sed into other hands. Of late years the companies have been doing
very well, and now export nearly as much silver as during the latter
years of the Spanish government--nearly, but not quite. The financial
history of the Real del Monte Company is worth putting down. The
original English company spent nearly one million sterling on it,
without getting any dividend. They sold it to two or three Mexicans for
about twenty-seven thousand pounds, and the Mexicans spent eighty
thousand more on it, and then began to make profits. The annual profit
is now some L200,000.

I have said that the modern Mexican Indian has but little idea of
arithmetic. This was not the case with his ancestors, who had a curious
notation, serving for the highest numbers. The Indians of the present
day use the old Aztec numerals, and from these there is something to be
learnt.

Baron Humboldt, speaking of the Muysca Indians of South America, says
that their word for eleven is _quihicha ata_, that is, "foot one;"
meaning that they have counted all their fingers, and are beginning
their toes. He proceeds to compare the Persian words, _pentcha_, hand,
and _pendj_, five, as being connected with one another, and gives
various other curious instances of finger-numeration. We may carry the
theory further. The Zulu language reckons from one up to five, and then
goes on with _tatisitupe_ ("take the thumb"), meaning _six_;
_tatukomba_ ("take the pointer," or forefinger), meaning _seven_, and
so on. The Vei language counts from one up to nineteen, and for twenty
says _mo bande_--"a person is finished"--that is, both fingers and
toes. I venture to add another suggestion. Eichhoff gives a Sanskrit
word for finger, "daicini" (taken apparently from _pra-decini_,
forefinger), and which corresponds curiously with "dacan," ten; and we
have the same resemblance running through many of the Indo-European
languages, as [Greek: deka] and [Greek: daktylos], _decem_ and
_digitus_; German, _Zehn_ and _Zehe_, and so on.

Here the Mexican numerals will afford us a new illustration. Of the
meaning of the first four of them--_ce, ome, yei, nahui_--I can give no
idea, any more than I can of the meaning of the words one, two, three,
four, which correspond to them; but the Mexican for _five_ is
_macuilli_, "hand-depicting." Then we go on in the dark as far as
_ten_, which is _matlactli_, "hand-half," as I think it means, (from
_tlactli_, half); and this would mean, not the halving o