On the next day, accompanied by his leading officers, Cortes went with much ceremony for another interview with the Emperor. This one lasted longer than the first. Montezuma asked a hundred questions about the European mode of life, habits, and customs, but Cortes, who had not these matters so much at heart as the work of conversion, seized every opportunity to give the conversation a religious turn, and specially inveighed against the cruel custom of human sacrifices. At the close of the interview Montezuma exhibited to his guests the splendors of the temples. He conducted them to the largest of these, and the priests offered no objection to their admission upon condition that nothing unseemly should be done. Montezuma himself exhibited and explained everything to them. He told the names of the deities, the highest of which was called Bitzliputzli, and described the worship which was paid to each of them. As these heathenish rites were inexpressibly shocking, Cortes asked permission to place the Cross of Christ in the temple, thinking that it would soon convince them that their deities were powerless. Montezuma listened to the proposal with the greatest displeasure, and the priests with amazement. The Emperor soon recovered his composure, however, and merely replied that he had expected his guests would show the same respect for the place where they were that they had shown to him. With these words he passed out, telling the Spaniards they were at liberty to repair to their own quarters, but as for himself he would remain to ask pardon of his deities for his extraordinary patience. The natives of Mexico professed a horrible religion, of which human sacrifice was the principal feature. They often made war upon neighboring people for no other purpose than to capture prisoners to be slaughtered upon their altars and afterward eaten. During battle they spared the lives of their enemies, saving them for a more terrible death by the knives of the priests. The number of these unfortunate victims sometimes reached thousands in a single day. Some historians have placed it as high as twenty-five thousand. If the nation were at peace for a long time and no prisoners were available for offerings, the priests would notify the Emperor that the deities were suffering from hunger. As soon as the Emperor’s proclamation spread the news through the country that the deities were ready for a banquet, it was the signal for a general war upon their neighbors. Then as soon as a sufficient number of prisoners had been collected, the priests began their hideous business. It cannot be denied that the various calamities which befell the natives at the hands of the tyrannical Europeans were a very great wrong, but, as compared with the terrible cruelties practised before their arrival, it must be acknowledged that these unfortunate people upon the whole gained more than they lost by submission to the Spanish yoke.