ption, are brought from Europe; for the
manufacturing or working of iron is here strictly prohibited. This
occasions the requisite utensils of husbandry, arms, and tools, to be
enormously dear; and forms a great check to the progress of agriculture,
and to improvements in manufactures.

The _ancient Mexicans_ preserved the memory of events by figures painted
on skins, cloth, or the bark of trees. These hieroglyphical and
symbolical characters, being considered by the ignorant and bigoted
Spaniards to be monuments of idolatry, the first bishop of Mexico
destroyed as many of them as could be collected. In consequence of this
barbarous procedure, the knowledge of remote events was lost, except
what could be derived from tradition, and from some fragments of those
paintings which eluded the search of the monks.

With regard to the _public edifices_ of the Mexicans: their temples were
merely mounds of earth faced with stone; and it is probable that their
other public buildings were equally rude. The ancient natives bestowed
little attention on agriculture, and were strangers to the use of money;
but their ornaments of gold and silver indicated considerable ingenuity.
They were acquainted with the manufacture of paper, of coarse
cotton-cloth, glass, and earthenware; and they possessed the arts of
casting metals, of making mosaic work with shells and feathers, of
spinning and weaving the hair of animals, and of dying with indelible
colours.

The _religion_ of the ancient Mexicans, like that of all unenlightened
nations, seems to have been founded chiefly on fear; and consisted of a
system of gloomy rites and practices, the object of which was to avert
the evils that they suffered or dreaded. They had some notion of an
invisible supreme Being; but their chief anxiety was to deprecate the
wrath of certain imaginary malignant spirits, whom they regarded as the
enemies of mankind. They worshipped idols, formed of wood and stone; and
decorated their temples with the figures of serpents, tigers, and other
destructive animals. They believed in the immortality of the soul; but
their notions of a future state may be collected from their funeral
rites: the bodies, or the ashes of the deceased, were generally buried
with whatever was judged necessary for their accommodation or comfort in
the other world, where it was believed they would experience the same
desires, and be engaged in the same occupations, as in this. The
religion estab