CHAPTER I.

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CALAVAR

Or The Knight of the Conquest

A Romance of Mexico

by

ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD

Author of "Nick of the Woods," "The Infidel," Etc.

Escucha pues, un rato, y dire cosas

Estranas y espantosas, poco a poco.

GARCILASO DE LA VEGA.

Redfield

110 And 112 Nassau Street, New York.

Third Edition.

1854

Entered according to the act of Congress in the year 1834, by

Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, in the clerk's office of the district

court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.

It is now thirteen years since the first publication of "Calavar,"

which, apart from the ordinary objects of an author, was written chiefly

with a view of illustrating what was deemed the most romantic and

poetical chapter in the history of the New World; but partly, also, with

the hope of calling the attention of Americans to a portion of the

continent which it required little political forecast to perceive must,

before many years, assume a new and particular interest to the people of

the United States. It was a part of the original design to prepare the

way for a history of Mexico, which the author meditated; a design which

was, however, soon abandoned. There was then little interest really felt

in Mexican affairs, which presented, as they have always done since the

first insurrection of Hidalgo, a scene of desperate confusion, not

calculated to elevate republican institutions in the opinions of the

world. Even the events in Texas had not, at that time, attracted much

attention. Mexico was, in the popular notion, regarded as a part of

_South_ America, the _alter ego_ almost of Peru,--beyond the world, and

the concerns of Americans. There was little thought, and less talk, of

"the halls of the Montezumas;" and the ancient Mexican history was left

to entertain school-boys, in the pages of Robertson.

"Calavar" effected its more important purpose, as far as could be

expected of a mere work of fiction. The revolution of Texas, which

dismembered from the mountain republic the finest and fairest portion of

her territory, attracted the eyes and speculations of the world; and

from that moment, Mexico has been an object of regard. The admirable

history of Prescott has rendered all readers familiar with the ancient

annals of the Conquest; and now, with an American army thundering at the

gates of the capital, and an American general resting his republican

limbs on the throne of Guatimozin and the Spanish Viceroys, it may be

believed that a more earnest and universal attention is directed towards

Mexico than was ever before bestowed, since the time when Cortes

conquered upon the same field of fame where Scott is now victorious.

There is, indeed, a remarkable parallel between the invasions of the two

great captains. There is the same route up the same difficult and lofty

mountains; the same city, in the same most magnificent of valleys, as

the object of attack; the same petty forces, and the same daring

intrepidity leading them against millions of enemies, fighting in the

heart of their own country; and finally, the same desperate fury of

unequal armies contending in mortal combat on the causeways and in the

streets of Mexico. We might say, perhaps, that there is the same purpose

of conquest: but we do not believe that the American people aim at, or

desire, the subjugation of Mexico.

"Calavar" was designed to describe the first campaign, or first year, of

Cortes in Mexico. It was written with an attempt at the strictest

historical accuracy compatible with the requisitions of romance; and as

it embraces, in a narrow compass, and--what was at least meant to be--a

popular form, a picture of the war of 1520, which so many will like to

contrast with that of 1847, the publishers have thought that its

revival, in a cheap edition, would prove acceptable to the reading

community. The republication has, indeed, been suggested and called for

by numerous persons desirous to obtain copies of the book, which has

been for some time out of print.

The revival of the romance might have furnished its author an

opportunity to remove many faults which, he is sensible, exist in it.

Long dialogues might have been contracted, heavy descriptions lightened

or expunged, and antiquated phraseology modernized, with undoubted

benefit. But, after a respectful consideration of all critical

suggestions, friendly or unfriendly, the author has not thought it of

consequence to attempt the improvement of a work of so trivial and

evanescent a character; and he accordingly commits it again to the world

precisely as it was first committed, with all its faults--would he could

say, its merits--unchanged; satisfied with any fate that may befall it,

or any reception it may meet, which should either imply its having given

some little pleasure, or imparted some little information, to its

readers.

R. M. B.

Philadelphia.

INTRODUCTION.

Nature, and the memory of strange deeds of renown have flung over the

valley of Mexico a charm more romantic than is attached to many of the

vales of the olden world for though historic association and the spell

of poetry have consecrated the borders of Leman and the laurel groves of

Tempe, and Providence has touched both with the finger of beauty, yet

does our fancy, in either, dwell upon objects which are not so much the

adjuvants of romance as of sentiment; in both, we gather food rather for

feeling than imagination,--we live over thoughts which are generated by

memory, and our conceptions are the reproductions of experience. But

poetry has added no plenary charm, history has cast no over-sufficient

light on the haunts of Montezuma; on the Valley of Lakes, though filled

with the hum of life, the mysteries of backward years are yet brooding;

and the marvels of human destiny are whispered to our ears, in the sigh

of every breeze,--in the rustling of every tree which it stirs on the

shore, and in the sound of every ripple it curls up on the lake. One

chapter only of its history (and that how full of marvels!) has been

written, or preserved; the rest is a blank: a single chain of

vicissitudes,--a few consecutive links in the concatenation of

events,--have escaped; the rest is a secret, strange, captivating, and

pregnant of possibilities. This is the proper field for romantic

musings.

So, at least, thought a traveller,--or, to speak more strictly, a

rambler, whose idle wanderings from place to place, directed by ennui

or whim, did not deserve the name of travels,--who sat, one pleasant

evening of October, 183-, on the hill of Chapoltepec, regarding the

spectacle which is disclosed from the summit of that fair promontory.

The hum of the city came faintly to his ear; the church-towers flung

their long shadows over the gardened roofs; the wildfowl flapped the

white wing over the distant sheets of water, which stretched, in a

chain, from Chalco to San Cristobal; the shouts of Indian boatmen were

heard, at a distance, on the canal of La Viga, and the dark forms of

others, trotting along the causeway that borders it, were seen returning

to their huts among the _Chinampas_. Quiet stole over the valley; the

lizard crept to his hole; the bat woke up in the ruined chambers of the

viceroy's palace, that crowns the hill of Chapoltepec, or started away

from his den among the leaves of those mossy, majestic, and indeed

colossal, cypresses, which, at its base, overshadow the graves of Aztec

kings and sultanas. At last, the vesper-bells sounded in the city, and

the sun stooped under the western hills, leaving his rays still

glittering, with such hues as are only seen in a land of mountains, on

the grand peaks of Popocatepetl and the White Woman, the farthest but

yet the noblest summits of all in that girdle of mountain magnificence,

which seems to shut out Mexico from the rest of the world.

As these bright tints faded into a mellow and harmonious lustre, casting

a sort of radiant obscurity over vale and mountain, lake and steeple,

the thoughts of the wanderer (for the romance of the spectacle and the

hour had pervaded his imagination,) crept back to the ages of antiquity

and to those mystic races of men, the earliest of the land, who had

built their cities and dug their graves in this Alpine paradise, now

possessed by a race of whom their world had not dreamed. He gazed and

mused, until fancy peopled the scene around him with spectral life, and

his spirit's eye was opened on spectacles never more to be revealed to

the corporeal organ. It opened on the day when the land was a

wilderness, shaking for the first time under the foot of a stranger; and

he beheld, as in a vision, the various emigrations and irruptions into

the vale, of men born in other climates. They came like the tides of

ocean, and, as such, passed away,--like shadows, and so departed; the

history of ages was compressed into the representation of a moment, and

an hundred generations, assembled together as one people, rushed by in

successive apparitions.

First, over the distant ridges of Nochistongo, there stole, or seemed to

steal, a multitude of men, worn with travel, yet bearing idols on their

backs, in whose honour, for now they had reached their land of promise,

they built huge pyramids, to outlive their gods and themselves; and,

scattering over the whole plain, covered it at once with cornfields and

cities. The historian (for this unknown race brought with it science as

well as religion,) sat him in the grove, to trace the pictured annals of

his age; the astronomer ascended to the tower, to observe the heavens,

and calculate the seasons, of the new land; while the multitude,

forgetting the austere climes of their nativity, sat down in peace and

joy, under the vines and fruit-trees that made their place of habitation

so beautiful. Thus they rested and multiplied, until the barbarians of

the hills,--the earlier races, and perhaps the aborigines of the

land,--descended to take counsel of their wisdom, and follow in the ways

of civilization. Then came a cloud, bringing a pestilence, in whose hot

breath the rivers vanished, the lakes turned to dust and the mountains

to volcanoes, the trees crackled and fell as before a conflagration, and

men lay scorched with the leaves, as thick and as dead, on the plain;

and the few who had strength to fly, betook themselves to the hills and

the seaside, to forget their miseries and their arts, and become

barbarians.--Thus began, and thus ended, in Mexico, the race of

_Toltecs_, the first and the most civilized of which Mexican

hieroglyphics,--the legacy of this buried people to their

successors,--have preserved the memory.

But the rains fell at last, the lakes filled, the forests grew; and

other tribes,--the _Chechemecs_ and _Acolhuacans_, with others, many in

number and strangers to each other,--coming from the same distant North,

but bringing not the civilization of the first pilgrims, sat in their

seats, and mingling together into one people, began, at last, after long

seasons of barbarism, to emerge from the gloom of ignorance, and acquire

the arts, and understand the destinies of man.

