17th.  Semi-civilization of the Mexican Tribes.—­Nothing is more manifest, on reading the “Conquest of Mexico” by De Solis, than that the character and attainments of the ancient Mexicans are exalted far above the reality, to enhance the fame of Cortez, and give an air of splendor to the conquest.  Superior as the Aztecs and some other tribes certainly were, in many things, to the most advanced of the North American tribes, they resemble the latter greatly, in their personal features, and mental traits, and in several of their arts.

The first presents sent by Montezuma to Cortez were “cotton cloths, plumes, bows, arrows and targets of wood, collars and rings of gold, precious stones, ornaments of gold in the shape of animals, and two round plates of the precious metals resembling the sun and moon.”

The men had “rings in their ears and lips, which, though they were of gold, were a deformity instead of an ornament.”

“Canoes and periogues” of wood were their usual means of conveyance by water.  The “books” mentioned at p. 100, were well-dressed skins, dressed like parchment, and, after receiving the paintings observed, were accurately folded up, in squares or parallelograms.

The cacique of Zempoala, being the first dignitary who paid his respects personally to Cortez on his entry into the town, is described, in effect, as covered with a cotton blanket “flung over his naked body, enriched with various jewels and pendants, which he also wore in his ears and lips.”  This chief sent 200 men to carry the baggage of Cortez.

By the nearest route from St. Juan de Ulloa, the point of landing to Mexico, it was sixty leagues, or about 180 miles.  This journey Montezuma’s runners performed to and fro in seven days, being thirty-five to thirty-six miles per day.  No great speed certainly; nothing to demand astonishment or excite incredulity.

Distance the Mexicans reckoned, like our Indians, by time, “A sun” was a day’s journey.

De Solis says, “One of the points of his embassy (alluding to Cortez), and the principal motive which the king had to offer his friendship to Montezuma, was the obligation Christian princes lay under to oppose the errors of idolatry, and the desire he had to instruct him in the knowledge of the truth, and to help him to get rid of the slavery of the devil.”

The empire of Mexico, according to this author, stretched “on the north as far as Panuco, including that province, but was straitened considerably by the mountains or hilly countries possessed by the Chichimecas and Ottomies, a barbarous people.”

I have thought, on reading this work, that there is room for a literary essay, with something like this title:  “Strictures on the Hyperbolical Accounts of the Ancient Mexicans given by the Spanish Historians,” deduced from a comparison of the condition of those tribes with the Indians at the period of its settlement.  Humboldt states that there are twenty languages at present in Mexico, fourteen of which have grammars and dictionaries tolerably complete.  They are, Mexican or Aztec, Otomite, Tarase, Zapatec, Mistec, Maye or Yucatan, Tatonac, Popolauc, Matlazing, Huastec, Mixed, Caquiquel, Tarauma, Tepehuan, Cara.