Nezahualcoyotl, on returning to the palace, ordered the child and his

parents to be summoned before him. They received the orders with

astonishment, but, on entering the presence, the boy at once recognized

the person with whom he had discoursed so unceremoniously, and he was

filled with consternation. The good-natured monarch, however, relieved

his apprehensions, by thanking him for the lesson he had given him, and,

at the same time, commended his respect for the laws, and praised his

parents for the manner in which they had trained their son. He then

dismissed the parties with a liberal largess, and afterwards mitigated

the severity of the forest laws, so as to allow persons to gather any

wood they might find on the ground, if they did not meddle with the

standing timber.[321]

Another adventure is told of him, with a poor woodman and his wife, who

had brought their little load of billets for sale to the market-place of

Tezcuco. The man was bitterly lamenting his hard lot, and the

difficulty with which he earned a wretched subsistence, while the master

of the palace before which they were standing lived an idle life,

without toil, and with all the luxuries in the world at his command.

He was going on in his complaints, when the good woman stopped him, by

reminding him he might be overheard. He was so, by Nezahualcoyotl

himself who, standing screened from observation at a latticed window

which overlooked the market, was amusing himself, as he was wont, with

observing the common people chaffering in the square. He immediately

ordered the querulous couple into his presence. They appeared trembling

and conscience-struck before him. The king gravely inquired what they

had said. As they answered him truly, he told them they should reflect

that, if he had great treasures at his command, he had still greater

calls for them; that, far from leading an easy life, he was oppressed

with the whole burden of government; and concluded by admonishing them

“to be more cautious in future, as walls had ears.”[322] He then ordered

his officers to bring a quantity of cloth and a generous supply of cacao

(the coin of the country), and dismissed them. “Go,” said he; “with the

little you now have, you will be rich; while, with all my riches, I

shall still be poor.”[323]

It was not his passion to hoard. He dispensed his revenues

munificently, seeking out poor but meritorious objects on whom to bestow

them. He was particularly mindful of disabled soldiers, and those who

had in any way sustained loss in the public service, and, in case of

their death, extended assistance to their surviving families. Open

mendicity was a thing he would never tolerate, but chastised it with

exemplary rigor.[324]

It would be incredible that a man of the enlarged mind and endowments of

Nezahualcoyotl should acquiesce in the sordid superstitions of his

countrymen, and still more in the sanguinary rites borrowed by them from

the Aztecs. In truth, his humane temper shrunk from these cruel

ceremonies, and he strenuously endeavored to recall his people to the

more pure and simple worship of the ancient Toltecs. A circumstance

produced a temporary change in his conduct.

He had been married some years to the wife he had so unrighteously

obtained, but was not blessed with issue. The priests represented that

it was owing to his neglect of the gods of his country, and that his

only remedy was to propitiate them by human sacrifice. The king

reluctantly consented, and the altars once more smoked with the blood of

slaughtered captives. But it was all in vain; and he indignantly

exclaimed, “These idols of wood and stone can neither hear nor feel;

much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord

of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful, unknown God, Creator

of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and

support.”[325]

He then withdrew to his rural palace of Tezcotzinco, where he remained

forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no

other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and

gums. At the expiration of this time, he is said to have been comforted

by a vision assuring him of the success of his petition. At all events,

such proved to be the fact; and this was followed by the cheering

intelligence of the triumph of his arms in a quarter where he had lately

experienced some humiliating reverses.[326]

Greatly strengthened in his former religious convictions, he now openly

professed his faith, and was more earnest to wean his subjects from

their degrading superstitions and to substitute nobler and more

spiritual conceptions of the Deity. He built a temple in the usual

pyramidal form, and on the summit a tower nine stories high, to

represent the nine heavens; a tenth was surmounted by a roof painted

black, and profusely gilded with stars, on the outside, and incrusted

with metals and precious stones within. He dedicated this to “_the

unknown God, the Cause of causes_”[327] It seems probable, from the

emblem on the tower, as well as from the complexion of his verses, as we

shall see, that he mingled with his reverence for the Supreme the astral

worship which existed among the Toltecs.[328] Various musical

instruments were placed on the top of the tower, and the sound of them,

accompanied by the ringing of a sonorous metal struck by a mallet,

summoned the worshippers to prayers, at regular seasons.[329] No image

was allowed in the edifice, as unsuited to the “invisible God;” and the

people were expressly prohibited from profaning the altars with blood,

or any other sacrifices than that of the perfume of flowers and

sweet-scented gums.

The remainder of his days was chiefly spent in his delicious solitudes

of Tezcotzinco, where he devoted himself to astronomical and, probably,

astrological studies, and to meditation on his immortal destiny,--giving

utterance to his feelings in songs, or rather hymns, of much solemnity

and pathos. An extract from one of these will convey some idea of his

religious speculations. The pensive tenderness of the verses quoted in a

preceding page is deepened here into a mournful, and even gloomy,

coloring; while the wounded spirit, instead of seeking relief in the

convivial sallies of a young and buoyant temperament, turns for

consolation to the world beyond the grave:

“All things on earth have their term, and, in the most joyous career of

their vanity and splendor, their strength fails, and they sink into the

dust. All the round world is but a sepulchre; and there is nothing which

lives on its surface that shall not be hidden and entombed beneath it.

Rivers, torrents, and streams move onward to their destination. Not one

flows back to its pleasant source. They rush onward, hastening to bury

themselves in the deep bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are

no more to-day; and the things of to-day shall cease, perhaps, on the

morrow.[330] The cemetery is full of the loathsome dust of bodies, once

quickened by living souls, who occupied thrones, presided over

assemblies, marshalled armies, subdued provinces, arrogated to

themselves worship, were puffed up with vainglorious pomp, and power,

and empire.

“But these glories have all passed away, like the fearful smoke that

issues from the throat of Popocatepetl, with no other memorial of their

existence than the record on the page of the chronicler.

“The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful,--alas! where are they

now? They are all mingled with the clod; and that which has befallen

them shall happen to us, and to those that come after us. Yet let us

take courage, illustrious nobles and chieftains, true friends and loyal

subjects,--_let us aspire to that heaven where all is eternal and

corruption cannot come_.[331] The horrors of the tomb are but the cradle

of the Sun, and the dark shadows of death are brilliant lights for the

stars.”[332] The mystic import of the last sentence seems to point to

that superstition respecting the mansions of the Sun, which forms so

beautiful a contrast to the dark features of the Aztec mythology.

At length, about the year 1470,[333] Nezahualcoyotl, full of years and

honors, felt himself drawing near his end. Almost half a century had

elapsed since he mounted the throne of Tezcuco. He had found his kingdom

dismembered by faction and bowed to the dust beneath the yoke of a

foreign tyrant. He had broken that yoke; had breathed new life into the

nation, renewed its ancient institutions, extended wide its domain; had

seen it flourishing in all the activity of trade and agriculture,

gathering strength from its enlarged resources, and daily advancing

higher and higher in the great march of civilization. All this he had

seen, and might fairly attribute no small portion of it to his own wise

and beneficent rule. His long and glorious day was now drawing to its

close; and he contemplated the event with the same serenity which he had

shown under the clouds of its morning and in its meridian splendor.

A short time before his death, he gathered around him those of his

children in whom he most confided, his chief counsellors, the

ambassadors of Mexico and Tlacopan, and his little son, the heir to the

crown, his only offspring by the queen. He was then not eight years old,

but had already given, as far as so tender a blossom might, the rich

promise of future excellence.[334]

After tenderly embracing the child, the dying monarch threw over him the

robes of sovereignty. He then gave audience to the ambassadors, and,

when they had retired, made the boy repeat the substance of the

conversation. He followed this by such counsels as were suited to his

comprehension, and which, when remembered through the long vista of

after-years, would serve as lights to guide him in his government of the

kingdom. He besought him not to neglect the worship of “the unknown

God,” regretting that he himself had been unworthy to know him, and

intimating his conviction that the time would come when he should be

known and worshipped throughout the land.[335]

He next addressed himself to that one of his sons in whom he placed the

greatest trust, and whom he had selected as the guardian of the realm.

“From this hour,” said he to him, “you will fill the place that I have

filled, of father to this child; you will teach him to live as he ought;

and by your counsels he will rule over the empire. Stand in his place,

and be his guide, till he shall be of age to govern for himself.” Then,

turning to his other children, he admonished them to live united with

one another, and to show all loyalty to their prince, who, though a

child, already manifested a discretion far above his years. “Be true to

him,” he added, “and he will maintain you in your rights and

dignities.”[336]

Feeling his end approaching, he exclaimed, “Do not bewail me with idle

lamentations. But sing the song of gladness, and show a courageous

spirit, that the nations I have subdued may not believe you

disheartened, but may feel that each one of you is strong enough to keep

them in obedience!” The undaunted spirit of the monarch shone forth even

in the agonies of death. That stout heart, however, melted, as he took

leave of his children and friends, weeping tenderly over them, while he

bade each a last adieu. When they had withdrawn, he ordered the officers

of the palace to allow no one to enter it again. Soon after, he expired,

in the seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-third of his

reign.[337]

Thus died the greatest monarch, and, if one foul blot could be effaced,

perhaps the best, who ever sat upon an Indian throne. His character is

delineated with tolerable impartiality by his kinsman, the Tezcucan

chronicler: “He was wise, valiant, liberal; and, when we consider the

magnanimity of his soul, the grandeur and success of his enterprises,

his deep policy, as well as daring, we must admit him to have far

surpassed every other prince and captain of this New World. He had few

failings himself, and rigorously punished those of others. He preferred

the public to his private interest; was most charitable in his nature,

often buying articles, at double their worth, of poor and honest

persons, and giving them away again to the sick and infirm. In seasons

of scarcity he was particularly bountiful, remitting the taxes of his

vassals, and supplying their wants from the royal granaries. He put no

faith in the idolatrous worship of the country. He was well instructed

in moral science, and sought, above all things, to obtain light for

knowing the true God. He believed in one God only, the Creator of heaven

and earth, by whom we have our being, who never revealed himself to us

in human form, nor in any other; with whom the souls of the virtuous are

to dwell after death, while the wicked will suffer pains unspeakable. He

invoked the Most High, as ‘He by whom we live,’ and ‘Who has all things

in himself.’ He recognized the Sun for his father, and the Earth for his

mother. He taught his children not to confide in idols, and only to

conform to the outward worship of them from deference to public

opinion.[338] If he could not entirely abolish human sacrifices, derived

from the Aztecs, he at least restricted them to slaves and

captives.”[339]

I have occupied so much space with this illustrious prince that but

little remains for his son and successor, Nezahualpilli. I have thought

it better, in our narrow limits, to present a complete view of a single

epoch, the most interesting in the Tezcucan annals, than to spread the

inquiries over a broader but comparatively barren field. Yet

Nezahualpilli, the heir to the crown, was a remarkable person, and his

reign contains many incidents which I regret to be obliged to pass over

in silence.[340]

He had, in many respects, a taste similar to his father’s, and, like

him, displayed a profuse magnificence in his way of living and in his

public edifices. He was more severe in his morals, and, in the execution

of justice, stern even to the sacrifice of natural affection. Several

remarkable instances of this are told; one, among others, in relation to

his eldest son, the heir to the crown, a prince of great promise. The

young man entered into a poetical correspondence with one of his

father’s concubines, the lady of Tula, as she was called, a woman of

humble origin, but of uncommon endowments. She wrote verses with ease,

and could discuss graver matters with the king and his ministers. She

maintained a separate establishment, where she lived in state, and

acquired, by her beauty and accomplishments, great ascendency over her

royal lover.[341] With this favorite the prince carried on a

correspondence in verse,--whether of an amorous nature does not appear.

