d our Lady
of Carmel, treasures of diamonds, pearls, golden chains, and crowns,
and gowns of cloth of gold and silver. Before this picture did hang, in
my time, twenty lamps of silver, the poorest of them being worth a
hundred pounds. Truly Satan hath given them what he offered unto Christ
in the desert.

"All the dainties and all the riches of America hath he given unto them
in that desert, because they daily fall down and worship him. In the
way to this place is another town, called Tacubaya, where is a rich
cloister of Franciscans, and also many gardens and orchards; but it is,
above all, much resorted to for the music in that church, wherein the
friars have made the Indians so skillful that they dare compare with
the Cathedral Church of Mexico."

[38] "The Toltecs appeared first in the year 648, the Chicimecs
in 1170, the Nahualtecs 1178, the Atolhues and Aztecs in 1196.
The Toltecs introduced the cultivation of maize and cotton; they
built cities, made roads, and constructed those great pyramids
which are yet admired, and of which the faces are very accurately
laid out. They knew the use of hieroglyphical paintings; they
could work metals, and cut the hardest stones; and they had a
solar year more perfect than that of the Greeks and Romans. The
form of their government indicated that they were the descendants
of a people who had experienced great vicissitudes in their
social state. But where is the source of that cultivation? Where
is the country from which the Toltecs and Mexicans
issued?"--HUMBOLDT, _Essay Politique_, vol. i. p. 100.

CHAPTER XXI.

Walk to Guadalupe.--Our Embassador kneeling to the Host.--An
Embassador with, and one without Lace.--First sight of Santa
Anna.--Indian Dance in Church.--Juan Diego not Saint Thomas.--The
Miracle proved at Rome.--The Story of Juan Diego.--The holy Well of
Guadalupe.--The Temple of the Virgin.--Public Worship interdicted
by the Archbishop.--Refuses to revoke his Interdict.--He fled to
Guadalupe and took Sanctuary.--Refused to leave the Altar.--The
Arrest at the Altar.

"_Placuit pinturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur vel
adoratur, in parietibus pingatur_--Pictures ought not to be in the
churches, nor should any that are reverenced or adored be painted upon
the walls." So say the canons of the Council of Toledo.

I was one of a vast crowd that, on a Sunday of Dece