We held our noses as we skirted this shocking place, and we were glad enough when we got beyond it and came to the entrance to the temple--a very noble portal, severely simple, and because of its simplicity the more majestic, in which, as in the whole of the façade, was manifest the grave and sombre Egyptian feeling that I had before observed. Through this we passed into the shadowy interior, lighted by only a few narrow slits cut in the enormously thick walls, where the lofty roof was upheld by a wilderness of columns which opened before us seemingly endless vistas where an eternal twilight reigned. Of interior decoration there was nothing save a broad and simple panelling upon the walls, and the great pillars were mere round monoliths without either bases or capitals.
As we entered this, to them, most sacred place a hush fell upon our escort, and even I felt something of that reverent awe that is inspired by any building which has been sanctified by the worship of multitudes within it through countless years. But that Young did not at all share this feeling with me was made manifest by his observing, after taking a long look around him: "Well, this wouldn't answer for a Congregational church, anyway. There ain't a pew in th' whole place, an' here in broad daylight you couldn't see a hymn-book if you tried. I wonder what they'd say, Professor, to a bid for puttin' in a dynamo for 'em an' lightin' this dark old hole with electricity? An' it 'u'd take off a lot o' this chill an' dampness if they'd have a steam-heater put in at th' same time. It's enough t' give all hands rheumatism th' way cold creeps strike up your legs." But at this point Young's observations were cut short peremptorily by the hand that one of the guards laid across his mouth; which hint that it was desirable for him to keep silence was quite unmistakable.
This decided repression of Young's chattering, no doubt, was the more vigorous because we now were approaching the farther end of the temple, where loomed before us amid the shadows a great idol, set upon an altar-like throne. This figure, fully ten feet high, was a strange medley of grotesque and hideous carvings that yet in its entirety was like a man; and so cruel and so ferocious was the general air of it that it well might inspire a very lively terror in simple souls. The most striking feature of the figure was a dismal skull, that was outheld from the region of the waist by two great hands placed there arbitrarily and without any relation to the figure's arms; and for a crest--repeating the motive of the gate-way--it had two serpents' heads, the bodies pertaining to which were twisted and involved about the whole mass. For eyes this evil thing had large and gleaming green stones--being, in truth, emeralds, though I did not at that time recognize them as such--and golden serpents, very beautifully wrought, were twisted about it, and a collar of golden hearts was hung around its neck over a sort of apron of shining green feathers; and feathers of a like sort rose above the heads of the serpents in a thick plume; and over every part of the figure were scattered glittering objects--emeralds, and disks of gold, and scraps of mother-o'-pearl, and fragments of obsidian--whence shone through the heavy shadows faint, shimmering points of light. In one of its out-stretched hands the figure held a bow, and in the other a bunch of arrows; but even without these unmistakable attributes I should have known from the skull and from the serpents' heads that this fierce and hideous idol represented the god Huitzilopochtli: the first divinity, and throughout the whole time that their bloody religion endured, the principal divinity, that the ancient Mexicans adored. Young did not venture to speak aloud again, but he turned to me with a long sigh and whispered, earnestly, "That certainly is, Professor, the very d----dest thing I ever saw!"