FAR as the eye could reach stretched the beautiful valley of Anahuac, where the air was sweet with the breath of flowers, and the earth seemed to melt perfectly into the sky.  
"Oh! that mine eyes should see the splendor of this vision," said Mexi, the oldest of the wise men and the most learned, clasping his hands in rapture. "Oh! that I have been spared to see the fruition of thy will, great king and brother. Now may I go hence in peace."
 
As he ceased speaking he tottered and would have fallen had not one of the tamanes or porters, seated on mats under the shade of a giant oak, hastily risen, and caught him as his head fell forward on his bosom.
 
"The elements have undone thee," cried the Golden Hearted, kneeling hurriedly by his side and supporting the drooping head on his knee. "Thou art sadly in need of rest," he continued, alarmed at the pallor overspreading Mexi's finely wrinkled face.
 
The old man pushed the thin white locks of hair off his forehead, let the mantle slip back from his throat, and seemed to breathe easier. 110
 
"I am come to my final rest," he replied with a feeble smile. "It is not given me to enter the promised land."
 
The tawny, broad-shouldered, half-clad tamanes, laid down the thin cakes of ground corn they were eating and came near to the stricken old man, while the other wise men took off their hats and listened with bowed heads to what their comrade and leader said. They had stopped to rest and refresh themselves with food under the cool inviting shade of the trees where they could listen to the murmur of waterfalls, and feast, the eyes on the landscape surrounding them.
 
"There!" said Mexi, attracted by the buzzing of tiny wings, "is the green-throated humming-bird thou wert to follow as thy guide to the spot where a city is to be built in honor of the sun."
 
The Golden Hearted held up his hand with the forefinger extended and in a moment the little humming-bird lighted on it and looked at him curiously, as though obeying the will of some one. He did not touch it nor attempt to move for a few moments. Then he said:
 
"Little brother, spend the remainder of thy days with me. I need thee sorely, and have long waited for thy guidance."
 
In the meantime the wise men had given Mexi a cup of chocolate, not in a thin liquid like we know it, but thick like a cold custard, and with whipped goat's cream on top.
 
 ALT
"THE HUMMING-BIRD ALIGHTED ON HIS FINGER"
See opposite page
 
"Thou art kind," he said growing weaker and 112 more faint all the time, "to try to prolong a life already spent." Turning his eyes toward the Golden Hearted he continued: "Lying next my heart thou wilt find a bundle of mystery. Carry it without opening until the time of thy departure from this strange land is at hand. Open then and thou wilt find directions for thy special work."
 
He did not speak again and when they tried to rouse him there was a smile of infinite peace on his face, but nothing save the lifeless body was before them. The gentle, sweet spirit of the old man had gone back to God.
 
"We will neither weep nor mourn for him," said the wise men to the Golden Hearted. "It would not be his wish, and we will show our love by obeying him."
 
And so they left him sleeping in a dell of ferns and mosses, in sight of Anahuac, the land by the side of water, as its name indicates, and continued their journey southward.
 
On the way the wise men found a little creature, looking like a black currant with neither head, legs nor tail, so far as they could see. It is fat and dark and round, but if you squeeze him his blood is a brighter color than currant juice, and much more valuable because we get cochineal red of one, and currant jelly from the other. It was in the valley of Anahuac that the cochineal bug was first found, and it lives on the leaves of the prickly pear, or tuna cactus—the common kind with leaves shaped like a ham, and covered with long sharp needles. 113
 
The young cochineal bugs are so stupid that they must be tied on the leaves of the prickly pear to keep them from falling off and starving. In this way, too, they keep dry and warm in winter, but as soon as they are grown they are ruthlessly shaken to death and dried in the sun. Then the queer, shriveled dead bugs are put up in bags and sold.
 
"In the hot lands far to the south, the woods are full of rare orchids and other gems of the flower kingdom," said the Golden Hearted one day after a search for plants by the wayside, "but the vanilla bean is the only one fit for food. It will be well worth our............