Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/154

146 dignity of his office to come and see the strangers. The presents he had sent would express his good-will, and he desired that they might soon return with safety to their own country.

If anything more was needed to excite the army to press on and examine the treasures of Mexico for themselves, the gifts just brought to their camp from that wonderful city over the mountains would be all that was necessary. The helmet sent to Montezuma was returned at this time filled with gold, as Cortez had requested.

A troop of Indian servitors had spread mats on the ground and piled thereon in great heaps the goods they had brought. Among them were cotton mantles plaided in gay colors. Others were shaggy on the outside, with a white lining, woven in one thickness; enough garments of this description were given to clothe Cortez and all his men. There were also deerskin shoes embroidered with gold thread and having white and blue soles, gilded shields adorned with brilliant feathers and seed-pearls, crowns of feathers and gold mitres set with precious stones in curious patterns, rich plumes fretted with gold and pearls, fans in magnificent variety, golden fishes, birds, animals, sea-shells of gold and silver, so skillfully wrought as exactly to imitate these productions of nature, the feathers, skins and hair being superior to any European workmanship. The most remarkable objects in this collection were two large wheels, or disks, one of gold and the other of silver, representing the sun and the moon. Both were formed of plates of these metals, on which animals and other objects in nature were wrought in raised figures and exquisitely finished. These were Aztec calendars, representing their divisions of time,