At all events, the offence was capital. It was submitted to the regular

tribunal, who pronounced sentence of death on the unfortunate youth; and

the king, steeling his heart against all entreaties and the voice of

nature, suffered the cruel judgment to be carried into execution. We

might, in this case, suspect the influence of baser passions on his

mind, but it was not a solitary instance of his inexorable justice

towards those most near to him. He had the stern virtue of an ancient

Roman, destitute of the softer graces which make virtue attractive. When

the sentence was carried into effect, he shut himself up in his palace

for many weeks, and commanded the doors and windows of his son’s

residence to be walled up, that it might never again be occupied.[342]

Nezahualpilli resembled his father in his passion for astronomical

studies, and is said to have had an observatory on one of his

palaces.[343] He was devoted to war in his youth, but, as he advanced in

years, resigned himself to a more indolent way of life, and sought his

chief amusement in the pursuit of his favorite science, or in the soft

pleasures of the sequestered gardens of Tezcotzinco. This quiet life was

ill suited to the turbulent temper of the times, and of his Mexican

rival, Montezuma. The distant provinces fell off from their allegiance;

the army relaxed its discipline; disaffection crept into its ranks; and

the wily Montezuma, partly by violence, and partly by stratagems

unworthy of a king, succeeded in plundering his brother monarch of some

of his most valuable domains. Then it was that he arrogated to himself

the title and supremacy of emperor, hitherto borne by the Tezcucan

princes as head of the alliance. Such is the account given by the

historians of that nation, who in this way explain the acknowledged

superiority of the Aztec sovereign, both in territory and consideration,

on the landing of the Spaniards.[344]

These misfortunes pressed heavily on the spirits of Nezahualpilli. Their

effect was increased by certain gloomy prognostics of a near calamity

which was to overwhelm the country.[345] He withdrew to his retreat, to

brood in secret over his sorrows. His health rapidly declined; and in

the year 1515, at the age of fifty-two, he sank into the grave;[346]

happy, at least, that by this timely death he escaped witnessing the

fulfilment of his own predictions, in the ruin of his country, and the

extinction of the Indian dynasties forever.[347]

In reviewing the brief sketch here presented of the Tezcucan monarchy,

we are strongly impressed with the conviction of its superiority, in all

the great features of civilization, over the rest of Anahuac. The

Mexicans showed a similar proficiency, no doubt, in the mechanic arts,

and even in mathematical science. But in the science of government, in

legislation, in speculative doctrines of a religious nature, in the more

elegant pursuits of poetry, eloquence, and whatever depended on

refinement of taste and a polished idiom, they confessed themselves

inferior, by resorting to their rivals for instruction and citing their

works as the masterpieces of their tongue. The best histories, the best

poems, the best code of laws, the purest dialect, were all allowed to be

Tezcucan. The Aztecs rivalled their neighbors in splendor of living, and

even in the magnificence of their structures. They displayed a pomp and

ostentatious pageantry truly Asiatic. But this was the development of

the material rather than the intellectual principle. They wanted the

refinement of manners essential to a continued advance in civilization.

An insurmountable limit was put to theirs by that bloody mythology which

threw its withering taint over the very air that they breathed.

The superiority of the Tezcucans was owing, doubtless, in a great

measure to that of the two sovereigns whose reigns we have been

depicting. There is no position which affords such scope for

ameliorating the condition of man as that occupied by an absolute ruler

over a nation imperfectly civilized. From his elevated place, commanding

all the resources of his age, it is in his power to diffuse them far and

wide among his people. He may be the copious reservoir on the

mountain-top, drinking in the dews of heaven, to send them in

fertilizing streams along the lower slopes and valleys, clothing even

the wilderness in beauty. Such were Nezahualcoyotl and his illustrious

successor, whose enlightened policy, extending through nearly a century,

wrought a most salutary revolution in the condition of their country. It

is remarkable that we, the inhabitants of the same continent, should be

more familiar with the history of many a barbarian chief, both in the

Old and New World, than with that of these truly great men, whose names

are identified with the most glorious period in the annals of the Indian

races.

What was the actual amount of the Tezcucan civilization it is not easy

to determine, with the imperfect light afforded us. It was certainly far

below anything which the word conveys, measured by a European standard.

In some of the arts, and in any walk of science, they could only have

made, as it were, a beginning. But they had begun in the right way, and

already showed a refinement in sentiment and manners, a capacity for

receiving instruction, which, under good auspices, might have led them

on to indefinite improvement. Unhappily, they were fast falling under

the dominion of the warlike Aztecs. And that people repaid the benefits

received from their more polished neighbors by imparting to them their

own ferocious superstition, which, falling like a mildew on the land,

would soon have blighted its rich blossoms of promise and turned even

its fruits to dust and ashes.

Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, who flourished in the beginning of

the sixteenth century,[348] was a native of Tezcuco, and descended

in a direct line from the sovereigns of that kingdom. The royal

posterity became so numerous in a few generations that it was

common to see them reduced to great poverty and earning a painful

subsistence by the most humble occupations. Ixtlilxochitl, who was

descended from the principal wife or queen of Nezahualpilli,

maintained a very respectable position. He filled the office of

interpreter to the viceroy, to which he was recommended by his

acquaintance with the ancient hieroglyphics and his knowledge of

the Mexican and Spanish languages. His birth gave him access to

persons of the highest rank in his own nation, some of whom

occupied important civil posts under the new government, and were

thus enabled to make large collections of Indian manuscripts, which

were liberally opened to him. He had an extensive library of his

own, also, and with these means diligently pursued the study of the

Tezcucan antiquities. He deciphered the hieroglyphics, made himself

master of the songs and traditions, and fortified his narrative by

the oral testimony of some very aged persons, who had themselves

been acquainted with the Conquerors. From such authentic sources he

composed various works in the Castilian, on the primitive history

of the Toltec and the Tezcucan races, continuing it down to the

subversion of the empire by Cortés. These various accounts,

compiled under the title of _Relaciones_, are, more or less,

repetitions and abridgments of each other; nor is it easy to

understand why they were thus composed. The _Historia Chichimeca_

is the best digested and most complete of the whole series, and as

such has been the most frequently consulted for the preceding

pages.

Ixtlilxochitl’s writings have many of the defects belonging to his

age. He often crowds the page with incidents of a trivial, and

sometimes improbable, character. The improbability increases with

the distance of the period; for distance, which diminishes objects

to the natural eye, exaggerates them to the mental. His chronology,

as I have more than once noticed, is inextricably entangled. He has

often lent a too willing ear to traditions and reports which would

startle the more skeptical criticism of the present time. Yet there

is an appearance of good faith and simplicity in his writings,

which may convince the reader that when he errs it is from no worse

cause than national partiality. And surely such partiality is

excusable in the descendant of a proud line, shorn of its ancient

splendors, which it was soothing to his own feelings to revive

again--though with something more than their legitimate lustre--on

the canvas of history. It should also be considered that, if his

narrative is sometimes startling, his researches penetrate into the

mysterious depths of antiquity, where light and darkness meet and

melt into each other, and where everything is still further liable

to distortion, as seen through the misty medium of

hieroglyphics.[349]

With these allowances, it will be found that the Tezcucan historian

has just claims to our admiration for the compass of his inquiries

and the sagacity with which they have been conducted. He has

introduced us to the knowledge of the most polished people of

Anahuac, whose records, if preserved, could not, at a much later

period, have been comprehended; and he has thus afforded a standard

of comparison which much raises our ideas of American civilization.

His language is simple, and, occasionally, eloquent and touching.

His descriptions are highly picturesque. He abounds in familiar

anecdote; and the natural graces of his manner, in detailing the

more striking events of history and the personal adventures of his

heroes, entitle him to the name of the Livy of Anahuac.

I shall be obliged to enter hereafter into his literary merits, in

connection with the narrative of the Conquest; for which he is a

prominent authority. His earlier annals--though no one of his

manuscripts has been printed--have been diligently studied by the

Spanish writers in Mexico, and liberally transferred to their

pages; and his reputation, like Sahagun’s, has doubtless suffered

by the process. His _Historia Chichimeca_ is now turned into French

by M. Ternaux-Compans, forming part of that inestimable series of

translations from unpublished documents which have so much enlarged

our acquaintance with the early American history. I have had ample

opportunity of proving the merits of his version of Ixtlilxochitl,

and am happy to bear my testimony to the fidelity and elegance with

which it is executed.

* * * * *

NOTE.--In a note which has heretofore appeared at the end of this

first book Mr. Prescott states that it had been his intention to

conclude the introductory portion of the work with an inquiry into

the origin of the Mexican civilization. But because he agreed with

Humboldt, that “the general question of the origin of the

inhabitants of a continent is beyond the limits prescribed to

history,” and with Livy, that “for the majority of readers the

origin and remote antiquities of a nation can have comparatively

little interest,” he had decided, on further consideration, to

throw his observations on this topic into the Appendix. A man of

extraordinary modesty, he feared lest the reader should become so

wearied with his presentation of the story of the earlier

civilization, in the first book, that he would not have energy

enough left for the proper consideration of the tale of the

Conquest, set forth with such conscientious care in the succeeding

chapters. The essay has now been taken from the Appendix and placed

in its proper position.--M.

THE ORIGIN OF THE MEXICAN CIVILIZATION

PRELIMINARY NOTICE

The following Essay was originally designed to close the Introductory

Book, to which it properly belongs. It was written three years since, at

the same time with that part of the work. I know of no work of

importance, having reference to the general subject of discussion, which

has appeared since that period, except Mr. Bradford’s valuable treatise

on _American Antiquities_. But in respect to that part of the discussion

which treats of American Architecture a most important contribution has

been made by Mr. Stephens’s two works, containing the account of his

visits to Central America and Yucatan, and especially by the last of

these publications. Indeed, the ground, before so imperfectly known, has

now been so diligently explored that we have all the light which we can

reasonably expect to aid us in making up our opinion in regard to the

mysterious monuments of Yucatan. It only remains that the exquisite

illustrations of Mr. Catherwood should be published on a larger scale,

like the great works on the subject in France and England, in order to

exhibit to the eye a more adequate representation of these magnificent

ruins than can be given in the limited compass of an octavo page.

But, notwithstanding the importance of Mr. Stephens’s researches, I have

not availed myself of them to make any additions to the original draft

of this Essay, nor have I rested my conclusions in any instance on his

authority. These conclusions had been formed from a careful study of the

narratives of Dupaix and Waldeck, together with that of their splendid

illustrations of the remains of Palenque and Uxmal, two of the principal

places explored by Mr. Stephens; and the additional facts collected by

him from the vast field which he has surveyed, so far from shaking my

previous deductions, have only served to confirm them. The only object

of my own speculations on these remains was to ascertain their probable

origin, or rather to see what light, if any, they could throw on the

origin of Aztec Civilization. The reader, on comparing my reflections

with those of Mr. Stephens in the closing chapters of his two works,

will see that I have arrived at inferences, as to the origin and

probable antiquity of these structures, precisely the same as his.

Conclusions formed under such different circumstances serve to

corroborate each other; and, although the reader will find here some

things which would have been different had I been guided by the light

now thrown on the path, yet I prefer not to disturb the foundations on

which the argument stands, nor to impair its value--if it has any--as a

distinct and independent testimony.

ORIGIN OF THE MEXICAN CIVILIZATION--ANALOGIES WITH THE OLD WORLD

When the Europeans first touched the shores of America, it was as if

they had alighted on another planet,--every thing there was so different

from what they had before seen. They were introduced to new varieties of

plants, and to unknown races of animals; while man, the lord of all, was

equally strange, in complexion, language, and institutions.[350] It was

what they emphatically styled it,--a New World. Taught by their faith to

derive all created beings from one source, they felt a natural

perplexity as to the manner in which these distant and insulated regions

could have obtained their inhabitants. The same curiosity was felt by

their countrymen at home, and the European scholars bewildered their

brains with speculations on the best way of solving this interesting

problem.

In accounting for the presence of animals there, some imagined that the

two hemispheres might once have been joined in the extreme north, so as

to have afforded an easy communication.[351] Others, embarrassed by the

difficulty of transporting inhabitants of the tropics across the Arctic

regions, revived the old story of Plato’s Atlantis, that huge island,

now submerged, which might have stretched from the shores of Africa to

the eastern borders of the new continent;[352] while they saw vestiges

of a similar convulsion of nature in the green islands sprinkled over

the Pacific, once the mountain summits of a vast continent, now buried

beneath the waters.[353] Some, distrusting the existence of revolutions

of which no record was preserved, supposed that animals might have found

their way across the ocean by various means; the birds of stronger wing

by flight over the narrowest spaces; while the tamer kinds of quadrupeds

might easily have been transported by men in boats, and even the more

ferocious, as tigers, bears, and the like, have been brought over, in

the same manner, when young, “for amusement and the pleasure of the

chase”![354] Others, again, maintained the equally probable opinion that

angels, who had, doubtless, taken charge of them in the ark, had also

superintended their distribution afterwards over the different parts of

the globe.[355] Such were the extremities to which even thinking minds

were reduced, in their eagerness to reconcile the literal interpretation

of Scripture with the phenomena of nature! The philosophy of a later day

conceives that it is no departure from this sacred authority to follow

the suggestions of science, by referring the new tribes of animals to a

creation, since the deluge, in those places for which they were clearly

intended by constitution and habits.[356]

Man would not seem to present the same embarrassments, in the

discussion, as the inferior orders. He is fitted by nature for every

climate, the burning sun of the tropics and the icy atmosphere of the

North. He wanders indifferently over the sands of the desert, the waste

of polar snows, and the pathless ocean. Neither mountains nor seas

intimidate him, and, by the aid of mechanical contrivances, he

accomplishes journeys which birds of boldest wing would perish in

attempting. Without ascending to the high northern latitudes, where the

continents of Asia and America approach within fifty miles of each

other, it would be easy for the inhabitant of Eastern Tartary or Japan

to steer his canoe from islet to islet, quite across to the American

shore, without ever being on the ocean more than two days at a

time.[357] The communication is somewhat more difficult on the Atlantic

side. But even there, Iceland was occupied by colonies of Europeans many

hundred years before the discovery by Columbus; and the transit from

Iceland to America is comparatively easy.[358] Independently of these

channels, others were opened in the Southern hemisphere, by means of

the numerous islands in the Pacific. The population of America is not

nearly so difficult a problem as that of these little spots. But

experience shows how practicable the communication may have been, even

with such sequestered places.[359] The savage has been picked up in his

canoe, after drifting hundreds of leagues on the open ocean, and

sustaining life, for months, by the rain from heaven, and such fish as

he could catch.[360] The instances are not very rare; and it would be

strange if these wandering barks should not sometimes have been

intercepted by the great continent which stretches across the globe, in

unbroken continuity, almost from pole to pole. No doubt, history could

reveal to us more than one example of men who, thus driven upon the

American shores, have mingled their blood with that of the primitive

races who occupied them.

