Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/189

 Rh We have glanced over the Aztecs and their surroundings; to complete the picture we need to be informed upon their household economy, one or two arts, and their architecture. Their houses, even those of the nobles, were not furnished with a great variety of furniture. The beds of the poor were coarse mats of rushes, spread upon the floor, while those of the higher classes were finer in quality and used in greater quantity, covered with sheets of cotton, or linen woven with feathers; the pillows of the poor were logs of wood, or stones, those of the rich were probably of cotton, while quilts of cotton and feathers covered them at night. For chairs they had low seats carved of wood, or heaps of rushes or palm leaves, and at their meals they spread a mat upon the ground, instead of using a table, and "used napkins, plates, porringers, earthen pots, jugs, and other vessels of fine clay, but not, as we can discover, either knives or forks." No household was complete without the metatl, or stone corn-mill, the chocolate jug, and the Xicallis, or vessels made from gourds or calabashes.

The houses themselves, the dwellings of the Mexicans, were at first simple huts of reeds and rushes, and later on were made of sun-dried brick or stone and mud, with a thatching of grass, palm leaves, or the long, thick leaves of the maguey. As the city of Mexico improved, the houses of the lords and nobles were built of tezontli, a rough, porous stone that was easily worked and laid with lime. They were generally constructed in two stories, with halls and large courts, with a door opening to the street and another to the canal. The roofs were flat and terraced, the floors and pavements were of plaster or cement, and the walls covered with plaster so white and glistening as to shine like silver in the sun. Battlements and turrets adorned and defended the walls of some, fountains were enclosed in their courts and gardens, and fish-ponds were