To these came, by the same trodden path, a herd of men, ruder than any

who had yet visited the southern valleys,--_Aztecs_ in family, but

called by their neighbours and foes, _Nahuatlacas_, or People of the

Lakes,--consisting of many tribes, the chief of which was that which

bore upon a throne of bulrushes an image of the god Mexitli, the

Destroyer, from whom, in its days of grandeur, it took its name. From

this crew of savages, the most benighted and blood-thirsty, and, at

first, the feeblest of all,--so base that history presents them as the

only nation of bondmen known to the region of Anahuac, and so sordid

that, in the festivals of religion, they could provide for their deity

only the poor offering of a knife and flower,--fated now to fight the

battles of their task-masters, and now condemned to knead the bread of

independence from the fetid plants and foul reptiles of the lake;--from

this herd of barbarians, grew, as it seemed, in a moment's space, the

vast, the powerful, and, in many respects, the magnificent empire of the

Montezumas. In his mind's eye, the stranger could perceive the salt

Tezcuco, restored to its ancient limits, beating again upon the porphyry

hill on which he sat, and the City of the Island, with her hundred

temples and her thousand towers, rising from the shadows, and heaving

again with the impulses of nascent civilization. It was at this moment,

when the travail of centuries was about to be recompensed, when the

carved statue, the work of many successive Pygmalions, was beginning to

breathe the breath, and feel the instincts of moral animation, that a

mysterious destiny trampled upon the little spark, and crushed to atoms

the body it was warming. From the eastern hills came the voice of the

Old World--the sound of the battle-trumpet; the smoke of artillery

rolled over the lake; and, in a moment more, the shout of conquest and

glory was answered by the groan of a dying nation.

As this revery ended in the brain of the stranger, and the conqueror and

the captive of the vision vanished away together, he began to contrast

in his mind the past condition of the new world with the present, and

particularly of those two portions, which, at the time of their

invasion, had outlived the barbarism of nature, and were teeming with

the evidences of incipient greatness. As for this fair valley of Mexico,

there was scarcely an object either of beauty or utility, the creation

of Christian wants or Christian taste, to be seen, for which his memory

could not trace a rival, or superior, which existed in the day of

paganism. The maize fields, the maguey plantations, the orchards and

flower-gardens, that beautify the plains and sweeping slopes,--these

were here, long ages ago, with the many villages that glisten among

them,--all indeed but the white church and steeple; the lakes which are

now noisome pools,--were they not lovelier when they covered the

pestilential fens, and when the rose-garden floated over their blue

surface? The long rows of trees marking the line of the great

_Calzadas_, or causeways, the approaches to Mezico, but poorly supply

the place of aboriginal groves, the haunts of the doe and the

centzontli, while the calzadas themselves, stretching along over bog and

morass, have entirely lost the charm they possessed, when washed, on

either side, by rolling surges; even the aqueducts, though they sprang

not from arch to arch, over the valley, as at the present time, were not

wanting; and where the church spires of the metropolis pierce the

heaven, the sacred tabernacles of the gods rose from the summits of

pyramids. The changes in the physical spectacle among the valleys of

Peru were perhaps not much greater; but what happy mutations in the

character and condition of man, what advance of knowledge and virtue,

had repaid the havoc and horror which were let loose, three hundred

years ago, on the lands of Montezuma and the Incas? The question was one

to which the rambler could not conceive an answer without pain.

'The ways of Providence,' he murmured, 'are indeed inscrutable; the

designs of Him who layeth the corner-stone and buildeth up the fabric of

destiny, unfathomable. Two mighty empires,--the only states which seemed

to be leading the new world to civilization,--were broken, and at an

expense of millions of lives, barbarously destroyed; and for what

purpose? to what good end? How much better or happier are the present

races of Peru and Mexico, than the past? Hope speaks in the breath of

fancy--time may, perhaps, teach us the lesson of mystery; and these

magnificent climates, now given up, a second time, to the sway of man in

his darkest mood,--to civilized savages and Christian pagans,--may be

made the seats of peace and wisdom; and perhaps, if mankind should again

descend into the gloom of the middle ages, their inhabitants will

preserve, as did the more barbarous nations in all previous

retrogressions, the brands from which to rekindle the torches of

knowledge, and thus be made the engines of the reclamation of a world.'

The traveller muttered the conclusion of his speculations aloud, and,

insensibly to himself, in the Spanish tongue, totally unconscious of the

presence of a second person, until made aware of it by a voice

exclaiming suddenly, as if in answer, and in the same language--

"Right! very right! _pecador de mi!_ sinner that I am, that _I_ should

not have thought it, for the honour of God and my country!"

The voice was sharp, abrupt, and eager, but very quavering. The stranger

turned, and perceived that the words came from a man dressed in a long

loose surtout or gown of black texture, none of the newest, with a hat

of Manilla grass, umbrageous as an oak-top. He looked old and infirm;

his person was very meager; his cheeks were of a mahogany hue, and

hollow, and the little hair that stirred over them in the evening

breeze, was of a sable silvered: his eyes were large, restless,

exceedingly bright, and irascible. He carried swinging in his hand,

without seeming to use it much, (for, in truth, his gait was too

irregular and capricious to admit such support,) a staff, to the head of

which was tied a bunch of flowers; and he bore under his arm, as they

seemed to the unpractised eye of the observer, a bundle of books, a

cluster of veritable quartos, so antique and worn, that the string

knotted round each, seemed necessary to keep together its dilapidated

pages. The whole air of the man was unique, but not mean; and the

traveller did not doubt, at the first glance, that he belonged to some

inferior order of ecclesiastics, and was perhaps the curate of a

neighbouring village.

"Right! you have said the truth!" he continued, regarding the traveller

eagerly, and, as the latter thought, with profound veneration; "I must

speak with you, very learned stranger, for I perceive you are a

philosopher. Very great thanks to you! may you live a thousand years! In

a single word, you have revealed the secret that has been the enigma of

a long life, made good the justice of heaven, and defended the fame of

my country. God be thanked! I am grateful to your wisdom: you speak like

a saint: you are a philosopher!"

The traveller stared with surprise on the speaker; but though thus moved

by the abruptness of the address, and somewhat inclined to doubt its

seriousness, there was something so unusual in the mode and quality of

the compliment as to mollify any indignation which he might have felt

rising in his breast.

"Father," said he, "reverend father--for I perceive you are one of the

clergy----"

"The poor licentiate, Cristobal Johualicahuatzin, curate of the parish

of San Pablo de Chinchaluca," interrupted the ecclesiastic meekly, and

in fact with the greatest humility.

"Then, indeed, very excellent and worthy father Cristobal," resumed the

stranger, courteously, "though I do not pretend to understand you----"

The padre raised his head; his meekness vanished; he eyed the traveller

with a sharp and indignant frown:

"_Gachupin!_" he cried; "you are a man with two souls: you are wise and

you are foolish, and you speak bad Spanish!--Why do you insult me?"

The stranger stared at his new acquaintance with fresh amazement.

"Insult you, father!" he exclaimed. "I declare to you, I have, this

moment, woke out of a revery; and I scarcely know what you have said or

what I have answered, or what you are saying and what I am answering. If

I have offended you, I ask your pardon."

"Enough! right!" said the curate, with an air of satisfaction; "you are

a philosopher; you are right. You were in a revery; you have done me no

wrong. I have intruded upon your musings,--I beg your pardon. I thank

you very heartily. You have instructed my ignorance, and appeased my

repining; you have taught me the answer to a vast and painful riddle;

and now I perceive why Providence hath given over my native land to

seeming ruin, and permitted it to become a place of dust and sand, of

dry-rot and death. The day of darkness shall come again,--it is coming;

man merges again into gloom, and now we fall into the age of stone, when

the hearts of men shall be as flint. This then shall be the valley of

resuscitation, after it is first _plenus ossibus_, full of skeletons, an

ossuary--a place of moral ossification. Here, then, shall the wind blow,

the voice sound, the spirit move, the bone unite to his bone, the sinew

come with the flesh, and light and knowledge, animating the mass into an

army, send it forth to conquer the world;--not as an army of flesh, with

drum and trump, sword and spear, banner and cannon, to kill and destroy,

to ravage and depopulate; but as a phalanx of angels, with healing on

their wings, to harmonize and enlighten, to pacify and adorn. Yes, you

have taught me this, excellent sage! and you shall know my gratitude:

for great joy is it to the child of Moteuczoma, to know there shall be

an end to this desolation, this anarchy, this horror!

Vigilare metu exanimis, noctesque diesque

Formidare:----

Came I into the world to watch in sorrow and fear for ever? _Hijo mio!_

give me thy hand; I love thee. The vale of Anahuac is not deformed for

nothing; Christian man has ruined it, but not for a long season!"

The Cura delivered this rhapsody with extreme animation; his eye

kindled, he spoke with a rapid and confused vehemence; and the stranger

began to doubt the stability of his understanding. He flung his bundle

to the earth, and grasped the hand of the philosopher, who, until this

moment, was ignorant of the depth of his own wisdom. While still in

perplexity, unable to comprehend the strange character, or indeed the

strange fancies to which he had given tongue, the padre looked around

him with complacency on the scene, over which a tropical moon was rising

to replace the luminary of day, and continued, with a gravity which

puzzled as much as did his late vivacity,--

"It is very true; I regret it no longer, but it cannot be denied: The

cutting through yonder hill of Nochistongo has given the last blow in a

system of devastation; the canal of Huehuetoca has emptied the golden

pitcher of Moteuczoma. It has converted the valley into a desert, and

will depopulate it.--Men cannot live upon salt."

