heir hair from the time they enter the priesthood until they leave it;
and all the sons of the principal inhabitants, both nobles and
respectable citizens, are placed in the temples and wear the same dress
from the age of seven or eight years until they are taken out to be
married; which occurs more frequently with the firstborn, who inherits
estates, than with the others. The priests are debarred from female
society, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses.
They also abstain from eating certain kinds of food, more at some
seasons of the year than others. Among these temples there is one
which far surpasses all the rest, whose grandeur of architectural
details no human tongue is able to describe; for within its precincts,
surrounded by a lofty wall, there is room for a town of five hundred
families. Around the interior of this enclosure there are handsome
edifices, containing large halls and corridors, in which the religious
persons attached to the temple reside. There are full forty towers,
which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has fifty steps
leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal
church at Seville. The stone and wood of which they are constructed
are so well wrought {153} in every part, that nothing could be better
done, for the interior of the chapels containing the idols consists of
curious imagery, wrought in stone, with plaster ceilings, and woodwork
carved in relief, and painted with figures of monsters and other
objects. All these towers are the burial places of the nobles, and
every chapel of them is dedicated to a particular idol, to which they
pay their devotions.

There are three halls in this grand temple, which contain the principal
idols; these are of wonderful extent and height, and admirable
workmanship, adorned with figures sculptured in stone and wood; leading
from the halls are chapels with very small doors, to which the light is
not admitted, nor are any persons except the priests, and not all of
them. In these chapels are the images or idols, although, as I have
before said, many of them are also found on the outside; the principal
ones, in which the people have greatest faith and confidence, I
precipitated from their pedestals, and cast them down the steps of the
temple, purifying the chapels in which they stood, as they were all
polluted with human blood, shed in the sacrifices. In the place of
these I put images of Our Lad