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Show 100 BY PATH AND TRAIL. flesh offered a striking contrast to the Aztecs of Mexico City, who, fed on human flesh, cut and salted the bodies of prisoners captured in battle and sold the meat at the public markets. They were a fierce and savage nation, without law, tribal rules or government of any kind, un ruly and brutal in their passions, mercilessly cruel to their enemies, were more gregarious than social and of a cold blooded disposition often manifested in treachery, in relentless persecutions and in assassinations. Oton-do ' s colonists charged them in addition with asinine stu pidity, ingratitude, inconstancy and irredeemable lazi ness. The Jesuit fathers wrote more kindly of them, they condoned their bestiality and shameless licentious-enss by reason of their squalid surroundings and sordid conditions, but then we must remember that from the day the Jesuits opened their first mission among them, the " Digger Indians 7 ' became their spiritual children and wards of the church. This was the land and these the people to whom, in their unexampled abandonment and unspeakable degeneracy, the missionary priests of the Society of Jesus brought the message of salvation, the hope of happiness in this life and the assurance of a resurrection to a higher and better life beyond the grave. Now it may be asked why I have dwelt at such length on this unpleasant subject, why I have pictured so grue-somely, even if truthfully, the disgusting habits of a foul and filthy people? I have done so that those who now read this work may learn and understand what man ner of men they were who, for Christ's sake and for the sake of perishing souls, said " good- bye " forever to their friends at home, to all that men in this world value and prize, to the teeming vineyards of sunny Spain, to-ease, comfort and the delights of companionship with re-- |
