It was at the close of the week succeeding that of the little journey across the mountains that the Koshare held their last Saturday evening session. To punctuate the finality of this gathering, a variation from the usual programme was proposed by the Antiquary. Members of the Club were requested to supplement his brief paper by giving such written or verbal statements, along the same line as their own research might enable them to make. To this proposal many of the Koshare had agreed, and had come well primed for lively discussion.

The attendance was unusually full, nearly all the boarders, in addition to the regular Club members, being in attendance.

The Antiquary led with the following interesting paper, which, as he explained, was, in a way, supplementary to those on the Aztecs.

"As the Tezcucans were of the family of the Aztecs," began Mr. Morehouse, "and are said far to have surpassed them in intellectual culture and the arts of social refinement, some slight notice of their civilization may not prove irrelevant.

"Ixtilxochitl is the uneuphonious name of the native chronicler, purporting to be a lineal descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco, who has given us his highly colored narrative of the Tezcucan civilization. It may be prefaced with the information that Ixtilxochitl (who flourished so late as the century of the Conquest) has had his reputation so torn to tatters by the critics of later years that he has, figuratively, 'not a leg to stand on.'

"But as Prescott commends his 'fairness and integrity,' and says 'he has been followed, without misgiving, by such Spanish chroniclers as could have access to his manuscripts,' without attempting to settle the vexed question of the probability of its details (which are a combination of 'Munchausen' and 'Arabian Nights'), we also will follow his marvellous story of the Tezcucan Prince Nezahualcoyotl. Passing lightly over the fascinating chapter of that prince's romantic adventures,—his marvellous daring, his perilous escapes from the fierce pursuit of the usurper Maxtla, and the dethronement and violent end of that bloody-minded monarch,—we come to the time when Nezahualcoyotl, restored to the throne of his fathers, is firmly established in the love and fealty of his people, and may turn his attention to the production of the odes and addresses handed down in Castilian by his admiring descendant Ixtilxochitl. This admirable monarch was, we are informed, 'the Solon of Anahauc.' His literary productions turn, for the most part, on the vanity and mutability of human life, and strikingly embody that Epicurean poetic sentiment, expressed, at a later time, by our own English poet, Herrick, in such verses as 'Gather ye rose-buds while ye may.'

"'Banish care,' sings the royal Tezcucan bard; 'if there be bounds to pleasure, the saddest life must also have an end. Then wear the chaplet of flowers, and sing thy songs in praise of the all-powerful God; for the glory of the world soon fadeth away.

"'Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come when thou wilt sigh for these joys in vain. Yet the remembrance of the just' (piously adds the poet) 'shall not pass away from the nations; and the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor.' And anon,—returning to his Epicurean 'muttons,'—he sings: 'Then gather the fairest flowers in the gardens to bind round thy brow, and seize the joys of the present ere they perish.'

"An English translation of one of Nezahualcoyotl's odes has been made from the Castilian. It harps upon the same old string, as also do his prose essays, which have less literary merit than his verse. We are told by his panegyrist that not all the time of this incomparable monarch was passed in dalliance with the muse, but that he won renown as a warrior, and in the interests of peace also fostered the productive arts that made his realm prosperous, as agriculture, and the like practical pursuits. Between times he appears to have looked well after the well-being of his children, who, in numbers, rivalled the progeny of our modern patriarch, Brigham Young. It is recorded that by his various wives this monarch had no less than sixty sons and fifty daughters. (One condones his disgust with life!) The Tezcucan crown, however, descended to the children of his one legal wife, whom he married late in life. The story of his wooing and winning this fair lady is almost an exact counterpart of the Bible account of King David's treacherous winning of Uriah's beautiful consort.

"It is related of Nezahualcoyotl, that having been married for some years to this unrighteously obtained wife, and not having been blest with issue by his beautiful queen, the priests persuaded him to propitiate the gods of his country—whom he had pointedly neglected—by human sacrifice. He reluctantly consented; but all in vain was this mistaken concession. Then it was that he indignantly repudiated these inefficient Pagan deities.

"'These idols of wood and stone,' said he, 'can neither hear nor feel; much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful unknown God, creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.' He thereupon withdrew to his rural palace, where he remained forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums.

