arious shapes.
These were filled with water and served to cook the flesh in of the
unfortunate beings who had been sacrificed; which flesh was eaten by the
papas. Near to the altar were lying several daggers, and wooden blocks
similar to those used by our butchers for hacking meat on. At a pretty
good distance from this house of horrors were piles of wood, and a large
reservoir of water, which was filled and emptied at stated times, and
received its supply through pipes underground from the aqueduct of
Chapultepec. I could find no better name for this dwelling than the
house of satan!

I will now introduce my reader into another temple, in which the
grandees of Mexico were buried. The doors of which were of a different
form, and the idols were of a totally different nature, but the blood
and stench were the same.

Next to this temple was another in which human skulls and bones were
piled up, though both apart; their numbers were endless. This place had
also its appropriate idols; and in all these temples, we found priests
clad in long black mantles, with hoods shaped like those worn by the
Dominican friars and choristers; their ears were pierced and the hair of
their head was long and stuck together with coagulated blood. Lastly, I
have to mention another temple at no great distance from this place of
skulls, containing another species of idol, who were said to be the
protectors of the marriage rights of the men, to whom likewise those
abominable human sacrifices were made. Round about this large courtyard
stood a great number of small houses in which the papas dwelt, who were
appointed over the ceremonies of the idol-worship. Near to the chief
temple we also saw an exceedingly large basin or pond, filled with the
purest water, which was solely adapted for the worship of
Huitzilopochtli and Tetzcatlipuca, being also supplied by pipes
underground from the aqueduct of Chapultepec. There were also other
large buildings in this neighbourhood, after the manner of cloisters, in
which great numbers of the young women of Mexico lived secluded, like
nuns, until they were married. These had also two appropriate idols in
the shape of females, who protected the marriage rights of the women,
and to whom they prayed and sacrificed in order to obtain from them good
husbands.

Although this temple on the Tlatelulco, of which I have given such a
lengthened description, was the largest in Mexico, yet it was by no
means the only one;