Scarcely can we call these words extravagant, when, in our own century,
another Frenchman, eminent as a scientific observer, and speaking from
the results of personal study on the spot, has said of the songs of a
tribe of this same Tupi stock, the Guarayos, that they cannot be
surpassed for grace of language and delicacy of expression.[73]

Many interesting Klamath, Omaha and Zuni verses have been collected by
the efforts of Gatschet, Dorsey, Cushing and other zealous laborers
connected with the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, and these will
shortly be accessible to all through the accurate publications of the
government press.

The melodious Nahuatl tongue lent itself readily to poetic composition,
and was cultivated enthusiastically in this direction long before the
Conquest. Apparently the poetic dialect never freed itself from the use
of unmeaning particles thrown in to complete the meter; as, indeed, may
also be said of the English popular song dialect, which retains to this
day very many such.[74]

With this exception the Tezcucan poets, for it was in that province that
the muses were most assiduously worshiped, made use of a pure,
brilliant, figurative style, and had developed a large variety of
metrical forms.

One of the most famous disciples of the lyre was Nezahualcoyotl, himself
sovereign of Tezcuco about the year 1460. He left seventy odes on
philosophical and religious subjects, which were borne in memory and
repeated after the Conquest. Translations of a few of them have come
down to us, but my inquiries as to the whereabouts of the originals, if,
indeed, they exist, have been fruitless.[75] The Jesuit, Horatio Carochi,