The walls of these apartments were hung with richly dyed cotton, or with draperies of gorgeous feather work, while the fumes of incense rose up in clouds from censors.
Montezuma, surrounded by a few of his nobles, received them; and Cortez at once opened to him what he considered to be the chief object of his enterprise, and through the medium of Marina expounded the doctrines of Christianity, and besought the emperor to turn from his false gods.

As Montezuma had himself been a priest, and was an ardent devotee of his religion, it was scarcely to be expected that he would favorably entertain the proposal to change his religion.

He answered courteously that, no doubt, the god of Cortez was good to the Spaniards, just as his own gods were good to him.

What his visitors said of the creation of the world was similar to what he himself believed.

His people had occupied the land but for a few years, having been led there by a great being who, after giving them laws, had withdrawn to the regions of the east.