The indigenous inhabitants of Mexico, however, have as good a right to the name, wholly unappropriate in either case, of _Indian_, as the "North American Savage" has. This latter title would be totally misapplied in connection with the native Mexicans, because for long generations, these have been above the level of wild men. After the Conquest, for years the Spaniards were disturbed by remaining savage tribes who, resisting civilization, had retreated to the woods and mountains; but these tribes have been long exterminated. Their successor, the highway robber of roads and mountain passes, was of another breed, imported, with other products of civilization, from old Spain. The Aztec dynasty, then, was extinct, but the Aztec nation, a large population, even after the great diminution in the wars of the Conquest, remained on the plateau to begin a new life under the influences of Christian rulers. The horrid rites of their old religion were utterly done away with, relinquished, it would seem, with no great regret, by the common people. To them there had been no glory, no gratification, in the wholesale slaughter of the sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli. The part of their ceremonies which appealed to their source of enjoyment was the feasting and dancing, and general rejoicing on such occasions. [Illustration: EARLY POTTERY.] The first government of the Spaniards was a military one, whose chief was Fernando Cortés. He had wisely surrounded himself by a body of advisers or approvers, in the early time of founding Vera Cruz when he established the _Ayuntamiento_, composed of his companions of the voyage. This organization was maintained during the time of Cortés' administration. Its duties were to found new cities, parcel out lands and farms among the colonists, establish markets, regulate sanitary conditions, and enforce the laws; thus standing between the natives and new settlers, who began to enter the country. Many of the rules and ordinances of the early Ayuntamientos are still in force.