The real difficulty is not, as with the animals, to explain how man

could have reached America, but from what quarter he actually has

reached it. In surveying the whole extent of the New World, it was found

to contain two great families, one in the lowest stage of civilization,

composed of hunters, and another nearly as far advanced in refinement as

the semi-civilized empires of Asia. The more polished races were

probably unacquainted with the existence of each other on the different

continents of America, and had as little intercourse with the barbarian

tribes by whom they were surrounded. Yet they had some things in common

both with these last and with one another, which remarkably

distinguished them from the inhabitants of the Old World. They had a

common complexion and physical organization,--at least, bearing a more

uniform character than is found among the nations of any other quarter

of the globe. They had some usages and institutions in common, and spoke

languages of similar construction, curiously distinguished from those in

the Eastern hemisphere.

Whence did the refinement of these more polished races come? Was it only

a higher development of the same Indian character which we see, in the

more northern latitudes, defying every attempt at permanent

civilization? Was it engrafted on a race of higher order in the scale

originally, but self-instructed, working its way upward by its own

powers? Was it, in short, an indigenous civilization? or was it borrowed

in some degree from the nations in the Eastern World? If indigenous,

how are we to explain the singular coincidence with the East in

institutions and opinions? If Oriental, how shall we account for the

great dissimilarity in language, and for the ignorance of some of the

most simple and useful arts, which, once known, it would seem scarcely

possible should have been forgotten? This is the riddle of the Sphinx,

which no Œdipus has yet had the ingenuity to solve. It is, however, a

question of deep interest to every curious and intelligent observer of

his species. And it has accordingly occupied the thoughts of men, from

the first discovery of the country to the present time; when the

extraordinary monuments brought to light in Central America have given a

new impulse to inquiry, by suggesting the probability--the possibility,

rather--that surer evidences than any hitherto known might be afforded

for establishing the fact of a positive communication with the other

hemisphere.

It is not my intention to add many pages to the volumes already written

on this inexhaustible topic. The subject--as remarked by a writer of a

philosophical mind himself, and who has done more than any other for the

solution of the mystery--is of too speculative a nature for history,

almost for philosophy.[361] But this work would be incomplete without

affording the reader the means of judging for himself as to the true

sources of the peculiar civilization already described, by exhibiting

to him the alleged points of resemblance with the ancient continent. In

doing this, I shall confine myself to my proper subject, the Mexicans,

or to what, in some way or other, may have a bearing on this subject;

proposing to state only real points of resemblance, as they are

supported by evidence, and stripped, as far as possible, of the

illusions with which they have been invested by the pious credulity of

one party, and the visionary system-building of another.

An obvious analogy is found in _cosmogonal traditions_ and _religious

usages_. The reader has already been made acquainted with the Aztec

system of four great cycles, at the end of each of which the world was

destroyed, to be again regenerated.[362] The belief in these periodical

convulsions of nature, through the agency of some one or other of the

elements, was familiar to many countries in the Eastern hemisphere; and,

though varying in detail, the general resemblance of outline furnishes

an argument in favor of a common origin.[363]

No tradition has been more widely spread among nations than that of a

Deluge. Independently of tradition, indeed, it would seem to be

naturally suggested by the interior structure of the earth, and by the

elevated places on which marine substances are found to be deposited. It

was the received notion, under some form or other, of the most civilized

people in the Old World, and of the barbarians of the New.[364] The

Aztecs combined with this some particular circumstances of a more

arbitrary character, resembling the accounts of the East. They believed

that two persons survived the Deluge,--a man, named Coxcox, and his

wife. Their heads are represented in ancient paintings, together with a

boat floating on the waters, at the foot of a mountain. A dove is also

depicted, with the hieroglyphical emblem of languages in his mouth,

which he is distributing to the children of Coxcox, who were born

dumb.[365] The neighboring people of Michoacán, inhabiting the same high

plains of the Andes, had a still further tradition, that the boat in

which Tezpi, their Noah, escaped, was filled with various kinds of

animals and birds. After some time, a vulture was sent out from it, but

remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants, which had been left

on the earth, as the waters subsided. The little humming-bird,

_huitzitzilin_, was then sent forth, and returned with a twig in its

mouth. The coincidence of both these accounts with the Hebrew and

Chaldean narratives is obvious. It were to be wished that the authority

for the Michoacán version were more satisfactory.[366]

On the way between Vera Cruz and the capital, not far from the modern

city of Puebla, stands the venerable relic--with which the reader will

become familiar in the course of the narrative--called the temple of

Cholula. It is a pyramidal mound, built, or rather cased, with unburnt

brick, rising to the height of nearly one hundred and eighty feet. The

popular tradition of the natives is that it was erected by a family of

giants, who had escaped the great inundation and designed to raise the

building to the clouds; but the gods, offended with their presumption,

sent fires from heaven on the pyramid, and compelled them to abandon the

attempt.[367] The partial coincidence of this legend with the Hebrew

account of the tower of Babel, received also by other nations of the

East, cannot be denied.[368] But one who has not examined the subject

will scarcely credit what bold hypotheses have been reared on this

slender basis.

Another point of coincidence is found in the goddess Cioacoatl, “our

lady and mother;” “the first goddess who brought forth;” “who bequeathed

the sufferings of childbirth to women, as the tribute of death;” “by

whom sin came into the world.” Such was the remarkable language applied

by the Aztecs to this venerated deity. She was usually represented with

a serpent near her; and her name signified the “serpent-woman.” In all

this we see much to remind us of the mother of the human family, the Eve

of the Hebrew and Syrian nations.[369]

But none of the deities of the country suggested such astonishing

analogies with Scripture as Quetzalcoatl, with whom the reader has

already been made acquainted.[370] He was the white man, wearing a long

beard, who came from the East, and who, after presiding over the golden

age of Anahuac, disappeared as mysteriously as he had come, on the great

Atlantic Ocean. As he promised to return at some future day, his

reappearance was looked for with confidence by each succeeding

generation. There is little in these circumstances to remind one of

Christianity. But the curious antiquaries of Mexico found out that to

this god were to be referred the institution of ecclesiastical

communities, reminding one of the monastic societies of the Old World;

that of the rites of confession and penance; and the knowledge even of

the great doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation![371] One party,

with pious industry, accumulated proofs to establish his identity with

the Apostle St. Thomas;[372][373] while another, with less scrupulous

faith, saw, in his anticipated advent to regenerate the nation, the

type, dimly veiled, of the Messiah![374]

Yet we should have charity for the missionaries who first landed in this

world of wonders, where, while man and nature wore so strange an

aspect, they were astonished by occasional glimpses of rites and

ceremonies which reminded them of a purer faith. In their amazement,

they did not reflect whether these things were not the natural

expression of the religious feeling common to all nations who have

reached even a moderate civilization. They did not inquire whether the

same things were not practised by other idolatrous people. They could

not suppress their wonder, as they beheld the Cross,[375] the sacred

emblem of their own faith, raised as an object of worship in the temples

of Anahuac. They met with it in various places; and the image of a cross

may be seen at this day, sculptured in bas-relief, on the walls of one

of the buildings of Palenque, while a figure bearing some resemblance to

that of a child is held up to it, as if in adoration.[376]

Their surprise was heightened when they witnessed a religious rite which

reminded them of the Christian communion. On these occasions an image of

the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was made of the flour of maize, mixed

with blood, and, after consecration by the priests, was distributed

among the people, who, as they ate it, “showed signs of humiliation and

sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of the deity!”[377] How could the

Roman Catholic fail to recognize the awful ceremony of the Eucharist?

With the same feelings they witnessed another ceremony, that of the

Aztec baptism; in which, after a solemn invocation, the head and lips of

the infant were touched with water, and a name was given to it; while

the goddess Cioacoatl, who presided over childbirth, was implored “that

the sin which was given to us before the beginning of the world might

not visit the child, but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live

and be born anew!”[378]

It is true, these several rites were attended with many peculiarities,

very unlike those in any Christian church. But the fathers fastened

their eyes exclusively on the points of resemblance. They were not aware

that the Cross was a symbol of worship, of the highest antiquity, in

Egypt and Syria,[379] and that rites resembling those of communion[380]

and baptism were practised by pagan nations on whom the light of

Christianity had never shone.[381] In their amazement, they not only

magnified what they saw, but were perpetually cheated by the illusions

of their own heated imaginations. In this they were admirably assisted

by their Mexican converts, proud to establish--and half believing it

themselves--a correspondence between their own faith and that of their

conquerors.[382]

The ingenuity of the chronicler was taxed to find out analogies between

the Aztec and Scripture histories, both old and new. The migration from

Aztlan to Anahuac was typical of the Jewish exodus.[383] The places

where the Mexicans halted on the march were identified with those in the

journey of the Israelites;[384] and the name of Mexico itself was found

to be nearly identical with the Hebrew name for the Messiah.[385] The

Mexican hieroglyphics afforded a boundless field for the display of this

critical acuteness. The most remarkable passages in the Old and New

Testaments were read in their mysterious characters; and the eye of

faith could trace there the whole story of the Passion, the Saviour

suspended from the cross, and the Virgin Mary with her attendant

angels![386]

The Jewish and Christian schemes were strangely mingled together, and

the brains of the good fathers were still further bewildered by the

mixture of heathenish abominations which were so closely intertwined

with the most orthodox observances. In their perplexity, they looked on

the whole as the delusion of the devil, who counterfeited the rites of

Christianity and the traditions of the chosen people, that he might

allure his wretched victims to their own destruction.[387]

But, although it is not necessary to resort to this startling

supposition, nor even to call up an apostle from the dead, or any later

missionary, to explain the coincidences with Christianity, yet these

coincidences must be allowed to furnish an argument in favor of some

primitive communication with that great brotherhood of nations on the

old continent, among whom similar ideas have been so widely

diffused.[388] The probability of such a communication, especially with

Eastern Asia, is much strengthened by the resemblance of sacerdotal

institutions, and of some religious rites, as those of marriage,[389]

and the burial of the dead;[390] by the practice of human sacrifices,

and even of cannibalism, traces of which are discernible in the Mongol

races;[391] and, lastly, by a conformity of social usages and manners,

so striking that the description of Montezuma’s court may well pass for

that of the Grand Khan’s, as depicted by Maundeville and Marco

Polo.[392] It would occupy too much room to go into details in this

matter, without which, however, the strength of the argument cannot be

felt, nor fully established. It has been done by others; and an

occasional coincidence has been adverted to in the preceding chapters.

It is true, we should be very slow to infer identity, or even

correspondence, between nations, from a partial resemblance of habits

and institutions. Where this relates to manners, and is founded on

caprice, it is not more conclusive than when it flows from the

spontaneous suggestions of nature, common to all. The resemblance, in

the one case, may be referred to accident; in the other, to the

constitution of man. But there are certain arbitrary peculiarities,

which, when found in different nations, reasonably suggest the idea of

some previous communication between them. Who can doubt the existence of

an affinity, or, at least, intercourse, between tribes who had the same

strange habit of burying the dead in a sitting posture, as was practised

to some extent by most, if not all, of the aborigines, from Canada to

Patagonia?[393] The habit of burning the dead, familiar to both Mongols

and Aztecs, is in itself but slender proof of a common origin. The body

must be disposed of in some way; and this, perhaps, is as natural as any

other. But when to this is added the circumstance of collecting the

ashes in a vase and depositing the single article of a precious stone

along with them, the coincidence is remarkable.[394] Such minute

coincidences are not unfrequent; while the accumulation of those of a

more general character, though individually of little account, greatly

strengthens the probability of a communication with the East.