"In answer to his prayer, a son was given him,—the only one ever borne by his queen. After this, he made earnest effort to wean his subjects from their degrading religious superstition, building a temple, which he thus dedicated: 'To the Unknown God, the Cause of Causes.' No image was allowed in this edifice (as unsuited to the 'invisible God'), and the people were expressly prohibited from profaning its altars with blood, or any other sacrifice than that of flowers and sweet-scented gums. In his old age the king voiced his religious speculations in hymns of pensive tenderness.

"In one of these, he thus piously philosophizes: 'Rivers, torrents, and streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its pleasant source. They must onward, hastening to bury themselves in the bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are no more to-day, and the things of to-day shall cease to-morrow. The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful,—alas, where are they?'"

"The compositions of Nezahualcoyotl," observed the Grumbler, as the Antiquary folded away his finished paper, "though strictly founded on fact, are not exhilarating. His family was too large; and the wonder is, not that his odes and hymns are depressing, but that he should have the heart to 'drop into poetry' at all!"

"We are told," rejoined the Journalist, "by his descendant with the unpronounceable name, that once in every four months his entire family, not even excepting the youngest child, was called together, and orated by the priesthood on the obligations of morality, of which, by their exalted rank, they were expected to be shining examples. To these admonitions was added the compulsory chanting of their father's hymns."

"Poor beggars!" pitied the Grumbler; "how they must have squirmed under this ever-recurring royal 'wet blanket!'"

"You forget," said Leon Starr, coming to the rescue of the poet-father, "that in view of their inevitable mortality the bard had already advised them to 'banish care, to rejoice in the green freshness of their spring; to bind their brows with the fairest flowers of the garden, seize the joys of the present, and'—in short, had given them leave to have no end of larks, which, of course, they naturally and obediently did."

"It is a noteworthy fact," observed Mr. Morehouse, "that many aborigines—though but scantily supplied with clothing, as the natives of Samoa and the Sandwich Islanders—take great delight in adorning the body with flowers. To this liking the Tezcucan king especially appeals in his odes and hymns. The Mexicans have from time immemorial doted on flowers. This taste three hundred years or more of oppression has not extinguished."

"Do you remember, dear," asked Mr. Bixbee, turning to his wife, "the flower market in the Plaza at Mexico?" (The pair had, a year or two earlier, explored that city)—"that iron pavilion partly covered in with glass, and tended by nut-brown women and smiling Indian girls?"

"Shall I ever forget it?" was her enthusiastic response. "The whole neighborhood was fragrant with perfume of vases of heliotrope, pinks, and mignonette; and such poppies, and pansies, and forget-me-nots I never elsewhere beheld!"

"One can believe in absolute floral perfection," said the Journalist, "in a country which embraces all climates. 'So accurately,' observes Wilson, 'has nature adjusted in Mexico the stratas of vegetation to the state of the atmosphere, that the skilful hand of a gardener might have laid out the different fields, which, with their charming vegetation, rise, one above another, upon the fertile mountain sides of the table-land.'

"Along with many other important vegetable growths, the cotton-plant is supposed to be indigenous to Mexico, as Cortez, on his first landing, found the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own manufacture. Its culture continues to the present day, but with very little improvement in method since the earlier time of the Spanish Conquest."

"And now," asked the Harvard man, "since we are on the subject of Mexican natural floral products, may I speak my little piece, which I may call, 'What I have learned about the Cactus'?"

The Koshare graciously assenting, Roger Smith thus began:

"In Mexico the cactus is an aboriginal and indigenous production. Several hundred varieties are identified by botanists. A beautiful sort is Cereus grandiflora. As with us, this variety blooms only at night; its frail, sweet flower dying at the coming of day. The cactus seems to grow best in the poorest soil. No matter how dry the season, it is always juicy. Protected by its thick epidermis, it retains within its circulation that store of moisture absorbed during the wet season, and when neighboring vegetation dies of drought is still unharmed. Several varieties of cactus have within their flowers an edible substance, which is, in Monterey, brought daily to market by the natives. That species of cactus which combines within itself more numerous uses than any known vegetable product is known as the maguey, or century plant.

"Upon the Mexican mountains it grows wild as a weed; but as a domestic plant it is cultivated in little patches, or planted in fields of leagues in extent. Its huge leaf pounded into a pulp makes a substitute both for cloth and paper. The fibre of the leaf, when beaten and spun, forms a silk-like thread, which, woven into a fabric, resembles linen rather than silk. This thread is now, and ever has been, the sewing thread of the country. From the leaf of the maguey is crudely manufactured sailcloth and sacking; and from it is made the bagging now in common use.

