in the huge aviary of the royal establishment
were the humming-birds which were sacred to one of the most cruel of the
gods, and in cages built for them were the rattlesnakes also held
sacred. Flowers were everywhere--in garlands hung about the city, in the
hands of the people, on floating islands in the water, in the gardens
blazing with color.

The Spanish strangers were housed in a great stone palace and
entertained no less magnificently than the gifts of the Emperor had led
them to expect. The houses were ceiled with cedar and tapestried with
fine cotton or feather work. Moteczuma's table service was of gold and
silver and fine earthenware. The people wore cotton garments, often dyed
vivid scarlet with cochineal, the men wearing loose cloaks and fringed
sashes, the women, long robes. Fur capes and feather-work mantles and
tunics were worn in cold weather; sandals and white cotton hoods
protected feet and head. The women sometime used a deep violet hair-dye.
Ear-rings, nose-rings, finger-rings, bracelets, anklets and necklaces
were of gold and silver.

Moteczuma himself, a tall slender man about forty years old, came to
meet them in a palanquin shining with gold and canopied with
feather-work. As he descended from it his attendants laid cotton mats
upon the ground that he might not soil his feet. He wore the broad
girdle and square cloak of cotton cloth which other men wore, but of the
finest weave. His sandals had soles of pure gold. Both cloak and sandals
were embroidered with pearls, emeralds, and a kind of stone much
prized by the Aztecs, the chalchivitl, green and white. On his head he
wore a plumed head-dress of green, the royal color. When Cortes with his
staff approached the building set apart for their quarters, Moteczuma
awaited them in the courtyard. From a vase of flowers held by an
attendant he took a massive gold collar, in which the shell of a certain
crawfish was set in gold and connected by golden links. Eight golden
ornaments a span long, wrought to represent the same shell-fish, hung
from this chain. Moteczuma hung the necklace about the neck of Cortes
with a graceful little speech of welcome.

[Illustration: "Moteczuma awaited them in the courtyard"--_Page_ 162]

The Aztec Emperor was making the best of a situation which he did not
like at all. In other Mexican cities Cortes had ordered the idols cast
headlong down the steps of the teocalli, the temples cleansed, and a
crucifix wreathed in flo