by house, he wrote to Charles the Fifth that it
grieved him to do so, " because it was the most
beautiful thing in the world."

Mechanics were still in their infancy;
nevertheless, the Mexicans contrived to move large
masses, although less enormous, in truth, than
those of the ancient Egyptians. Such, for
instance, was the zodiacal stone, now imbedded in
the walls of the cathedral of Mexico, and
estimated by Mr. Prescott to weigh more than a
hundred thousand pounds, which they had brought
by land from a distance of several leagues.

Their monetary system was based on two
metals: gold and tin. Hollow quills were filled
with gold dust: a rough method of measuring
the quantity. The tin was melted in the form
of a T, which allowed them to have pieces
tolerably equal in size. Grains of cacao served them
for " coppers:" a usage which continued long
after the conquest, and has, perhaps, not even
yet entirely ceased.

Their numeration rested on the number twenty,
which was represented by a flag. The base of
their arithmetic was therefore divisible not only
by five (a favourite number with all nations,
doubtless on account of the fingers of the hand),
but also by four, which necessarily implies
division by two. The weak side of our decimal
system lies in the impossibility of dividing its
base, ten, by four. The Aztec signs represented
what are called in arithmetic the successive
"powers" of 20, that is 20 times 20, or 400,
indicated by a feather, and 20 times 400, figured
by a purse. It is as if we had special figures for the
numbers 10, 10 times 10, or 100, and 10 times 100,
or 1000. From one to twenty the numbers were
represented by grouping together as many dots
as there were unities. This arithmetic writing
is very inferior to that which we have received
from India through the Arabs, and which is
founded on the ingenious idea of value being
made to depend on position, namely, that every
place to the left multiplies the value of a figure
by ten; but it is quite as good as that of the
Greeks and Romans. The signs of 20, 400, and
1000, could be reduced to fractions of halves
and quarters, in order to represent, without much
complication, a greater diversity of numbers.
Thus 200 was figured by the half of a feather;
6000 by three-quarters of a purse.

The Mexicans had two kinds of writing. Not
only did they employ hieroglyphic characters,
both figurative and symbolical, but they had also,
like the ancient Egyptians, phonetic signs, representing,
not a thing, nor an action, nor an idea,
but a sound. From this to an alphabet, there is
only one step; or rather it is an alphabet ready
made. Nevertheless, like other people who have
neglected to carry out and turn to advantage a
grand discovery, they almost always confined
themselves to the use of figurative and symbolic
characters. Consequently, their written documents
required some assistance from memory
for their interpretation.

Their books, composed of leaves like ours, and
not of rolls like those of ancient Greece, were
collected in libraries. Unfortunately, nearly all
of them were burnt, at the instance of the first
Archbishop of Mexico. In his zeal for the
destruction of every remnant of paganism, he
endeavoured to annihilate the Aztec literature. He
got together all the manuscripts he could lay
hands upon, and publicly burnt them in the
grand square of Mexico. Contemporary writers
state that there was a mountain of them; and
the sad example was generally followed, as a
proof of devotion to the new religion.

Their criminal law was of extreme severity;
death was the penalty of almost every offence;
death for murder, adultery, and certain specified
thefts; death for the owner who removed his
landmark; death even for the son who gave
himself up to drunkenness and dissipated his patrimony.
Nor are these the only instances in which
their civilisation was stained with blood. There
were human sacrifices of prisoners taken in war,
with circumstances of horrible refinement in
cruelty.

Their morals were not dissolute. Marriage
was surrounded with protective forms, and was
celebrated with solemnity. The social position
of their women resembled more what we see in
Europe than what is customary in Asia. They
were not shut up in harems, like the Mahomedan
women, nor were their feet mutilated as in
China. They went about with their faces
uncovered, were admitted to festivals, and took
their seats at banquets. In the nineteenth
century, there are still parts of France where,
among the peasantry, the women take no share
in a feast except to humbly serve the lords of
the creation. The Mexican women were as
exempt as possible from violent labour. The
men reserved such tasks for themselves, with a
delicacy which might be imitated by Western
Europe, and which, among civilised nations,
the English and the Anglo-Saxon population of
the New World alone observe. Ancient Mexico
certainly had not reached the same point as
modern England; but still the principle existed.
There are few signs which more surely indicate
the degree to which civilisation has advanced.
Among savages, woman is a beast of burden;
there is scarcely in the world a more wretched
condition than that of the squaws of the American
Indians. In the Pyrenees, you see women
climbing the steepest slopes with a load of
manure upon their shoulders, or descending from
the highest table-lands with a burden of hay or
com. The strangers who visit those charming
valleys for the sake of their pure air and their
healing waters, must return with a lowered
opinion of the pretensions of the French to be
the most civilised nation on earth.

The Aztecs had their Code of Politeness,
their rules of good behaviour, both for boys and
girls.

"Revere, love, and serve your father and
mother; obey them; for the son who acts otherwise,
will repent of it.'