Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/65

 Rh The Aztecs have been justly called the pests of Anahuac, for they seemed unwilling to live at peace with any other tribe. Owing to their fierce character and their bloody religious rites they were hated by all. The King of the Colhuas was a follower of the prophet of peace, Quetzalcoatl, and could not agree with the priests of the god of the Mexicans. We shall see by following this history to its termination how these priests brought final destruction to this people; such as has been the fate of all kingdoms founded in superstition and ruled by priests.

[A. D. 1325.] We now come to that period when the Mexicans were to cease their wanderings and to have a fixed abode. It was in the year 1325. They had tried to exist at many points about the lake, but had been driven from them all. They now fixed upon an island two or three miles from Chapultepec, in the lake Tezcoco. There the priests discovered an eagle, or bird of prey, perched upon a nopal, or prickly-pear, which grew out of the crevices of a rock on this small island. This the priests declared to be in accordance with an oracle communicated to them by their god, Huitzilopochtli, and here they built a hut of rushes and reeds to serve temporarily as a temple for their cherished idol. Some say that the nopal grew in the middle of a lovely pool, into which two of the priests dove down and had an interview with old Tlaloc, the god of waters, who told them they had at last reached the spot predicted by their oracle, and there to build their city. In this manner was founded the city of Tenochtitlan, "which in future times was to become the court of a great empire, and the largest and most beautiful city in the new world."

Around the temple of their idol they built their rude huts of grass and reeds, and called this nucleus of a city, Mexico, or the place of Mextitli, their war-god, this being another name for the god Huitzilopochtli. Their first human