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 220 their wealth but a certain number of their children yearly to sacrifice on the altars of Anahuac. Intrigue was always welcome to the Spanish commander, and he promised them assistance in throwing off the Mexican yoke, and to shortly visit their town of Cempoalla. Meanwhile he found a better location for a settlement farther north, and there they removed with their ships and laid the foundations of a city, which they called La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz—the Rich City of the True Cross. This name is applied to the present city of Vera Cruz, which was subsequently removed to the situation it now occupies, at the point of the first landing, opposite the island of San Juan de Ulua. The first things they erected in the new city were a gallows and an altar; magistrates were created at the instigation of Cortez, to whom he resigned his command, but was immediately re-invested with it, in the name of the king, for whom this colony was now planted. In this way the cunning Cortez shook himself free from his dependence upon Velasquez.

Then the little army marched towards Cempoalla, which was several leagues from the coast; when within a league of the town they were met by some of the principal men, who presented the officers with fragrant flowers, and begged them to excuse their cacique from coming out to receive them, as he was so fat and unwieldy as to be unable to do so. He sent, however, an invitation for them to enter, which Cortez accepted with thanks.

This town being the first of any extent, built of hewn stone and plastered with lime, that the Spaniards entered, they were greatly astonished at what they saw there. One of the horsemen, having penetrated to the great square, came flying back at the top of his speed, and in great excitement, crying out that the walls of the public buildings were all of silver! But when the army entered the centre