Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/79



Tendile with his stately retinue had left the Spanish camp, captain and priest, soldier and sailor, gave vent to loud-voiced wonder. Where had this dark-skinned race learned to weave such exquisite fabrics? Whence came their skill in metal-working? Whence their proud dignity of bearing? Where above all had they acquired the high art of government? Well organised indeed must be this Indian empire, when the monarch from his capital beyond the mountains could rule with so sure a hand his most distant provinces.

Well might the Spaniards marvel. And, as they came to know more fully, in their strenuous fight for gold, this rich civilisation with its mixture of savage barbarism, their wonder daily grew. But no mission had the rude conquerors to peer into the origin and history of the mysterious people they purposed to despoil, and in the fires of their fierce bigotry was doomed to perish many a record which might have revealed to us the secret of the past.

In the far away bygone ages did these unknown tribes, crossing vast tracts of land and water, come 57