Surrounded by enemies, with nothing that they could strictly call their own, save the frail retreat among the reeds and rushes of their mimic Venice, it undoubtedly became necessary for the Aztecs to keep no captives taken in war. Their gardens, like their town, were constructed upon the _Chinampas_, or floating beds of earth and wicker work, which were anchored in the lake. They could not venture, at any distance from its margin, to cultivate the fields. When they sallied from their city, they usually left it for the battle field; and, when they returned, it is probable that it seemed to them not only a propitiation of their gods, but a mercy to the victims, to sacrifice their numerous captives, who if retained in idleness as prisoners would exact too large a body for their custody, or, if allowed to go at large, might rise against their victors, and, in either case, would soon consume the slender stores they were enabled to raise by their scant horticulture. In examining the history of the Aztecs, and noticing the mixture of civilization which adorned their public and private life, and the barbarism which characterized their merciless religion, we have been convinced that the Aztec rite of sacrifice originated, in the infancy of the state in a national necessity, and, at length, under the influence of superstition and policy, grew into an ordinance of faith and worship. The COMMON SACRIFICE, offered in the Aztec temples was performed by a chief priest, and six assistants. The principal flamen, habited in a red scapulary fringed with cotton, and crowned with a circlet of green and yellow plumes, assumed, for the occasion, the name of the deity to whom the offering was made. His acolytes,--clad in white robes embroidered with black; their hands covered with leathern thongs; their foreheads filleted with parti-colored papers; and their bodies dyed perfectly black,--prepared the victim for the altar, and having dressed him in the insignia of the deity to whom he was to be sacrificed, bore him through the town begging alms for the temple. He was then carried to the summit of the _Teocalli_, where four priests extended him across the curving surface of an arched stone placed on the sacrificial stone, while another held his head firmly beneath the yoke which is represented elsewhere. The chief priest,--the _topiltzin_ or sacrificer, then stretched the breast of the victim tightly by bending his body back as far as possible, and, seizing the obsidian knife of sacrifice, cut a deep gash across the region of the captive's heart. The extreme tension of the flesh and muscles, at once yielded beneath the blade, and the heart of the victim lay palpitating in the bloody gap. The sacrificer immediately thrust his hand into the wound, and, tearing out the quivering vital, threw it at the feet of the idol,--inserted it with a golden spoon into its mouth,--or, after offering it to the deity, consumed it in fire and preserved the sacred