HUMAN SACRIFICES. 125 
of the foes who came to encounter him ; and being thus entitled to his 
fortune and liberty, he was nevertheless slain by his enemies, who feared 
so valiant and fortunate a chieftain. By this perfidious act, the nation 
rendered itself eternally infamous among all the rest. 
The number of the victims, with whose blood the Teocallis of Mexico 
were in this manner, and in the " common sacrifice" annually deluged, 
is not precisely known. Clavigero thinks 20,000 nearer the truth than 
any of the other relations ; but the question may well be asked. Whence 
came the subjects to glut the gods with these periodical sacrifices? It 
seems that no land could furnish them without depopulation. 
In the consecration of the Great Temple, however, which, it is related, 
took place in the year 1486, under the predecessor of Montezuma, there 
appears no doubt among those who have most carefully examined the 
matter, that its walls and stairways, its altars and shrines, were baptized 
and consecrated with the blood of more than sixty thousand victims. " To 
make these horrible ofl'erings" says the historian, " with more show and 
parade, they ranged the prisoners in two files, each a mile and a half in 
length, which began in the woods of Tacuba and Iztpalapan, and termin- 
ated at the Temple, where, as soon as the victims arrived, they were 
sacrificed." 
Six millions of people, it is said, attended, and if this is not an exag- 
geration of tradition, there can be no wonder whence the captives sprung, 
or why the rite of sacrifice was instituted. If anything can pardon the 
cupidity and blood-thirstiness of the Christian Spaniard, for his overthrow 
of the Temple and Monarchy of Mexico, it is to be found in the cruel 
murders which were perpetrated, by the immolation of thousands of im 
mortal beings to a blind and bloody idolatry. 
