[10:  Soquital, “Clay-place,” from the potter’s clay which abounds in the district.  Earthenware is the staple manufacture here.]

[11:  The book-name for obsidian is itztli, a word which seems to mean originally “sharp thing, knife,” and thence to have been applied to the material knives are made of.  Obsidian was also called itztetl, knife-stone.  But no Indian to whom I spoke on the subject would ever acknowledge the existence of such a word as itztli for obsidian, but insisted that it was called bizcli, which is apparently the corrupt modern pronunciation of another old name for the same mineral, petztli, shiny-stone.]

[12:  There is an Aztec word “puztequi” (to break sticks, &c.) which may belong to the same root as “tepuztli.”  The first syllable “te” may be “te-tl” (stone).]

[13:  The researches instituted by Mr. I. Horner in the alluvium near Heliopolis and Memphis (Philos.  Transact., 1855 & 1856), although very elaborate, still leave much to be desired before we can arrive at definite conclusions.]

[14:  Corixa femorala, and Notonecta uniforciata, according to MM.  Meneville and Virlet d’Aoust, in a Paper on the subject of the granular or oolitic travertine of Tezcuco in the Bulletin (1859) of the Geological Society of France.]

[15:  Huauhtli is an indigenous grain abounding in Michoacan, for which “wheat” is the best equivalent I can give.  European wheat was, of course, unknown in the country until after the Conquest.]

[16:  The meson of Mexico is a lineal descendant of the Eastern Caravanserai, and has preserved its peculiarities unchanged for centuries.  It consists of two court-yards, one surrounded by stabling and the other by miserable rooms for the travellers, who must cook their food themselves, or go elsewhere for it.]

[17:  The Aztecs were accustomed, before the Conquest, to perform dances as part of the celebration of their religious festivals, and the missionaries allowed them to continue the practice after their conversion.  The dance in a church, described by Mr. Bullock in 1822, was a much more genuine Indian ceremony than the one which we saw.

Church-dancing may be seen in Europe even at the present day.  The solemn Advent dances in Seville cathedral were described to me, by an eyewitness, as consisting of minuets, or some such stately old-fashioned dances, performed in front of the high altar by boys in white surplices, with the greatest gravity and decorum.]

[18:  This assertion must be qualified by a remark of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who tells us that in some places the Indians still use lancets of obsidian to bleed themselves with.  I believe there is nothing of the kind to be found in the part of Mexico which we visited.]