Before their temples were piled pyramids of human skulls; the deities were placated by human sacrifice, and at times, according to the deicidal and theophagous rites common to many primitive superstitions, themselves sacrificed in effigy or in the person of a beautiful captive and their flesh eaten in sacramental cannibalism.
Though the civilization of the Aztecs, derived from the earlier and perhaps more advanced Mayans, was scarcely so high as that of the ancient Egyptians, they had cultivated the arts sufficiently to work the mines of gold and silver and to hammer the precious metals into elaborate and massive ornaments.
When rumors of their wealth reached Cuba it seemed at last as if the dream of El Dorado had come true.

Hernando Cortez, a cultured, resolute, brave and {439} politic leader, gathered a force of four hundred white men, with a small outfit of artillery and cavalry, and, on Good Friday, 1519, landed at the place now called Vera Cruz and marched on the capital.

The race of warriors who delighted in nothing but slaughter, was stupefied, partly by an old prophecy of the coming of a god to subdue the land, partly by the strange and terrible arms of the invaders.

Moreover their neighbors and subjects were ready to rise against them and become allies of the Spaniards.

In a few months of crowded battle and massacre they lay broken and helpless at the feet of the audacious conqueror, who promptly sent to Spain a glowing account of his new empire and a tribute of gold and silver.