"The ropes made from it are of that kind called manila. It is the best material in use for wrapping-paper. When cut into coarse straws, it forms the brooms and whitewash brushes of the country, and as a substitute for bristles it is made into scrub-brushes, and, finally, it supplies the place of hair-combs among the common people. So much for the cactus leaf; but from its sap arises the prime value of the plant.

"From this is made the favorite intoxicating drink of the common people of Mexico. This juice in its unfermented state is called honey water. When fermented it is known as pulque. The flowering maguey, the 'Agava American,' is the century plant of the United States.

"In its native habitat the plant flowers in its fifteenth year, or thereabout; and we are assured that nowhere, as is fabled, does its bloom require a long century for its production. The juice of the maguey is gathered by cutting out the heart of the flower of the central stem, for whose sustenance this juice is destined. A single plant, thus gingerly treated, yields daily, for a period of two or three months, according to the thriftiness of the plant, from four to seven quarts of the honey water, which, before fermentation, is said to resemble in taste new sweet cider.

"Large private profit accrues to the owner of maguey estates, and the government excise derived from the sale of the liquor is large. Pulque is the lager of the peon. It was the product of the country long before the time of the Montezumas; and Ballou tells us that 'so late as 1890 over eighty thousand gallons of pulque were daily consumed in the city of Mexico.'

"It is said to be the peculiar effect of pulque to create, in its immoderate drinkers, an aversion to other stimulants; the person thus using it preferring it to any and all other drinks, irrespective of cost."

The Minister followed Roger Smith with an account of a famous tree of Mexico.

"It was at Papotla," said this much-travelled invalid, "a village some three miles from that capital, that we saw this remarkable tree, which is called 'The Tree of the Noche Triste' (the Dismal Night), because Cortez in his disastrous midnight retreat from the Aztec capital is said to have sat down and wept under it. Be that as it may, the Noche Triste is undoubtedly a tree of great age. It is of the cedar family, broken and decayed in many parts, but still enough alive to bear foliage.

"In its dilapidated condition it measures ten feet in diameter, and exceeds forty feet in height. Long gray moss droops mournfully from its decaying branches, and, taken altogether, it is indeed a dismal tree.

"It is much visited, and held sacred and historic by the people, who guard and cherish it with great care."

"It calls up singular reflections," commented the Journalist, "to look upon a living thing that has existed a thousand years, though it be but a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the cypresses of Chapultepec, they are yet sound and vigorous.

"These trees are the only links that unite modern and ancient American civilization; for they were in being when that mysterious race, the Toltecs, rested under their shade; and they are said to have long been standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in search of game, fixed themselves upon the marsh at Chapultepec, and, spreading their mats under these cypresses, enjoyed in their shadow their noontide slumber. Then came the Spaniards to people the valley with the mixed races, who respected their great antiquity, so that during all the battles that have been fought around them they have passed unharmed, and amid the strife and contentions of men have gone quietly on, adding many rings to their already enlarged circumference. 'Heedless,' says Wilson, 'of the gunpowder burned over their heads and the discharge of cannon that has shaken their roots, as one ephemeral Mexican government succeeded another, these cypresses still remain unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.'"

"Apropos of the subject," said the Antiquary, "Nezahualcoyotl, according to his descendant, the native historian, embellished his numerous villas with hanging gardens replete with gorgeous flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The steps to these charming terraces—many of them hewn in the natural porphyry, and which a writer who lived in the sixteenth century avers that he himself counted—were even then crumbling into ruins. Later travellers have reported the almost literal decay of this wonderful establishment. Latrobe describes this monarch's baths (fabled to have been twelve feet long by eight wide) as 'singular basins, perhaps two feet in diameter, and not capacious enough for any monarch larger than Oberon to take a ducking in.'

"The observations of other travellers confirm this account. Bullock tells us that some of the terraces of this apparently mythical palace are still entire; and that the solid remains of stone and stucco furnished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and other buildings since erected on the site of that ancient Aztec city.

"Latrobe, on the contrary, attributes these ruins to the Toltecs, and hints at the probability of their belonging to an age and a people still more remote. Wilson, on the other hand, positively accords them to the Phoenicians."

"In reading up on this famous empire, Tezcuco," said Leon Starr, "one is inclined to believe that every vestige of this proud magnificence could not possibly have been obliterated in the short period of three centuries, leaving on the spot only an indifferently built village, whose population of three hundred Indians, and about one hundred whites, maintain themselves in summer by gardening, and sending in their canoes daily supplies of 'herbs and sullers' (whatever this last may be) to Mexico, and, in winter, by raking the mud for the 'tegnesquita,' from which they manufacture salt."

