Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/195

Rh all these we saw there great quantities of armor of quilted cotton, wrought with different-colored feathers, and also feathered helmets of wood and bone. Workmen were always busy adding to this store.

Skilled workmen Montezuma likewise employed in every craft that the Mexicans knew—in the cutting and polishing of precious stones, in working and smelting of gold and silver in which they astonish even the great goldsmiths of Spain. Masters in painting and feather-work and sculpture also wrought for him, and there are still in Mexico artists so skilful that had they lived in the days of the ancient Greek Apelles, or of Michael Angelo of our own time, their work would be in their company. The women are especially skilful in weaving fabrics of the finest threads and wonderfully interweaving feathers. In the house of Montezuma, daughters of caciques made the most beautiful stuffs, and others who lived in other houses in retirement, like nuns, also did weaving especially of feathers. Houses for such nuns stood near a great temple of Huitzilopochtli, god of war, and also elsewhere in devotion to certain goddesses, and in them dwelt Indian girls until they married.