Both of these races were also great builders and sculptors and had cultivated the art of picture-writing. They were well housed, decently clothed, made cloth, enjoyed vapour baths, maintained schools, and had a large assortment of household gods. They mined some, and in agriculture, at least, were far ahead of the Mexicans of to-day. The vandalism of the Spaniards in destroying the writings and other records of the early races is rebuked by Prescott as follows: “We contemplate with indignation the cruelties inflicted by the early conquerors. But indignation is qualified with contempt when we see them thus ruthlessly trampling out the sparks of knowledge, the common boon and property of mankind. We may well doubt which has the strongest claim to civilization, the victor or the vanquished.” The Mexico of to-day cannot be understood without looking for a moment at its settlement and the manner of the conquest. The Spanish _conquistadores_ who flocked to these shores with Cortez were a different race from those early settlers, who, persecuted and denied liberty of conscience in the land of their birth, sought a new home on our own hospitable shores. With the union of the crowns of Castille and Aragon by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the discovery of the New World, Spain had suddenly leaped to the front, and become, for a time at least, the greatest nation of the day. Ships were constructed in great numbers and sent out, filled with voyagers, “towards that part of the horizon where the sun set.” In the sixteenth century she had practically become the mistress of the seas and the most powerful nation in the world. Her soldiers were brave and the acknowledged leaders of chivalry, but the curse of the Spaniards was their thirst for gold, and her decay was rapid. When Cortez and his band of adventurers came to the court of Montezuma, and saw the lavish display of vessels and ornaments made of the precious metal, they thought they had discovered the land of gold for which they were searching. Attracted by the glowing reports of untold wealth, thousands of Spaniards soon followed the first bands of _conquistadores_, and they rapidly spread over the entire country occupied by the Aztecs, ever searching for the mines from whence this golden harvest came. While the leaders were imprisoning and torturing the Aztec chieftains to force them to give up the hiding places of their treasures, the priests, who everywhere accompanied the soldiers, were baptizing thousands into the new faith and using the confessional for the same end. Thus religious bigotry and the mania for worldly riches went side by side, and ever ringing in the ears of both priest and warrior was the refrain: “Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold.”