136 MEXICO. 
" His major domo was, at this time, a prince named Tapica ; who kept the 
accounts of Montezuma's rents m hooks which occupied an entire house. 
" Montezuma had two buildings filled with every kind of arms, richly 
ornamented with gold and jewels ; such as shields, large and small clubs 
like two-handed swords,* and lances much larger than ours, with blades 
six feet in length, so strong that if they fix in a shield they do not break ; 
and sharp enough to use as razors. 
" There was also an immense quantity of bows and arrows, and darts, 
together with slings, and shields which roll up into a small compass, and 
in action are let fall, and thereby cover the whole body. He had also 
much defensive armor of quilted cotton, ornamented with feathers in dif- 
ferent devices, and casques for the head, made of wood and bone, with 
plumes of feathers, and many other articles too tedious to mention." 
In this Palace, where the Emperor dwelt in almost oriental splendor, 
he had his gardens, and ponds, and aviaries. At Chapultepec, a hill on 
the west of the city, he owned another palace, amid groves, fountains and 
trees, and many of the cypresses with which the grounds were adorned 
still remain in all their vigor. Besides these, he had his menageries, 
where every species of wild beast, venomous serpent, curious fish, and 
bird of beautiful plumage, were gathered together and watched by innu- 
merable attendants. 
Soon after the arrival of Cortez in Mexico, he expressed to the Emperor 
a desire to see his city; and, with all becoming pomp and ceremony, 
(having first of all consulted his priests as to the propriety,) he took his 
future conqueror to the top of the great Temple, whence he beheld the 
splendor of the Indian capital. 
Streets, canals, shrines ; large and beautiful houses, amid groves and 
gardens; markets, where every luxury of fruit and vegetable was to be 
found ; aqueducts, which brought sweet water from the hills ; streets 
filled with artists who wove the most beautifully pictured garments from 
plumes of birds, or fashioned the precious metals into gorgeous orna- 
ments; — palaces, where the nobles dwelt in all the magnificence of bar- 
baric wealth ; — all these lay in splendor beneath him, while the land and 
water swarmed with an active but superstitious multitude, and the lakes 
beyond bore them across its silvery surface, dotted with floating gardens, 
* Called miqimhuitZ. They were composed of a stout club of wood, into the sides of which square and 
sharpened pieces of flint or obsidian were fastened at equal distances, as will be seen in figure A in the cut. 
They are described by Acosta as having been most formidable weapons ; and he declares that he has seen the 
skull of a horse cleft in twain by one of them at a single blow. The foregoing designs are taken either from 
ancient paintings, or from the arms themselves, preserved in the Museum at Mexico. Opposite to page 413, of 
Mr. Stephens's first volume of Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, there is a plate representing the sculptured figures 
on the jamb of a doorway from the ruins of Kabah. In the'tiands of a kneeling figure in the group, there is a 
weapon, which the reader, if he takes tiie trouble to compare the preceding drawing and the plate, will not fail 
to recognize at a glance, to be a miquahuitl. This incontestibly proves an identity of arms between the ancient 
Mexicans and Yucatecos ; and it proves something more, because it is known that these battle-axen were used 
by the Mexicans at the period of the conquest. 
The sculptured jiimb was removed from Yucatan by Mr. Stephens, and arrived safely in the United Statp'. 
It escaped the loss by fire of the rest of his valuable collection, but was thrown dovpn and broken by a careltv,s 
and inquisitive street passenger, while unloading from the car that conveyed it from the vesseL 
