I have been disappointed in finding that no traveller has dared to penetrate again to that recondite place, and illustrate all the ruins and monuments, with the languages yet spoken all around. The Society of Geography has received many additional accounts, derived from documents preserved in Mexico; but they have not been deemed worthy of the reward offered for a new survey, and have not even been published. The same has happened with Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, in South America, another mass of ancient ruins, and a mine of historical knowledge, which no late traveller has visited or described. Being, therefore, without hope of any speedy accession to our knowledge of those places, I have been compelled to work upon the materials now extant, which have happily enabled me to do a great deal, notwithstanding all their defects, and throw some light on that part of the history of America. PHILADELPHIA, _January, 1832_. * * * * * HISTORICAL SKETCH OF MEXICO. From Clavigero, Storia del Messico—from Solis, Boturini, Herrera, Bernal Dias, and other authors, we learn the state of the arts in Mexico prior to the invasion of the Spaniards; the progress made by that people in science; the form of their government, and of their hierarchy: and from the simple and unaffected narrative of Cortez, contained in his letters to Charles the Fifth, we may gather pretty accurate knowledge of their resources, and of the number and character of the population. Some idea may be formed of the civilization of a people, by the nature of their government, their civil institutions, and the laws by which they are governed. In Mexico, the monarch was elected from among the members of the reigning family, by six electors, chosen from among the thirty princes of the first rank. The political system was feudal. The first class of nobles, consisting of thirty families, had each one hundred thousand vassals. There were more than three thousand families in the second class. The vassals were serfs attached to the soil, over whom the lord exercised the right of life and death. All the lands were divided into allodial, hereditary, and contingent estates—the latter depending upon places in the gift of the crown. The priests were charged with the education of the youth; and on their testimony of the merit of their scholars, depended their future rank. Each province was subject to a tribute, except certain nobles who were compelled to take the field, in case of a war, with a stated number of followers. The tribute was paid in kind, and was fixed at one thirtieth part of the crop. Besides which, the governors of provinces vied with each other in the magnificence of the presents which they sent to the emperor. In the quarto edition of Lorenzano, there are plates of the figures, by means of which the receivers and administrators kept an account of the tribute due by each province.