[51] Torquemada relates that the monarch had made minute inquiries of the interpreters respecting the rank of each Spaniard, and that the value of the presents he intended to give them was to be according to their respective ranks. (p. [228].)
[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 probably these bags were filled with the coccus cacti, the famous cochineal insect, then unknown to the Spaniards, who might easily have mistaken them in a dried state for lice. (p. [231].)
[55] This weapon, called by the Mexicans maquahuitl, was much dreaded by the Spaniards; and the historian Acosta relates that the Mexicans would cut off the head of a horse with it at one blow. (p. [231].)
[56] Alonso Berruguete, a Spanish artist, who rose to great eminence in painting, architecture, and sculpture. He received great protection from Charles the Fifth, who employed him in considerable works in the Alhambra of Granada and elsewhere. (p. [233].)
[57] Bernal Diaz, unfortunately, gives no description of Motecusuma's palace; we will therefore give Torquemada's account of this remarkable building. He himself, however, never saw it, but chiefly gained his information from the Mexicans themselves, who may have exaggerated a little: Motecusuma's palace had twenty doors, which either opened into the large square or into the principal streets of the city; it had three large courts, and in one of them was a tank, supplied with water by the aqueduct of Chapultepec. The palace contained a number of halls, and a hundred rooms twenty-five feet long and as many broad, each provided with a bath. Everything was built of stone and lime. The walls were covered with beautiful stones, marble, jasper, porphyry, and a block stone, which is so highly polished that you might use it for a looking-glass; besides these, there was a white stone, almost transparent. All the woodwork was made of white cedar, palm, cypress, pine, and other fine woods, adorned with beautiful carved-work. In one of the apartments, which was one hundred and fifty feet long and fifty broad, was Motecusuma's chapel, which was covered with plates of gold and silver almost the thickness of a finger, besides that it was decorated with innumerable emeralds, rubies, topaz, and other precious stones. (p. [235].)
[58] This slimy substance the Mexicans called tecuitlatl, or excrement of stone. It was made into various shapes, and dried in the sun. (p. [237].)
[59] According to Torquemada, this word expressed the number 8000 of anything, whether of cacao beans, troops, or other matters. (p. [237].)