MEXICAN CULTURE. 67 



mamiscnpts, which, however, the Aztecs are said to have destroyed through 

 jealousy of their predecessors' fame. In their turn the Aztecs were themselves 

 the victims of the iconoclastic zeal of their conquerors, who burnt nearly all the 

 older documents. Most of the extant manuscripts date only from the end of the 

 sixteenth century, a period when the Church, already reconciled with what 

 remained of Nahua civilisation, permitted the faithful again to practise the 

 traditional hieroglyphic system. But the manuscripts of this epoch consist mostly 

 of religious confessions, catechisms, land surveys, and judicial endorsements. 



The industrial arts were highly developed, although the Nahuas had not 

 reached the age of iron, the only metals known to them being gold, silver, copper, 

 tin, and lead. Very thin plates of copper were used as currency, as were also 

 cacao berries and a multitude of other objects, differing in every province. 

 Cutting implements Avere made of an alloy of copper and tin nearly as hard as 

 steel. Nevertheless, nearly all their weapons were still made of hard stone, and 

 especially from chippings of iztU, or obsidian. Knives of this substance were also 

 employed by the priests for immolating human victims. 



The agricultural implement which most resembled the European plough 

 consisted of a wooden apparatus to which were attached hard-wood sticks tipped 

 with copper. The Spaniards were amazed at the skill of the native lapidaries and 

 jewellers, who excelled especially in carving small animals and insects. According 

 to contemporary chronicles, the European goldsmiths could not pretend to rival 

 the artificers of the New World in perfection of workmanship. One process has 

 certainly been lost, that of making little hollow figures of thin gold wdtliout any 

 soldering. These objects, of which even the museums contain but few examples, 

 seem quite inexplicable to the European craftsmen. 



Mexico had also its potters, millers, and paper-makers. The various plants of 

 the cactus family, the palms and cotton trees, yielded their fibres for weaving 

 textile fabrics, some of which were extremely delicate. In the art of dyeing the 

 natives were also past masters, employing cochineal, besides a large number of 

 herbs, barks, and fruits, the knowledge of which has been lost since the Spanish 

 conquest ; in this respect Mexican art has deteriorated during the last three 

 centuries. One of its triumphs was the application of feathers to the adornment 

 of textiles, garments, tapestries, and coverlets. This feather work, which has 

 been preserved in a degraded state by numerous families of artists, was regarded 

 as one of the liberal arts. The " council of music," a sort of academy founded 

 to encourage art, comprised the workers in feathers amongst its members. 



Architecture also flourished amongst the Nahuas, whose low, solid houses, for 

 the most part only one-storeyed, rested either on a platform or on piles. The towns 

 were regularly planned with narrow streets running at right angles and large 

 spaces round the temples ; they were abundantly supplied wdth water by means of 

 aqueducts and reservoirs, and had also their quays and embankments, while the 

 rivers were crossed by suspension bridges made of lianas, and the rivulets by stone 

 causeways. Some of the cities were fortified, and the great wall, six miles long, 

 which closed the highway, leading through a defile, to the republic of Tlaxcala, 