"Wilson," said the Grumbler, "tells us that 'the Tezcucan descendant of an emperor "lied like a priest."' However that may be, one cannot quite swallow his own relation 'in its entirety.'"

"Right you are," responded the Harvard man; "and now here is Miss Norcross, waiting, I am sure, to cram us still further with Mexican information."

"It is only," said this modest little lady, "some bits that I have jotted down about Mexican gems;" and shyly producing her paper, she thus read:

"In enumerating the precious stones of Mexico,—the ruby, amethyst, topaz, and garnet, the pearl, agate, turquoise, and chalcedony,—one must put before them all that wonder of Nature,—the Mexican fire opal, which, though not quite so hard as the Hungarian or the Australian opal, excels either of them in brilliance and variety of color. Of this beautiful stone Ballou has aptly said, 'It seems as if Nature by some subtle alchemy of her own had condensed, to form this fiery gem, the hoarded sunshine of a thousand years.' He tells us that, in his Mexican travels he saw an opal, weighing fourteen carats, for which five thousand dollars was refused. 'Really choice specimens,' he goes on to say, 'are rare. The natives, notwithstanding the abundance of opals found in Mexico, hold tenaciously to the price first set upon them. Their value ranges from ten dollars to ten hundred.'

"In modern times, as we all know, a superstition of the unluckiness of the stone long prevailed. Now, the opal has come to be considered as desirable as it is beautiful, and, endorsed by fashion, takes its rightful place among precious gems. A London newspaper states that a giant Australian opal, oval in shape, measuring two inches in length, an inch and a half deep, and weighing two hundred and fifty carats, is destined to be given to King Edward the Seventh; and that Mr. Lyons, the giver, a lawyer of Queensland, desires that it should be set in the King's regalia of the Australian federation. The London lapidaries believe it to be the finest and largest opal in the world.

"Its only rival in size and beauty is the Hungarian opal, possessed by Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. This gem is known as the 'Imperial opal,' and is said, in its rainbow beauty, to display the blended colors of the ruby, the emerald, and the amethyst.

"What is termed the 'fire' of the gem appears to burn in its remotest depths, with a glow and fervor which at times seem to convert the stone from the opaque to the semi-transparent."

"We have in our own family," said Miss Paulina Hemmenshaw, supplementing this account, "a rare Mexican opal. Long, long ago, it was given as an engagement ring to my mother's youngest sister, by her lover, who, while travelling in Mexico, had secured this exquisite stone for a betrothal pledge. On the very eve of her wedding-day my beautiful Aunt Margaret died of an unsuspected heart-disease. The old superstition of the unluckiness of the opal being then dominant, my aunt's superb ring was laid by as a thing malignant as beautiful.

"As a child I was sometimes allowed to take this sad memento of my dead aunt from its nest of cotton wool and admire its harmful splendor. At my mother's death it descended, along with all her own jewels, to me, her only daughter. Now that we have outlived the foolish superstition in respect to this precious stone, I have made up my mind," said the good aunt, beaming kindly on her niece, "to take this ring from the Safety Vault, on our return to Boston, and make it one of my wedding gifts to this dear child."

"Many thanks, dear ladies," said Mrs. Bixbee, as Miss Paulina ended, "for your talks about the opal. It is my favorite among precious stones. I even prefer it to the diamond, as something warmer and more alive. I am glad that its character is looking up in these days."

"All the same," said Mrs. Fairlee, complacently turning on her slim white finger a superb Hungarian sapphire, "nothing would tempt me to wear a stone even suspected of uncanniness. Trials and crosses, of course, will befall one, but it seems to me foolhardy to wear jewels supposed to attract misfortune, and, for my part, I am still suspicious of opals; and were I King Edward, I shouldn't thank my loyal Australians for the gift of an ill-omened jewel, however costly and beautiful."

"Well," commented the Journalist, "every one for his fancy; mine, I confess, is to 'mouse round' among musty book-shelves. Looking over my portable store of odds and ends for something relevant to this evening's discussion, I came upon this extract from the 'Voyages of one "Thomas Page,"'—a black letter copy of whose long-forgotten book, printed in London, in 1677, is still extant. As a curious picture of the times, it is not without an especial value; and, with your approval, I will now read it:

"This account must be prefaced with the explanation that Thomas Page was an English Dominican, who, as a missionary-monk, with his brother Dominicans travelled to his destination in Manila, by the road across Mexico, landing, by the way, at Vera Cruz, and there depositing some illustrious fellow-voyagers.

