LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



121 



The fiendish joy, which fired his countenance, 

 Might well have weened that he had summoned up 

 The dreadful monster from its native hell 

 By devilish power, himself a fiend infleshed. 



Making every allowance for the exaggerations 

 of the Spaniards, idolatry in general and snake- 

 \ worship in particular must have been manifested 

 in the country of Neolin in all its hideousness. 



Bernal Diaz* declares that 



The head of a sacrificed person was strung up ; 

 the limbs eaten at the feast ; the body given to the 

 wild beasts which were kept within the temple cir- 

 cuits ; moreover, in that accursed house they kept 

 vipers and venomous snakes who had something at 

 their tails which sounded like morris-bells, and 

 they are the worst of all vipers ; these were kept 

 in cradles, and barrels, and earthen vessels, upon 

 feathers, and there they laid their eggs, and 

 nursed up their snakelings, and they were fed with 

 the bodies of the sacrificed, and with dog's flesh. 

 We learnt for certain, that, after they had driven 

 us from Mexico, and slain above 850 of our soldiers 

 and of the men of Narvaez, these beasts and snakes, 

 who had been offered to their cruel idol to be in 

 his company, were supported upon their flesh for 

 many days. When these lions and tygers roared, 

 and the jackals and foxes howled, and the snakes 

 hissed, it was a grim thing to hear them, and it 

 seemed like hell. 



" Mexico," says Mr. Bullock, "still possesses 

 many objects of study for the antiquarian ;" and 

 he goes on to tell us that sculptured idols are to be 

 found in various parts of the city. The corner- 

 stone of the building occupied by the lottery-office 

 when he was there, and fronting the market for 

 shoes, was the head of the serpent-idol, of great 

 magnitude ; in his judgment it was not less than 

 seventy feet in length when entire. Under the 

 gateway of the house, nearly opposite the entrance 

 to the mint, was a fine statue of a deity, having the 

 human form in a recumbent posture, about the 

 size of life. This was found in digging a well. 

 The house at the corner of a street, at the south- 

 east side of the great square, was built upon, and 

 in part supported by, a fine circular altar of black 

 basalt, ornamented with the tail and claws of a 

 gigantic reptile. In the cloisters behind the 

 Dominican convent was a noble specimen of the 

 great serpent-idol, almost perfect and of fine work- 

 manship, represented in the act of swallowing a 

 human victim, which is crushed and struggling in 

 its horrid jaws. 



The sacrificial stone, or altar, is buried in the 

 square of the cathedral, within a hundred yards of 

 the calendar stone. f The upper surface only is 

 exposed to view, which seems to have been done 

 designedly, to impress upon the populace an 

 abhorrence of the horrible and sanguinary rites 

 that had once been performed on this very altar. 

 It is said by writers that 30,000 human victims 

 were sacrificed at the coronation of Montezuma. 

 Kirwan, in the preface to his metaphysics, states 

 the annual number of human victims immolated in 

 Mexico to be 25,000. I have seen the Indians 

 themselves throw stones at it ; and I once saw a 



* Bernard Diaz del Castillo. 



t Popularly called Montezuma's watch. 



boy jump upon it, clench his fist, stamp with his 

 foot, and use other gesticulations of the greatest 

 abhorrence. As I had been informed that the* 

 sides were covered with historical sculpture, J 

 applied to the clergy for the further permission of 

 having the earth removed from around it, which 

 they not only granted, but, moreover, had it per 

 formed at their own expense. I took casts of the 

 whole. It is twenty-five feet in circumference, and 

 consists of fifteen various groups of figures, repre- 

 senting the conquests of the warriors of Mexico 

 over different cities, the names of which are written 

 over them. 



But the largest and most celebrated of the 

 Mexican deities was known to be buried under the 

 gallery of the university. It was liberally dis- 

 interred at the expense of the University in a few 

 hours ; and Mr. Bullock had the pleasure of 

 seeing the resurrection of this horrible deity, 

 before whom tens of thousands of human victims 

 had been sacrificed. 



It is scarcely possible (observes our author) for 

 the most ingenious artist to have conceived a statue 

 better adapted to the intended purpose ; and the 

 united talents and imagination of Brughel and 

 Fuseli would in vain have attempted to improve it. 



The idol was hewn out of one solid block of 

 basalt, nine feet high, its outlines giving an idea 

 of a deformed human figure, uniting all that is 

 horrible in the tiger and rattle-snake. 



Instead of arms it is supplied with two large 

 serpents, and its drapery is composed of wreathed 

 snakes, interwoven in the most disgusting manner, 

 and the sides terminating in the wings of a vulture. 

 Its feet are those of the tiger, with claws extended 

 in the act of seizing its prey, and between them 

 lies the head of another rattle-snake, which seems 

 descending from the body of the idol. Its decora- 

 tions accord with its horrid form, having a large 

 necklace composed of human hearts, hands, and 

 skulls, and fastened together by the entrails. It 

 has evidently been painted in natural colors, which 

 must have added greatly to the terrible effect it was 

 intended to inspire in its votaries. 



If that grim stone could have spoken, what 

 agonizing scenes it might have described ! 



The heart still panting was taken by the priest 

 from the breast, and deemed the more acceptable to 

 the deity if it smoked with life ; and the mangled 

 limbs of the victim were then divided amongst the 

 crowd as a feast worthy of the goddess. In the 

 night of desolation, called by the Spaniards Noche 

 Triste, in which -many were made prisoners by the 

 Mexicans, the adventurous Cortez, and his few 

 remaining companions in arms, were horror-stricken 

 by witnessing the cruel manner in which their cap- 

 tive fellow-adventurers were dragged to the sacrifi- 

 cial stone, and their hearts, yet warm with vitality, 

 presented by the priests to the gods ; and the more 

 the separated seat of life teemed with animation, 

 the more welcome was the offering to the goddess 

 the more heart-rending the cries of the victims, 

 the more grateful the sacrifice to this monster 

 representative of deformity and carnage.* 



* Six Months in Mexico. Those who saw, as I did, 

 the cast of this infernal deity, in Mr. Bullock's Ex- 

 hibition in 1824, will acknowledge that his description 

 is not overcharged. 



