The climate on the table-land is only cold in a relative sense, being mild to Europeans, with a mean temperature at the capital of 60°, seldom lowered to the freezing-point. The "temperate" slopes form the "Paradise of Mexico," from "the balmy climate, the magnificent scenery, and the wealth of semitropical vegetation."
The Aztec and Tescucan laws were kept in state records, and shown publicly in hieroglyphs. The great crimes against society were all punished with death, including the murder of a slave. Slaves could hold property, and all their sons were freedmen. The code in general showed real respect for the leading principles of morality.
In Mexico, as in ancient Egypt,
the soldier shared with the priest the highest consideration. The king must be an experienced warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the god of war. A great object of military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives for his altars. The soldier who fell in battle was transported at once to the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the sun.... Thus every war became a crusade; and the warrior was not only raised to a contempt of danger, but courted it —animated by a religious enthusiasm like that of the early Saracen or the Christian crusader.
The officers of the armies wore rich and conspicuous uniforms—a tight-fitting tunic of quilted cotton sufficient to turn the arrows of the native Indians; a cuirass (for superior officers) made of thin plates of gold or silver; an overcoat or cloak of variegated feather-work; helmets of wood or silver, bearing showy plumes, adorned with precious stones and gold ornaments. Their belts, collars, bracelets, and earrings were also of gold or silver.
Southey, in his poem, makes his Welsh prince, Madoc, thus boast:
Their mail, if mail it may be called, was woven
Of vegetable down, like finest flax,
Bleached to the whiteness of new-fallen snow,
... Others of higher office were arrayed
In feathery breastplates, of more gorgeous hue
Than the gay plumage of the mountain-cock,
Than the pheasants' glittering pride. But what were these
Or what the thin gold hauberk, when opposed
To arms like ours in battle?
Madoc, i, 7.
We learn of the ancient Mexicans, to their honor, that in the large towns hospitals were kept for the cure of the sick and wounded soldiers, and as a permanent refuge if disabled. Not only so, says a Spanish historian, but "the surgeons placed over them were so far better than those in Europe that they did not protract the cure to increase the pay."
Even the red man of the woods, as we learn from Fenimore Cooper and Catlin, believes reverently in the Great Spirit who upholds the universe; and similarly his more civilized brother of Mexico or Tezcuco spoke of a Supreme Creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth. In their prayers some of the phrases were:
The God by whom we live, omnipresent, knowing all thoughts, giving all gifts, without whom man is nothing, invisible, incorporeal, of perfect perfection and purity, under whose wings we find repose and a sure defense.