A proof of a higher kind is found in the analogies of _science_. We have

seen the peculiar chronological system of the Aztecs; their method of

distributing the years into cycles, and of reckoning by means of

periodical series, instead of numbers. A similar process was used by the

various Asiatic nations of the Mongol family, from India to Japan. Their

cycles, indeed, consisted of sixty, instead of fifty-two years; and for

the terms of their periodical series they employed the names of the

elements and the signs of the zodiac, of which latter the Mexicans,

probably, had no knowledge. But the principle was precisely the

same.[395]

A correspondence quite as extraordinary is found between the

hieroglyphics used by the Aztecs for the signs of the days, and those

zodiacal signs which the Eastern Asiatics employed as one of the terms

of their series. The symbols in the Mongolian calendar are borrowed from

animals. Four of the twelve are the same as the Aztec. Three others are

as nearly the same as the different species of animals in the two

hemispheres would allow. The remaining five refer to no creature then

found in Anahuac.[396] The resemblance went as far as it could.[397] The

similarity of these conventional symbols among the several nations of

the East can hardly fail to carry conviction of a common origin for the

system as regards them. Why should not a similar conclusion be applied

to the Aztec calendar, which, although relating to days instead of

years, was, like the Asiatic, equally appropriated to chronological

uses and to those of divination?[398]

I shall pass over the further resemblance to the Persians, shown in the

adjustment of time by a similar system of intercalation;[399] and to the

Egyptians, in the celebration of the remarkable festival of the winter

solstice;[400] since, although sufficiently curious, the coincidences

might be accidental, and add little to the weight of evidence offered by

an agreement in combinations of so complex and artificial a character as

those before stated.

Amid these intellectual analogies, one would expect to meet with that of

_language_,[401] the vehicle of intellectual communication, which

usually exhibits traces of its origin even when the science and

literature that are embodied in it have widely diverged. No inquiry,

however, has led to satisfactory results. The languages spread over the

Western continent far exceed in number those found in any equal

population in the Eastern.[402] They exhibit the remarkable anomaly of

differing as widely in etymology as they agree in organization; and, on

the other hand, while they bear some slight affinity to the languages of

the Old World in the former particular, they have no resemblance to them

whatever in the latter.[403] The Mexican was spoken for an extent of

three hundred leagues. But within the boundaries of New Spain more than

twenty languages were found; not simply dialects, but, in many

instances, radically different.[404] All these idioms, however, with one

exception, conformed to that peculiar synthetic structure by which every

Indian dialect appears to have been fashioned, from the land of the

Esquimaux to Terra del Fuego;[405] a system which, bringing the

greatest number of ideas within the smallest possible compass, condenses

whole sentences into a single word,[406] displaying a curious mechanism,

in which some discern the hand of the philosopher, and others only the

spontaneous efforts of the savage.[407]

The etymological affinities detected with the ancient continent are not

very numerous, and they are drawn indiscriminately from all the tribes

scattered over America. On the whole, more analogies have been found

with the idioms of Asia than of any other quarter. But their amount is

too inconsiderable to balance the opposite conclusion inferred by a

total dissimilarity of structure.[408] A remarkable exception is found

in the Othomi or Otomi language, which covers a wider territory than any

other but the Mexican in New Spain,[409] and which, both in its

monosyllabic composition, so different from those around it, and in its

vocabulary, shows a very singular affinity to the Chinese.[410] The

existence of this insulated idiom in the heart of this vast continent

offers a curious theme for speculation, entirely beyond the province of

history.

The American languages, so numerous and widely diversified, present an

immense field of inquiry, which, notwithstanding the labors of several

distinguished philologists, remains yet to be explored. It is only after

a wide comparison of examples that conclusions founded on analogy can be

trusted. The difficulty of making such comparisons increases with time,

from the facility which the peculiar structure of the Indian languages

affords for new combinations; while the insensible influence of contact

with civilized man, in producing these, must lead to a still further

distrust of our conclusions.

The theory of an Asiatic origin for Aztec civilization derives stronger

confirmation from the light of _tradition_, which, shining steadily from

the far Northwest, pierces through the dark shadows that history and

mythology have alike thrown around the traditions of the country.

Traditions of a Western or Northwestern origin were found among the

more barbarous tribes,[411] and by the Mexicans were preserved both

orally and in their hieroglyphical maps, where the different stages of

their migration are carefully noted. But who, at this day, shall read

them?[412] They are admitted to agree, however, in representing the

populous North as the prolific hive of the American races.[413] In this

quarter were placed their Aztlan and their Huehuetlapallan,--the bright

abodes of their ancestors, whose warlike exploits rivalled those which

the Teutonic nations have recorded of Odin and the mythic heroes of

Scandinavia. From this quarter the Toltecs, the Chichimecs, and the

kindred races of the Nahuatlacs came successively up the great plateau

of the Andes, spreading over its hills and valleys, down to the Gulf of

Mexico.[414]

Antiquaries have industriously sought to detect some still surviving

traces of these migrations. In the northwestern districts of New Spain,

at the distance of a thousand miles from the capital, dialects have been

discovered showing intimate affinity with the Mexican.[415] Along the

Rio Gila, remains of populous towns are to be seen, quite worthy of the

Aztecs in their style of architecture.[416] The country north of the

great Rio Colorado has been imperfectly explored; but in the higher

latitudes, in the neighborhood of Nootka, tribes still exist whose

dialects, both in the termination and general sound of the words, bear

considerable resemblance to the Mexican.[417] Such are the vestiges,

few, indeed, and feeble, that still exist to attest the truth of

traditions which themselves have remained steady and consistent through

the lapse of centuries and the migrations of successive races.

The conclusions suggested by the intellectual and moral analogies with

Eastern Asia derive considerable support from those of a _physical

nature_. The aborigines of the Western World were distinguished by

certain peculiarities of organization, which have led physiologists to

regard them as a separate race. These peculiarities are shown in their

reddish complexion, approaching a cinnamon color; their straight, black,

and exceedingly glossy hair; their beard thin, and usually

eradicated;[418] their high cheek-bones, eyes obliquely directed towards

the temples, prominent noses, and narrow foreheads falling backwards

with a greater inclination than those of any other race except the

African.[419] From this general standard, however, there are deviations,

in the same manner, if not to the same extent, as in other quarters of

the globe, though these deviations do not seem to be influenced by the

same laws of local position.[420] Anatomists, also, have discerned in

crania disinterred from the mounds, and in those of the inhabitants of

the high plains of the Cordilleras, an obvious difference from those of

the more barbarous tribes. This is seen especially in the ampler

forehead, intimating a decided intellectual superiority.[421] These

characteristics are found to bear a close resemblance to those of the

Mongolian family, and especially to the people of Eastern Tartary;[422]

so that, notwithstanding certain differences recognized by

physiologists, the skulls of the two races could not be readily

distinguished from one another by a common observer. No inference can be

surely drawn, however, without a wide range of comparison. That hitherto

made has been chiefly founded on specimens from the barbarous

tribes.[423] Perhaps a closer comparison with the more civilized may

supply still stronger evidences of affinity.[424]

In seeking for analogies with the Old World, we should not pass by in

silence the _architectural remains_ of the country, which, indeed, from

their resemblance to the pyramidal structures of the East, have

suggested to more than one antiquary the idea of a common origin.[425]

The Spanish invaders, it is true, assailed the Indian buildings,

especially those of a religious character, with all the fury of

fanaticism. The same spirit survived in the generations which succeeded.

The war has never ceased against the monuments of the country; and the

few that fanaticism has spared have been nearly all demolished to serve

the purposes of utility. Of all the stately edifices, so much extolled

by the Spaniards who first visited the country, there are scarcely more

vestiges at the present day than are to be found in some of those

regions of Europe and Asia which once swarmed with populous cities, the

great marts of luxury and commerce.[426] Yet some of these remains, like

the temple of Xochicalco,[427] the palaces of Tezcotzinco,[428] the

colossal calendar-stone in the capital, are of sufficient magnitude, and

wrought with sufficient skill, to attest mechanical powers in the Aztecs

not unworthy to be compared with those of the ancient Egyptians.

But, if the remains on the Mexican soil are so scanty, they multiply as

we descend the southeastern slope of the Cordilleras, traverse the rich

Valley of Oaxaca, and penetrate the forests of Chiapa and Yucatan. In

the midst of these lonely regions we meet with the ruins, recently

discovered, of several ancient cities, Mitla, Palenque, and Itzalana or

Uxmal,[429] which argue a higher civilization than anything yet found

on the American continent; and, although it was not the Mexicans who

built these cities, yet, as they are probably the work of cognate races,

the present inquiry would be incomplete without some attempt to

ascertain what light they can throw on the origin of the Indian, and

consequently of the Aztec civilization.[430]

Few works of art have been found in the neighborhood of any of the

ruins.[431] Some of them, consisting of earthen or marble vases,

fragments of statues, and the like, are fantastic, and even hideous;

others show much grace and beauty of design, and are apparently well

executed.[432] It may seem extraordinary that no iron in the buildings

themselves, nor iron tools, should have been discovered, considering

that the materials used are chiefly granite, very hard, and carefully

hewn and polished. Red copper chisels and axes have been picked up in

the midst of large blocks of granite imperfectly cut, with fragments of

pillars and architraves, in the quarries near Mitla.[433] Tools of a

similar kind have been discovered, also, in the quarries near Thebes;

and the difficulty, nay, impossibility, of cutting such masses from the

living rock with any tools which we possess, except iron, has confirmed

an ingenious writer in the supposition that this metal must have been

employed by the Egyptians, but that its tendency to decomposition,

especially in a nitrous soil, has prevented any specimens of it from

being preserved.[434] Yet iron has been found, after the lapse of some

thousands of years, in the remains of antiquity; and it is certain that

the Mexicans, down to the time of the Conquest, used only copper

instruments, with an alloy of tin, and a silicious powder, to cut the

hardest stones, some of them of enormous dimensions.[435] This fact,

with the additional circumstance that only similar tools have been

found in Central America, strengthens the conclusion that iron was

neither known there nor in ancient Egypt.

But what are the nations of the Old Continent whose style of

architecture bears most resemblance to that of the remarkable monuments

of Chiapa and Yucatan? The points of resemblance will probably be found

neither numerous nor decisive. There is, indeed, some analogy both to

the Egyptian and Asiatic style of architecture in the pyramidal,

terrace-formed bases on which the buildings repose, resembling also the

Toltec and Mexican _teocalli_. A similar care, also, is observed in the

people of both hemispheres to adjust the position of their buildings by

the cardinal points. The walls in both are covered with figures and

hieroglyphics, which, on the American as on the Egyptian, may be

designed, perhaps, to record the laws and historical annals of the

nation. These figures, as well as the buildings themselves, are found to

have been stained with various dyes, principally vermilion;[436] a

favorite color with the Egyptians also, who painted their colossal

statues and temples of granite.[437] Notwithstanding these points of

similarity, the Palenque architecture has little to remind us of the

Egyptian or of the Oriental. It is, indeed, more conformable, in the

perpendicular elevation of the walls, the moderate size of the stones,

and the general arrangement of the parts, to the European. It must be

admitted, however, to have a character of originality peculiar to

itself.

More positive proofs of communication with the East might be looked for

in their sculpture and in the conventional forms of their hieroglyphics.

But the sculptures on the Palenque buildings are in relief, unlike the

Egyptian, which are usually in _intaglio_. The Egyptians were not very

successful in their representations of the human figure, which are on

the same invariable model, always in profile, from the greater facility

of execution this presents over the front view; the full eye is placed

on the side of the head, while the countenance is similar in all, and

perfectly destitute of expression.[438] The Palenque artists were

equally awkward in representing the various attitudes of the body, which

they delineated also in profile. But the parts are executed with much

correctness, and sometimes gracefully; the costume is rich and various;

and the ornamented head-dress, typical, perhaps, like the Aztec, of the

name and condition of the person represented, conforms in its

magnificence to the Oriental taste. The countenance is various, and

often expressive. The contour of the head is, indeed, most

extraordinary, describing almost a semi-circle from the forehead to the

tip of the nose, and contracted towards the crown, whether from the

artificial pressure practised by many of the aborigines, or from some

preposterous notion of ideal beauty.[439] But, while superior in the

execution of the details, the Palenque artist was far inferior to the

Egyptian in the number and variety of the objects displayed by him,

which on the Theban temples comprehend animals as well as men, and

almost every conceivable object of use or elegant art.

