There were thirteen of the principal deities, as Master M. learned, each of whom required sacrifices more or less horrible.  For instance, there was the “soul of the world,” I forget his other name.  He must be propitiated now and then.  A year before the fatal day, a tall, beautiful, well-formed, unblemished captive was selected to play the part of this god for one year.  He must have all these qualifications to make the resemblance as perfect as possible.  He was now treated as a god.  Everything he could wish, everything it was thought could possibly conduce to his pleasure, comfort, or happiness, was furnished without stint.  He slept on the softest of couches in the most gorgeous of chambers; his raiment was profuse and expensive, and the whole surroundings were, as far as possible, in keeping with his high and holy estate.  Birds and music, flowers and rare perfumes pleased every sense, and everything, save liberty, was his.  This happy-go-lucky sort of life continued until the day fixed for the sacrifice.  Then joy gave way to sadness, pain, death!  Stripped of his costly raiment, he was taken by a procession of priests to a royal barge, thence across a lake to a temple about a league from the city, where, as he mounted the weary steps of the huge edifice, he flung aside the garlands of flowers and broke the musical instruments which had been a joy to him in his past days.  At the summit of the temple, in full view of the assembled multitude below, he was barbarously put to death by a priest, in order to propitiate the cruel god to whom the temple was dedicated.  And Master M. was taught that the moral of all this savagery was, that human joys are transitory, and the partition between sorrow and happiness is a very thin one, or words to that effect.

Master M. learned that there were many other inferior gods, each of which had festivals, sacrifices, etc., proportioned to his rank and power; that nearly every hour of the day was dedicated to some god or other; but I cannot tell you all he learned of these strange deities.

[Illustration:  A PEACE-OFFERING IN THE YEAR ONE RABBIT.]

He studied the history of the temples, and learned why they were four or five stories high with the stairs on the outside, and why he had to go entirely round the temple to find the next flight of stairs as he went up or down; and why each story was smaller than the next lower, and learned that some of these buildings were over one hundred feet square and as many feet high, and had towers forty or fifty feet high on their summits; and all about the everlasting fire which burned on the tops of these temples, and that there were so many of these that the whole country for miles around was always brilliantly illuminated.

I must pass over a long period in the life of Master M. with the mere remark that he graduated in both his military and religious classes with the highest honors, and acquitted himself to the most perfect satisfaction of both the alfalquis, or priests, and the teachcauhs, which is nearly the same as our word teachers.