artificial canals being
made to conduct the water from the streams to the arid lands. The main
article of diet among the mass of the people--then, as now--was _maiz_,
which grows freely from highlands to lowlands. Bananas,
chocolate--indeed, the latter, _chocolatl_, is an Aztec word--were
among their numerous agricultural products. The _maguey_--the _Agave
americana_--was an invaluable ally of life and civilisation. It
afforded them the famous beverage of _pulque_; they made ropes, mats,
paper, and other things from its fibre; and the leaves furnished an
article of diet.

Mining was confined to the getting of gold from riverbeds, where it had
been concentrated by Nature, and possibly on a small scale by
amalgamation with quicksilver. Copper and tin were found and used, and
indeed to-day the natives in certain places beat out large copper
vessels[11] and offer for sale masses of rude copper _matte_,[11] from
their primitive earthen furnaces. The obsidian mines of Itzala
furnished them with tools for the cutting of stone, sculpture, and
other purposes, and for their terrible weapons of war.

[Footnote 11: I have used and purchased these articles in the State of
Durango.]

Sculpture and painting were very rudimentary, the former being confined
chiefly to the representation of repugnant deities, although the carved
stone edifices and temples were in some cases singularly beautiful, as
elsewhere described. The sculptured figures of Mexican deities, in some
cases, remind the traveller strongly of similar representations of the
Incas,[12] such as exist in the fastnesses of the Andes of Peru. The
famous Mexican Calendar stone, weighing about fifty tons, which was
brought for many miles over broken country to the Aztec capital, is one
of the most remarkable examples of their sculpture. Numerous smaller
examples of prehistoric sculpture exist, some beautiful in design and
execution. The feathered serpent is a frequent symbolical device upon
these native works of art.

[Footnote 12: The figure of the conventionalised serpent-god on the
onyx tablet found in 1895 in the Valley of Mexico and taken to the
Museum of Chicago (see Holmes's "Ancient Cities of Mexico") strongly
reminds me of the figure on the stone from Chavin in Peru (see "The
Andes and the Amazon").]

[Illustration: PREHISTORIC MEXICO: RUINS OF TEMPLE AT CHICHEN-YTZA, IN
YUCATAN.]

Pottery was made without the potter's wheel, by modelling; and painting
and burn