.

SEC. 164. Weaving, etc.-The garments of the poor were made of maguey fiber; those of the rich of maguey, cotton, skins, furs, and cloth interwoven with feathers. Cotton was spun in threads so thin that the conquerors compared its woven web to silk; and they thought the feather mantles of the Aztecs elegant enough for their Spanish monarch to wear, when he held his court in Madrid or Vienna.

The artisans included miners, smelters, smiths, burnishers, engravers in metal, gilders, quarrymen, stonemasons, stone polishers, cutters of gems, makers of mosaics, sculptors, enamelers, jewelers, knife-makers, lime burners, charcoal burners, brick-makers, potters, plasterers, boat builders, carpenters, dressers of skins, weavers, cacao grinders, bakers, brewers, cigar-makers, barbers,