Hernán Cortés

The ambassadors of the king of Mexico, setting out to Fernando Cortés 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.

At a certain town in another place, for the welcome of the said Cortés, they sacrificed fifty men at once.