The Aztecs believed in one supreme, invisible creator of all things, the ruler of the universe, named Taotl--a belief, it is conjectured, not native to them, but derived from their predecessors, the Taoltecs. Under this supreme being stood thirteen chief and two hundred inferior deities, each of whom had his sacred day and festival. At their head was the patron god of the Aztecs, the frightful Huitzilopochtli, the Mexican _Mars_. His temples were the most splendid and imposing. In every city of the empire his altars were drenched with the blood of human sacrifice. Cortez and his companions were permitted by Montezuma to enter his temple in the city of Mexico, and to behold the god himself. He had a broad face, wide mouth and terrible eyes. He was covered with gold, pearls and precious stones, and was girt about with golden serpents. On his neck, a fitting ornament, were the faces of men wrought in silver, and their hearts in gold. Close by were braziers with incense, and on the braziers three real hearts of men who had that day been sacrificed. The smell of the place, we are told, was like that of a slaughter-house. To supply victims for the sacrifices, the emperors made war on all the neighboring and subsidiary States, or in case of revolt, in any city of their dominions, and levied a certain number of men, women and children by way of indemnity. The victims were borne in triumphal processions and to the sound of music, to the summit of the great temples, where the priests, in sight of assembled crowds, bound them to the sacrificial stone, and opening the breast tore from it the bleeding heart which was either laid before the image of the gods, or eaten by the worshipers, after having been carefully cut up and mixed with maize. In the years immediately preceding the Spanish conquest, not less than 20,000 victims were annually immolated. These atrocities were sometimes, though incongruously, blended with milder forms of worship, in which fruits, flowers and perfumes were offered up amid joyous outbursts of song and dance. According to their mythology, Taotl, who delighted in these purer sacrifices, had once reigned in Anahuac (a name which at first probably applied only to the country in the immediate vicinity of the capital, though afterward it was applied to the whole Aztec empire) in the golden age of the world but being obliged, from some unexplained cause, to retire from earth, he departed by way of the Mexican Gulf, promising to return.