CHAPTER X.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
[A. D. 1507.] A Strange campaign was undertaken by the Aztec Emperor, in 1506, against the Lord of Malinialli, in the Miztec country. It seems that this lord had in his possession a very precious plant,—and it must have been very precious to have had such a long name,—called the tlapalizqui-xochitl, that is, the "red flower." He refused to give up to Montezuma this tlapalizqui-xochitl, and so that emperor sent for it, and got it; and also numerous captives, who were sacrificed at the dedication of the Tzompantli, or place of skulls, and at the festival of the tying-up-of-the-cycle.
At the very beginning of the new cycle occurred an eclipse; this was followed by an earthquake; seventeen hundred soldiers were drowned in the Miztec country; the inhabitants of Anahuac were terrified at these manifestations of divine displeasure. "With the new cycle began a period during which, down to the appearance of the Spaniards at Vera Cruz, every event was invested with a mysterious significance. . . . An army, sent to the province of Amatlan, perished with cold, and by falling trees and rocks; a comet with three heads hung in the sky above Anahuac; a great pyramid of fire was visible for forty days in the east, reaching from the earth to the sky." It was only too evident to Montezuma and the allied kings, as well as to their people, that great disasters were impend-
