having finally appeased the outraged gods, just as the Mexicans, two centuries later, thought to stay the progress of an inundation by bringing into the city an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. These people, the Mexicans, always had blood in their eyes, and no sooner was the famine allayed than they again marched into the surrounding country in search of victims.
[A. D. 1456.] That portion of the capital known as Tlatelolco had become the commercial metropolis of the country. To it people resorted from the remotest parts of Mexico, and from it went out large bands of travelling merchants. These merchants had so increased in number and strength, and always went so strongly armed, that they were very oppressive to the tribes they went amongst, and often committed murders and robberies. They also acted for the Mexicans in the capacity of spies; many a rich province had they entered, in the guise of peaceful traders, only to spy out its resources in wealth and prisoners. A band of these land pirates had been maltreated by the Miztecs, people who dwelt—as do their descendants today—in the country south of the Mexican valley. No doubt these rascally traders had deserved all they got, but they came back to their homes with such a doleful story that Montezuma resolved at once to punish the Miztecs for the outrage. He was only too glad of a pretext against them, for the supply of victims for that hideous god in the temple was running short. So he sent to the King of the Miztecs demanding an apology. But Atonaltzin, this Miztec king, treated the embassadors of Montezuma with scorn. He loaded them with gold, and said, as he dismissed them, "Bear this present to your king, that he may know from it how much my subjects give me, and how much they love me; tell him that I willingly accept of war, by which it shall be decided whether my subjects shall pay tribute to
