"This story was still lingering among the natives of the place at the time of Humboldt's visit to it. The partial coincidence of this legend with the Hebrew account of the tower of Babel cannot be denied. This tradition has also its partial counterpart in the Hebrew Bible. Cioacoatl, 'our lady and mother, the first goddess who bringeth forth,' who is by the Aztecs believed to have bequeathed the sufferings of childbirth to women as the tribute of death, by whom sin came into the world, was usually represented with a serpent near her, and her name signified the 'Serpent-woman.' "This fable, as will be seen, reminds us of the 'Eve' in the Hebrew account of the Fall of Man. The later priestly narrators, minded to improve upon this honest Aztec tradition, gave the Mexican Eve two sons, and named them Cain and Abel. "In this Aztec rite, coming down to us through tradition, the Roman Catholics recognized a resemblance to their especial ceremony of Christian Communion. An image of the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was made of the flour of maize, mixed with blood; and after consecrating by the priests, was distributed among the people, who, as they ate it, showed signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of the deity. "We are told by a Mexican traveller, Torquemeda, a Spanish monk, that, later on, when the Church had waxed mighty in the land, the simple Indian converts, with unconscious irony, called the Catholic wafer 'the bread-God.'" Here the discussion was, for a moment, interrupted by the withdrawal of Miss Mattie Norcross and her invalid sister, who, wearied with long sitting, had dropped her tired head upon her sister's shoulder and gone quietly to sleep. As the Grumbler rose to open the door for the two, all present might see the courteous air of protection and kindly sympathy which accompanied this simple bit of courtesy. Evidently, the Grumbler had met his fate at Alamo Ranch. "And now," said the star boarder, coming finally into the talk, "since Mr. Morehouse has kindly condensed for us the history of the aboriginal Mexican from the far-off day of the nomadic Toltec to the splendid reign of the last Montezuma,--treacherously driven to the wall by the crafty Cortez, when the Spaniard nominally converted the heathen, overthrew his time-honored temples, rearing above their ruins Christian churches, and, intent to 'kill two birds with the same stone' filled his own pockets, and swelled the coffers of far-off Spain with Aztec riches,--I have thought it not irrelevant to take a look at the humble native Mexican as he is found by the traveller of to-day.