r the making of the cutting edges of the
maccahuitl, or Aztec sword; but, for my part, all of these things filled
me with the liveliest pleasure as I took them from Young and attentively
examined them; for the delicate and perfect workmanship that they
exhibited showed them to have been made by a people that had reached the
highest development of the Stone Age.

"This business is gettin' worse, instead o' better," Young said,
gloomily, as he began his search on the third side of the room by
opening one of the small gold boxes. "The stuff in here is nothin' but a
mean sort o' wrappin'-paper with pictures on it--like that old map o'
yours that got us started on this tomfoolin' treasure-hunt. I s'pose
_you'll_ just have a fit over it!" And as I uttered an eager cry of
delight, and bent over this casket that contained such inestimable
riches, he gave a sniff of contempt, and added: "There, I thought so.
You think more o' that rotten old stuff than you would o' gold dollars.
Well, there's no accountin' for tastes, and it takes all sorts o' people
t' make th' world." But I paid no attention to him as I rapidly glanced
over these priceless manuscripts; and then had my cup of happiness
filled absolutely to overflowing by the glad discovery that in every one
of the gold boxes, of which there were nine in all, treasures of a like
sort were stored. In the supplemental volume (in elephant folio) to my
_Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America_ these
wonderful manuscripts are reproduced in fac-simile; and when that great
work is published the surpassing value of my discovery will be at once
recognized. It is sufficient to say here that these several codices
together constituted a complete hieratic chronicle of the Aztec tribes;
and that (herein lying the extraordinary value of the collection) the
uncertain picture-writing was accompanied by a translation into the
ideographic characters of later times, the meaning of which I was
enabled, thanks to the instruction that my friend the guardian of the
archives had given me, fully to understand. In short, my discovery
precisely paralleled that of Boussard; for even as the Rosetta Stone
gave the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, so did this transliteration into
intelligible characters make all Aztec picture-writing plain. As the
full significance of my discovery burst upon me, my joy and the
excitement of my splendid triumph so moved me that my hands trembled as
I held these