officers, went to view the Tlatelulco, or great square of Mexico; on
which occasion we also ascended the great temple, where stood the idols
Tetzcatlipuca and Huitzilopochtli. This was the first time Cortes left
his head-quarters to perambulate the city.

[52] This was something like our chocolate, and prepared in the same
way, but with this difference, that it was mixed with the boiled dough
of maise, and was drunk cold. (p. 230.)

[53] Respecting the custom of smoking among the Mexicans, Humboldt gives
the following, in his work on New Spain: "The Mexicans called tobacco
_yetl_, which they not only considered a remedy against toothach, cold
in the head, and bowel complaints, but they likewise used it as a
luxury, by smoking and snuffing it. At Motecusuma's court it was used as
a narcotic, not only after dinner, but also after breakfast, to produce
a comfortable nap, as is still the custom in many districts of America.
The leaves were rolled together like cigars, and then stuck in tubes
made of silver, wood, or of shell." (p. 231.)

[54] The revenue of Motecusuma we know consisted of the natural products
of the country, and what was produced by the industry of his subjects.
Respecting the payment of tribute, we find the following story in
Torquemada: "During the abode of Motecusuma among the Spaniards, in the
palace of his father, Alonso de Ojeda one day espied in a certain
apartment of the building a number of small bags tied up. He imagined at
first that they were filled with gold dust, but on opening one of them,
what was his astonishment to find it quite full of lice? Ojeda, greatly
surprised at the discovery he had made, immediately communicated what he
had seen to Cortes, who then asked Marina and Aguilar for some
explanation. They informed him that the Mexicans had such a sense of
their duty to pay tribute to their monarch, that the poorest and meanest
of the inhabitants, if they possessed nothing better to present to their
king, daily cleaned their persons, and saved all the lice they caught,
and that when they had a good store of these, they laid them in bags at
the feet of their monarch. Torquemada further remarks, that his reader
might think these bags were filled with small worms (gasanillos), and
not with lice; but appeals to Alonso de Ojeda, and another of Cortes'
soldiers, named Alonso de Mata, who were eyewitnesses of the fact."

This story, no doubt, is founded on something like truth, and most
pro