_Madoc_, i, 7.

We learn of the ancient Mexicans, to their honor, that in the large
towns hospitals were kept for the cure of the sick and wounded soldiers,
and as a permanent refuge if disabled. Not only so, says a Spanish
historian, but "the surgeons placed over them were so far better than
those in Europe that they did not protract the cure to increase the
pay."

Even the red man of the woods, as we learn from Fenimore Cooper and
Catlin, believes reverently in the Great Spirit who upholds the
universe; and similarly his more civilized brother of Mexico or Tezcuco
spoke of a Supreme Creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth. In their prayers
some of the phrases were:

The God by whom we live, omnipresent, knowing all thoughts, giving
all gifts, without whom man is nothing, invisible, incorporeal, of
perfect perfection and purity, under whose wings we find repose and
a sure defense.

Prescott, however, remarks that notwithstanding such attributes "the
idea of unity--of a being with whom volition is action, who has no need
of inferior ministers to execute his purposes--was too simple, or too
vast, for their understandings; and they sought relief, as usual, in a
plurality of deities, who presided over the elements, the changes of the
seasons, and the various occupations of man."

The Aztecs, in fact, believed in thirteen _dii majores_ and over 200
_dii minores_. To each of these a special day was assigned in the
calendar, with its appropriate festival. Chief of them all was that
bloodthirsty monster _Huitsilopochtli_, the hideous god of
war--tutelary deity of the nation. There was a huge temple to him in
the capital, and on the great altar before his image there, and on all
his altars throughout the empire, the reeking blood of thousands of
human victims was being constantly poured out.

The terrible name of this Mexican Mars has greatly puzzled scholars of
the language. According to one derivation, the name is a compound of
two words, _humming-bird_ and _on the left_, because his image has the
feathers of that bird on the left foot. Prescott naturally thinks that
"too amiable an etymology for so ruffian a deity." The other name of the
war-god, _Mexitl_ (i. e., "the hare of the aloes"), is much better
known, because from it is derived the familiar name of the capital.

[Illustration: Quetzalcoatl.]

The god of the air, _Quetzalcoatl_, a beneficent deity, who taught
Mexicans the use of metals, agric