Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 1.djvu/37

 punctual in the payment of tribute. This lack of political control almost encouraged revolt, and revolt on the part of a tributary was by no means unwelcome to the Aztec, since it afforded an opportunity of obtaining more victims for sacrifice.

It would be possible to show that Prescott, as in his treatment of Mexican religion, so too in his account of the inheritance of chiefly rank (which appears to rest upon a matriarchal basis) and social observances generally, did not always perceive the true significance of the practices which he recorded; but space is lacking. The study of his introductory pages, read in the light of the knowledge of his time, leaves the most critical reader wondering, not only at Prescott's indefatigable industry, but at the sanity and perspicacity of his judgment. Actual errors are very few in number, and two only will be mentioned here. Prescott rightly interprets the name "Anahuac" as signifying "Near the Water," but he is wrong in identifying the "Water" with the lakes in the Valley. The name Anahuac was never employed to signify the Valley of Mexico; the "Water" is the sea, and the word was applied to two districts; Anahuac Ayotlan was the name given to the region of the Pacific coast around Tehuantepec, while Anahuac Xicalanco denominated the southern portion of Vera Cruz and the coast of Tabasco. The other mistake is found in his description of the Mexican Teocalli. He states that the flights of steps by which they were ascended were situated at an angle of the pyramid. In this he has apparently been misled by the illustrator of the account of the "Anonymous Conqueror," who himself misinterpreted the author's description. In truth the shrine at the summit of the Teocalli was approached by a single broad stairway in the centre of one of the faces of the pyramid (in the case of the great Teocalli, the western face). By this stairway the ceremonial processions mounted to the shrines, leaving it, as they reached each of the tiers of which the pyramid was composed, to encircle the building in their course.

Allusion has been made more than once to the even balance of Prescott's critical faculty, which was indeed in advance of his time, but the same praise cannot be given to his artistic judgment, which is fully in accord with the ideas then prevailing. Those who are acquainted with such works of art as the Zouche, Fejérváry-Mayer and Bologna codices, will certainly not endorse his statement that the Egyptians "handled the pencil more gracefully than the Aztecs,