wood were cast into a pile of combustibles, and as the flames leaped up they were received by the assembled multitudes with shouts of gladness. The signal fire in the mountain top was seen all over the valley. "Myriads of upturned faces greeted it from hills, mountains, terraces, temples, teocallis, house-tops and city-walls; and the prostrate multitudes
MEXICAN CENTURY.
hailed the emblem of light, life, and fruition as a blessed omen of the restored favor of their gods and the preservation of the race for another cycle. The priests carried the new fire to the temple, and in every temple and dwelling it was rekindled from the sacred source; and when the sun rose again on the following morning, the solemn procession of priests, princes and subjects, which
