Nothing of all this was lost on the painters, who faithfully recorded, after their fashion, every particular; not omitting the ships,--“the water-houses,” as they called them, of the strangers,--which, with their dark hulls and snow-white sails reflected from the water, were swinging lazily at anchor on the calm bosom of the bay. All was depicted with a fidelity that excited in their turn the admiration of the Spaniards, who, doubtless, unprepared for this exhibition of skill, greatly overestimated the merits of the execution.[568] These various matters completed, Teuhtlile with his attendants withdrew from the Spanish quarters, with the same ceremony with which he had entered them; leaving orders that his people should supply the troops with provisions and other articles requisite for their accommodation, till further instructions from the capital.[569] FOOTNOTES: [1] Lewis H. Morgan, Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines, p. 222. [2] See vol. i. chap, iv., and, for Ximenes, Prescott’s “Ferdinand and Isabella,” part ii. chap. vi. [3] In this edition placed immediately after the Introduction. [4] Extensive indeed, if we may trust Archbishop Lorenzana, who tells us, “It is doubtful if the country of new Spain does not border on Tartary and Greenland;--by the way of California, on the former, and by New Mexico, on the latter”! Historia de Nueva-España (México, 1770), p. 38, nota.{*} {*}[The limits fixed by historical writers to the territories of the Aztec Confederacy vary startlingly. Prescott’s estimate is too large. Lewis H. Morgan (Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines, p. 223) considers its land area to have been about that of Rhode Island--the smallest State in the American Union--_i.e._, about 1250 square miles. Medio tutissimus ibis. The term Empire is misleading. The states of Querétaro, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Guerrero, and much of La Puebla, in modern Mexico, almost surround the so-called Empire of Montezuma. Possibly the tributary pueblos may have covered an area equal to that of the State of Massachusetts.--M.]