"A desert, father!"

"Hijo mio! do you pretend to deny it?" cried the Cura, picking up his

bundle, and thumping it with energy. "I aver, and I will prove it to

your satisfaction, out of these books, which--But hold! Are you a spy?

will you betray me? No; you are not of Mexico: the cameo on your breast

bears the device of stars, the symbol of intellectual as well as

political independence. I reverence that flag; I saw it, when your

envoy, attacked by an infuriated mob, in his house in yonder very city,

(I stole there in spite of them!) sprang upon the balcony, and waved it

abroad in the street. Frenzy vanished at the sight: it was the banner of

man's friend!--No! you are no fool with a free arm, a licentious tongue,

and a soul in chains. Therefore, you shall look into these pages,

concealed for years from the jealousy of misconstruction, and the penal

fires of intolerance; and they shall convince you, that this hollow of

the mountain, as it came from the hands of God, and as it was occupied

by the children of nature, was the loveliest of all the vales of the

earth; and that, since Christian man has laid upon it his innovating

finger, its beauty has vanished, its charm decayed; and it has become a

place fitting only for a den of thieves, a refuge for the snake and the

water-newt, the wild-hog and the vulture!"

"To my mind, father," said the American, no longer amazed at the

extravagant expressions of the ecclesiastic, for he was persuaded his

wits were disordered, "to my mind, it is still the most charming of

valleys; and were it not that the folly and madness of its inhabitants,

the contemptible ambition of its rulers, and the servile supineness of

its people,--in fine, the general disorganization of all its elements,

both social and political, have made it a sort of Pandemonium,--a spot

wherein splendour and grandeur (at least the possibilities and rudiments

of grandeur,) are mixed with all the causes of decline and perdition, I

should be fain to dream away my life on the borders of its blue lakes,

and under the shadow of its volcanic barriers."

"True, true, true! you have said it!" replied the curate, eagerly; "the

ambition of public men; the feverish servility of the people, forgetful

of themselves, of their own rights and interests, and ever anxious to

yoke themselves to the cars of demagogues, to the wires wherewith they

may be worked as puppets, and giving their blood to aggrandize

these--the natural enemies of order and justice, of reason and

tranquillity; is not this enough to demoralize and destroy? What people

is like mine? Wo for us! The bondmen of the old world wake from sleep

and live, while we, in the blessed light of sunshine, wrap the mantle

round our eyes, sleep, and perish! Revolution after revolution, frenzy

after frenzy! and what do we gain? By revolution, other nations are

liberated, but we, by revolution, are enslaved. 'Nil medium est'--is

there no happy mean?"

"It is true," said the American. "But let us not speak of this: it is

galling to be able to inveigh against folly without possessing the

medicament for its cure."

"Thou art an American of the North," said the Cura; "thy people are

wise, thy rulers are servants, and you are happy! Why, then, art thou

here? I thought thee a sage, but, I perceive, thou hast the rashness of

youth. Art thou here to learn to despise thine own institutions? Why

dost thou remain? the death-wind comes from the southern lakes"--(in

fact, at this moment, the breeze from the south, rising with the moon,

brought with it a mephitic odour, the effluvium of a bog, famous, even

in Aztec days, as the breath of pestilence;) "the death-wind breathes on

thee: even as this will infect thy blood, when it has entered into thy

nostrils, disordering thy body, until thou learnest to loathe all that

seems to thee now, in this scenery, to be so goodly and fair; so will

the gusts of anarchy, rising from a distempered republic, disease thy

imagination, until thou comest to be disgusted with the yet untainted

excellence of thine own institutions, because thou perceivest the evils

of their perversion. Arise, and begone; remain no longer with us; leave

this land, and bear with thee to thine own, these volumes,--the poor

remnants of another Sibylline library,--which will teach thee to

appreciate and preserve, even as thy soul's ransom, the pure and

admirable frame of government, which a beneficent power has suffered you

to enjoy."

"And what, then, are these?" demanded the traveller, curiously, laying

his hand on the bundle, "which can teach Americans to admire the beauty

of a republic, and yet are not given to thine own countrymen?"

"They are," said the curate, "the fruits of years of reflection and

toil, of deep research and profound speculation. They contain a history

of Mexico, which, when they were perfect, that is, before my

countrymen," (and here the Cura began to whisper, and look about him in

alarm, as if dreading the approach of listeners,)--"before my

countrymen were taught to fear them and to destroy, contained the

chronicles of the land, from the time that the Toltecas were exiled from

_Huehuetapallan_, more than twelve hundred years ago, down to the moment

when Augustin climbed up to the throne, which Hidalgo tore from the

Cachupins. A history wherein," continued the padre, with great

complacency, "I flatter myself, though Mexicans have found much to

detest, Americans will discover somewhat to approve."

"What is it," said the rambler, "which your people have found so

objectionable?"

"Listen," said the padre, "and you shall be informed. In me,"--here he

paused, and surveyed his acquaintance with as much majesty as he could

infuse into his wasted figure and hollow countenance,--"in me you behold

a descendant of Moteuczoma Xocojotzin."

"Moteuczoma what?" exclaimed the traveller.

"Are you so ignorant, then?" demanded the padre, in a heat, "that you

must be told who was Moteuczoma Xocojotzin, that is, _the younger_,--the

second of that name who reigned over Mexico?--the very magnificent and

unfortunate emperor so basely decoyed into captivity, so ruthlessly

oppressed and, as I may say, by a figure of speech, (for, literally, it

is not true) so truculently slain, by the illustrious Don Hernan Cortes,

the conqueror of Mexico? Perhaps you are also ignorant of the great

names of Tizoc, of Xocotzin, and of Ixtlilxochitl?"

"I have no doubt," replied the American, with courteous humility, "that

in the histories of Mexico, which I have ever delighted to read,--in the

books of De Solis, of Clavigero, of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, and

especially in that of Dr. Robertson,--I have met these illustrious

names; but you must allow, that, to one ignorant of the language, and of

the mode of pronouncing such conglomerated grunts, it must be extremely

difficult, if not wholly impossible, to rivet them in the memory."

The curate snatched up his bundle, and surveyed the stranger with a look

in which it was hard to tell whether anger or contempt bore the greater

sway.

"De Solis! Diaz! Clavigero! Robertson!" he at last exclaimed, irefully.

"_Basta! demasiado?_ What a _nino_, a little child, a _pobre Yankee_,

have I fallen upon! That I should waste my words on a man who studies

Mexican history out of the books of these jolterheads!"

The padre was about to depart, without bestowing another word on the

offender. The American was amused at the ready transition of the curate

from deep reverence to the most unbounded contempt. He was persuaded the

wits of the poor father were unsettled, and felt there was the greater

need to humour and appease him: and, besides, he was curious to discover

what would be the end of the adventure.

"Father," said he, with composure, "before you condemn me for acquiring

my little knowledge from these books, you should put it in my power to

read better."--The padre looked back.--"What information should be

expected from incompetent writers? from jolterheads? When I have perused

the histories of father Cristobal, it will then be _my_ fault, if I am

found ignorant of the names of his imperial ancestors."

"_Ay de mi!_" said the curate, striking his forehead; "why did I not

think of that before? _Santos santisimos!_ I am not so quick-witted as I

was before. I could forgive you more readily, had you not named to me

that infidel Scotchman, who calls the superb Moteuczoma a savage, and

all the Tlatoani, the great princes, and princesses, the people and all,

barbarians! But what more could you expect of a heretic? I forgive you,

my son--_you_ are a Christian?"

"A Christian, father; but not of the Catholic faith."

"You will be damned!" said the curate, hastily.

"A point of mere creed, perhaps I should say, mere form--"

"Say nothing about it; form or creed, ceremony or canon, you are in the

way to be lost. Open your ears, unbind your eyes--hear, see, and

believe!--Poor, miserable darkened creature! how can your heretical

understanding be made to conceive and profit by the great principles of

philosophy, when it is blind to the truths of religion?"

"Reverend padre," said the traveller, drily, "my people are a people of

heretics, and yours of Catholic believers. Which has better understood,

or better practised, the principles of the philosophy you affect to

admire?"

The padre smote his forehead a second time: "The sneer is, in this case,

just! The sin of the enlightened is greater than the crime of the

ignorant, and so is the punishment: the chosen people of God were

chastised with frequent bondage, and finally with expatriation and

entire dispersion, for crimes, which, in heathen nations, were punished

only with wars and famine. But let us not waste time in argument: as

babes may be made the organs of wisdom, so may heretics be suffered as

the instruments of worldly benefaction. What thou sayest, is true;

unbelievers as ye are, ye will comprehend and be instructed by truths,

which, in this land, would be misconceived and opposed; and from you may

the knowledge you gain, be reflected back on my own people. In these

books, which I commit to you for a great purpose, you will learn who

were those worthies of whom I spoke. You will perceive how

Ixtlilxochitl, the king of Tezcuco, was descended from the house that

gave birth to Moteuczoma. This illustrious name inherit I from my

mother. With its glory, it has conferred the penalty to be suspected,

opposed, and trampled. Three historians of the name, my ancestors, have

already written in vain; jealousy has locked up their works in darkness,

in the veil of manuscript; the privilege of chronicling and perverting

the history of the land is permitted only to Spaniards, to strangers, to

Gachupins. Twenty years since, and more, the books I composed, wherein

the truth was told, and the injustice of Spanish writers made manifest,

were condemned by ignorance and bigotry to such flames as consumed, at

Tezcuco, all the native chronicles of Anahuac. But what was written in

my books, was also recorded in the brain; fire could not be put to my

memory. Twenty years of secret labour have repaired the loss. Behold!

here is my history; I give it to you.--My enemies must be content with

the ashes!"

