The Conquistadors, or Spanish followers of Cortez, all assert that the Aztecs, or inhabitants of Mexico, worshipped an idol wrought into the shape of a serpent. Bonal Dias del Castello, one of the Spanish invader’s veteran captains, and the chronicler of the expedition, describes the interior of the principal temple, to which he and his leader were conducted by the Emperor Montezuma: “When we had ascended to the summit of the temple, we observed on the platform as we passed, the large stones on which were placed the victims intended for sacrifice. Here was a great figure representing a Dragon, and much blood lay spilled. Cortez, addressing Montezuma, requested him to do him the favour to show his gods. After consulting the priests, Montezuma led them into a tower where was a kind of hall. Here were two altars, highly adorned with richly-wrought timbers on the roof; above the roof, spread gigantic figures like unto men. The one on the right hand was Huitzilopochtli, their war god, with a great face and terrible eyes. This figure was entirely covered with gold and jewels, and his body wreathed about with golden serpents. Before the idol smoked a pan of incense, in which the hearts of three human victims were burning, mixed with copal. The other great figure, on the left, with a face like a bear’s, was the god of the infernal regions. His body was everywhere covered with figures of devils, having serpents’ tails. In this place was kept a drum of most enormous dimensions, the head of which was made of the skins of large serpents. At a short distance from the temple stood a tower, and at the door grinned frightful idols, like serpents and devils: in front of these were tables and knives for sacrifice.” Mr. Bullock, who made a valuable collection of Mexican antiquities, describes an idol, “the goddess of war,” on which Cortez and his followers may possibly have looked: “This monstrous idol,” he says, “is, with its pedestal, twelve feet high, and four feet wide. Its form is partly human and partly composed of rattlesnakes and the tiger. The head, enormously wide, seems that of two rattlesnakes united; the fangs hanging out of the mouth, on which the still-palpitating hearts of the unfortunate victims were rubbed as an act of the most acceptable oblation. The body is that of a deformed man, the place of arms being supplied by the heads of rattlesnakes, placed on square plinths, and united by fringed ornaments. Round the waist is a girdle, which was originally encrusted with gold; and beneath this, reaching nearly to the ground, and partly covering its deformed cloven feet, a drapery entirely composed of wreathed rattlesnakes, which the natives call “a garment of serpents.... Between the feet, descending from the body, another wreathed serpent rests his head upon the ground.”