This wantonness of destruction provokes the bitter animadversion of the Spanish writer Martyr, whose enlightened mind respected the vestiges of civilization wherever found. "The conquerors," says he, "seldom repaired the buildings that they defaced; they would rather sack twenty stately cities than erect one good edifice."
The pre-Columbian Mexicans inherited a practical knowledge of mechanics and engineering. The Calendar Stone, for example (spoken of in the preceding chapter), a mass of dark porphyry estimated at fifty tons weight, was carried for a distance of many leagues from the mountains beyond Lake Chalco, through a rough country crossed by rivers and canals. In the passage its weight broke down a bridge over a canal, and the heavy rock had to be raised from the water beneath. With such obstacles, without the draft assistance of horses or cattle, how was it possible to effect such a transport? Perhaps the mechanical skill of their builders and engineers had contrived some tramway or other machinery. An English traveler had a curious suggestion:
Latrobe accommodates the wonders of nature and art very well to each other, by suggesting that these great masses of stone were transported by means of the mastodon, whose remains are occasionally disinterred in the Mexican Valley.
The Mexicans wove many kinds of cotton cloth, sometimes using as a dye the rich crimson of the cochineal insect. They made a more expensive fabric by interweaving the cotton with the fine hair of rabbits, and other animals; sometimes embroidering with pretty designs of flowers and birds, etc. The special art of the Aztec weaver was in feather-work, which when brought to Europe produced the highest admiration:
With feathers they could produce all the effect of a beautiful mosaic. The gorgeous plumage of the tropical birds, especially of the parrot tribe, afforded every variety of color; and the fine down of the humming-bird, which reveled in swarms among the honeysuckle bowers of Mexico, supplied them with soft aerial tints that gave an exquisite finish to the picture. The feathers, pasted on a fine cotton web, were wrought into dresses for the wealthy, hangings for apartments, and ornaments for the temples.
When some of the Mexican feather-work was shown at Strasbourg: "Never," says one admirer, "did I behold anything so exquisite for brilliancy and nice gradation of color, and for beauty of design. No European artist could have made such a thing."
Instead of shops the Aztecs had in every town a market-place, where fairs were held every fifth day—i. e., once a week. Each commodity had a particular quarter, and the traffic was partly by barter, and partly by using the following articles as money: bits of tin shaped like an Egyptian cross (T), bags of cacao holding a specified number of grains, and, for large values, quills of gold-dust.
The married women among the Aztecs were treated kindly and respectfully by their husbands. The feminine occupations were spinning and embroidery, etc., as among the ancient Greeks, while listening to ballads and love stories related by their maidens and musicians (Ramusio, iii, 305).
In banquets and other social entertainments the women had an equal share with the men. Sometimes the festivities were on a large scale, with costly preparations and numerous attendants. The Mexicans, ancient and modern, have always been passionately fond of flowers, and on great occasions not only were the halls and courts strewed and adorned in profusion with blossoms of every hue and sweet odor, but perfumes scented every room. The guests as they sat down found ewers of water before them and cotton napkins, since washing the hands both before and after eating was a national habit of almost religious obligation.[17] Modern Europeans believe that tobacco was introduced from America in the time of Queen Isabella and Queen Elizabeth, but ages before that period the Aztecs at their banquets had the "fragrant weed" offered to the company, "in pipes, mixed up with aromatic substances, or in the form of cigars, inserted in tubes of tortoise-shell or silver." The smoke after dinner was no doubt preliminary to the siesta or nap of "forty winks." It is not known if the Aztec ladies, like their descendants in modern Mexico, also appreciated the yetl, as the Mexicans called "tobacco." Our word came from the natives of Hayti, one of the islands discovered by Columbus.
The tables of the Aztecs abounded in good food—various dishes of meat, especially game, fowl, and fish. The turkey, for example, was introduced into Europe from Mexico, although stupidly supposed to have come from Asia. The French named it coq d'Inde,[18] the "Indian cock," meaning American, but the ordinary hearer imagined d'Inde meant from Hindustan. The blunder arose from that misapplication of the word "Indian," first made by Columbus, as we formerly explained.