The enormous expenditure incurred in the maintenance
of such a household as this, was defrayed by the
people, who, as we shall see in a future chapter, were
sorely oppressed by over-taxation. The management
of the whole was entrusted to a head steward or majordomo,
who, with the help of his secretaries, kept
minute hieroglyphic accounts of the royal revenue.
Bernal Diaz tells us that a whole apartment was filled
with these account-books.<a name="FNanchor_85" id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> In Tezcuco, writes Ixtlilxochitl,
the food consumed by the court was supplied
by certain districts of the kingdom, in each of which
was a gatherer of taxes, who besides collecting the
regular tributes, was obliged to furnish the royal
household, in his turn, with a certain quantity of specified
articles, for a greater or less number of days,
according to the wealth and extent of his department.
The daily supply amounted to thirty-one and a quarter
bushels of grain; nearly three bushels and three quarters
of beans;<a name="FNanchor_86" id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> four hundred thousand ready-made
tortillas; four xiquipiles<a name="FNanchor_87" id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> of cocoa, making in all
thirty-two thousand cocoa-beans;<a name="FNanchor_88" id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> one hundred cocks
of the country;<a name="FNanchor_89" id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> twenty loaves of salt; twenty great
baskets of large chiles, and twenty of small chiles; ten
baskets of tomatoes; and ten of seed.<a name="FNanchor_90" id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> All this was
furnished daily for seventy days by the city of Tezcuco
and its suburbs, and by the districts of Atenco, and
Tepepulco; for sixty-five days by the district of Quauhtlatzinco;
and for forty-five days by the districts of
Azapocho and Ahuatepec.<a name="FNanchor_91" id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>
AZTEC KINGS AND THEIR SUBJECTS.
Such, as full in detail as it is handed down to us, was