The padre rubbed his hands with exultation, as the traveller surveyed

the bundle.

"Why should you fear a similar fate for these volumes, now?" said the

latter. "Times are changed."

"The times, but not the people. Hide them, let no man see them; or the

pile will be kindled again; all will be lost--I cannot repair the loss a

second time, for now I am old! Five years have I borne them with me,

night and day, seeking for some one cunning and faithful, wise like

thyself, to whom to commit them. I have found thee; thou art the man; I

am satisfied: _buen provecho_, much good may they do you,--not you only,

but your people,--not your people alone, but the world! Affection for

country is love of mankind; true patriotism is philanthropy.--Five years

have I borne them with me, by night and by day."

"Really, I think that this betokened no great fear for their safety."

The padre laughed. "Though the Gachupin and the bigot would rob me of a

Spanish dissertation, yet neither would envy me the possession of a few

rolls of hieroglyphics."

As he spoke, he knelt upon the ground, untied the string that secured

one of the apparent volumes, and, beginning to unfold the MS., as one

would a very nicely secured traveller's map, displayed, in the

moonlight, a huge sheet of maguey paper, emblazoned in gaudy colours

with all kinds of inexplicable devices. As he exhibited his treasure, he

looked up for approbation to the American. The '_pobre Yankee_' surveyed

him with a humorous look:

"Father," said he, "you have succeeded to admiration, under this goodly

disguise, not only in concealing your wisdom from the penetration of

your countrymen, but, as I think, the whole world."

The padre raised his finger to his nose very significantly, saying, with

a chuckle of delight,--the delight of a diseased brain in the success of

its cunning,--

"This time, I knew I should throw dust in their eyes, even though they

might demand, for their satisfaction, to look into my work. You

perceive, that this volume, done up after the true manner of ancient

Mexican books, unrolls from either end. The first pages, and the last,

of each volume, contain duplicates of the first and the last chapters,

done in Mexican characters: the rest is in Spanish, and, I flatter

myself, in very choice Spanish. _Hoc ego recte_--I knew what I was

about.--One does not smuggle diamonds in sausages, without stuffing in

some of the minced meat.--Here is the jewel!"

So saying, and spreading the sheet at its full length, so as to discover

his hidden records, the padre rose to his feet, and began to dance about

with exultation.

"And what am _I_ to do with these volumes?" said the traveller, after

pondering awhile over the manuscripts.

"What are you to do with them? Dios mio! are you so stupid? Take them,

hide them in your bosom, as you would the soul of some friend you were

smuggling into paradise. Leave this land forthwith, on any pretence;

bear them with you; translate them into your own tongue, and let them be

given to the world. If they do not, after they have received the seal of

your approbation, make their way back to this land, they will, at least,

serve some few of the many objects, for which they were written: they

will set the character of my great ancestors in its true light, and

teach the world to think justly of the unfortunate people from whom I

have the honour to be descended; and, in addition, they will open the

eyes of men to some of the specks of barbarism which yet sully their own

foreheads. As for my countrymen, were it even possible they could be

persuaded to spare these pages, and to read them, they would read them

in vain. They are a thousand years removed from civilization, and the

wisdom of this book would be to them as folly. The barbaric romance

which loiters about the brains even of European nations, is the pith and

medulla of a Mexican head. The poetry of bloodshed, the sentiment of

renown,--the first and last passion, and the true test, of the savage

state,--are not yet removed from us. We are not yet civilized up to the

point of seeing that reason reprobates, human happiness denounces, and

God abhors, the splendour of contention. Your own people--the happiest

and most favoured of modern days,--are, perhaps, not so backward."

The heretic sighed.--The padre went on, and with the smile of

generosity,--tying, at the same time, the string that secured the

volume, and knotting it again into the bundle.

"The profits which may accrue from the publication, I freely make over

to you, as some recompense for the trouble of translation, and the

danger you run in assuming the custody. Danger, I say,--heaven forbid I

should not acquaint you, that the discovery of these volumes on your

person, besides insuring their speedy and irretrievable destruction,

will expose you to punishment, perhaps to the flames which will be

kindled for them; and this the more readily, that you are an

unbeliever.--Pray, my son, listen to me; suffer me to convert you.

Alas! you shake your head!--What a pity, I am compelled to entrust this

great commission to a man who refuses to be a Christian!"

"Buen padre, let us say nothing about that: judge me not by the creed I

profess, but by the acts I perform. Let us despatch this business: the

moon is bright, but the air is raw and unwholesome. I would willingly do

your bidding, not doubting that the world will be greatly advantaged

thereby. But, father, here is the difficulty:--To do justice to your

composition, I should, myself, possess the skill of an author; but,

really, I feel my incompetency--I am no bookmaker."

"And am I?" said the descendant of Moteuczoma, indignantly; "I am an

historian!"

"I crave your pardon;--but _I_ am not."

"And who said you were?" demanded the historian, with contempt. "Do I

expect of you the qualifications or the labours of an historian? Do I

ask you to write a book? to rake for records in dusty closets and wormy

shelves? to decypher crabbed hands and mouldered prints? to wade through

the fathers of stupidity, until your brain turns to dough, and your eyes

to pots of glue? to gather materials with the labour of a pearl-diver,

and then to digest and arrange, to methodise and elucidate, with the

patient martyrdom of an almanac-maker? Who asks you this? Do I look for

a long head, an inspired brain? a wit, a genius? _Ni por sueno_,--by no

means. I ask you to read and render,--to translate;--to do the tailor's

office, and make my work a new coat! Any one can do this!"

"Father," said the traveller, "your arguments are unanswerable; do me

the favour to send, or to bring, your production to the city, to the

Calle----"

"Send! bring! _Se burla vm.?_" cried the padre, looking aghast. "Do you

want to ruin me? Know, that by the sentence of the archbishop and the

command of the viceroy, I am interdicted from the city: and know that I

would sooner put my soul into the keeping of a parrot, than my books

into the hands of a messenger!"

"A viceroy, did you say, father? It has been many long years since a

king's ape has played his delegated antics in Mexico. To please you,

however, I will bear the sacred treasure in my own hands; earnestly

desiring you, notwithstanding your fears, which are now groundless, and

the prohibition, which must be at this period invalid, to do me the

favour of a visit, in person, as soon as may suit your conveniency;

inasmuch as there are many things I esteem needful to be----"

The padre had seized on the hands of the speaker, in testimony of his

delight; but before the latter had concluded his discourse, he was

interrupted by a voice at a distance, calling, as it seemed, on the

Cura; for this worthy, starting with fear, and listening a moment,

suddenly took to his heels, and before the traveller could give vent to

his surprise, was hidden among the shadows of the cypress trees.

"May I die," said the philosopher, in no little embarrassment, "but this

lunatic Cura has left me to lug away his lucubrations,--his

hieroglyphical infants, for which I am to make new coats,--on my own

shoulders! Well! I can but carry them to the city, and seek some means

of restoring them to his friends, or commit them to a more fitting

depository. Pray heaven I meet no drunken Indian, or debauched soldado

on my way."

By great good fortune, he was able, in a few days, with the assistance

of a friendly Mexican, to solve the secret of the padre's confidence.

"You have seen him then?" said the excellent Senor Don Andres

Santa-Maria de Arcaboba, laughing heartily at the grave earnestness with

which his heretical friend inquired after the eccentric padre. "He

offered you his hieroglyphics? Ah, I perceive! No man passes scot-free

the crazy Cura. Ever his books in his hand, much praise with the offer,

and seven times seven maledictions when you refuse his bantlings."

"He _is_ crazy, then?"

"_Demonios!_ were you long finding it out? Ever since the old

archbishop burned his first heathenish volumes, he has done naught

but----"

"I beg your pardon.--Burn his books?--the old archbishop?--Pray

enlighten me a little on the subject of the good father's history.

"'Tis done in a moment," said Don Andres; "the only wonder is that he

did not himself give you the story; that being, commonly, the prelude to

his petition. The mother of Don Cristobal was an Indian _damisela_,

delighting in the euphonical cognomen of Ixtlilxochitl; a name, which, I

am told, belonged to some old pagan king or other, the Lord knows

who--as for myself, I know nothing about it. But this set the padre mad,

or, what's the same thing, it made him an historian.--'Tis a silly thing

to trouble one's noddle about the concerns of our granddads: let them

sleep! rest to their bones--_Asi sea!_--They made him a licenciado, and

then Cura of some hacienda or other, out among the hills--I know nothing

about it. He wrote a book, in which he proved that the old heathen

Montezuma, the great Cacique, was a saint, and Hernan Cortes, who

conquered the land, a sinner. It may be so--_Quien sabe?_ who knows? who

cares? This was before the revolution--that is, before the first: (we

have had five hundred since;--I never counted them.) Somehow, the

viceroy Vanegas took a dislike to the book, and so did the archbishop.

