Hakluyt gives Verazzanos’ own account of an expedition made by him to America in 1524. He sailed in a vessel called the Dauphin to the new world, and discovered upwards of 700 leagues of the North American coast. The next year, Hinton says, he made a second voyage, the records of which are equally brief and fatal. Landing on an unfriendly shore with some of the crew, he was seized by the savages, killed and devoured in the presence of their companions on board, who sought in vain to render assistance. Maffacius and Molina bear testimony to the fact that the _Brazilian Indians_ were cannibals, and they often declared that the flesh of the higher caste had a better flavor than had the flesh of plebeians. The races on the Amazon known under the name of Tapuyos have been represented as devouring every prisoner they could capture, as a sacred duty, and a sacrifice acceptable to the manes of their fallen brethren. Indeed, they practiced a refined cruelty in cherishing and fattening their victims until an appointed day, when they were put to death by a single blow inflicted by a club viewed as sacred. The remote tribes, though leading a more independent life, still retain however much of their former ferocity; they defend their territories, and allow no strangers to enter them under pain of being made a meal of; cannibalism existing among them in all its pristine rigor. In _Mexico_, a country as old in its geologic formation as any known to science, with mountains higher than any peaks of the Alps, with a climate always equable, and a sky in which the southern cross shines resplendently; even in this land the man-eater has been found. According to Prescott, the Mexicans were not cannibals in a certain acceptation of the term, as they did not feed on human flesh to gratify the appetite. Cannibalism with them in its origin and professed purpose was distinctly religious. That the primary meaning of human sacrifice among them was to present victims to their deities is shown, by the manner in which the sacrificing priest, having torn out the heart, offered it to the sun, and afterwards went through the ceremonies of feeding the idol with the heart and blood. According to the Aztec worship one of their war gods demanded the sacrifice of such prisoners as came into the hands of their captors. In order therefore to meet the needed supplies for the required service, war was frequently engaged in. Thwing states that within a comparatively recent period, a tribe of Indians inhabiting Texas has indulged in man-eating.