The hieroglyphics are too few on the American buildings to authorize any

decisive inference. On comparing them, however, with those of the

Dresden Codex, probably from this same quarter of the country,[440] with

those on the monument of Xochicalco, and with the ruder picture-writing

of the Aztecs, it is not easy to discern anything which indicates a

common system. Still less obvious is the resemblance to the Egyptian

characters, whose refined and delicate abbreviations approach almost to

the simplicity of an alphabet. Yet the Palenque writing shows an

advanced stage of the art, and, though somewhat clumsy, intimates, by

the conventional and arbitrary forms of the hieroglyphics, that it was

symbolical, and perhaps phonetic, in its character.[441] That its

mysterious import will ever be deciphered is scarcely to be expected.

The language of the race who employed it, the race itself, is unknown.

And it is not likely that another Rosetta stone will be found, with its

trilingual inscription, to supply the means of comparison, and to guide

the American Champollion in the path of discovery.

It is impossible to contemplate these mysterious monuments of a lost

civilization without a strong feeling of curiosity as to who were their

architects and what is their probable age. The data on which to rest our

conjectures of their age are not very substantial; although some find in

them a warrant for an antiquity of thousands of years, coeval with the

architecture of Egypt and Hindostan.[442] But the interpretation of

hieroglyphics, and the apparent duration of trees, are vague and

unsatisfactory.[443] And how far can we derive an argument from the

discoloration and dilapidated condition of the ruins, when we find so

many structures of the Middle Ages dark and mouldering with decay, while

the marbles of the Acropolis and the gray stone of Pæstum still shine in

their primitive splendor?

There are, however, undoubted proofs of considerable age to be found

there. Trees have shot up in the midst of the buildings, which measure,

it is said, more than nine feet in diameter.[444] A still more striking

fact is the accumulation of vegetable mould in one of the courts, to the

depth of nine feet above the pavement.[445] This in our latitude would

be decisive of a very great antiquity. But in the rich soil of Yucatan,

and under the ardent sun of the tropics, vegetation bursts forth with

irrepressible exuberance, and generations of plants succeed each other

without intermission, leaving an accumulation of deposits that would

have perished under a northern winter. Another evidence of their age is

afforded by the circumstance that in one of the courts of Uxmal the

granite pavement,[446] on which the figures of tortoises were raised in

relief, is worn nearly smooth by the feet of the crowds who have passed

over it;[447] a curious fact, suggesting inferences both in regard to

the age and population of the place. Lastly, we have authority for

carrying back the date of many of these ruins to a certain period, since

they were found in a deserted, and probably dilapidated, state by the

first Spaniards who entered the country. Their notices, indeed, are

brief and casual, for the old Conquerors had little respect for works of

art;[448] and it is fortunate for these structures that they had ceased

to be the living temples of the gods, since no merit of architecture,

probably, would have availed to save them from the general doom of the

monuments of Mexico.

If we find it so difficult to settle the age of these buildings, what

can we hope to know of their architects? Little can be gleaned from the

rude people by whom they are surrounded. The old Tezcucan chronicler so

often quoted by me, the best authority for the traditions of his

country, reports that the Toltecs, on the breaking up of their

empire,--which he places earlier than most authorities, in the middle of

the tenth century,--migrating from Anahuac, spread themselves over

Guatemala, Tehuantepec, Campeachy, and the coasts and neighboring isles

on both sides of the Isthmus.[449] This assertion, important,

considering its source, is confirmed by the fact that several of the

nations in that quarter adopted systems of astronomy and chronology, as

well as sacerdotal institutions, very similar to the Aztec,[450] which,

as we have seen, were also probably derived from the Toltecs, their more

polished predecessors in the land.

If so recent a date for the construction of the American buildings be

thought incompatible with this oblivion of their origin, it should be

remembered how treacherous a thing is tradition, and how easily the

links of the chain are severed. The builders of the pyramids had been

forgotten before the time of the earliest Greek historians.[451] The

antiquary still disputes whether the frightful inclination of that

architectural miracle, the tower of Pisa, standing, as it does, in the

heart of a populous city, was the work of accident or design. And we

have seen how soon the Tezcucans, dwelling amidst the ruins of their

royal palaces, built just before the Conquest, had forgotten their

history, while the more inquisitive traveller refers their construction

to some remote period before the Aztecs.[452]

The reader has now seen the principal points of coincidence insisted on

between the civilization of ancient Mexico and the Eastern hemisphere.

In presenting them to him, I have endeavored to confine myself to such

as rest on sure historic grounds, and not so much to offer my own

opinion as to enable him to form one for himself. There are some

material embarrassments in the way to this, however, which must not be

passed over in silence. These consist, not in explaining the fact that,

while the mythic system and the science of the Aztecs afford some

striking points of analogy with the Asiatic, they should differ in so

many more; for the same phenomenon is found among the nations of the Old

World, who seem to have borrowed from one another those ideas, only,

best suited to their peculiar genius and institutions. Nor does the

difficulty lie in accounting for the great dissimilarity of the American

languages to those in the other hemisphere; for the difference with

these is not greater than what exists among themselves; and no one will

contend for a separate origin for each of the aboriginal tribes.[453]

But it is scarcely possible to reconcile the knowledge of Oriental

science with the total ignorance of some of the most serviceable and

familiar arts, as the use of milk and iron, for example; arts so

simple, yet so important to domestic comfort, that when once acquired

they could hardly be lost.

The Aztecs had no useful domesticated animals. And we have seen that

they employed bronze, as a substitute for iron, for all mechanical

purposes. The bison, or wild cow of America, however, which ranges in

countless herds over the magnificent prairies of the west, yields milk

like the tame animal of the same species in Asia and Europe;[454] and

iron was scattered in large masses over the surface of the table-land.

Yet there have been people considerably civilized in Eastern Asia who

were almost equally strangers to the use of milk.[455] The buffalo range

was not so much on the western coast as on the eastern slopes of the

Rocky Mountains;[456] and the migratory Aztec might well doubt whether

the wild, uncouth monsters whom he occasionally saw bounding with such

fury over the distant plains were capable of domestication, like the

meek animals which he had left grazing in the green pastures of Asia.

Iron, too, though met with on the surface of the ground, was more

tenacious, and harder to work, than copper, which he also found in much

greater quantities on his route. It is possible, moreover, that his

migration may have been previous to the time when iron was used by his

nation; for we have seen more than one people in the Old World employing

bronze and copper with entire ignorance, apparently, of any more

serviceable metal.[457]--Such is the explanation, unsatisfactory,

indeed, but the best that suggests itself, of this curious anomaly.

The consideration of these and similar difficulties has led some writers

to regard the antique American civilization as purely indigenous.

Whichever way we turn, the subject is full of embarrassment. It is easy,

indeed, by fastening the attention on one portion of it, to come to a

conclusion. In this way, while some feel little hesitation in

pronouncing the American civilization original, others, no less

certainly, discern in it a Hebrew, or an Egyptian, or a Chinese, or a

Tartar origin, as their eyes are attracted by the light of analogy too

exclusively to this or the other quarter. The number of contradictory

lights, of itself, perplexes the judgment and prevents us from arriving

at a precise and positive inference. Indeed, the affectation of this, in

so doubtful a matter, argues a most unphilosophical mind. Yet where

there is most doubt there is often the most dogmatism.

The reader of the preceding pages may perhaps acquiesce in the general

conclusions,--not startling by their novelty,--

First, that the coincidences are sufficiently strong to authorize a

belief that the civilization of Anahuac was in some degree influenced by

that of Eastern Asia.

And, secondly, that the discrepancies are such as to carry back the

communication to a very remote period; so remote that this foreign

influence has been too feeble to interfere materially with the growth

of what may be regarded in its essential features as a peculiar and

indigenous civilization.[458]

BOOK II

DISCOVERY OF MEXICO

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHARLES V.]

[Illustration: _Goupil & Cº. Paris_]

BOOK II

DISCOVERY OF MEXICO

CHAPTER I

SPAIN UNDER CHARLES V--PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY--COLONIAL

POLICY--CONQUEST OF CUBA--EXPEDITIONS TO YUCATAN

1516-1518

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain occupied perhaps the

most prominent position on the theatre of Europe. The numerous states

into which she had been so long divided were consolidated into one

monarchy. The Moslem crescent, after reigning there for eight centuries,

was no longer seen on her borders. The authority of the crown did not,

as in later times, overshadow the inferior orders of the state. The

people enjoyed the inestimable privilege of political representation,

and exercised it with manly independence. The nation at large could

boast as great a degree of constitutional freedom as any other, at that

time, in Christendom. Under a system of salutary laws and an equitable

administration, domestic tranquillity was secured, public credit

established, trade, manufactures, and even the more elegant arts, began

to flourish; while a higher education called forth the first blossoms of

that literature which was to ripen into so rich a harvest before the

close of the century. Arms abroad kept pace with arts at home. Spain

found her empire suddenly enlarged by important acquisitions both in

Europe and Africa, while a New World beyond the waters poured into her

lap treasures of countless wealth and opened an unbounded field for

honorable enterprise.

Such was the condition of the kingdom at the close of the long and

glorious reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, when, on the 23d of January,

1516, the sceptre passed into the hands of their daughter Joanna, or

rather their grandson,[459] Charles the Fifth, who alone ruled the

monarchy during the long and imbecile existence of his unfortunate

mother. During the two years following Ferdinand’s death, the regency,

in the absence of Charles, was held by Cardinal Ximenes, a man whose

intrepidity, extraordinary talents, and capacity for great enterprises

were accompanied by a haughty spirit, which made him too indifferent as

to the means of their execution. His administration, therefore,

notwithstanding the uprightness of his intentions, was, from his total

disregard of forms, unfavorable to constitutional liberty; for respect

for forms is an essential element of freedom. With all his faults,

however, Ximenes was a Spaniard; and the object he had at heart was the

good of his country.

It was otherwise on the arrival of Charles, who, after a long absence,

came as a foreigner into the land of his fathers. (November, 1517.) His

manners, sympathies, even his language, were foreign, for he spoke the

Castilian with difficulty. He knew little of his native country, of the

character of the people or their institutions. He seemed to care still

less for them; while his natural reserve precluded that freedom of

communication which might have counteracted, to some extent, at least,

the errors of education. In everything, in short, he was a foreigner,

and resigned himself to the direction of his Flemish counsellors with a

docility that gave little augury of his future greatness.

On his entrance into Castile, the young monarch was accompanied by a

swarm of courtly sycophants, who settled, like locusts, on every place

of profit and honor throughout the kingdom. A Fleming was made grand

chancellor of Castile; another Fleming was placed in the archiepiscopal

see of Toledo. They even ventured to profane the sanctity of the Cortes,

by intruding themselves on its deliberations. Yet that body did not

tamely submit to these usurpations, but gave vent to its indignation in

tones becoming the representatives of a free people.[460]

The deportment of Charles, so different from that to which the Spaniards

had been accustomed under the benign administration of Ferdinand and

Isabella, closed all hearts against him; and, as his character came to

be understood, instead of the spontaneous outpourings of loyalty which

usually greet the accession of a new and youthful sovereign, he was

everywhere encountered by opposition and disgust. In Castile, and

afterwards in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, the commons hesitated to

confer on him the title of _King_ during the lifetime of his mother;

and, though they eventually yielded this point, and associated his name

with hers in the sovereignty, yet they reluctantly granted the supplies

he demanded, and, when they did so, watched over their appropriation

with a vigilance which left little to gratify the cupidity of the

Flemings. The language of the legislature on these occasions, though

temperate and respectful, breathes a spirit of resolute independence not

to be found, probably, on the parliamentary records of any other nation

at that period. No wonder that Charles should have early imbibed a

disgust for these popular assemblies,--the only bodies whence truths so

unpalatable could find their way to the ears of the sovereign![461]

Unfortunately, they had no influence on his conduct; till the

discontent, long allowed to fester in secret, broke out in that sad war

of the _comunidades_, which shook the state to its foundations and ended

in the subversion of its liberties.[462]

The same pestilent foreign influence was felt, though much less

sensibly, in the colonial administration. This had been placed, in the

preceding reign, under the immediate charge of the two great tribunals,

the Council of the Indies, and the _Casa de Contratacion_, or India

House, at Seville. It was their business to further the progress of

discovery, watch over the infant settlements, and adjust the disputes

which grew up in them. But the licenses granted to private adventurers

did more for the cause of discovery than the patronage of the crown or

its officers. The long peace, enjoyed with slight interruption by Spain

in the early part of the sixteenth century, was most auspicious for

this; and the restless cavalier, who could no longer win laurels on the

fields of Africa or Europe, turned with eagerness to the brilliant

career opened to him beyond the ocean.

