NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 373 



necklace composed of human hearts, hands, and skulls, and fastened 

 together by the entrails. It has evidently been painted in natural 

 colours, 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 bj' 

 witnessing the cruel manner in which their captive fellow-adven- 

 turers were dragged to the sacrificial stone, and their hearts, yet 

 warm with vitality, presented by the priests to the gods ; and the 

 more the sejjarated seat of life teemed with animation, the more 

 welcome was the offering to the goddess, — the more heartrending 

 the cries of the victims, the more grateful the sacrifice to this 

 monster representative of deformity and carnage.* 



February, 1851. 



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

 this infernal deity in Mr. Bullock's Exhibition, in 182-J, will 

 acknowledge that his description is not overcharged. 



