The houses of the common people were mostly low wooden buildings, arranged with the greatest regularity. But the dwellings of the nobility were of stone, and some of them spacious and magnificent. The city was adorned with numerous temples, the principal of which was the great temple of their god Mexitli, the Mars of the Mexicans. This was an enormous four-sided pyramid, one hundred and twenty feet high; on one side were steps to ascend to the top, which was a square platform. On this were two small temples, containing images of their gods and altars, on which, (horrible to relate!) great numbers of human victims were sacrificed every year, by this inhuman people. The lake around was covered with vessels of all descriptions, and numbers of floating gardens, filled with the most beautiful flowers. Numerous canals were cut through the city, in which the boats of the natives were constantly passing, as in the great towns of Holland. But all this greatness and splendor was not, as might be supposed, the growth of many ages of prosperity; from the foundation of the city, according to the account of the natives, to its capture by Cortez, in 1520, had elapsed a period of only one hundred and ninety-five years. The ancient history of the Aztec or Mexican nations, as given in their own annals, is as follows:-- “During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries after Christ, a great number of nations or tribes arrived at Anahuac, from some country to the north; they are supposed by many to have come, originally, from Tartary, crossing over to America at Bhering’s straits; but of this we have no certain proof. The first who arrived, found the country entirely unoccupied, except by a few stragglers, the remnant of a great and highly cultivated people, called Saltees, who formerly possessed the country, and had been destroyed, or driven away by famine and pestilence. To them are ascribed the pyramid of Cholula, and many other works of power and skill; and to them the new comers were indebted for their knowledge of many of the arts of civilized life. “The Aztecs or Mexicans were the last of the emigrating nations who arrived in this country. For a long time they remained an insignificant tribe, living in the most wretched condition, on the borders of the lake of Tezcuco, often in a state of slavery to the neighboring kings. At last, having regained their freedom, they settled, in the year 1325, on a group of islands in the lake, and here founded the city of Mexico.