positive knowledge, except a little arithmetic and geometry, and a few very poor histories, I saw nothing.  It is easy to see how one result of the clerical monopoly of education has therefore come about—­that the intellectual standard is very low in Mexico.  The Holy Office, too, has had its word to say in the matter.  This institution had not much work to do in burning Indians, who were anything but sceptical in their turn of mind, and, indeed, were too much like Theodore Hook, and would believe “forty, if you pleased.”  They even went further, and were apt to believe not only what the missionaries taught them, but to cherish the memory of their old gods into the bargain.  It was three centuries after the Conquest, that Mr. Bullock got the goddess Teoyaomiqui dug up in Mexico; and the old Indian remarked to him that it was true the Spaniards had given them three very good new gods, but it was rather hard to take away all their old ones.  At any rate, the functions of the Inquisition were mostly confined to working the Index Expurgatorius, and suppressing knowledge generally, which they did with great industry until not long ago.

Here, then, are two causes of Mexican ignorance, and a third may be this; that Mexico was a colony to which the Spaniards generally came to make their fortunes, with a view of returning to their own land; and this state of things was unfavourable to the country as regards the progress of knowledge, as well as in other things.

CHAPTER VI.

TEZCUCO.

Across the lake of Tezcuco is Tezcuco itself, a great city and the capital of a kingdom at the time of the Conquest, and famous for its palaces and its learned men.  Now it is an insignificant Spanish town, built, indeed, to a great extent, of the stones of the old buildings.  Mr. Bowring, who has evaporating-works at the edge of the lake, and lives in the “Casa Grande”—­the Great House, just outside Tezcuco, has invited us to pay him a visit; so we get up early one April morning, and drive down to the street of the Solitude of Holy Cross (Calle de la Soledad de Santa Cruz).  There we find Mr. Millard, a Frenchman, who is an employe of Mr. Bowling’s, and is going back to Tezcuco with us; and we walk down to the canal with him, half a dozen Indian porters with baskets following us, and trotting along in the queer shuffling way that is habitual to them.  At the landing-place we find a number of canoes, and a crowd of Indians, men and women, in scanty cotton garments which show the dirt in an unpleasant manner.  A canoe is going to Tezcuco, a sort of regular packet-boat, in fact; and of this canoe Mr. Millard has retained for us three the stern half, over which is stretched an awning of aloe-fibre cloth.  The canoe itself is merely a large shallow box, made of rough planks, with sloping prow and stern, more like a bread-tray in shape than anything else I can think of.  There is no attempt at making the bows taper, and indeed the Indians stoutly resist this or any other innovation.  In the fore part of the canoe there is already a heap of other passengers, lying like bait in a box, and when we arrive the voyage begins.