Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/37

Rh which quite a number succumbed. The superintendence of the different branches of the work was intrusted to Spanish artisans and officers, who instructed the natives in the use of iron tools, in transporting and lifting material, and in building, the native Americans everywhere proving apt learners.

So rapid was the growth of the city that, from representations made in 1522, the sovereign was pleased to award it official recognition by conferring a coat of arms, representing a water-blue field, in allusion to the lake of Mexico, having in the centre a gilt castle to which three paved causeways led. At the end of the two lateral, not connected with the castle, stand two lions rampant, each grasping the castle with its paws, in token of Spanish victory. A gilt border surrounds the field, containing ten maguey leaves, and a crown surmounts the shield.

The native arms represented a maguey plant in the middle of a lake, and thereon an eagle with a snake in its bill. This was also permitted to be used in certain connections, though with some changes, in accordance with the more or less bigoted ideas of the authorities in Mexico. At times all allusion to the native eagle and maguey was forbidden as of demoniacal influence. Seven years later the city was