It is difficult for those of our time, as familiar from childhood with

the most remote places on the globe as with those in their own

neighborhood, to picture to themselves the feelings of the men who lived

in the sixteenth century. The dread mystery which had so long hung over

the great deep had, indeed, been removed. It was no longer beset with

the same undefined horrors as when Columbus launched his bold bark on

its dark and unknown waters. A new and glorious world had been thrown

open. But as to the precise spot where that world lay, its extent, its

history, whether it were island or continent,--of all this they had very

vague and confused conceptions. Many, in their ignorance, blindly

adopted the erroneous conclusion into which the great Admiral had been

led by his superior science,--that the new countries were a part of

Asia; and, as the mariner wandered among the Bahamas, or steered his

caravel across the Caribbean Seas, he fancied he was inhaling the rich

odors of the spice-islands in the Indian Ocean. Thus every fresh

discovery, interpreted by this previous delusion, served to confirm him

in his error, or, at least, to fill his mind with new perplexities.

The career thus thrown open had all the fascinations of a desperate

hazard, on which the adventurer staked all his hopes of fortune, fame,

and life itself. It was not often, indeed, that he won the rich prize

which he most coveted; but then he was sure to win the meed of glory,

scarcely less dear to his chivalrous spirit; and, if he survived to

return to his home, he had wonderful stories to recount, of perilous

chances among the strange people he had visited, and the burning climes

whose rank fertility and magnificence of vegetation so far surpassed

anything he had witnessed in his own. These reports added fresh fuel to

imaginations already warmed by the study of those tales of chivalry

which formed the favorite reading of the Spaniards at that period. Thus

romance and reality acted on each other, and the soul of the Spaniard

was exalted to that pitch of enthusiasm which enabled him to encounter

the terrible trials that lay in the path of the discoverer. Indeed, the

life of the cavalier of that day was romance put into action. The story

of his adventures in the New World forms one of the most remarkable

pages in the history of man.

Under this chivalrous spirit of enterprise, the progress of discovery

had extended, by the beginning of Charles the Fifth’s reign, from the

Bay of Honduras, along the winding shores of Darien, and the South

American continent, to the Rio de la Plata. The mighty barrier of the

Isthmus had been climbed, and the Pacific descried, by Nuñez de Balboa,

second only to Columbus in this valiant band of “ocean chivalry.” The

Bahamas and Caribbee Islands had been explored, as well as the Peninsula

of Florida on the northern continent. This latter point had been reached

by Sebastian Cabot in his descent along the coast from Labrador, in

1497. So that before 1518, the period when our narrative begins, the

eastern borders of both the great continents had been surveyed through

nearly their whole extent. The shores of the great Mexican Gulf,

however, sweeping with a wide circuit far into the interior, remained

still concealed, with the rich realms that lay beyond, from the eye of

the navigator. The time had now come for their discovery.

The business of colonization had kept pace with that of discovery. In

several of the islands, and in various parts of Terra Firma, and in

Darien, settlements had been established, under the control of governors

who affected the state and authority of viceroys. Grants of land were

assigned to the colonists, on which they raised the natural products of

the soil, but gave still more attention to the sugar-cane, imported from

the Canaries. Sugar, indeed, together with the beautiful dye-woods of

the country and the precious metals, formed almost the only articles of

export in the infancy of the colonies, which had not yet introduced

those other staples of the West Indian commerce which in our day

constitute its principal wealth. Yet the precious metals, painfully

gleaned from a few scanty sources, would have made poor returns, but for

the gratuitous labor of the Indians.

The cruel system of _repartimientos_, or distribution of the Indians as

slaves among the conquerors, had been suppressed by Isabella. Although

subsequently countenanced by the government, it was under the most

careful limitations. But it is impossible to license crime by

halves,--to authorize injustice at all, and hope to regulate the measure

of it. The eloquent remonstrances of the Dominicans,--who devoted

themselves to the good work of conversion in the New World with the same

zeal that they showed for persecution in the Old,--but, above all, those

of Las Casas, induced the regent, Ximenes, to send out a commission with

full powers to inquire into the alleged grievances and to redress them.

It had authority, moreover, to investigate the conduct of the civil

officers, and to reform any abuses in their administration. This

extraordinary commission consisted of three Hieronymite friars and an

eminent jurist, all men of learning and unblemished piety.

They conducted the inquiry in a very dispassionate manner, but, after

long deliberation, came to a conclusion most unfavorable to the demands

of Las Casas, who insisted on the entire freedom of the natives. This

conclusion they justified on the grounds that the Indians would not

labor without compulsion, and that, unless they labored, they could not

be brought into communication with the whites, nor be converted to

Christianity. Whatever we may think of this argument, it was doubtless

urged with sincerity by its advocates, whose conduct through their whole

administration places their motives above suspicion. They accompanied it

with many careful provisions for the protection of the natives. But in

vain. The simple people, accustomed all their days to a life of

indolence and ease, sank under the oppressions of their masters, and the

population wasted away with even more frightful rapidity than did the

aborigines in our own country under the operation of other causes. It is

not necessary to pursue these details further, into which I have been

led by the desire to put the reader in possession of the general policy

and state of affairs in the New World at the period when the present

narrative begins.[463]

Of the islands, Cuba was the second discovered; but no attempt had been

made to plant a colony there during the lifetime of Columbus, who,

indeed, after skirting the whole extent of its southern coast, died in

the conviction that it was part of the continent.[464] At length, in

1511, Diego, the son and successor of the “Admiral,” who still

maintained the seat of government in Hispaniola,[465] finding the mines

much exhausted there, proposed to occupy the neighboring island of Cuba,

or Fernandina, as it was called in compliment to the Spanish

monarch.[466] He prepared a small force for the conquest, which he

placed under the command of Don Diego Velasquez; a man described by a

contemporary as “possessed of considerable experience in military

affairs, having served seventeen years in the European wars; as honest,

illustrious by his lineage and reputation, covetous of glory, and

somewhat more covetous of wealth.”[467] The portrait was sketched by no

unfriendly hand.

Velasquez, or rather his lieutenant, Narvaez, who took the office on

himself of scouring the country, met with no serious opposition from the

inhabitants, who were of the same family with the effeminate natives of

Hispaniola. The conquest, through the merciful interposition of Las

Casas, “the protector of the Indians,” who accompanied the army in its

march, was effected without much bloodshed. One chief, indeed, named

Hatuey, having fled originally from St. Domingo to escape the oppression

of its invaders, made a desperate resistance, for which he was condemned

by Velasquez to be burned alive. It was he who made that memorable

reply, more eloquent than a volume of invective. When urged at the stake

to embrace Christianity, that his soul might find admission into heaven,

he inquired if the white men would go there. On being answered in the

affirmative, he exclaimed, “Then I will not be a Christian; for I would

not go again to a place where I must find men so cruel!”[468]

After the conquest, Velasquez, now appointed governor, diligently

occupied himself with measures for promoting the prosperity of the

island. He formed a number of settlements, bearing the same names with

the modern towns, and made St. Jago,[469] on the southeast corner, the

seat of government.[470] He invited settlers by liberal grants of land

and slaves. He encouraged them to cultivate the soil, and gave

particular attention to the sugar-cane, so profitable an article of

commerce in later times. He was, above all, intent on working the

gold-mines, which promised better returns than those in Hispaniola. The

affairs of his government did not prevent him, meanwhile, from casting

many a wistful glance at the discoveries going forward on the continent,

and he longed for an opportunity to embark in these golden adventures

himself. Fortune gave him the occasion he desired.

An _hidalgo_ of Cuba, named Hernandez de Cordova, sailed with three

vessels on an expedition to one of the neighboring Bahama Islands, in

quest of Indian slaves.[471] (February 8, 1517.) He encountered a

succession of heavy gales which drove him far out of his course, and at

the end of three weeks he found himself on a strange and unknown coast.

On landing and asking the name of the country, he was answered by the

natives, “_Tectetan_,” meaning, “I do not understand you,”--but which

the Spaniards, misinterpreting into the name of the place, easily

corrupted into Yucatan. Some writers give a different etymology.[472]

Such mistakes, however, were not uncommon with the early discoverers,

and have been the origin of many a name on the American continent.[473]

Cordova had landed on the northeastern end of the peninsula, at Cape

Catoche. He was astonished at the size and solid materials of the

buildings, constructed of stone and lime, so different from the frail

tenements of reeds and rushes which formed the habitations of the

islanders. He was struck, also, with the higher cultivation of the soil,

and with the delicate texture of the cotton garments and gold ornaments

of the natives. Everything indicated a civilization far superior to

anything he had before witnessed in the New World. He saw the evidence

of a different race, moreover, in the warlike spirit of the people.

Rumors of the Spaniards had, perhaps, preceded them, as they were

repeatedly asked if they came from the east; and wherever they landed

they were met with the most deadly hostility. Cordova himself, in one of

his skirmishes with the Indians, received more than a dozen wounds, and

one only of his party escaped unhurt. At length, when he had coasted the

peninsula as far as Campeachy, he returned to Cuba, which he reached

after an absence of several months, having suffered all the extremities

of ill which these pioneers of the ocean were sometimes called to

endure, and which none but the most courageous spirit could have

survived. As it was, half the original number, consisting of one hundred

and ten men, perished, including their brave commander, who died soon

after his return. The reports he had brought back of the country, and,

still more, the specimens of curiously wrought gold, convinced Velasquez

of the importance of this discovery, and he prepared with all despatch

to avail himself of it.[474]

He accordingly fitted out a little squadron of four vessels for the

newly-discovered lands, and placed it under the command of his nephew,

Juan de Grijalva, a man on whose probity, prudence, and attachment to

himself he knew he could rely. The fleet left the port of St. Jago de

Cuba, May 1, 1518.[475][476] It took the course pursued by Cordova, but

was driven somewhat to the south, the first land that it made being the

island of Cozumel. From this quarter Grijaiva soon passed over to the

continent, and coasted the peninsula, touching at the same place as his

predecessor. Everywhere he was struck, like him, with the evidences of a

higher civilization, especially in the architecture; as he well might

be, since this was the region of those extraordinary remains which have

become recently the subject of so much speculation. He was astonished,

also, at the sight of large stone crosses, evidently objects of worship,

which he met with in various places. Reminded by these circumstances of

his own country, he gave the peninsula the name of “New Spain,” a name

since appropriated to a much wider extent of territory.[477]

Wherever Grijalva landed, he experienced the same unfriendly reception

as Cordova; though he suffered less, being better prepared to meet it.

In the _Rio de Tabasco_, or _Grijalva_, as it is often called, after

him, he held an amicable conference with a chief who gave him a number

of gold plates fashioned into a sort of armor. As he wound round the

Mexican coast, one of his captains, Pedro de Alvarado, afterwards famous

in the Conquest, entered a river, to which he, also, left his own name.

In a neighboring stream, called the _Rio de Vanderas_, or “River of

Banners,” from the ensigns displayed by the natives on its borders,

Grijaiva had the first communication with the Mexicans themselves.

The cacique who ruled over this province had received notice of the

approach of the Europeans, and of their extraordinary appearance. He was

anxious to collect all the information he could respecting them and the

motives of their visit, that he might transmit them to his master, the

Aztec emperor.[478] A friendly conference took place between the parties

on shore, where Grijalva landed with all his force, so as to make a

suitable impression on the mind of the barbaric chief. The interview

lasted some hours, though, as there was no one on either side to

interpret the language of the other, they could communicate only by

signs. They, however, interchanged presents, and the Spaniards had the

satisfaction of receiving, for a few worthless toys and trinkets, a rich

treasure of jewels, gold ornaments and vessels, of the most fantastic

forms and workmanship.[479]

Grijalva now thought that in this successful traffic--successful beyond

his most sanguine expectations--he had accomplished the chief object of

his mission. He steadily refused the solicitations of his followers to

plant a colony on the spot,--a work of no little difficulty in so

populous and powerful a country as this appeared to be. To this, indeed,

he was inclined, but deemed it contrary to his instructions, which

limited him to barter with the natives. He therefore despatched Alvarado

in one of the caravels back to Cuba, with the treasure and such

intelligence as he had gleaned of the great empire in the interior, and

then pursued his voyage along the coast.