"'When we came to land,' says this quaintly circumstantial writer, 'all the inhabitants of the city had congregated in the Plaza to receive us. The communities of monks were also there, each one preceded by a large crucifix,—the Dominicans, the San Franciscans, the Mercedarios,—in order to conduct the Virey (the Viceroy) of Mexico as far as the Cathedral.

"'The Jesuits and friars from the ships leaped upon the shore from the ships. Many of them (the monks) on stepping on shore, kissed it, considering that it was a holy cause that brought them there,—the conversion of the Indians, who had before adored and sacrificed to demons; others kneeled down and gave thanks to the Virgin Mary and other saints of their devotion, and then all the monks hastened to incorporate themselves with their respective orders in the place in which they severally stood. The procession, as soon as formed, directed itself to the Cathedral, where the consecrated wafer (called in the English original the bread God) was exposed upon the high altar, and to which all kneeled as they entered.... The services ended, the Virey was conducted to his lodgings by the first Alcalde, the magistrate of the town, and judges, who had descended from the capitol to meet him, besides the soldiers of the garrison and the ships. Those of the religious orders that had just arrived were conducted to their respective convents, crosses, as before, being carried at the head of each community.

"'Friar John presented us [his missionaries] to the Prior of the Convent of San Domingo, who received us kindly, and directed sweetmeats to be given us; and also there was given to each of us a cup of that Indian beverage which the Indians call chocolate. "This," the good friar tells us, "was but a prelude to a sumptuous dinner, composed of flesh and fish of every description, in which there was no lack of turkeys and capons. This feast," he naÏvely apologizes, "was not set out for the purpose of worldly ostentation, but to manifest to us the abundance of the country."

"'The Prior of Vera Cruz,' he informs us, 'was neither old nor severe, as the men selected to govern communities of youthful religious orders are accustomed to be. On the contrary, he was in the flower of his age, and had all the manner of a joyful and diverting youth. His fathership, as they told us, had acquired the Priory by means of a gift of a thousand ducats, which he had sent to the Father Provincial. After dinner he invited some of us to visit his cell, and then it was we came to know the levity of his life....

"'The cell of the Prior was richly tapestried, and adorned with feathers of birds of Michoacan; the walls were hung with various pictures of merit; rich rugs of silk covered the tables; porcelain of China filled the cupboards and sideboards; and there were vases and bowls containing preserved fruits and most delicate sweetmeats.

"'Our enthusiastic companions did not fail to be scandalized at such an exhibition, which they looked upon as a manifestation of worldly vanity, so foreign to the poverty of a begging friar....

"'The holy Prior talked to us only of his ancestry, of his good parts, of the influence with the Father Provincial; of the love which the principal ladies and the wives of the richest merchants manifested to him, of his beautiful voice, of his consummate skill in music. In fact, that we might not doubt him in this particular, he took the guitar and sung a sonnet which he had composed to a certain Amaryllis. This was a new scandal to our newly arrived religious, which afflicted some of them to see such libertinage in a prelate, who ought, on the contrary, to have set an example of penance and self-mortification, and should shine like a mirror in his conduct and words.... In the Prior's cell of the Convent of Vera Cruz' (concluded this character sketch) 'we listened to a melodious voice, accompanied with a harmonious instrument, we saw treasures and riches, we ate exquisite confectioneries, we breathed amber and musk, with which he had perfumed his syrups and conserves. O, that delicious Prior!' exclaims our English monk, the humor of the situation overcoming his horror of the scandalous behavior of the ecclesiastic."

"And now," said the Minister, producing some leaves of sermon-like script, "may I call your attention, my friends, to the striking analogies found in the religious usages and belief of the Aztec,—correspondent with those of the Christian,—some of which I have considered in this little paper?

"One of the most extraordinary coincidences with Christian rites may, I think, be traced in their ceremony of naming their children,—the Aztec baptism. An account of this rite, preserved by Sahagan, is thus put into English:

"'When everything,' says the chronicler, 'necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism. After a solemn invocation, the head and lips of the infant were touched with water, and a name was given it; while the goddess Cioacoatl, who presided over childbirth, was implored that "the sin which was given to this child before the beginning of the world might not visit the child, but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live and be born anew." This,' continues the narrator, 'is the exact formula used: "O my child! take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body and dwell there, that they may destroy and remove from you all the sin which was given to you at the beginning of the world.

