Mexico

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.

But, so far as clothes go, the king of Mexico changed four times a day his apparel, and never put it on again, employing that he left off in his continual liberalities and rewards;

The astonishing magnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, among many other things, the garden of the king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants, according to the order and stature they have in a garden, were excellently formed in gold;

The other king of Mexico, having for a long time defended his beleaguered city, and having in this siege manifested the utmost of what suffering and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people did, and his misfortune having delivered him alive into his enemies’ hands, upon articles of being treated like a king, neither did he in his captivity discover anything unworthy of that title.

Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more civilized and more advanced in arts than the other nations about them.

Those of Mexico, after the ceremonies of their king’s coronation are over, dare no more look him in the face;