He touched at San Juan de Ulua, and at the _Isla de los Sacrificios_, so

called by him from the bloody remains of human victims found in one of

the temples. He then held on his course as far as the province of

Panuco, where, finding some difficulty in doubling a boisterous

headland, he returned on his track, and, after an absence of nearly six

months, reached Cuba in safety. Grijalva has the glory of being the

first navigator who set foot on the Mexican soil and opened an

intercourse with the Aztecs.[480]

On reaching the island, he was surprised to learn that another and more

formidable armament had been fitted out to follow up his own

discoveries, and to find orders, at the same time, from the governor,

couched in no very courteous language, to repair at once to St. Jago. He

was received by that personage not merely with coldness, but with

reproaches for having neglected so fair an opportunity of establishing a

colony in the country he had visited. Velasquez was one of those

captious spirits who, when things do not go exactly to their minds, are

sure to shift the responsibility of the failure from their own

shoulders, where it should lie, to those of others. He had an ungenerous

nature, says an old writer, credulous, and easily moved to

suspicion.[481] In the present instance it was most unmerited. Grijalva,

naturally a modest, unassuming person, had acted in obedience to the

instructions of his commander, given before sailing, and had done this

in opposition to his own judgment and the importunities of his

followers. His conduct merited anything but censure from his

employer.[482]

When Alvarado had returned to Cuba with his golden freight, and the

accounts of the rich empire of Mexico which he had gathered from the

natives, the heart of the governor swelled with rapture as he saw his

dreams of avarice and ambition so likely to be realized. Impatient of

the long absence of Grijalva, he despatched a vessel in search of him

under the command of Olid, a cavalier who took an important part

afterwards in the Conquest. Finally he resolved to fit out another

armament on a sufficient scale to insure the subjugation of the country.

He previously solicited authority for this from the Hieronymite

commission in St. Domingo. He then despatched his chaplain to Spain with

the royal share of the gold brought from Mexico, and a full account of

the intelligence gleaned there. He set forth his own manifold services,

and solicited from the court full powers to go on with the conquest and

colonization of the newly-discovered regions.[483] Before receiving an

answer, he began his preparations for the armament, and, first of all,

endeavored to find a suitable person to share the expense of it and to

take the command. Such a person he found, after some difficulty and

delay, in Hernando Cortés; the man of all others best calculated to

achieve this great enterprise,--the last man to whom Velasquez, could he

have foreseen the results, would have confided it.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF HERNANDO CORTÉS]

[Illustration: _Goupil & Cº Paris_]

CHAPTER II

HERNANDO CORTÉS--HIS EARLY LIFE--VISITS THE NEW WORLD--HIS

RESIDENCE IN CUBA--DIFFICULTIES WITH VELASQUEZ--ARMADA INTRUSTED TO

CORTÉS

1518

Hernando Cortés was born at Medellin, a town in the southeast corner of

Estremadura,[484] in 1485.[485] He came of an ancient and respectable

family; and historians have gratified the national vanity by tracing it

up to the Lombard kings, whose descendants crossed the Pyrenees and

established themselves in Aragon under the Gothic monarchy.[486] This

royal genealogy was not found out till Cortés had acquired a name which

would confer distinction on any descent, however noble. His father,

Martin Cortés de Monroy, was a captain of infantry, in moderate

circumstances, but a man of unblemished honor; and both he and his wife,

Doña Catalina Pizarro Altamirano, appear to have been much regarded for

their excellent qualities.[487]

In his infancy Cortés is said to have had a feeble constitution, which

strengthened as he grew older.[488] At fourteen, he was sent to

Salamanca, as his father, who conceived great hopes from his quick and

showy parts, proposed to educate him for the law, a profession which

held out better inducements to the young aspirant than any other. The

son, however, did not conform to these views. He showed little fondness

for books, and, after loitering away two years at college, returned

home, to the great chagrin of his parents. Yet his time had not been

wholly misspent, since he had laid up a little store of Latin, and

learned to write good prose, and even verses “of some estimation,

considering”--as an old writer quaintly remarks--“Cortés as the

author.”[489] He now passed his days in the idle, unprofitable manner of

one who, too wilful to be guided by others, proposes no object to

himself. His buoyant spirits were continually breaking out in

troublesome frolics and capricious humors, quite at variance with the

orderly habits of his father’s household. He showed a particular

inclination for the military profession, or rather for the life of

adventure to which in those days it was sure to lead. And when, at the

age of seventeen, he proposed to enroll himself under the banners of the

Great Captain, his parents, probably thinking a life of hardship and

hazard abroad preferable to one of idleness at home, made no objection.

The youthful cavalier, however, hesitated whether to seek his fortunes

under that victorious chief, or in the New World, where gold as well as

glory was to be won, and where the very dangers had a mystery and

romance in them inexpressibly fascinating to a youthful fancy. It was in

this direction, accordingly, that the hot spirits of that day found a

vent, especially from that part of the country where Cortés lived, the

neighborhood of Seville and Cadiz, the focus of nautical enterprise. He

decided on this latter course, and an opportunity offered in the

splendid armament fitted out under Don Nicolas de Ovando, successor to

Columbus. An unlucky accident defeated the purpose of Cortés.[490]

As he was scaling a high wall, one night, which gave him access to the

apartment of a lady with whom he was engaged in an intrigue, the stones

gave way, and he was thrown down with much violence and buried under the

ruins. A severe contusion, though attended with no other serious

consequences, confined him to his bed till after the departure of the

fleet.[491]

Two years longer he remained at home, profiting little, as it would

seem, from the lesson he had received. At length he availed himself of

another opportunity presented by the departure of a small squadron of

vessels bound to the Indian islands. He was nineteen years of age when

he bade adieu to his native shores in 1504,--the same year in which

Spain lost the best and greatest in her long line of princes, Isabella

the Catholic.

The vessel in which Cortés sailed was commanded by one Alonso Quintero.

The fleet touched at the Canaries, as was common in the outward passage.

While the other vessels were detained there taking in supplies, Quintero

secretly stole out by night from the islands, with the design of

reaching Hispaniola and securing the market before the arrival of his

companions. A furious storm which he encountered, however, dismasted

his ship, and he was obliged to return to port and refit. The convoy

consented to wait for their unworthy partner, and after a short

detention they all sailed in company again. But the faithless Quintero,

as they drew near the islands, availed himself once more of the darkness

of the night, to leave the squadron with the same purpose as before.

Unluckily for him, he met with a succession of heavy gales and

head-winds, which drove him from his course, and he wholly lost his

reckoning. For many days the vessel was tossed about, and all on board

were filled with apprehensions, and no little indignation against the

author of their calamities. At length they were cheered one morning with

the sight of a white dove, which, wearied by its flight, lighted on the

topmast. The biographers of Cortés speak of it as a miracle.[492]

Fortunately it was no miracle, but a very natural occurrence, showing

incontestably that they were near land. In a short time, by taking the

direction of the bird’s flight, they reached the island of Hispaniola;

and, on coming into port, the worthy master had the satisfaction to find

his companions arrived before him, and their cargoes already sold.[493]

Immediately on landing, Cortés repaired to the house of the governor, to

whom he had been personally known in Spain. Ovando was absent on an

expedition into the interior, but the young man was kindly received by

the secretary, who assured him there would be no doubt of his obtaining

a liberal grant of land to settle on. “But I came to get gold,” replied

Cortés, “not to till the soil, like a peasant.”

On the governor’s return, Cortés consented to give up his roving

thoughts, at least for a time, as the other labored to convince him that

he would be more likely to realize his wishes from the slow, indeed, but

sure, returns of husbandry, where the soil and the laborers were a free

gift to the planter, than by taking his chance in the lottery of

adventure, in which there were so many blanks to a prize. He accordingly

received a grant of land, with a _repartimiento_ of Indians, and was

appointed notary of the town or settlement of Açua. His graver pursuits,

however, did not prevent his indulgence of the amorous propensities

which belong to the sunny clime where he was born; and this frequently

involved him in affairs of honor, from which, though an expert

swordsman, he carried away scars that accompanied him to his grave.[494]

He occasionally, moreover, found the means of breaking up the monotony

of his way of life by engaging in the military expeditions which, under

the command of Ovando’s lieutenant, Diego Velasquez, were employed to

suppress the insurrections of the natives. In this school the young

adventurer first studied the wild tactics of Indian warfare; he became

familiar with toil and danger, and with those deeds of cruelty which

have too often, alas! stained the bright scutcheons of the Castilian

chivalry in the New World. He was only prevented by illness--a most

fortunate one, on this occasion--from embarking in Nicuessa’s

expedition, which furnished a tale of woe not often matched in the

annals of Spanish discovery. Providence reserved him for higher ends.

At length, in 1511, when Velasquez undertook the conquest of Cuba,

Cortés willingly abandoned his quiet life for the stirring scenes there

opened, and took part in the expedition. He displayed, throughout the

invasion, an activity and courage that won him the approbation of the

commander; while his free and cordial manners, his good humor and lively

sallies of wit, made him the favorite of the soldiers. “He gave little

evidence,” says a contemporary, “of the great qualities which he

afterwards showed.” It is probable these qualities were not known to

himself; while to a common observer his careless manners and jocund

repartees might well seem incompatible with anything serious or

profound; as the real depth of the current is not suspected under the

light play and sunny sparkling of the surface.[495]

After the reduction of the island, Cortés seems to have been held in

great favor by Velasquez, now appointed its governor. According to Las

Casas, he was made one of his secretaries.[496] He still retained the

same fondness for gallantry, for which his handsome person afforded

obvious advantages, but which had more than once brought him into

trouble in earlier life. Among the families who had taken up their

residence in Cuba was one of the name of Xuarez, from Granada in Old

Spain. It consisted of a brother, and four sisters remarkable for their

beauty. With one of them, named Catalina, the susceptible heart of the

young soldier became enamored.[497] How far the intimacy was carried is

not quite certain. But it appears he gave his promise to marry her,--a

promise which, when the time came, and reason, it may be, had got the

better of passion, he showed no alacrity in keeping. He resisted,

indeed, all remonstrances to this effect, from the lady’s family, backed

by the governor, and somewhat sharpened, no doubt, in the latter by the

particular interest he took in one of the fair sisters, who is said not

to have repaid it with ingratitude.

Whether the rebuke of Velasquez or some other cause of disgust rankled

in the breast of Cortés, he now became cold towards his patron, and

connected himself with a disaffected party tolerably numerous in the

island. They were in the habit of meeting at his house and brooding over

their causes of discontent, chiefly founded, it would appear, on what

they conceived an ill requital of their services in the distribution of

lands and offices. It may well be imagined that it could have been no

easy task for the ruler of one of these colonies, however discreet and

well intentioned, to satisfy the indefinite cravings of speculators and

adventurers, who swarmed, like so many famished harpies, in the track of

discovery in the New World.[498]

The malecontents determined to lay their grievances before the higher

authorities in Hispaniola, from whom Velasquez had received his

commission. The voyage was one of some hazard, as it was to be made in

an open boat, across an arm of the sea eighteen leagues wide; and they

fixed on Cortés, with whose fearless spirit they were well acquainted,

as the fittest man to undertake it. The conspiracy got wind, and came to

the governor’s ears before the departure of the envoy, whom he instantly

caused to be seized, loaded with fetters, and placed in strict

confinement. It is even said he would have hung him, but for the

interposition of his friends.[499] The fact is not incredible. The

governors of these little territories, having entire control over the

fortunes of their subjects, enjoyed an authority far more despotic than

that of the sovereign himself. They were generally men of rank and

personal consideration; their distance from the mother-country withdrew

their conduct from searching scrutiny, and, when that did occur, they

usually had interest and means of corruption at command sufficient to

shield them from punishment. The Spanish colonial history, in its

earlier stages, affords striking instances of the extraordinary

assumption and abuse of powers by these petty potentates; and the sad

fate of Vasquez Nuñez de Balboa, the illustrious discoverer of the

Pacific, though the most signal, is by no means a solitary example, that

the greatest services could be requited by persecution and an

ignominious death.

The governor of Cuba, however, although irascible and suspicious in his

nature, does not seem to have been vindictive, nor particularly cruel.

In the present instance, indeed, it may well be doubted whether the

blame would not be more reasonably charged on the unfounded expectations

of his followers than on himself.

Cortés did not long remain in durance. He contrived to throw back one of

the bolts of his fetters, and, after extricating his limbs, succeeded in

forcing open a window with the irons so as to admit of his escape. He

was lodged on the second floor of the building, and was able to let

himself down to the pavement without injury, and unobserved. He then

made the best of his way to a neighboring church, where he claimed the

privilege of sanctuary.

Velasquez, though incensed at his escape, was afraid to violate the

sanctity of the place by employing force. But he stationed a guard in

the neighborhood, with orders to seize the fugitive if he should forget

himself so far as to leave the sanctuary. In a few days this happened.

