FEAST OF THE NEW FIRE CALENDAR. 117 



ness of a conflagration, the air was rent with the joyous 

 shouts of the relieved and panic stricken Indians. Far and 

 wide over the dusky crowds beamed the blaze like a star of prom- 

 ise. Myriads of upturned faces greeted it from hills, mountains, 

 temples, terraces, teocallis, house tops and city walls ; and the 

 prostrate multitudes hailed the emblem of light, life and fruition as 

 a blessed omen of the restored favor of their gods and the preser- 

 vation of the race for another cycle. At regular intervals, Indian 

 couriers held aloft brands of resinous wood, by which they 

 transmitted the " New Fire " from hand to hand, from vil- 

 lage to village, and town to town, throughout the Aztec empire. 

 Light was radiated from the imperial or ecclesiastical centre of the 

 realm. In every temple and dwelling it was rekindled, from the 

 sacred source ; and when the sun rose again on the following 

 morning, the solemn procession of priests, princes and subjects, 

 which had taken up its march from the capital on the preceding 

 night, with solemn steps, returned once more to the abandoned 

 capital, and restoring the gods to their altars, abandoned them- 

 selves to joy and festivity in token of gratitude and relief from 

 impending doom. 



AZTEC CALENDAR STONE. 

 16 



