Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/135

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CHILD-LIFE IN MEXICO.
127

dred rooms—have furnished an inexhaustible quarry for the churches and the public buildings erected by the Spaniards near its site. In one of the magnificent parks laid out under the direction of this chief the humble name he bore was frequently set forth in the lean figure of a coyote, or fox, carved in stone. He never seemed to be weary of picturing those days of trial when he was a hunted fugitive in the land over which he became chief ruler. Some of his poems, preserved to this day in the writings of his great grandson, remind us of the book of Ecclesiastes; they have the same sad refrain: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" With all that the world could give, Hungry Fox found it to be an unsatisfying portion. To him the past was not more full of sorrow than the future was of doubt, and in the chilling shadow of both the present had no true light or peace.