Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/47

 Rh He did not approve of the sacrifice of human beings, which some of the tribes performed in their worship, but he was a mild and benevolent being, and ordered that they offer to the gods only flowers and fruits.

After twenty years, he continued his journey, though the sorrowing Cholulans would have detained him longer. Taking with him four noble and virtuous youths, he set out for the province of Coatzcoalcos, on the Gulf of Mexico. Here he dismissed his attendants and launched upon the waters of the gulf alone, while they returned and ruled over Cholula for many years. It is said that Quetzalcoatl appeared upon the coast of Yucatan, where he was worshiped under the name of Kukulcan; and his image may be seen to-day, cut in the wall of one of the vast ruined edifices of Yucatan.

He promised his followers of Tula and of Cholula that he would some time return, and bring back to them the prosperity that had attended his coming. For everything changed when he left, and even the sweet-singing birds he sent before him to that mysterious kingdom in the east, the land of Tlapallan.

Now, this is but a tale of the priests, a legend of those early Mexicans, yet their descendants firmly believed in it, and looked for the promised return of the Feathered Serpent for hundreds of years. We shall find, farther on in this history, that the Aztecs believed in his coming and at first took the cruel Spaniards to be messengers from the mild and beneficent Quetzalcoatl. They thought they were messengers of life, these fierce and bloodthirsty demons of death!

Even at the arrival of the Spaniards, the city of Cholula was considered a holy place, the residence of the priests.