They set their heads together, got the good old fathers of the

Brotherhood--(We have no Brotherhood now,--neither religious nor social:

every man is his own brother, as the king says in the English play.--Did

you ever read Calderon?) They got the old fathers to vote it

dangerous,--I suppose, because they did not understand it. So they

burned it, and commanded Johualicahuatzin--(that's another Indian

king--so he calls himself.--His father was the Senor Marhojo, a creole,

a lieutenant in the viceroy's horse, a very worthy Christian, who was

hanged somewhere, for sedition. But Cristobal writes after his mother's

name, as being more royal.)--What was I saying? Oh, yes!--They ordered

the licentiate back to his hacienda. Then, what became of him, the lord

knows; I don't.--Then came Hidalgo, the valiant priest of Dolores, with

his raggamuffin patriots,--(I don't mean any reflection, being a patriot

myself, though no fighter; but Hidalgo had a horrid crew about him!)

Where was I? Oh, ay,--Hidalgo came to knock the city about our ears; and

Cristobal, being seized with a fit of blood-thirstiness, joins me the

gang. They say, he came with an old sabre of flint--I don't know the

name; it belonged to some king in the family. Then Calleja, whom they

made viceroy--the devil confound him! (He cut my uncle's throat, with

some fourteen thousand others, at Guanaxuato, one day, to save

powder.)--Calleja chased Hidalgo to Aculco, and, there, he beat him.

Cristobal's brother (he _had_ a brother, a very fine young fellow, a

patriot major;) was killed at Cristobal's side; Cristobal was knocked on

the head,--somebody said, with his own royal weapon:--I don't

know,--where's the difference? They broke his skull, and took him

prisoner. _Y pues?_ what then? Being a notorious crazy man, and very

savagely mauled, they did not hang him. Ever since, he has been madder

than ever. He writes histories, and, to save them from viceroys, (he

takes all our presidents for viceroys: to my mind, they _are_; but

that's nothing. You know Bustamente? a mighty great man: Santa Anna will

beat him--but don't say so!) Well, to save his books from the

president-viceroys, or viceroy-presidents, Cristobal offers them to

every body he meets, with a petition to take them over the seas and

publish them.--That's all!--The Indians at the hacienda love him, and

take care of him.--Ha, ha! he caught you, did he? What did he say?"

"He gave me his books," said the traveller.

"_Fuego!_ you took them? Ha, ha! now will the poor padre die happy!"

"I will return them to his relations."

"Relations! they are all in heaven; he is the last of the

Ixtlilxochitls! Ha, ha! I beg your pardon, amigo mio! I beg your

pardon; but if you offer them to any body, never believe me, but folks

will take you for Cristobal the Second, _el segundo maniatico_, or some

one he has hired to do the work of donation. Ha, ha! cielo mio, pity me!

say nothing about it;--burn them."

"At least, let us look over them."

"_Olla podrida!_ look over a beggar's back! a pedler's sack! or a

dictionary!--Any thing reasonable. Burn them; or take them to America,

to your North, and deposit them in a museum, as the commonplace books of

Montezuma. _Vamos; que me manda vm.?_ will you ride to the

Alameda?--Pobre Cristobal! he will die happy----"

The traveller returned to his own land: he bore with him the books of

Cristobal. Twenty times did he essay to make examination of their

contents, and twenty times did he yawn, in mental abandonment, over

their chaotic pages,--not, indeed, that they seemed so _very_ incoherent

in style and manner, but because the cautious historian, as it seemed,

with a madman's subtlety, had hit upon the device of so scattering and

confusing the pages, that it was next to impossible that any one, after

reading the first, should discover the clue to the second. Each volume,

as has been hinted, consisted of a single great sheet, folded up in the

manner of a pocket map; both sides were very carefully written over, the

paragraphs clustered in masses or pages, but without numbers; and, but

for the occurrence, here and there, of pages of hideous hieroglyphics,

such as were never seen in a Christian book, the whole did not seem

unlike to a printed sheet, before it is carried to the binder. The task

of collating and methodising the disjointed portions, required, in the

words of the padre himself, the devotedness which he had figured as 'the

patient martyrdom of an almanac-maker;' it was entirely too much for the

traveller. He laid the riddle aside for future investigation: but

Cristobal was not forgotten.

A year afterwards, in reading a Mexican gazette, which had fallen into

his hands, his eye wandered to the little corner which appeals so

placidly to the feelings of the contemplative,--the place of obituaries.

His attention was instantly captivated by a name in larger characters

than the others. Was it? could it be? Pobre Cristobal!--'_El Licenciado_

Cristobal Santiago Marhojo y Ixtlilxochitl, _Cura de la Hacienda de_

Chinchaluca, _ordinariamente llamado_ El Maniatico Historiador'----. The

same! But what is this? the common immortality of a long paragraph?--The

heretic rubbed his eyes. "Several MSS., historical memoirs, relating to

the earlier ages of the Aztec monarchy, the work of his own hand, have

been discovered; and a lucky accident revealing the expedient which he

adopted to render them illegible, or at least inexplicable to common

readers, they have been found to be in all respects sane and coherent,

the work less of a madman than an eccentric but profound scholar. The

pages are arranged like those in the form of the printer; and, being cut

by a knife without unfolding----" The heretic started up, and drew forth

the long-neglected tomes.--"It is said that a North American, a year

ago, received, and carried away, many of the volumes, which the

eccentric clergyman was accustomed to offer to strangers. It is hoped,

if this should meet his eye----" 'Enough! if thy work be at all

readable, departed padre, it shall have the new coat!'

Great was the surprise of the philosopher, when having, at the

suggestion of the gazetteer, cut the folded sheet of a volume, he beheld

the chaos of history reduced to order. There they were, the annals of

Aztecs and Toltecs, of Chechemecs and Chiapanecs, and a thousand other

_Ecs_, from the death of Nezahualcojotl, the imperial poet, up to the

confusion of tongues. "Here's a nut for the philosophers," quoth the

traveller; "but now for a peep at Montezuma!--Poor Cristobal! what a

wonderful big book you have made of it!"

How many days and nights were given to the examination of the history,

we do not think fit to record. It is enough, that the inheritor of this

treasure discovered with satisfaction, that, if Cristobal had been mad,

he had been mad after a rule,--dramatically so: he was sane in the right

places. A thousand eccentricities were, indeed, imbodied in his work,

the result, doubtless, of a single aberration, in which he persuaded

himself that men were yet barbarians, and that civilization, even to the

foremost of nations, was yet unknown. Under the influence of this

conceit, he was constantly betrayed, for he was a philanthropist, into

sharp animadversion upon popular morals; and he stigmatized as vices of

the most brutal character, many of those human peculiarities which the

world has consented to esteem the highest virtues. In other respects, he

was sane, somewhat judicious, and, as far as could be expected in an

historian, a teller of the truth.

His work consisted of several divisions; it was, in fact, a series of

annals, relating to different epochs. Of these, that volume which

treated of the Conquest of Mexico, had the most charms for the

traveller; and he thought it would possess the most interest for the

world. It was this which he determined to introduce to the public. It

differed greatly from common histories in one particular; it descended

to minutiae of personal adventure, and was, indeed, as much a general

memoir of the great _Conquistadores_ as a history of the fall of

Tenochtitlan. Of this the writer was himself sensible; the running title

of the division, as recorded in his own hand, being, "_Una Cronica de la

Conquista de Megico, y Historia verdadera de los_ Conquistadores,

_particularmente de esos_ Caballeros _a quienes descuidaron celebrar los

Escritores Antiguos_. _Por Cristobal Johualicahuatzin Santiago Marhojo y

Ixtlilxochitl_;"--that is to say, 'A Chronicle of the Conquest of

Mexico, and true History of the Conquerors, especially of those

Cavaliers who were neglected by the ancient authors.'

The first portion of this,--for there were several,--treated of those

events which occurred between the departure of the first army of

invasion from Cuba, and its expulsion from Mexico, and this portion the

executor of Cristobal resolved to present to the world.

In pursuance of this resolution, he instituted a long and laborious

comparison of the MS. with the most authentic printed histories; the

result of which was a conviction, (which we beg the reader constantly to

bear in mind,) that, although the good padre had introduced, and upon

authority which his editor could not discover, the characters of certain

worthy cavaliers, of whom he had never heard, the relation, in all other

particulars, corresponded precisely with the narratives of the most

esteemed writers. The events--the great and the minute alike--of the

whole campaign were, in point of fact, identical with those chronicled

by the best authors; and in no way did this history differ from others,

except in the introduction of the above-mentioned forgotten or neglected

cavaliers, such as the knight of Calavar and his faithful esquire, and

in the recital of events strictly personal to them. It is true, the

narrative was more diffuse, perhaps we should say, verbose; but

Cristobal lived in an age of amplification. It was here alone that the

traveller felt himself bound to take liberties with the original; for

though the march of mind and the general augmentation of ideas, have

made prolixity a common characteristic of each man in his own person,

they have not made him more tolerant of it in another. He shaved,

therefore, and he cut, he amputated and he compressed; and he felt the

joy of an editor, when exercising the hydraulic press of the mind.

