crifice of human beings at the rate of thousands
monthly, but charges the Cholulans with "fattening men and women to use
for food, keeping them in pens as animals are fatted!" Wilson pronounces
this to be intolerable nonsense, and though Diaz pretends to have been
one of Cortez's soldiers, always with him throughout his remarkable
invasion, Wilson proves clearly that he was never in the country at all.
His obvious and constant blunders as to geography and other matters
would alone convict him of being a pretender and not a true witness.
Besides which, he contradicts both himself and Cortez's account in many
important particulars. We believe, with Wilson, that this name of
Bernal Diaz is a pure fabrication, gotten up as a priestly scheme to
further their own purposes, and cover up the insufferable wickedness of
the Roman Church in Mexico, as well as to screen the bloodthirsty career
of its agent Cortez. Las Casas declared all these Spanish histories of
the conquest to be wicked and false. He wrote a history himself, from
personal observation, but as it would have exposed the falsehoods and
schemes of the priestly chroniclers, it was promptly suppressed by the
all-powerful Inquisition.

In destroying and leveling the great sacrificial mound which formed the
pyramid supporting the Aztec temple, together with the debris of the
dismantled dwellings and temples generally belonging to the native race,
the Spanish conquerers must have found ample material wherewith to fill
up the many canals and small lakes which made of this ancient Aztec
capital another Venice. Every vestige of aboriginal architecture has
disappeared from the surface of the city. Three hundred and sixty odd
years have served to turn the probably frail dwellings of the people
completely to dust. So, also, have the earliest structures of the
Spaniards disappeared. There are few of their churches which have not
been rebuilt. The causeways which connected the ancient city with the
mainland are still considerably higher than the general level of the
plain, and are thus distinctly marked, besides being bordered with
venerable umbrageous trees, tall and graceful, producing a fine effect,
particularly when seen from a distance, forming divisional lines in the
broad and varied landscape.

The facade of the present grand cathedral, at each side of which rises a
massive tower crowned by a bell-shaped dome, is divided by buttresses
into three parts, and though there is