The Mexicans were very skilful in making pottery; and of course there is a good collection here of terra-cotta vases, little altars and incense-dishes, rattles, flageolets, and whistles, tobacco-pipes and masks. Some of the large vases, which were formerly filled with skulls and bones, are admirable in their designs and decorations; and many specimens are to be seen of the red and black ware of Cholula, which was famous at the time of the Conquest, and was sent to all parts of the country. The art of glazing pottery seems only to have been introduced by the Spaniards, and to this day the Indians hardly care to use it. The terra-cotta rattles are very characteristic. They have little balls in them which shake about, and they puzzled us much as the apple-dumpling did good King George, for we could not make out very easily how the balls got inside. They were probably attached very slightly to the inside, and so baked and then broken loose. We often got little balls like schoolboys’ marbles, among lots of Mexican antiquities, and these were most likely the balls out of broken rattles. Burning incense was always an important part of the Mexican ceremonies. When the white men were on their march to the capital, the inhabitants used to come out to meet them with such plates as we saw here, and burn copal before the leaders; and in Indian villages to this day the procession on saints’ days would not be complete without men burning incense, not in regular censers, but in unglazed earthen platters such as their forefathers used. [Illustration: THE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF AN AZTEC MASK. _Sculptured out of hard brown lava. Twelve inches high; ten inches wide. (From Mr. Christy’s Collection.)_] Our word _copal_ is the Mexican _copalli_. There are a few other Mexican words which have been naturalized in our European languages, of course indicating that the things they represent came from Mexico. _Ocelotl_ is _ocelot_; _Tomatl_ is _tomata_; _Chilli_ is the Spanish _chile_ and our _chili_; _Cacahuatl_ is _cacao_ or cocoa; and _Chocolatl_, the beverage made from the cacao-bean with a mixture of vanilla, is our chocolate. Cacao-beans were used by the Mexicans as money. Even in Humboldt’s time, when there was no copper coinage, they were used as small change, six for a halfpenny; and Stephens says the Central Americans use them to this day. A mat in Mexican is _petlatl_, and thence a basket made of matting was called _petlacalli_—“mathouse.” The name passed to the plaited grass cigar-cases that are exported to Europe; and now in Spain any kind of cigar-case is called a _petaca_. The pretty little ornamented calabashes—used, among other purposes, for drinking chocolate out of—were called by the Mexicans _xicalli_, a word which the Spaniards made into _jícara_, and now use to mean a chocolate-cup; and even the Italians have taken to it, and call a tea-cup a _chicchera_.