456 MIGRATION OF THE MEXICANS. 



LIB. vii. Nation easily. This idoll commanded them to leave their 

 Country, promising to make them Princes and Lords over 

 all the Provinces which the other six Nations did possesse, 

 that hee would give them a land abounding with gold, 

 silver, pretious stones, feathers, and rich mantells : where- 

 vpon they went forth, carrying their idoll with them in a 

 coffer of reedes, supported by foure of their principall 

 priests, with whome he did talke and reveale vnto them in 

 secret, the successe of their way and voyage, advising them 

 of what should happen. He likewise gave them lawes, and 

 taught them the customes, ceremonies, and sacrifices they 

 should observe. They did not advance nor moove without 

 coinmandement from this idoll. He gave them notice when 

 to march and when to stay in any place, wherein they wholy 

 obeyed him. The first thing they did wheresoever they 

 came was to build a house or tabernacle for their false god, 

 which they set alwaies in the middest of their Canipe, and 

 there placed the Arke vppon an altare, in the same manner 

 as they have vsed in the holy Christian Church. This done, 

 they sowed their land for bread and pulses, which they vsed : 

 and they were so addicted to the obedience of their god, 

 that if he commanded them to gather, they gathered ; but 

 if he commanded them to raise their campe, all was left 

 there for the nourishment of the aged, sicke, arid wearie, 

 which they left purposely from place to place, that they 

 might people it, pretending by this meanes that all the land 

 should remaine inhabited by their Nation. This going 

 forth and peregrination of the Mexicaines will happily 

 seeme like to that of Egypt, and to the way which the 

 children of Israeli made, seeing that they, as well as those, 

 were warned to go forth and to seeke the land of promise, 

 and both the one and the other carried their god for their 

 guide, consulted with the arke and made him a tabernacle, 

 and he advised them, giving them lawes and ceremonies, 

 and both the one and the other spake many yeares in their 