"'She then washed the body of the child with water. This done, "He now liveth," said she, "and is born anew; now is he purified and cleansed afresh, and our Mother Chalchioitlyene (the goddess of water) again bringeth him into the world." Then taking the child in both hands, she lifted him towards heaven, and said, "O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, and suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration; for thou art the Great God, and with thee is the great goddess." Torches of pine illuminated this performance, and the name was given by the same midwife, or priestess, who baptized him.'

"The difficulty of obtaining anything like a faithful report of these rites from the natives," said the Minister, "was complained of by the Spanish chroniclers, and no doubt led them to color the narrative of these (to them) heathen rites and observances with interpolations from their own religious belief. 'The Devil,' said one of these bewildered missionary monks, 'chose to imitate the rites of Christianity, and the traditions of the chosen people, that he might allure his wretched victims to their own destruction.' Leaving these monkish annalists to their own childish conclusions, and absurd interpretations of the Aztec religious analogies, we pass on to the tradition of the Deluge, so widely spread among the nations of the Old World, the Hebrew account of which was thus travestied by these semi-barbarians. Two persons, they held, survived this historical flood,—a man named Coxcox, and his wife. Their heads are represented in ancient paintings, together with a boat floating on the waters.

"Another tradition (which is credited by Humboldt) affirms that the boat in which Typi (their Noah) weathered the flood was filled with various kinds of animals and birds, and that, after some time, a vulture was sent out by Typi, to reconnoitre,—as was done in the Hebrew flood,—but remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants which had been left on the earth as the waters subsided. The little humming-bird, Huitozitsilin, was then sent forth, and returned with a twig in his mouth. The coincidence of this account with the Bible narrative is worthy of remark.

"On the way between Vera Cruz and the capital stands the tall and venerable pyramidal mound called the temple of Chulola. It rises to the height of nearly one hundred and eighty feet, and is cased with unburnt brick. The native tradition is that it was erected by a family of giants who had escaped the great inundation, and designed to raise the building to the clouds; but the gods, offended by their presumption, sent on the pyramid fires from heaven, and compelled the giants to abandon their attempt.

"This story was still lingering among the natives of the place at the time of Humboldt's visit to it. The partial coincidence of this legend with the Hebrew account of the tower of Babel cannot be denied. This tradition has also its partial counterpart in the Hebrew Bible. Cioacoatl, 'our lady and mother, the first goddess who bringeth forth,' who is by the Aztecs believed to have bequeathed the sufferings of childbirth to women as the tribute of death, by whom sin came into the world, was usually represented with a serpent near her, and her name signified the 'Serpent-woman.'

"This fable, as will be seen, reminds us of the 'Eve' in the Hebrew account of the Fall of Man. The later priestly narrators, minded to improve upon this honest Aztec tradition, gave the Mexican Eve two sons, and named them Cain and Abel.

"In this Aztec rite, coming down to us through tradition, the Roman Catholics recognized a resemblance to their especial ceremony of Christian Communion. An image of the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was made of the flour of maize, mixed with blood; and after consecrating by the priests, was distributed among the people, who, as they ate it, showed signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of the deity.

"We are told by a Mexican traveller, Torquemeda, a Spanish monk, that, later on, when the Church had waxed mighty in the land, the simple Indian converts, with unconscious irony, called the Catholic wafer 'the bread-God.'"

Here the discussion was, for a moment, interrupted by the withdrawal of Miss Mattie Norcross and her invalid sister, who, wearied with long sitting, had dropped her tired head upon her sister's shoulder and gone quietly to sleep.

As the Grumbler rose to open the door for the two, all present might see the courteous air of protection and kindly sympathy which accompanied this simple bit of courtesy. Evidently, the Grumbler had met his fate at Alamo Ranch.

"And now," said the star boarder, coming finally into the talk, "since Mr. Morehouse has kindly condensed for us the history of the aboriginal Mexican from the far-off day of the nomadic Toltec to the splendid reign of the last Montezuma,—treacherously driven to the wall by the crafty Cortez, when the Spaniard nominally converted the heathen, overthrew his time-honored temples, rearing above their ruins Christian churches, and, intent to 'kill two birds with the same stone' filled his own pockets, and swelled the coffers of far-off Spain with Aztec riches,—I have thought it not irrelevant to take a look at the humble native Mexican as he is found by the traveller of to-day.