As Cortés was carelessly standing without the walls in front of the

building, an _alguacil_ suddenly sprang on him from behind and pinioned

his arms, while others rushed in and secured him. This man, whose name

was Juan Escudero, was afterwards hung by Cortés for some offence in New

Spain.[500]

The unlucky prisoner was again put in irons, and carried on board a

vessel to sail the next morning for Hispaniola, there to undergo his

trial. Fortune favored him once more. He succeeded, after much

difficulty and no little pain, in passing his feet through the rings

which shackled them. He then came cautiously on deck, and, covered by

the darkness of the night, stole quietly down the side of the ship into

a boat that lay floating below. He pushed off from the vessel with as

little noise as possible. As he drew near the shore, the stream became

rapid and turbulent. He hesitated to trust his boat to it, and, as he

was an excellent swimmer, prepared to breast it himself, and boldly

plunged into the water. The current was strong, but the arm of a man

struggling for life was stronger; and, after buffeting the waves till he

was nearly exhausted, he succeeded in gaining a landing; when he sought

refuge in the same sanctuary which had protected him before. The

facility with which Cortés a second time effected his escape may lead

one to doubt the fidelity of his guards; who perhaps looked on him as

the victim of persecution, and felt the influence of those popular

manners which seem to have gained him friends in every society into

which he was thrown.[501]

For some reason not explained,--perhaps from policy,--he now

relinquished his objections to the marriage with Catalina Xuarez. He

thus secured the good offices of her family. Soon afterwards the

governor himself relented, and became reconciled to his unfortunate

enemy. A strange story is told in connection with this event. It is said

his proud spirit refused to accept the proffers of reconciliation made

him by Velasquez; and that one evening, leaving the sanctuary, he

presented himself unexpectedly before the latter in his own quarters,

when on a military excursion at some distance from the capital. The

governor, startled by the sudden apparition of his enemy completely

armed before him, with some dismay inquired the meaning of it. Cortés

answered by insisting on a full explanation of his previous conduct.

After some hot discussion the interview terminated amicably; the parties

embraced, and, when a messenger arrived to announce the escape of

Cortés, he found him in the apartments of his Excellency, where, having

retired to rest, both were actually sleeping in the same bed! The

anecdote is repeated without distrust by more than one biographer of

Cortés.[502] It is not very probable, however, that a haughty,

irascible man like Velasquez should have given such uncommon proofs of

condescension and familiarity to one, so far beneath him in station,

with whom he had been so recently in deadly feud; nor, on the other

hand, that Cortés should have had the silly temerity to brave the lion

in his den, where a single nod would have sent him to the gibbet,--and

that, too, with as little compunction or fear of consequences as would

have attended the execution of an Indian slave.[503]

The reconciliation with the governor, however brought about, was

permanent. Cortés, though not re-established in the office of secretary,

received a liberal _repartimiento_ of Indians, and an ample territory in

the neighborhood of St. Jago, of which he was soon after made _alcalde_.

He now lived almost wholly on his estate, devoting himself to

agriculture with more zeal than formerly. He stocked his plantation with

different kinds of cattle, some of which were first introduced by him

into Cuba.[504] He wrought, also, the gold-mines which fell to his

share, and which in this island promised better returns than those in

Hispaniola. By this course of industry he found himself, in a few years,

master of some two or three thousand _castellanos_, a large sum for one

in his situation. “God, who alone knows at what cost of Indian lives it

was obtained,” exclaims Las Casas, “will take account of it!”[505] His

days glided smoothly away in these tranquil pursuits, and in the society

of his beautiful wife, who, however ineligible as a connection, from the

inferiority of her condition, appears to have fulfilled all the

relations of a faithful and affectionate partner. Indeed, he was often

heard to say at this time, as the good bishop above quoted remarks,

“that he lived as happily with her as if she had been the daughter of a

duchess.” Fortune gave him the means in after-life of verifying the

truth of his assertion.[506]

Such was the state of things, when Alvarado returned with the tidings of

Grijalva’s discoveries and the rich fruits of his traffic with the

natives. The news spread like wildfire throughout the island; for all

saw in it the promise of more important results than any hitherto

obtained. The governor, as already noticed, resolved to follow up the

track of discovery with a more considerable armament; and he looked

around for a proper person to share the expense of it and to take the

command.

Several hidalgos presented themselves, whom, from want of proper

qualifications, or from his distrust of their assuming an independence

of their employer, he, one after another, rejected. There were two

persons in St. Jago in whom he placed great confidence,--Amador de

Lares, the _contador_, or royal treasurer,[507] and his own secretary,

Andres de Duero. Cortés was also in close intimacy with both these

persons; and he availed himself of it to prevail on them to recommend

him as a suitable person to be intrusted with the expedition. It is said

he reinforced the proposal by promising a liberal share of the proceeds

of it. However this may be, the parties urged his selection by the

governor with all the eloquence of which they were capable. That officer

had had ample experience of the capacity and courage of the candidate.

He knew, too, that he had acquired a fortune which would enable him to

co-operate materially in fitting out the armament. His popularity in the

island would speedily attract followers to his standard.[508] All past

animosities had long since been buried in oblivion, and the confidence

he was now to repose in him would insure his fidelity and gratitude. He

lent a willing ear, therefore, to the recommendation of his counsellors,

and, sending for Cortés, announced his purpose of making him

Captain-General of the Armada.[509]

Cortés had now attained the object of his wishes,--the object for which

his soul had panted ever since he had set foot in the New World. He was

no longer to be condemned to a life of mercenary drudgery, nor to be

cooped up within the precincts of a petty island; but he was to be

placed on a new and independent theatre of action, and a boundless

prospective was opened to his view, which might satisfy not merely the

wildest cravings of avarice, but, to a bold, aspiring spirit like his,

the far more importunate cravings of ambition. He fully appreciated the

importance of the late discoveries, and read in them the existence of

the great empire in the far West, dark hints of which had floated, from

time to time, to the Islands, and of which more certain glimpses had

been caught by those who had reached the continent. This was the country

intimated to the “Great Admiral” in his visit to Honduras in 1502, and

which he might have reached had he held on a northern course, instead of

striking to the south in quest of an imaginary strait. As it was, “he

had but opened the gate,” to use his own bitter expression, “for others

to enter.” The time had at length come when they were to enter it; and

the young adventurer, whose magic lance was to dissolve the spell which

had so long hung over these mysterious regions, now stood ready to

assume the enterprise.

From this hour the deportment of Cortés seemed to undergo a change. His

thoughts, instead of evaporating in empty levities or idle flashes of

merriment, were wholly concentrated on the great object to which he was

devoted. His elastic spirits were shown in cheering and stimulating the

companions of his toilsome duties, and he was roused to a generous

enthusiasm, of which even those who knew him best had not conceived him

capable. He applied at once all the money in his possession to fitting

out the armament. He raised more by the mortgage of his estates, and by

giving his obligations to some wealthy merchants of the place, who

relied for their reimbursement on the success of the expedition; and,

when his own credit was exhausted, he availed himself of that of his

friends.

The funds thus acquired he expended in the purchase of vessels,

provisions, and military stores, while he invited recruits by offers of

assistance to such as were too poor to provide for themselves, and by

the additional promise of a liberal share of the anticipated

profits.[510]

All was now bustle and excitement in the little town of St. Jago. Some

were busy in refitting the vessels and getting them ready for the

voyage; some in providing naval stores; others in converting their own

estates into money in order to equip themselves; every one seemed

anxious to contribute in some way or other to the success of the

expedition. Six ships, some of them of a large size, had already been

procured; and three hundred recruits enrolled themselves in the course

of a few days, eager to seek their fortunes under the banner of this

daring and popular chieftain.

How far the governor contributed towards the expenses of the outfit is

not very clear. If the friends of Cortés are to be believed, nearly the

whole burden fell on him; since, while he supplied the squadron without

remuneration, the governor sold many of his own stores at an exorbitant

profit.[511] Yet it does not seem probable that Velasquez, with such

ample means at his command, should have thrown on his deputy the burden

of the expedition, nor that the latter--had he done so--could have been

in a condition to meet these expenses, amounting, as we are told, to

more than twenty thousand gold ducats. Still it cannot be denied that an

ambitious man like Cortés, who was to reap all the glory of the

enterprise, would very naturally be less solicitous to count the gains

of it, than his employer, who, inactive at home, and having no laurels

to win, must look on the pecuniary profits as his only recompense. The

question gave rise, some years later, to a furious litigation between

the parties, with which it is not necessary at present to embarrass the

reader.

It is due to Velasquez to state that the instructions delivered by him

for the conduct of the expedition cannot be charged with a narrow or

mercenary spirit. The first object of the voyage was to find Grijaiva,

after which the two commanders were to proceed in company together.

Reports had been brought back by Cordova, on his return from the first

visit to Yucatan, that six Christians were said to be lingering in

captivity in the interior of the country. It was supposed they might

belong to the party of the unfortunate Nicuessa, and orders were given

to find them out, if possible, and restore them to liberty. But the

great object of the expedition was barter with the natives. In pursuing

this, special care was to be taken that they should receive no wrong,

but be treated with kindness and humanity. Cortés was to bear in mind,

above all things, that the object which the Spanish monarch had most at

heart was the conversion of the Indians. He was to impress on them the

grandeur and goodness of his royal master, to invite them “to give in

their allegiance to him, and to manifest it by regaling him with such

comfortable presents of gold, pearls, and precious stones as, by showing

their own good will, would secure his favor and protection.” He was to

make an accurate survey of the coast, sounding its bays and inlets for

the benefit of future navigators. He was to acquaint himself with the

natural products of the country, with the character of its different

races, their institutions and progress in civilization; and he was to

send home minute accounts of all these, together with such articles as

he should obtain in his intercourse with them. Finally, he was to take

_the most careful care_ to omit nothing that might redound to the

service of God or his sovereign.[512]

Such was the general tenor of the instructions given to Cortés; and they

must be admitted to provide for the interests of science and humanity,

as well as for those which had reference only to a commercial

speculation. It may seem strange, considering the discontent shown by

Velasquez with his former captain, Grijalva, for not colonizing, that no

directions should have been given to that effect here. But he had not

yet received from Spain the warrant for investing his agents with such

powers; and that which had been obtained from the Hieronymite fathers in

Hispaniola conceded only the right to traffic with the natives. The

commission at the same time recognized the authority of Cortés as

Captain-General of the expedition.[513]

CHAPTER III

JEALOUSY OF VELASQUEZ--CORTÉS EMBARKS--EQUIPMENT OF HIS FLEET--HIS

PERSON AND CHARACTER--RENDEZVOUS AT HAVANA--STRENGTH OF HIS

ARMAMENT

1519

The importance given to Cortés by his new position, and, perhaps, a

somewhat more lofty bearing, gradually gave uneasiness to the naturally

suspicious temper of Velasquez, who became apprehensive that his

officer, when away where he would have the power, might also have the

inclination, to throw off his dependence on him altogether. An

accidental circumstance at this time heightened these suspicions. A mad

fellow, his jester, one of those crack-brained wits--half wit, half

fool--who formed in those days a common appendage to every great man’s

establishment, called out to the governor, as he was taking his usual

walk one morning with Cortés towards the port, “Have a care, master

Velasquez, or we shall have to go a-hunting, some day or other, after

this same captain of ours!” “Do you hear what the rogue says?” exclaimed

the governor to his companion. “Do not heed him,” said Cortés: “he is a

saucy knave, and deserves a good whipping.” The words sank deep,

however, in the mind of Velasquez,--as, indeed, true jests are apt to

stick.

There were not wanting persons about his Excellency who fanned the

latent embers of jealousy into a blaze. These worthy gentlemen, some of

them kinsmen of Velasquez, who probably felt their own deserts somewhat

thrown into the shade by the rising fortunes of Cortés, reminded the

governor of his ancient quarrel with that officer, and of the little

probability that affronts so keenly felt at the time could ever be

forgotten. By these and similar suggestions, and by misconstructions of

the present conduct of Cortés, they wrought on the passions of Velasquez

to such a degree that he resolved to intrust the expedition to other

hands.[514]

He communicated his design to his confidential advisers, Lares and

Duero, and these trusty personages reported it without delay to Cortés,

although, “to a man of half his penetration,” says Las Casas, “the thing

would have been readily divined from the governor’s altered

demeanor.”[515] The two functionaries advised their friend to expedite

matters as much as possible, and to lose no time in getting his fleet

ready for sea, if he would retain the command of it. Cortés showed the

same prompt decision on this occasion which more than once afterwards

in a similar crisis gave the direction to his destiny.

He had not yet got his complement of men, nor of vessels, and was very

inadequately provided with supplies of any kind. But he resolved to

weigh anchor that very night. He waited on his officers, informed them

of his purpose, and probably of the cause of it; and at midnight, when

the town was hushed in sleep, they all went quietly on board, and the

little squadron dropped down the bay. First, however, Cortés had visited

the person whose business it was to supply the place with meat, and

relieved him of all his stock on hand, notwithstanding his complaint

that the city must suffer for it on the morrow, leaving him, at the same

time, in payment, a massive gold chain of much value, which he wore

round his neck.[516]