ANCIENT MEXICO.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1007, 20 June 1911, Page 4

ANCIENT MEXICO.

When Hernando Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519, the City of Mexico contained a population of upward of sixty thousand families. It was divided into two distinct parts, in one ot which lived the nobility, and in the other the lower classes. The public edifices and the dwellings of the court and nobility were built of stone. The temples were magnificent. The one dedicated to Vitzparizli, the god of war, and the most worshipped of all their deities, was the most spacious. Besides the dwelling of the priests erected on the inside, and the great number of squares, it contained many for other inferior deities, to which the people had to pay homage on their entrance — this great edifice would accommodate more than ten thousand persons, who came to dance at festivals. One of the squares was set out with trees, at regular distances, through which iron bars were passed, whereon were suspended the heads of victims who had been sacrificed to the gods. In another apartment was a large stone, terminating in an acute angle, upon which the priest suspended the victim to be sacrificed, cut open his breast and took out his heart. A splendid chariot contained the grand idol. It was the figure of a man sitting upon a high altar. His head was crowned with a helmet of burnished gold. In the right hand is held a serpent, and in the left a shield with four arrows. The countenance was most horriffic. The priests slowly withdrew the curtains when they permitted the people to pay their adoration to this deity of their worship. On the left was another idol of similar display and characteristics, pretending to be his brother, and equally an object of profound adoration. The city contained eight temples of a similar description. The chapels in these edifices amounted to not far from two thousand, dedicated to different deities. They were constructed with great magnificence, and their appendages and trappings were of inestimable value.

None could approach the royal presence except being barefoot, with profound awe,, and “ and my great lord ” uttered in a suppressed tone. When he dined in public (which was frequent) he sat by himself at a superb table ; being first helped from his choice of two or three hundred dishes, and then leaving the rest to the nobility.

He drank several kinds of liquors from richly ornamented cans. The crowds were kept out by a rail. They could look on and see the royal gormandising in the distance. Buffoons displayed themselves to amuse the royal eyes, and all sorts of music saluted the royal ear. And then the people went to the public square, to wrestle, shoot, and run, to please his majesty.

The vast mines contributed much to Montezuma’s prodigious wealth ; besides he drew by usage about one-third of the whole productive wealth of his subjects. The nobility were compelled to make him vast annual presents in person. Every town in the empire had a regular militia, and it is even said that Montezuma had upward of thirty vassals, from each of which he could have brought into the field one hundred thousand men.