MEXICO AS IT IS, AND WAS BEFORE THE SPANISH CONQUEST — WHY THE EMPIRE FAILED — CONTRADICTORY ACCOUNTS OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS — THE RUINS OF THEIR BUILDINGS — HUMAN SACRIFICES — THE SACRIFICIAL KNIFE — MEXICAN ART — MOSAIC WORK AND FEATHER PICTURES — CAPABILITIES OF THE COUNTRY.
Before passing to the North American tribes, a brief notice must be taken of Mexico.
At the present day this land is possessed of a sort of civilization which presents no features of interest. It is inhabited chiefly by a mixed people, the descendants of the Spanish conquerors having contracted alliances with the natives, and so produced a hybrid race, which is continually retrograding from the white parentage, and assuming more of the aboriginal type.
The failure in establishing a Mexican empire was entirely due to the question of race. Those inhabitants who were either pure whites, or in whom the white blood predominated, were naturally desirous to have a ruler of their own kind, thinking that an empire was the only mode of civilizing the land, and of putting an end to the constant civil wars and repeated changes of dynasty which kept back their most prolific and fertile land from developing its full capabilities. But in the great bulk of the people the Indian blood predominated, and in consequence an empire founded on the principles of European civilization was as irreconcilable to them as would be the rule of an Indian cacique in Europe. Such an empire could only be held by force of arms, and as soon as the bayonet was withdrawn the empire fell. We must, however, confine ourselves to Mexico as it was before the Spaniard crushed out her civilization and destroyed her history.
The accounts of ancient Mexico are most perplexing. If the narratives of the Spanish conquerors could be implicitly trusted, nothing would be simpler than to condense them into a consecutive history. But it is quite certain that these accounts were very much exaggerated, and that the reality fell very far short of the romantic tales of the Spanish conquerors.
The following is an abstract of the narratives put forth by the Spaniards. The capital was situated on an island in the midst of a large lake. It contained twenty thousand houses, which were of great magnificence. In the midst was the emperor’s palace, built of marble and jasper, and of prodigious extent. It was adorned with fountains, baths, and statues, and the walls were covered with pictures made of feathers. Not only the palace, but the houses of the caciques, possessed menageries filled with all the animals of the country, together with museums of various natural curiosities.
One of the greatest beauties of Mexico was a large square, daily filled with merchants, who came to buy and sell the various works of art in gold, silver, and feathers for which the Mexicans were famous. Between the city and the borders of the lake a hundred thousand canoes were continually passing; besides which mode of transit three vast causeways were built on the lake. The capital was not the only city of the waters, for more than fifty large cities and a multitude of villages were built on the same lake.
The dress of the nobles was most gorgeous, and their persons were adorned with gold and jewels in profusion. Their treasuries were filled with the precious metals, and gold was as plentiful in Mexico as copper in Europe.
That these statements were much exaggerated is not to be doubted, but they were not pure inventions, and had all some foundation in fact. For example, the architecture of the ancient Mexicans was of a Cyclopean vastness, as is proved by the ruins which are now almost the sole memorials of a vanished system of civilization. There is a strong resemblance between the architecture of Mexico and that of Egypt, not only in its massiveness, but in the frequent use of the pyramid.
One of these pyramids has the sides exactly twice as long as those of the large pyramid of Egypt. This is the great pyramid tower of Cholula, which had eight stories, each forming a platform on which rested the one above it, so that it closely resembled the Temple of Belus as described by Herodotus. The interior of these pyramidal structures was pierced with chambers, galleries, and flights of stairs, probably the habitations of the priests who served the temples and performed those terrible human sacrifices which formed an important part of their religious system. Viaducts which crossed deep valleys, bridges, and roads, remains of which are still in existence, testify to the vanished civilization of the Mexicans, or, as some ethnologists think, of a race that preceded them.