eir
idol worship and sacrificial rites bore evidence of sincerity.
Altogether, this western empire presented a strange and fascinating
spectacle to the eyes of the invaders, who flattered themselves that
they would be doing God service by subjugating these idolaters, and
substituting their own religion for that of the natives. At the time
when the Spaniards arrived in the country, Montezuma II. was on the
throne, one of the most extravagant of voluptuaries. According to the
accounts of the early Spanish chroniclers, the ornaments worn by him
must have been equal in elegance and value to the crown-jewels of any
imperial family of Europe. Asiatic pomp and luxury could not go to
greater extremes than these writers attribute to the Aztec court and its
emperor. Cortez eagerly and unscrupulously possessed himself of these
royal gems, and kept them concealed upon his person until his return to
Spain. They are represented to have been worth "a nation's ransom," but
were lost in the sea, where Cortez had thrown himself in a critical
emergency. The broad amphitheatre, in the midst of which the capital of
Anahuac--"by the waters"--was built, still remains; but the picturesque
lake which beautified it, traversed by causeways and covered with
floating gardens laden with trees and flowers, has disappeared. Though
the conquered natives, roused at last to a spirit of madness by the
unequaled cruelty and extortion of the victors, rose in a body and
expelled them from their capital, still the ruthless valor of Cortez and
his followers, aided by artful alliance with disaffected native tribes,
together with the superiority of the Spanish weapons, finally proved too
much for the reigning power, and, after a brave and protracted struggle,
the star of the Aztec dynasty set in blood.

Montezuma died a miserable death in the hands of Cortez; while
Guatemozin, the last of the Aztec emperors, was ignominiously treated,
tortured, and afterwards hanged by the Spanish conqueror.

Three hundred years of Spanish rule, extortion, rapacity, fraud, and
bitter oppression followed,--a period of struggle for supremacy on the
part of the Roman Catholic Church, during which it relentlessly crushed
every vestige of opposition by means of that hideous monster, the
Inquisition. During these three centuries, the same selfish policy
actuated the home government towards Mexico as was exercised towards
Cuba, namely, to extort from the country and its people the lar