of the knowledge which these
people possessed.

In Mexico Hernando Cortez found a government whose head was the king,
supported by a tribunal of judges who governed the principal cities.
If a judge took a bribe he was put to death. In the king's tribunal
the throne was of gold inlaid with turquoises. The walls were hung
with tapestry embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Over the
throne was a canopy flashing with gold and jewels. There were
officers to escort prisoners to and from court, and an account of the
proceedings was kept in hieroglyphic paintings. All the laws of the
kingdom were taught by these paintings to the people. The Aztecs
had orders of nobility and knighthood; they had a military code and
hospitals for the sick. Their temples glittered with gold and jewels,
and they had ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and burial. They had
monastic orders, astrologists and astronomers, physicians,
merchants, jewellers, mechanics, and husbandmen. Their palaces were
treasure-houses of wealth. In fact, they were as unlike the Indians of
the eastern coast of America as the Englishman of to-day is unlike
the half-naked savage who in the early ages roamed through England,
subsisting upon berries and raw flesh.

In Peru Francisco Pizarro found a great and powerful empire, ruled
over by a wise sovereign. In the whole length and breadth of the land
not one poor or sick person was left uncared for by the state. Great
highways traversed mountain passes and crossed ravines and precipices
to the most distant parts of the kingdom. Huge aqueducts of stone
carried the mountain streams for hundreds of miles to the plains
below. Massive fortresses, whose masonry was so solid that it seemed
part of the mountain itself, linked the cities together, and a postal
system extended over the empire composed of relays of couriers who
wore a peculiar livery and ran from one post to another at the rate
of one hundred and fifty miles a day. The walls of temples and palaces
were covered with plates of gold encrusted with precious stones. The
raiment of the king and nobles was embroidered with jewels. The lakes
in the royal court-yards were fringed with wild flowers brought from
every corner of the empire and representing every degree of climate.
In a word, it was the dream of El Dorado fulfilled.

Although these two countries were alike peopled by races who had lived
there since remote antiquity, neither had ever heard of the existence