per end. Mr. Morgan found apt illustrations in the former; perhaps if
he had lived long enough to profit by the work of Schliemann and
Bandelier, he might have found equally apt ones in the latter. Mr.
Bandelier's researches certainly show that the ancient city of Mexico,
in point of social development, stood somewhere between the two.

How that city looked may best be described when we come to tell what its
first Spanish visitors saw. Let it suffice here to say that, upon a
reasonable estimate of their testimony, pleasure-gardens, menageries and
aviaries, fountains and baths, tessellated marble floors, finely wrought
pottery, exquisite featherwork, brilliant mats and tapestries, silver
goblets, dainty spices burning in golden censers, varieties of highly
seasoned dishes, dramatic performances, jugglers and acrobats, ballad
singers and dancing girls,--such things were to be seen in this city of
snake-worshipping cannibals. It simulated civilization as a tree-fern
simulates a tree.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Ground-plan of so-called "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal.]

[Sidenote: Mexicans and Mayas.]

In its general outlines the account here given of Aztec society and
government at the time of the Discovery will probably hold true of all
the semi-civilized communities of the Mexican peninsula and Central
America. The pueblos of Mexico were doubtless of various grades of size,
strength, and comfort, ranging from such structures as Zuni up to the
city of Mexico. The cities of Chiapas, Yucatan, and Guatemala, whose
ruins, in those tropical forests, are so impressive, probably belong to
the same class. The Maya-Quiche tribes, who dwelt and still dwell in
this region, were different in stock-language from their neighbours of
Mexico; but there are strong reasons for believing that the two great
groups, Mexicans and Mayas, arose from the expansion and segmentation of
one common stock, and there is no doubt as to the very close similarity
between the two in government, religion, and social advancement. In some
points the Mayas were superior. They possessed a considerable
literature, written in highly developed hieroglyphic characters upon
maguey paper and upon deerskin parchment, so that from this point of
view they stood upon the threshold of civilization as strictly
defined.[145] But, like the Mexicans, they were ignorant of iron, their
society was organized upon the principle of gentilism, they w