Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/65

Rh muscular power and backs of men, they could have had but little internal trade or commerce.

All authorities, furthermore, agree that human sacrifices constituted an essential part of their religion, and that, as a nation, they were addicted to cannibalism, and probably forced the adoption of its practice among the contiguous nations whom they invaded and possibly subjugated. But "cannibalism," as M. Charney remarks, "had its rise among tribes having no cattle, no hunting-grounds, and having for their maintenance only vegetable food, or an insufficiency of food; and, if the phenomenon is observed among civilized nations, it is exceptional, as in famine, or as in cities reduced to extremities by a protracted siege."

Prescott assigns to the Aztec city of Mexico a population of three hundred thousand, and sixty