to accommodate their punishment to his feeling and apprehension. For to

him whom fasting would make more healthful and more sprightly, and to him

to whose palate fish were more acceptable than flesh, the prescription of

these would have no curative effect; no more than in the other sort of

physic, where drugs have no effect upon him who swallows them with

appetite and pleasure: the bitterness of the potion and the abhorrence of

the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. The nature

that would eat rhubarb like buttered turnips, would frustrate the use and

virtue of it; it must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach,

that must purge and cure it; and here the common rule, that things are

cured by their contraries, fails; for in this one ill is cured by

This belief a little resembles that other so ancient one, of thinking to

gratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder: an opinion

universally once received in all religions. And still, in these later

times wherein our fathers lived, Amurath at the taking of the Isthmus,

immolated six hundred young Greeks to his father's soul, in the nature of

a propitiatory sacrifice for his sins. And in those new countries

discovered in this age of ours, which are pure and virgin yet, in

comparison of ours, this practice is in some measure everywhere received:

all their idols reek with human blood, not without various examples of

horrid cruelty: some they burn alive, and take, half broiled, off the

coals to tear out their hearts and entrails; some, even women, they flay

alive, and with their bloody skins clothe and disguise others. Neither

are we without great examples of constancy and resolution in this affair

the poor souls that are to be sacrificed, old men, women, and children,

themselves going about some days before to beg alms for the offering of

their sacrifice, presenting themselves to the slaughter, singing and

dancing with the spectators.

The ambassadors of the king of Mexico, setting out to Fernando Cortez the

power and greatness of their master, after having told him, that he had

thirty vassals, of whom each was able to raise an hundred thousand

fighting men, and that he kept his court in the fairest and best

fortified city under the sun, added at last, that he was obliged yearly

to offer to the gods fifty thousand men. And it is affirmed, that he

maintained a continual war, with some potent neighbouring nations, not

only to keep the young men in exercise, but principally to have

wherewithal to furnish his sacrifices with his prisoners of war. At a

certain town in another place, for the welcome of the said Cortez, they

sacrificed fifty men at once. I will tell you this one tale more, and I

have done; some of these people being beaten by him, sent to acknowledge

him, and to treat with him of a peace, whose messengers carried him three

sorts of gifts, which they presented in these terms: "Behold, lord, here

are five slaves: if thou art a furious god that feedeth upon flesh and

blood, eat these, and we will bring thee more; if thou art an affable

god, behold here incense and feathers; but if thou art a man, take these

fowls and these fruits that we have brought thee."