Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/406

400 The Mexican Indian is by inherent custom an agriculturist, and notwithstanding the fact that the conqueror imposed upon him burdensome and distasteful labors—among them that of mining—he at the first opportunity returned to his favorite vocation, to which he still adheres at the present day. He is an uncompromising antagonist to any change of locality, and clings to the place of his nativity with unwavering fidelity. There is but little mirthfulness or merriment in his composition. An intense believer in the supernatural, it cannot be better illustrated than by the fact of Montezuma, in spite of all his splendid resources, yielding with so little resistance to Cortez' small band of four hundred and fifty men; for he must have felt convinced that the Spanish conqueror was the one designated by prophecy and tradition to possess the land.

"According to what you declare," said he, "of the place whence you came, which is toward the rising sun, and of the great Lord who is your King, we must believe that he is our natural Lord."

Without being inventive, they are great imitators and marvelously ingenious in the construction of the infinite variety of curiosities of the country.

Straw, wax, wood, marble, grass, hair and mother earth are all successfully treated by these dexterous brown fingers. True to the