This will be excused in him. He expunged as much of the philosophy as he

could. The few principles at variance with worldly propensities, which

he left in the book, must be referred to another responsibility.--The

hallucinations of philanthropy are, at the worst, harmless.

For the title adopted in this, the initial chronicle, he confesses

himself answerable. The peculiar appetites of the literary community,

the result of intellectual dyspepsia, require and justify empiricism in

nomenclature. A good name is sugar and sweetmeats to a bad book. If it

should be objected, that he has called the _Historia Verdadera_ a

romance, let it be remembered, that the world likes romance better than

truth, as the booksellers can testify; and that the history of Mexico,

under all aspects but that of fiction, is itself----a romance.

* * * * *

NOTE.--It was said by the learned Scaliger, of the Basque

language, 'that those who spoke it were thought to understand

one another,--a thing which he did not himself believe.' For

fear that the reader, from the specimens of Mexican words he

will meet in this history, should imagine that the Mexican

tongue was not meant even to be _spoken_, we think fit to

apprise him, that all such words are to be pronounced as they

would be uttered by a Spaniard. In his language, for example,

the G, when before the vowels E and I, the J always, and, in

certain cases, the X, have the value of the aspirate. Thus, the

name of the city, the chief scene of our history, has been

spelled, at different times, _Mexico_, _Mejico_, and _Megico_;

yet is always pronounced _May-he-co_. The sound of our W he

represents by HU,--as _Huascar_, for Wascar; and, indeed, JU

has nearly the same sound, as in _Juan_. The names

Johualicahuatzin, Anahuac, Xocojotzin, Mexitli, and Chihuahua,

pronounced Howalicawatzin, Anawac, Hocohotzin, Meheetlee, and

Chewawa, will serve for examples. But this is a thing not to be

insisted on, so much as the degree of belief which should be

accorded to the relation.

Esto importa poco a nuestro cuento: basta que en la narracion

de el, no se salga un punto de la verdad.--_Don Quijote._

CALAVAR.

CHAPTER I.

In the year of Grace fifteen hundred and twenty, upon a day in the month

of May thereof, the sun rose over the islands of the new deep, and the

mountains that divided it from an ocean yet unknown, and looked upon the

havoc, which, in the name of God, a Christian people were working upon

the loveliest of his regions. He had seen, in the revolution of a day,

the strange transformations which a few years had brought upon all the

climes and races of his love. The standard of Portugal waved from the

minarets of the east; a Portuguese admiral swept the Persian Gulf, and

bombarded the walls of Ormuz; a Portuguese viceroy held his court on the

shores of the Indian ocean; the princes of the eastern continent had

exchanged their bracelets of gold for the iron fetters of the invader;

and among the odours of the Spice Islands, the fumes of frankincense

ascended to the God of their new masters. He passed on his course: the

breakers that dashed upon the sands of Africa, were not whiter than the

squadrons that rolled among them; the chapel was built on the shore, and

under the shadow of the crucifix was fastened the first rivet in the

slavery of her miserable children. Then rose he over the blue Atlantic:

the new continent emerged from the dusky deep; the ships of discoverers

were penetrating its estuaries and straits, from the Isles of Fire even

to the frozen promontories of Labrador; and the roar of cannon went up

to heaven, mingled with the groans and blood of naked savages. But peace

had descended upon the islands of America; the gentle tribes of these

paradises of ocean wept in subjection over the graves of more than half

their race; hamlets and cities were springing up in their valleys and on

their coasts; the culverin bellowed from the fortress, the bell pealed

from the monastery; and the civilization and vices of Europe had

supplanted the barbarism and innocence of the feeble native. Still, as

he careered to the west, new spectacles were displayed before him; the

followers of Balboa had built a proud city on the shores, and were

launching their hasty barks on the surges of the New Ocean; the hunter

of the Fountain of Youth was perishing under the arrows of the wild

warriors of Florida, and armed Spaniards were at last retreating before

a pagan multitude. One more sight of pomp and of grief awaited him: he

rose on the mountains of Mexico; the trumpet of the Spaniards echoed

among the peaks; he looked upon the bay of Ulua, and, as his beams stole

tremblingly over the swelling current, they fell upon the black hulls

and furled canvas of a great fleet riding tranquilly at its moorings.

The fate of Mexico was in the scales of destiny; the second army of

invaders had been poured upon her shores. In truth, it was a goodly

sight to look upon the armed vessels that thronged this unfrequented

bay; for peacefully and majestically they slept on the tide, and as the

morning hymn of the mariners swelled faintly on the air, one would have

thought they bore with them to the heathen the tidings of great joy, and

the good-will and grace of their divine faith, instead of the earthly

passions which were to cover the land with lamentation and death.

With the morning sunbeam, stole into the harbour one of those little

caravels, wherein the men of those days dared the perils of unknown

deeps, and sought out new paths to renown and fortune; and as she drew

nigh to the reposing fleet, the hardy adventurers who thronged her deck,

gazed with new interest and admiration on the shores of that empire,

the fame of whose wild grandeur and wealth had already driven from

their minds the dreams of Golconda and the Moluccas. No fortress frowned

on the low islands, no city glistened among the sand-hills on shore: the

surf rolled on the coast of an uninhabited waste: the tents of the

armourer and other artisans, the palm-thatched sheds of the sick, and

some heaps of military stores, covered with sails, and glimmering in the

sun, were the only evidences of life on a beach which was, in after

times, to become the site of a rich and bustling port. But beyond the

low desert margin of the sea, and over the rank and lovely belt of

verdure, which succeeded the glittering sand-hills, rose a rampart of

mountains green with an eternal vegetation, over which again peered

chain after chain, and crag after crag, with still the majestic Perote

and the colossal Orizaba frowning over all, until those who had dwelt

among the Pyrenees, or looked upon the Alps, as some of that adventurous

company had done, dreamed what wealth should be in a land, whose first

disclosure was so full of grandeur.

Of the four-score individuals who crowded the decks of the little

caravel, there was not one whose countenance, at that spectacle, did not

betray a touch of the enthusiasm,--the mingled lust of glory and of

lucre,--which had already transformed so many ruffians into heroes.

Among this motley throng might be seen all sorts of martial madmen, from

the scarred veteran who had fought the Moors under the walls of Oran, to

the runagate stripling who had hanselled his sword of lath on the curs

of Seville; from the hidalgo who remembered the pride of his ancestors,

in the cloak of his grandsire, to the boor who dreamed of the crown of a

pagan emperor, in a leather shirt and cork shoes: here was a brigand,

who had cursed the Santa Hermandad of all Castile, and now rejoiced over

a land where he could cut throats at his leisure; there a gray-haired

extortioner, whom roguery had reduced to bankruptcy, but who hoped to

repair his fortune by following the pack of man-hunters, and picking up

the offals they despised, or cheating them of the prizes they had

secured; here too was a holy secular, who came to exult over the

confusion and destruction of all barbarians who should see nothing

diviner in the crucifix than in their own idols. The greater number,

however, was composed of debauched and decayed planters of the islands,

who ceased to lament their narrow acres and decreasing bondmen, snatched

away by the good fortune of some fellow-profligate, when they thought of

territories for an estate, and whole tribes for a household. Indeed, in

all the group, however elevated and ennobled, for the moment, by the

excitement of the scene, and by the resolute impatience they displayed

to rush upon adventures well known to be full of suffering and peril,

there was but one whom a truly noble-hearted gentleman would have chosen

to regard with respect, or to approach with friendship.

This was a young cavalier, who, in propriety of habiliments, in

excellence of person, and in nobleness of carriage, differed greatly

from all: and, to say the truth, he himself seemed highly conscious of

the difference, since he regarded all his fellow-voyagers, saving only

his own particular and armed attendants, with the disdain befitting so

distinguished a personage. His frame, tall and moderately athletic, was

arrayed in hose and doublet of a dusky brown cloth, slashed with purple:

his cap and cloak were of black velvet, and in the band of one, and on

the shoulder of the other, were symbols of his faith and his

profession,--the first being a plain crucifix of silver, and the second

a cross of white cloth of eight points, inserted in the mantle. In

addition to these badges of devotion, he wore a cross of gold, pointed

like the former, and suspended to his neck by a chain of such length and

massiveness, as to imbue his companions with high notions of his rank

and affluence.

The only point in which he exhibited any feeling in common with his

companions, was in admiration of the noble prospect that stretched

before him, and which was every moment disclosing itself with newer and

greater beauty, as the wind wafted his little vessel nearer to it. His

cheek flushed, his eye kindled, and smiting his hands together, in his

ardour, he dropped so much of his dignity as to address many of his

exclamations to the obsequious but not ungentle master.

"By St. John! senor Capitan," he cried, with rapture, "this is a most

noble land to be wasted upon savages!"

"True, senor Don Amador," replied the thrice-honoured master; "a noble

land, a rich land, a most glorious land; and, I warrant me, man has

never before looked on its equal."

"For my part," said the youth, proudly, "I have seen some lands, that,

in the estimation of those who know better, may be pronounced divine;

among which I may mention the Greek islands, the keys of the Nile, the

banks of the Hellespont, and the hills of Palestine,--not to speak of

Italy, and many divisions of our own country; yet, to be honest, I must

allow I have never yet looked upon a land, which, at the first sight,

impressed me with such strange ideas of magnificence."

