A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 04 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 764 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 04.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 04 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 764 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 04.
were companies of singers and dancers in which he was said to take great delight; and to all these he ordered vases of chocolate to be distributed.  When the repast was ended, the four female attendants already mentioned, after removing the cloths, presented him again with water to wash his hands, during which he continued his conversation with the four old nobles, who then took their leaves with much ceremony.  He was then presented with three small hollow canes highly ornamented, containing an herb called tobacco mixed with liquid amber; and when he was satisfied with the buffoons, dancers, and singers, he smoked for a short time from one of these canes, and then laid himself to sleep.  I forgot to mention in its proper place that, during the time of dinner, two beautiful women were employed in making certain small delicately white cakes, of eggs and other ingredients, which they presented on plates covered with napkins to Montezuma; and then another kind of bread was brought to him in long loaves, as likewise plates of a kind of cakes resembling wafers or pancakes.  When Montezuma had concluded his meal, all his guards and domestics sat down to dinner, and as well as I could judge, above a thousand dishes of the various eatables already mentioned were served up to them, with immense quantities of fruit, and numerous vessels of foaming chocolate.  His establishment, including his women and inferior servants of all kinds, was amazingly numerous, and must have occasioned prodigious expence, yet the most perfect regularity was preserved amid that vast profusion.  The steward of his household, or major-domo, was at this time a prince named Tapiea, who kept an account of all the royal rents in a set of books or symbolical representations which occupied an entire house.

Connected with the palace of Montezuma there were two large buildings filled with every kind of arms, both offensive and defensive, some of which were richly ornamented with gold and jewels; such as large and small shields, some of the latter being so contrived as to roll up in a small compass, and to let fall in action so as to cover the whole body; much defensive armour of quilted cotton, ornamented with various devices in feather work; helmets or casques for the head made of wood and bone, adorned with plumes of feathers; immense quantities of bows, arrows, darts, and slings; lances having stone heads or blades six feet long, so strong as not to break when fixed in a shield, and as sharp as razors; clubs or two-handed swords, having edges of sharp stones; and many other articles which I cannot enumerate.  In the palace there was a magnificent aviary, containing every kind of bird to be found in all the surrounding country, from large eagles down to the smallest paroquets of beautiful plumage.  In this place the ornamental feather-work so much in repute among the Mexicans, was fabricated, the feathers for this purpose being taken from certain birds called Quetzales, and others, having green,

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 04 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.