"First, let me say that it has been asserted of Mexico that 'though geographically near, and having had commercial relations with the world for over three hundred years, there is probably less known of this country to-day than of almost any other claiming to be civilized.' 'To the Mexicans themselves,' declares an observing traveller, 'Mexico is not fully known; and there are hundreds of square miles in South Mexico that have never been explored; and whole tribes of Indians that have never been brought in contact with the white man.'

"Mexico may well be called the country of revolutions, having passed through thirty-six within the limit of forty years. In that comparatively short period of time no less than seventy-three rulers, 'drest in a little brief authority,' have played their parts upon the Mexican stage until the curtain dropped (too often in blood) upon their acts, and they were seen no more.

"Humboldt, in the seventeenth century, pronounced the fairy-like environs of the city of Mexico 'the most beautiful panorama the eye ever rested upon.' On the table-land of this country the traveller is, at some points, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. At such heights the air is so rarefied that the least physical effort well-nigh deprives the traveller of breath. 'Through this rarefied atmosphere all the climates and productions of the world,' it has been affirmed, 'are embraced within the scope of a single bird's-eye view.' In portions of the country the vomito renders the climate especially unkindly to the alien.

"We are told that three quarters of the present Mexican population can neither read nor write, possess little or no property, and can form no intelligent ideas of political liberty, or of constitutional government.

"The degraded condition of the laboring classes is imputed in a measure to the constitutional inertia of a race who have no climatic conditions to contend with in their life-struggle; whose simple wants are easily satisfied, and who (it may be inferred) never know that 'divine discontent' which is the fulcrum on which the higher civilization turns. The manner of living, among this class, is thus described by Wells:

"'Their dwellings in the cities are generally wanting in all the requirements of health and comfort, and consist mostly of rooms on the ground-floor, without proper light or ventilation, often with but the single opening for entrance. In such houses there is rarely anything answering to the civilized idea of a bed, the occupants sleeping on a mat, skin, or blanket, on the dirt floor. There are no chairs or tables. There is no fireplace or chimney, and few or no changes of raiment; no washing apparatus or soap, and in fact no furniture whatever, except a flat stone with a stone roller to grind their corn, and a variety of earthen vessels to hold their food and drink, and for cooking, which is generally done over a small fire within a circle of stones outside, and in front of the main entrance to the dwelling.

"'Their principal food is tortillas,—a sort of mush made of soaked and hand-ground Indian corn, rolled thin, and then slightly baked over a slow fire. Another staple of diet is boiled beans (frijoles). Meat is seldom used by laborers; but when it is attainable, every part of the animal is eaten. Should one be so fortunate as to have anything else to eat, the tortilla serves as plates, after which service the plates are eaten. When their simple needs are thus satisfied,' says this observing traveller, 'the surplus earnings find their way into the pockets of the pulque or lottery-ticket sellers, or into the greedy hands of the almost omnipresent priest.'

"These lotteries are, we are told, operated by the Church, and form one of its never-failing sources of income, proving even more profitable than the sale of indulgences.

"The idolatrous instinct, inherited from far-off Aztec ancestors, decidedly inclines the native Mexican to a worship that has its pictures and images, and its bowings before the Virgin and countless hosts of saints, and the priest finds him an easy prey.

"'While we were in the country,' says Ballou, 'a bull-fight was given in one of the large cities on a Sunday, as a benefit towards paying for a new altar-rail to be placed in one of the Romish churches.'

"Religious fanaticism takes root in all classes in Mexico, even among the very highest in the land. It is recorded of the Emperor Maximilian—a man of elegant manners, and of much culture and refinement—that he walked barefoot on a day of pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadaloupe,—distant some two or three miles from the city of Mexico, over a dusty, disagreeable road.

"It is but fair to add, in conclusion," said Leon Starr, "that it is asserted of the cultivated classes of Mexico that they are not at all in sympathy with the extortions and other irregularities of their priesthood."

With these interesting statistics ended the last effort of the New Koshare to combine improvement and entertainment.

Hard upon this more solid delight-making followed the last afternoon tea, the lighter Thursday evening entertainment, and the final shooting-match. All these gatherings took on a tinge of sadness from the certainty that the little winter family, brought together by Fate at Alamo Ranch, were so soon to separate.