"What then will be your admiration, noble cavalier," said the captain,

"when you have passed this sandy shore, and yonder rugged hills, and

find yourself among the golden valleys they encompass! for all those who

have returned from the interior, thus speak of them, and declare upon

the gospels and their honour, no man can conceive properly of paradise,

until he has looked upon the valleys of Mexico."

"I long to be among them," said the youth; "and the sooner I am mounted

on my good steed, Fogoso, (whom God restore to his legs and his spirit,

for this cursed ship has cramped both;) I say, the sooner I am mounted

upon my good horse, and scattering this heathen sand from under his

hoofs, the better will it be for myself, as well as for him. Hark'ee,

good captain: I know not by what sort of miracle I shall surmount

yonder tall and majestic pinnacles; but it will be some consolation,

while stumbling among them, to be able at least to pronounce their

names. What call you yon mountain to the north, with the huge,

coffer-like crag on its summit?"

"Your favour has even hit the name, in finding a similitude for the

crag," said the captain. "The Indians call it by a name, which signifies

the Square Mountain; but poor mariners like myself, who can scarce

pronounce their prayers, much less the uncouth and horrible

articulations of these barbarians, are content to call it the Coffer

Mountain. It lies hard by the route to the great city; and is said to be

such a desolate, fire-blasted spot as will sicken a man with horror."

"And yon kingly monster," continued the cavalier, "that raises his snowy

cone up to heaven, and mixes his smoke with the morning clouds,--that

proudest of all,--what call you him?"

"Spaniards have named him Orizaba," said the master; "but these godless

Pagans, who cover every human object with some diabolical superstition,

call that peak the Starry Mountain; because the light of his

conflagration, seen afar by night, shines like to a planet, and is

thought by them to be one of their gods, descending to keep watch over

their empire."

"A most heathenish and damning belief!" said the youth, with a devout

indignation; "and I do not marvel that heaven has given over to bondage

and destruction a race stained with such beastly idolatry. But

nevertheless, senor Capitan, and notwithstanding that it is befouled

with such impious heresies, I must say, that I have looked upon Mount

Olympus, a mountain in Greece, whereon, they say, dwelt the accursed old

heathen gods, (whom heaven confound!) before the time that our blessed

Saviour hurled them into the Pit; and yet that mountain Olympus is but a

hang-dog Turk's head with a turban, compared to this most royal Orizaba,

that raiseth up his front like an old patriarch, and smokes with the

glory of his Maker."

"And yet they say," continued the captain, "that there is a mountain of

fire even taller and nobler than this, and that hard by the great city.

But your worship will see this for yourself, with many other wonders,

when your worship fights the savages in the interior."

"If it please Heaven," said the cavalier, "I will see this mountain, and

those other wonders, whereof you speak; but as to fighting the savages,

I must give you to know, that I cannot perceive how a man who has used

his sword upon raging Mussulmans, with a sultan at their head, can

condescend to draw it upon poor trembling barbarians, who fight with

flints and fish-bones, and run away, a thousand of them together, from

six not over-valiant Christians."

"Your favour," said the captain, "has heard of the miserable poltroonery

of the island Indians, who, truth to say, are neither Turks nor Moors of

Barbary: but, senor Don Amador de Leste, you will find these dogs of

Mexico to be another sort of people, who live in stone cities instead of

bowers of palm-leaves; have crowned emperors, in place of feathered

caciques; are marshalled into armies, with drums, banners, and generals,

like Christian warriors; and, finally, go into battle with a most

resolute and commendable good will. They will pierce a cuirass with

their copper lances, crush an iron helmet with their hardened war-clubs,

and,--as has twice or thrice happened with the men of Hernan

Cortez,--they will, with their battle-axes of flint, smite through the

neck of a horse, as one would pierce a yam with his dagger. Truly, senor

caballero, these Mexicans are a warlike people."

"What you tell me," said Don Amador, "I have heard in the islands; as

well as that these same mountain Indians roast their prisoners with

pepper and green maize, and think the dish both savoury and wholesome;

all which matters, excepting only the last, which is reasonable enough

of such children of the devil, I do most firmly disbelieve: for how,

were they not cowardly caitiffs, could this rebellious cavalier, the

valiant Hernan Cortes, with his six hundred mutineers, have forced his

way even to the great city Tenochtitlan, and into the palace of the

emperor? By my faith," and here the senor Don Amador twisted his finger

into his right mustachio with exceeding great complacency, "these same

Mexicans may be brave enemies to the cavaliers of the plantations, who

have studied the art of war among the tribes of Santo Domingo and Cuba;

but to a soldier who, as I said before, has fought the Turks, and that

too at the siege of Rhodes, they must be even such chicken-hearted

slaves as it would be shame and disgrace to draw sword upon."

The master of the caravel regarded Don Amador with admiration for a

moment, and then said, with much emphasis, "May I die the death of a

mule, if I am not of your way of thinking, most noble Don Amador. To

tell you the truth, these scurvy Mexicans, of whose ferocity and courage

so much is said by those most interested to have them thought so, are

even just such poor, spiritless, contemptible creatures as the Arrowauks

of the isles, only that there are more of them; and, to be honest, I

know nothing that should tempt a soldier and hidalgo to make war on

them, except their gold, of which the worst that can be said is, first,

that there is not much of it, and secondly, that there are too many

hands to share it. There is neither honour nor wealth to be had in

Tenochtitlan. But if a true soldier and a right noble gentleman, as the

world esteems Don Amador de Leste, should seek a path worthy of himself,

he has but to say the word, and there is one to be found from which he

may return with more gold than has yet been gathered by any fortunate

adventurer, and more renown than has been won by any other man in the

new world: ay, by St. James, and diadems may be found there! provided

one have the heart to contest for them with men who fight like the

wolves of Catalonia, and die with their brows to the battle!"

"Now by St. John of Jerusalem!" said Amador, kindling with enthusiasm,

"that is a path which, as I am a true Christian and Castilian, I should

be rejoiced to tread. For the gold of which you speak, it might come if

it would, for gold is a good thing, even to one who is neither needy nor

covetous; but I should be an idle hand to gather it. As for the diadems,

I have my doubts whether a man, not born by the grace of God to inherit

them, has any right to wear them, unless, indeed, he should marry a

king's daughter: but here the kings are all infidels, and, I vow to

Heaven, I would sooner burn at a stake, along with a Christian beggar,

than sell my soul to perdition in the arms of any infidel princess

whatever. But for the renown of subduing a nation of such valiant Pagans

as those you speak of, and of converting them to the true faith! _that_

is even such a thought as makes my blood tingle within me; and were I,

in all particulars, the master of my own actions, I should say to you,

Right worthy and courageous captain, (for truly from those honourable

scars on your front and temple, and from your way of thinking, I esteem

you such a man,) point me out that path, and, with the blessing of

Heaven, I will see to what honour it may lead me."

"Your favour," said the captain, "has heard of the great island,

Florida, and of the renowned senor Don Ponce de Leon, its discoverer?"

"I have heard of such names, both of isle and of man, I think," said Don

Amador, "but, to say truth, senor comandante, you have here, in this new

world, such a multitude of wonderful territories, and of heroic men,

that, were I to give a month's labour to the study, I think I should not

master the names of all of them. Truly, in Rhodes, where the poor

knights of the Hospital stood at bay before Solyman _el Magnifico_, and

did such deeds as the world had not heard of since the days of Leonidas

and his brave knights of Sparta,--I say, even in Rhodes, where all men

thought of their honour and religion, and never a moment of their blood,

we heard not of so many heroes as have risen up here in this corner of

the earth, in a few years' chasing of the wild Indians."

"The senor Ponce de Leon," said the captain, without regarding the sneer

of the proud soldier, "the senor Ponce de Leon, Adelantado of Bimini and

of Florida, in search of the miraculous Fountain of Youth, which, the

Indians say, lies somewhere to the north, landed eight years ago, with

the crews of three ships, all of them bigger and better than this little

rotten Sangre de Cristo, whereof I myself commanded one. Of the

extraordinary beauty and fertility of the land of Florida, thus

discovered, I will say nothing. Your favour will delight more to hear me

speak of its inhabitants. These were men of a noble stature, and full of

such resolution, that we were no sooner ashore, than they fell upon us;

and I must say, we found we were now at variance with a people in no

wise resembling those naked idiots of Cuba, or these cowardly hinds of

Mexico. They cared not a jot for swordsman, arcubalister, or musketeer.

To our rapiers they opposed their stone battle-axes, which gushed

through the brain more like a thunderbolt than a Christian espada; no

crossbowman could drive an arrow with more mortal aim and fury than

could these wild archers with their horn bows, (for know, senor, they

have, in that country of Florida, some prodigious animal, which yields

them abundant material for their weapons;) and, what filled us with much

surprise, and no little fear, instead of betaking themselves to their

heels at the sound of our firelocks, as we looked for them to do, no

sooner had they heard the roar of these arms, than they fetched many

most loud and frightful yells, to express their contempt of our warlike

din, and rushed upon us with such renewed and increasing violence, that,

to be honest, as a Christian of my years should be, we were fain to

betake ourselves to our ships with what speed and good fortune we

could. And now, senor, you will be ashamed to hear that our courage was

so much mollified by this repulse, and our fears of engaging further

with such desperadoes so urgent and potent, that we straightway set

sail, and, in the vain search for the enchanted Fountain, quite forgot

the nobler objects of the voyage."

