wn people.

With a benign dignity and grace, the Queen, and her suite of high-born
ladies, received the homage of the cavaliers, after they had been
presented to the Emperor. She was struck with admiration at the graceful
and dignified bearing of the Castilian, which, while it showed all the
deference and respect due to her sex and her rank, had nothing in it, of
that abject servility, which placed an impassable barrier between the
Aztec noble and his monarch, and made them appear to belong to distinct
races of being. To the chivalrous, impassioned Castilian, accustomed to
worship woman, and pay an almost divine homage to beauty, in the courtly
halls and sunny bowers of Spain, the scene presented a perfect
constellation of grace and loveliness. The flashing eye of the Aztec
maiden, as lustrous and eloquent as any in the gardens of Hesperides;
the jetty tresses, glittering with gems and pearls, or chastely
decorated with natural flowers; the easy grace of the loose flowing
robe, revealing the full rich bust and the rounded limb, in its fairest
proportions, won the instant admiration of every mailed knight, and
brought again to his lips his oft-repeated vows of love and devotion.

But of little avail were honied lips and eloquent tongues to the gallant
cavaliers at that magic fete. They formed no medium of communion with
the bright spirits, and gay hearts around them. The doom of Babel was on
them all, and there was no interpreter. Nothing daunted by obstacles
seemingly insurmountable, the gay Spaniards resolved, that, where bright
eyes were to be gazed on, and sweet smiles won from the ranks of youth
and beauty, they would make a way for themselves. The first ceremonies
of presentation over, each knight addressed himself to some chosen fair
one, and by sign and gesture, and speaking look, and smile of eloquent
flattery, commenced a spirited pantomimic attack, to the infinite
amusement of all the gay throng around. It was met with wonderful
spirit, and ready ingenuity, by the Aztec maidens, to whom the dialect
of signs, and the language of hieroglyphics was perfectly familiar; that
being the only written language of all the nations of Anahuac.

The spirit and interest of the scene that followed surpasses all attempt
at description. Abandoned to the gaiety of the hour, the Spaniards
forgot alike their schemes of ambition and aggrandisement, and the
peculiar perils which surrounded them; while the Aztec revellers
dismisse