regular policy, their manners foften, fentiments of humanity arife, and the rights of the fpecies come to be understood. The fierceness of war abates, and even while engaged in hoftility, men remember what they own one to another. The favage fights to deftroy, the citizen to conquer. The former neither pities nor fpares, the latter has acquired fenfibility which tempers his rage. To this fenfibility the Mexicans feem to have been perfect ftrangers, and among them war was carried on with fo much of its original barbarity, that we cannot but fufpect their degree of civilization to have been very imperfect. Their funeral rites. On the Their funeral rites were not lefs bloody than thofe of the most favage tribes. death of any distinguished perfonage, especially of the Emperor, a certain number of his attendants were chofen to accompany him to the other world, and thofe unfortunate victims were put to death without mercy, and buried in the fame tomb. h) Their agriculture imperfect. Though their agriculture was more extenfive than that of the roving tribes who trufted h) Herrera, dec. 3. lib. ii. c. 18. Gom. Chron. c. 202. chiefly to their bow for food, it seems not to have fupplied them with fuch fubfiftance as men require when engaged in efforts of active induftry. The Spaniards appear not to have been ftruck with any fuperiority of the Mexicans over the other people of America in bodily vigour. Both, according to their obfervation, were of fuch a feeble frame as to be unable to endure fatigue, and the ftrength of one Spaniard exceeded that of feveral Indians. This they imputed to their fcanty diet, on poor fare, fufficient to preferve life, but not to give firmness to the conftitution. Such a remark could hardly have been made with respect to any people furnifhed plentifully with the neceffaries of life. The difficulty which Cortes found in procuring fubfiftence for his fmall body of foldiers, who were often conftrained to live on the fpontaneous productions of the earth, feems to confirm the remark of the Spa-nifh writers, and gives no high idea of the ftate of cultivation in the Mexican empire. i) A farther proof of this. A practice that was univerfal in New Spain appears to favour this opinion. The Mexican women gave fuck to their children for feveral i) Relat. ap. Ramuf. ii, 306. A. Herrera, dec. 3. lib. 4. c. 17. dea 2. lib. v'. c. 16. am daring the time they did not coha their hothands, k) This precaution aruto y bondanime increase of progeny, meme Bray, as I have already obferved, 1. dampane, the, from the hardships of and the precarioufnefs of their impoflible to rear a nume * handly be fuppofed to have 2 people who lived at eafe and 1611 the empire. the Mexican empire, , and with juftice. a confiderable pro, and police, is one of the New World loves been admitted without M.Myfont evidence. The today to magnify the meny mish, his hecuflomed to Monkoenma as ftretchof New Spain བྱ་་ས་། ། ཙམ་ནས་ད 42 Net dhe Ronching Oceàñ, But a ekesinent counlly was pof ༤ ངས 1:|:ཙནྡཔར ཨ་པེ 4 fine wrcivilized en khoá héén the refidie of The provinces to oi Maxico were oc Nky might, and other tribes of hunters. None of thofe recognized the Mexican monarch as their fuperior. Even in the interior and more level country, there were feveral cities and provinces which had never fubmitted to the Mexican yoke. Tlascala though only twenty-one leagues from the capital of the empire, was an independent and hoftile republick. Cholula, though still nearer, had been fubjected only a fhort time before the arrival of the Spaniards. Tepeaca, at the distance of thirty leagues from Mexico, feems to have been a feparate ftate, governed by its own laws. 1) Mechoacan, the frontier of which extended within forty leagues of MexiCo was a powerful kingdom, remarkable for its implacable enmity to the Mexican name. m) By thefe hoftile powers the Mexican empire was circumfcribed on every quarter, and the high ideas which we are apt to from of it from the defcription of the Spanish hiftorians, fhould be confiderably moderated. Litle intercourfe among its feveral provinces. In confequence of this independence of feveral ftates in New Spain upon the Mexican empire, there was not any confiderable intercourse between its various provinces. Even 1) Herrera, dec. 3. lib. x. c. 15. 21. B. Diaz, c. 130. In in the interior country, not far diftant from the capital, there seem to have been no roads to facilitate the communication of one district with another; and when the Spaniards first attempted to penetrate into it, they had to open their way through forefts and marshes. n) Cortes, in his adventurous march from Mexico to Honduras in 1525, met with obftructions, and endured hardships, little inferior to thofe with which he must have struggled in the most unciviliz ed regions of America. In fome places, he could hardly force a paffage through impervious woods, and plains overflowed with water. others he found fo little cultivation, that his troops were frequently in danger of perishing by famine. Such facts correfpond ill with the pompous defcription which the Spanish writers give of Mexican police and induftry, and convey an idea of a country nearly fimilar to that poffeffed by the Indian tribes in North America. Here and there a trading or a war path, as they are called in North America, led from one fettlement to another, o) but generally there appeared no fign of any established communication, few marks of industry, and no monument of art. Farther proof of this. A proof of this imperfection in their commercial intercourfe no lefs ftriking, is their n) B. Diaz, c. 166. 176. o) Herrera, dec. 3. lib. vii, c. 8. want |