Social conditions showed much of quiet civilisation and tolerance. The women were never employed in the fields; and they took equal part with the men in social matters. They were modest and not unattractive, traits which remain to this day among the peasant class of Mexico. The _menage_ of Aztec homes, method of feasting, foods, napery, ablutions, and other matters, as recorded by the historians show a marked stage of refinement, except for the abominable practice of cannibalism. Chocolate and _pulque_ were the favourite drinks. Any survey of the Aztec customs shows a remarkable fact--they seem to have received their civilisation and customs from more than one source. For among the most refined habits and methods the most barbarous and disgusting acts are found. A refined and humane spirit of culture seems, by some method, or at some time, to have been grafted on to a spirit of primitive savagery, and each to have retained its character and practices. But their social system was not an unhappy one for their people. It was an epoch of handiwork, where all were employed and all were fed; and if there were few comforts and enlightenments in their life, there was, at least, little misery, such as is so freely encountered in the life of modern civilisation. But destiny was now to compass the end of the Aztec _regime_, for from the shores of the stormy waters of the seas towards the sunrise, came rumours of strange white men. Who were they? asked the Aztec emperor and his advisers, in solemn conclave. Were they not those heralded by the long-expected Quetzalcoatl? If so, of what use was it to defy the fates, which had set forth long ago that the land should be ruled, some day, by a white race coming from the East? And when a fleet of great "water-houses," with white wings, touched at Yucatan, and the swift runners brought the tidings over nigh a thousand miles of forest and mountain in a few days, the credulous ear of Montezuma listened easily. And when the Spaniards landed at Vera Cruz, and won their way up to the fastnesses of Anahuac, it was still the hand of destiny. The time was fulfilled, the arm of civilisation had reached out towards the West, and it fell athwart the Great Plateau of unknown Mexico. CHAPTER IV CORTES AND THE CONQUEST