"What you have said," quoth Don Amador, "convinces me that these savages

of Florida are a warlike people, and worthy the wrath of a brave

soldier; but you have said nothing of the ores and diadems, whereof, I

think, you first spake, and which, heaven save the mark! by some strange

mutation of mind, have made a deeper impression on my imagination than

such trifles should."

"We learned of some wounded captives we carried to the ships," continued

the master, "as well, at least, as we could understand by their signs,

that there was a vast country to the north-west, where dwelt nations of

fire-worshippers, governed by kings, very rich and powerful, on the

banks of a great river; and from some things we gathered, it was thought

by many that the miraculous Fountain was in that land, and not in the

island Bimini; and this think I myself, for, senor, I have seen a man

who, with others, had slaked his thirst in every spring that gushes from

that island, and, by my faith, he died of an apoplexy the day after his

arrival in the Habana. Wherefore, it is clear, that marvellous Fountain

must be in the country of the fire-worshippers. But notwithstanding all

these things, senor, our commander Don Ponce, would resolve upon naught

but to return to the Bahamas, where our ships were divided, each in

search of the island called Bimini. It was my fortune to be despatched

westward; and here, what with the aid of a tempest that blew from the

east, and some little hankering of mine own appetites after that land of

the fire-worshippers, I found myself many a league beyond where any

Christian had ever navigated before, where a fresh and turbid current

rolled through the deep, bearing the trunks of countless great trees,

many of them scorched with fire: whereupon I knew that I was near to the

object of my desires, which, however, the fears and the discontent of my

crew prevented my reaching. I was even compelled to obey them, and

conduct them to Cuba."

"Senor Capitan," said Amador, who had listened to the master's narrative

with great attention, "I give you praise for your bold and most

commendable daring in having sailed so far, and I condole with you for

your misfortune in being compelled to abide the government of a crew of

such runagate and false companions, whom I marvel exceedingly you did

not hang, every man of 'em, to some convenient corner of your ship, as

was the due of such disloyal knaves; but yet, credit me, I see not what

this turbid and fresh flood, and what these floating trees, had to do

with the gold and the diadems, of which you were speaking."

"Senor," said the Captain earnestly, "I have navigated the deep for,

perhaps, more years than your favour has lived; and it was my fortune to

be with the Admiral----"

"With Colon!" cried the youth.

"With his excellency, the admiral, Don Cristobal Colon, the discoverer

of this new world!" replied the master proudly, "in his own good ship,

when we sailed into the Serpent's Mouth, which, we knew not then, laved

the shores of the great Continent; and I remember that when the admiral

had beheld the trees floating in the current, and had tasted of the

fresh water of that boiling gulf, he told us that these came from a

great river rolling through a mighty continent. And, in after times, the

words of the admiral were proved to be just; for there his captain, the

young Pinzon, found the great river Oronoko."

"There is no man," said Don Amador, "who more reverences the memory of

the admiral than I; and I feel the more regard for yourself, that you

have sailed with him on his discoveries. Moreover, I beg your pardon,

insomuch as I have been slow to unravel your meaning. But now, I

perceive, you think you had reached that river of the infidel

fire-worshippers, whom God confound with fire and flame! as doubtless he

will. And hath no man again sought the mouth of that river? I marvel you

did not yourself make a second attempt."

"I could not prevail upon any cavaliers, rich enough for the

undertaking," said the master, "to league with me in it. Men liked not

the spirit of the northern savages; and, in truth, there were a thousand

other lands where the barbarians could be subdued with less peril, and,

as they thought, with a better hope of gain. And yet, by our lady, that

river bore with it the evidences of the wealth on its banks; for what

were those scorched trees, but the relics of the fires with which the

kings of the land were smelting their ores? and what quantity of gold

must there not have been where such prodigious furnaces were kindled!"

"By the mass!" said Amador, with ardour, "you speak the truth; it is

even a most wonderful land; and if a few thousand pesoes would float an

expedition, by my faith, I think I could find them."

"A few thousand pesoes, and the countenance of such a leader as Don

Amador de Leste, a knight of the holy and valiant order of San Juan----"

"A knight by right, but not by vow," said Don Amador, hastily: "I give

you to understand, senor Capitan, that I am not a sworn brother of that

most ancient, honourable, and knightly order, but an humble volunteer,

attached, for certain reasons of my own, to them, and privileged by the

consent of his most eminent highness, the Grand Master, to wear these

badges, wherein I am arrayed, in acknowledgment that I did some service

not unworthy knighthood in the trenches of Rhodes."

"Your favour will not lead the less worthily for that," said the

Captain; "I know an hundred cavaliers who would throw their ducats, as

well as their arms, into the adventure prescribed by the senor Don

Amador; and a thousand cross-bows, with three or four score

arquebusiers, would flock to the standard as soon as we had preached

through the islands a crusade to the fire-worshippers, and a pilgrimage

to the Waters of Life."

"And is it truly believed," said Amador, eagerly, "that such waters are

to be found in these heathen lands?"

"Who can doubt it?" said the Captain; "the Indians of the Bahamas have

spoken of them for years; no Spaniard hath ever thought of questioning

their existence; and at this moment, so great is the certainty of

finding them, that my old leader, Don Ponce, is collecting round him men

for a second expedition, with which he will depart I know not how soon.

But I know Don Ponce; the draught of youth is not for him; he will seek

the fountain on his great island of Florida, and find it not: it will

bubble only to the lips of those who seek it near the great river of the

great continent."

"By heaven!" said Don Amador, "what might not a man do, who could drink

of this miraculous fountain! A draught of it would have carried the

great Alejandro so far into the East, as to have left but small work for

the knaves of Portugal. And then our friends! Dios mio! we could keep

our friends by us for ever! But hold, senor Capitan--a thought strikes

me: have you ever heard the opinion of a holy clergyman on this subject?

Is it lawful for a man to drink of such a fountain?"

"By my faith," replied the master, "I have never heard priest or layman

advance an argument against its lawfulness: and I know not how it should

be criminal, since Providence hath given us the privilege to drink of

any well, whose waters are not to our misliking."

"For my part," said Amador, "I must say, I have my doubts whether

Providence hath given us any such privilege; the exercise of which, in

general, would greatly confound the world, by over-peopling it, and, in

particular, would seem, in a measure, to put man in a condition to defy

his Maker, and to defeat all the ends of divine goodness and justice:

for how should a man be punished for his sins, who had in him the power

of endless life? and how should a man keep from sinning, who had no fear

of death and the devil? and, finally, how should we ever receive any of

the benefits of the most holy atonement, after drinking such a

life-preserving draught?--for it is my opinion, senor Capitan, no man

would wish to go to heaven, who had the power of remaining on earth."

"By my soul," said the captain earnestly, "this is a consideration which

never occupied me before; and I shall take counsel upon it with the

first holy man I meet."

"At all events," said the cavalier, "there is inducement enough to make

search after this river, were it only to fight the fire-worshippers,

convert them to the true faith, and see what may be the curiosities of

their land. Yet I must give you warning, it will rest with another whom

I am now seeking, whether I may league with you in this enterprise or

not. Give me his consent and leading, and I will take leave of these

poor rogues of Tenochtitlan, as soon as I have looked a little upon

their wonders; and then, with the blessing of God and St. John, have at

the valiant fire-worshippers, with all my heart!--But, how now, senor

Capitan? What means your pilot to cast anchor here among the fleet, and

not carry us forthwith to the shore?"

"I dare not proceed farther," said the captain, "without the authority

of the senor Cavallero, admiral of this squadron, and governor of this

harbour of San Juan de Ulua. It is necessary I should report myself to

him for examination, on board the _Capitana_, and receive his

instructions concerning my cargo and fellow-voyagers."

"His instructions concerning your fellow-voyagers!" said Don Amador,

sternly. "I, for one, am a voyager, who will receive no instructions for

the government of my actions, neither myself nor by proxy; and, with

God's blessing, I will neither ask permission to disembark, nor allow it

to be asked for myself, or for my grooms; and the senor Cavallero, or

any other senor, that thinks to stop me, had better grind both sides of

his sword, by way of preparation for such folly."

"Your favour has no cause for anger," said the master, moderately. "This

is the custom and the law, and it becomes the more necessary to enforce

it, in the present situation of things. Your favour will receive no

check, but rather assistance; and it is only necessary to assure the

admiral you do not come as a league and helpmate of the mutineer,

Cortes, to receive free license, a safe-conduct, and perhaps, even

guides, to go whithersoever you list throughout this empire. This,

senor, is only a form of courtesy, such as one cavalier should expect of

another, and no more."

"Truly, then, if you assure me so," said Don Amador, complacently, "I

will not refuse to go myself in person to his excellency, the admiral;

and the more readily that, I fancy, from the name, there is some sort of

blood-relationship between his excellency and myself. But, by heaven, I

would rather, at present, be coursing Fogoso over yon glittering sand,

than winding a bolero on my cousin's deck, though he were a king's

admiral."