ountains. Here they encountered
rugged paths, and fierce storms of wind and sleet. A weary march
of three days brought them to the high and extended table-land so
characteristic of this country, seven thousand feet above the level
of the sea. Here they found a fertile and flowery savanna extending
before them for many leagues. The country was highly cultivated, and
luxuriantly adorned with hedges, with groves, with waving fields of
maize, and with picturesque towns and villages. God did indeed seem to
smile upon these reckless adventurers. Thus far their march had been
as a delightful holiday excursion.

They soon arrived at Tlatlanquitepec. It was even more populous and
improving in its architecture than Zempoalla. The stone houses were
spacious and comfortable. Thirteen massive temples testified to the
religious fervor of the people. But here they witnessed the most
appalling indications of the horrid atrocities of pagan idolatry. They
found, piled in order, as they judged, one hundred thousand skulls of
human victims who had been offered in sacrifice to their gods.[B]
There was a Mexican garrison stationed in this place, but not
sufficiently strong to resist the invaders. They, however, gave Cortez
a very cold reception, and endeavored to discourage him from advancing
by glowing descriptions of the wealth and power of the monarch whose
displeasure he was incurring. These developments, however, rather
incited anew the zeal of the Spaniards. Cortez, with commendable zeal,
again made vigorous but unavailing efforts to induce these benighted
pagans to renounce their cruel and bloodstained idols, and accept the
religion of Jesus. Poorly as Cortez was instructed in the doctrines
and the precepts of the Gospel, Christianity, even as darkly
discerned by his mind, was infinitely superior to the sanguinary
religious rites of these idolaters.

[Footnote B: "Near some temples were laid numbers of human skeletons,
so arranged that they could be counted with ease and certainty. I am
convinced, from my own observation, that there were above a hundred
thousand. I repeat it, I am sure that there were more than a hundred
thousand."--_Bernal Diaz_, p. 91.]

"We come," said he, firmly, to the chiefs and the principal personages
of the town, "from a distant country, to warn the great Montezuma to
desist from human sacrifices, and all outrages upon his own vassals or
his neighbors, and to require from him submission to our monarch; and