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What would posterity say, when they should hear, that the king of Saxuma, who held his crown from Amida and Xaca, overthrew their altars, and deprived them of the honours which they had so long enjoyed?
I know it in my heart; ask me not how or why. See, the Queen puts on her crown, and she pointed to the volcan Xaca, whose snows grew rosy with the dawn, 'and you must go to the gate, for the Spaniards will soon be stirring. As Otomie spoke I heard a trumpet blare without the walls.
They haue great libraries, and halles for them all to dine and sup together, and bels wherewith they are at certaine houres called to prayers. In the euening the Superintendent giueth each one a theame for meditation. After midnight before the altar in their Temple they do say Mattens at it were out of Xaca his last booke, one quier one verse, the other quier another.
The most considerable of the Bonzas having been elected, in a general assembly for this embassy, went to the prince, and told him, with an air rather threatening than submissive, that they came, in the name of Xaca and Amida, and the other deities of Japan, to demand of him, into what country he would banish them; that the gods were looking out for new habitations, and other temples, since he drove them shamefully out of his dominions, or rather out of theirs, to receive in their stead a stranger God, who usurps to himself divine honours, and will neither admit of a superior nor an equal.
If your nurse has told you that Ceres rules over the crops, or that Vistnou and Xaca made themselves men several times, or that Sammonocodom came to cut down a forest, or that Odin awaits you in his hall near Jutland, or that Mohammed or somebody else made a journey into the sky; if lastly your tutor comes to drive into your brain what your nurse has imprinted on it you keep it for life.
"The Portuguese priests were good for nothing, because they could not redeem a soul from hell; whereas they could do it at their pleasure, by their fasts and prayers: that eternal punishments either proved the cruelty or the weakness of the Christian God; his cruelty, if he did not deliver them, when he had it in his power; his weakness, if he could not execute what he desired; lastly, that Amida and Xaca were far more merciful, and of greater power; but that they were only pleased to redeem from hell those who, during their mortal life, had bestowed magnificent alms upon the Bonzas."
The Bonza, whose haughtiness was much abated, replied modestly, "Because it is a new law, in all things opposite to the ancient established laws of the empire; and that it seems made on purpose to render the faithful servants of the gods contemptible, as annulling the privileges which the Cubosamas of former ages had conferred on the Bonzas, and teaches that out of the society of Christians there is no salvation: but especially," added he, a little kindling in the face, "because it presumes to maintain, that the holy Amida and Xaca, Gizon and Canon, are in the bottomless pit of smoke, condemned to everlasting punishment, and delivered up in prey to the dragon of the house of night."
Nor did we know if they would stop at words. At length we crossed the square beneath the shadow of the teocalli, and reached the ancient and sculptured palace as the light failed, and the smoke on Xaca, the holy hill, began to glow with the fire in its heart.
Now in the lap of this ring of mountains and watched over by the mighty Xaca, clad in its robe of snow, its cap of smoke, and its crown of fire, lies, or rather lay the City of Pines, for now it is a ruin, or so I left it.
It is incredible how many temples have been built to the honour of Amida and Xaca; all the cities are full of them, and their magnificence is equal to their number. Nor is it easy to imagine how far their superstition carries the worshippers of these two deities.
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