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240 with strict orders not to return without discovering and taking possession of these seas by setting up crosses along their shores.

Meanwhile, it was necessary to plant a colony somewhere in the valley to secure to Spain possessions which had been won at such a cost. There seemed to be no better site for the city which Cortez proposed to found than the island on which Mexico once stood, and no better men to superintend its rebuilding and repeopling than two Aztec chiefs, one of whom was Montezuma's son and the other his associate in office, the cihua-coatl, or "snake-woman," as the second chief was called. Although he was head of the tribe while his partner was in captivity, Tihucoa's name does not appear in history until the great tragedy was over, and then only as a taskmaster over his conquered people and as the traitor who finally caused the death of Guatemozin. So vigorously did the work go on that in October, 1524, when Cortez wrote his last letter to Charles V., the new city already contained thirty thousand householders, a fine market supplied with all the old-time luxuries, beautiful gardens that fringed the lake-shore and dotted its broad expanse, while Christian churches lifted their towers heavenward over the ruined shrines of this land, still overshadowed with heathenism. The great stone of sacrifice, the calendar, the war-god, and numerous other relics of the former life of these people which could not be destroyed, were buried in a deep pit, according to the order of the conqueror; these were all dug out again in 1790. A large convent replaced the famous House of Birds, and on the site of Montezuma's residence arose the splendid palace of the viceroys of "New Spain of the ocean sea." Cortez had a fancy for long, high-sounding names, and