off their shoes in his presence, because the people went barefoot. Yet he acknowledges that Spanish evidence about their dress may be trusted; and Bernal Diaz expressly tells us that they wore "cutaras, so they call their shoon." Montezuma outdid the Duke in the "Bab Ballads," who
"Wore a pair of silver boots
And golden underclothing."
The soles of his cutaras were of gold, the upper part studded with precious stones. Acosta says the common folk might not wear shoes; but Mr. Morgan supposes these distinctions of ranks to have been fancies of the Spaniards. Mr. Morgan makes much to do about the separation of the sexes at dinner. Mdme. D'Aulnoy found the same custom in Spain in the reign of Charles II.; and Herodotus tells us it prevailed among the Milesians. It is not, then, merely a mark of the status of village Indians. Mr. Morgan thinks that the Aztecs, like the Iroquois, were socially divided into what he calls "phratries and gentes;" but he borrows these highly misleading terms from Greece and Rome. The Greeks and Romans of the Periclean age, or in the time of the Scipios, had their gentes and "phratries;" but they were somewhat higher in civilisation than village Indians. As to Montezuma's dinner, Aztecs may have had large communal meals, and so may Iroquois; but so, also, had Cretans and Spartans, and Plato would have introduced the custom into his ideal Republic. Mr. Morgan, with the Iroquois in his mind, keeps repeating that an Aztec meal "was divided from the kettle in earthen bowls;" and that each man, without table or seat, fed from a bowl in his hand. Mr. Morgan never dined with Montezuma. Bernal Diaz did; and found "about thirty sorts of ragoûts," which were served on braziers or chafing-dishes of earthenware to keep them hot. Could thirty sorts of ragoûts be cooked in Mr. Morgan's kettle? The attendants used to point out the best plats. There would be no distinction of plats in a communal meal cooked in a kettle. The tables and chairs are particularly described,
