Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/63

Rh pass through four days and nights of torment. He ate but little, and that of the poorest food; he was surrounded every hour by a crowd who subjected him to every possible indignity; he was jeered at, taunted and scourged until he was bleeding and exhausted. This over, he spent a year in close retirement and abstinence. After another four days and nights of the most rigorous and cruel tests of his patience and his fortitude, he was brought out in triumph to enjoy once more the society of friends and allowed to dress and feast at will. The head-chief wore his hair tied up on the top of his head with a narrow band of leather dyed red.

As badges of their office the "chief-of-men" and his associate wore certain ornaments which it was death for any one else to assume. One of the green stones so much admired in those days was hung from the bridge of the nose; a golden lip-ring was another appendage. Wristbands of exquisite feather-work, armbands and anklets of gold elaborately chased, added to the brilliancy of his attire. Montezuma is described as wearing a large square mantle of richly-embroidered cotton cloth tied about his neck by two of its knotted corners, a broad sash with fringed ends draped about his loins, sandals with golden soles and thongs of embossed leather. His garments were sprinkled with precious stones and pearls, with a long and handsome tuft of green feathers fastened on the top of his head and hanging down his back. At the time of his introduction to Europeans he was about forty years of age, tall, thin, with long, straight black hair and but little beard. He had a paler color than most of his race, and a serious, if not a melancholy, expression. If half that we read of Montezuma's epicurean tastes and inactive habits is true, it is reasonable to suppose that he was a