Note 206 — Chapter VII · - THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

There is some difference in the estimates of the population of Mexico found in the Spanish histories; but several of them concurred in the number of houses, which, strange to say, is placed at sixty thousand. Zuazo, who visited Mexico in 1521, wrote sixty thousand inhabitants (Prescott, Conq. of Mex., ii, 112, note); the Anonymous Conqueror, who accompanied Cortes also wrote sixty thousand inhabitants, “soixante mille habitans” (H. Ternaux-Compans, x, 92); but Gomora and Martyr wrote sixty thousand houses, and this estimate has been adopted by Clavigero (Hist. of Mex., ii, 360), by Herrera (Hist. of Amer., ii, 360), and by Prescott (Conq. of Mex., ii, 112). Solis says sixty thousand families (Hist. Conq. of Mex., l. c., i, 393). This estimate would give a population of 300,000, although London at that time contained but 145,000 inhabitants (Black’s London, p. 5). Finally, Torquemada, cited by Clavigero (ii, 360, note), boldly writes one hundred and twenty thousand houses. There can scarcely be a doubt that the houses in this pueblo were in general large communal, or joint-tenement houses, like those in New Mexico of the same period, large enough to accommodate from ten to fifty and a hundred families in each. At either number the mistake is egregious. Zuazo and the Anonymous Conqueror came the nearest to a respectable estimate, because they did not much more than double the probable number.