; ■ , ;^ » n> ill ; : li; i:^^ o^ -, -S-^ ,^^ 'P. 0°^ <" -it. NKiJf^ V ^ % / ^,«': '% .^' ^mv= % ^ i"^- ' c « "^ <- « o 0' . „ . ^ ^. ^■\ ^^ % V H^^^. r ^^^ -^c.. x^'^^. ^ ,0- .00 ^ teU- .0 .\Y % / s:??^ ^ "o o"^ - ■■■■ - ° -^c,*^ -?', Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/newhistoryofconqOOwils g^- THE AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION. DansviUe, JV. T., February 2d, 1859. To Messrs. Challen & Son : — I REGRET very much that my Histoi-y should make its appearance just at this time, when the community are shocked with the announcement of the death of our distinguished historian, Mr. Prescott, lest some careless persons should suppose I was assailing the memory of the dead. It so happens that the most kindly relations existed between us in his lifetime, though ever tak- ing diametrically opposite grounds on all Spanish questions ; he assuming that the books and MSS. sent to him from Madrid were reliable authorities, while I insisted on the lawyer's privilege of sifting the evidence — a labor he was incapable of performing, from a physical infirmity. Mr. Prescott's esti- mate of my researches is contained in the following letter. Yours, truly, R. A. Wilson. ''Boston, March 11, 1857. "Dear Sir: — "I have had the pleasure of receiving your note of the 9th inst., enclosing the preface to the new edition of your work. I am very sorry to learn that your health is so delicate as to make it necessary for you to make another excursion to the South. I should think that in Peru you must find the favorable climate that you want. "From your preface, as well as your note, I see you are making clean work of the Aztec civilization. If you do as much with the Peruvian, there will be little left to stand on upon this continent but a myth. "I don't see why you should hesitate in regard to the prosecution of your labors, when a third edition shows them to have been so favorably received by our countrymen. Truth is mighty and will prevail ; and if you can fur- nish the means of arriving at it in this fair historical question, you are cer- tainly bound to do so. If I should not become a convert to your views, it would not be strange, considering that I have been so long accustomed to look only on one side of the matter ; and that your theory, moreover, if established, would convert what I have hitherto done into mere chateaux en Espagne. " With my sincere wishes for your restoration to health, and that you may be enabled to prosecute your interesting researches, I remain, dear sir, very truly yours, Wm. H. Prescott." *'His former work foreshadowed the discussion of the points wherein he differs from Mr. Prescott. The present work presents the author's matured thoughts upon this highly important subject, and also arrays the facts which tend to establish the Egyptian and Phoenician origin of the yestiges of civili- zation upon this continent." — iV. T. Com. Advertiser. The following letter was recently received by the author from Rousseau St. IIiLAiKE, Author of " The History of Spain," &c., and Professor of the Faculty of Letters in the University at Paris : — "236 Eue St. Jaques, Paris, 7 May, 1858. " Mr. R. A. Wilson. "Dear Sir: — You must have thought me very impolite, I have so long delayed to thank you for the gift so kindly made me in your curious and interesting work on Mexico. But, as I passed the winter at Nice for my health, it was not until my return that I received your book. I have not as yet been able, amid my numerous avocations, to read it throughout with the attention it merits. But as an old historian of America, as you may well believe, I feel an especial interest in the subject. I am hastening the perusal with a curiosity you can well understand, sharpened by the fabulous recitals of the Conquest. I am disposed to make large deductions from its story of exaggeration and fable ; for I willingly resign me to that sober truth which should be suificient for the historian. You might have seen, in my book, that I am not too partial to the illustrious bandit, whom the world calls Cortez. Like you, I abhor his cruelties and his bad faith, sheltered by religious hypo- crisy^ But these deductions made, I still admire, after having read your ■yro:^, the boldness and grandeur of his enterprise, the coolness of its execu- tion, and the unrivalled talents displayed throughout the work. "I fear, too, and I avow it, that, rejecting this Catholic rival of Csesar and Hannibal, you will find your hands full — not indeed with me, but with my friend Mr. Prescott, who has looked on Cortez much in the same light that I have. I shall leave you to settle this difference with your learned fellow- citizen, content to use your work and to study it profoundly, until I have the honor, in a new edition, to re-write my Chapter on the Conquest of Mexico. " Nothing remains but that I should thank you, my dear sir, for so flatter- ing a mark of courtesy from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and to desire you to accept my sincere and cordial esteem. Your Obliged Confrere, Rousseau St. Hilaire." One of tlie leading Philadelphia press gives the following advance notice of it :— "James Challen & Son, of this city, will shortly issue a new work upon The Conquest of Mexico — the production of Judge Wilson, an American jurist and a popular author. . . . From present examination of a few advance sheets, we have no doubt that the work will be one of fine historical power in argu- ment and fact, as also an excellent volume in a literary point of view. The author differs materially with Prescott concerning the reliability of his sources of information, and the accuracy of many of the Monkish Chronicles, from which Prescott has derived some of the most important materials of his his- tory. What we at present see in contradiction to Prescott, is clearly and plausibly argued, and the book promises to be one of conscientious research and historical truth, revealing many important additional facts to previous history. The opinions and arguments of its learned author, in his difference with Prescott, are well endorsed by our present Secretary of State, the Hon. Lewis Cass, who first in the North American Eeview pointed out the incon- sistencies and fables of the Spanish historians of the Conquest, even before Prescott wrote his history, and who, from his experience of fifty years in investigations of Indian life, is as capable of reliable judgment upon the work as any man in the country. This endorsement, coming from so eminent a man, is sufficient to secure for it the respect and interest of every scholar in the country." Hon. Lewis Cass, who has devoted much attention f o this subject, in a letter to the author says : — "I was led, some years since, to investigate the truth of the early reports of the state of civilization among the Mexicans at the time of the Spanish Conquest. I became satisfied, to use your language, that the accounts were not merely exaggerations, but fabrications ; and I am glad to find that impression has been confirmed by the able and critical inquiry you have made. I shall not fail to peruse your work as soon as it comes out ; and I am sure I shall receive both pleasure and profit from it," &c. The work will be uniform in size and style with "Palestine, Past and Pre- sent," and "The City of the Great King." Prices, Cloth, $2.50. Sheep, $3.00. Half-calf, $3.50. The Chrislian Observer thus notices the advance slieets of the work : — "Judge Wilson proposes to do for Prescott, what Prescott, with the aid of the research of modern times, was enabled to do for Robertson. He believes that Prescott has been too ready to receive the fables and traditions of the Indians as history, and is sustained in this belief by Hon. Lewis Cass, the late Albert Gallatin, and others. The volume is doubtless the fruit of care- ful study, and will be published in the handsome style of Challen's pub- lications." From the Philadelphia News : — " The author eflfectually destroys several of the fine theories upon which I he history of Prescott and others are founded — proving pretty conclusively Ihat the Monkish chroniclers are not reliable — that the so-called Aztec Picture- Writings are but cunning fictions, &c., &c. While we would not utter a word in depreciation of a work which has afforded us so much pleasure in its perusal as 'Prescott's Mexico,' we have no hesitation to predict, from speci- mens which we have been privileged to see, including the Introductory Chap- ter, that, whether Judge Wilson succeeds or not in establishing the position which he assumes, his work will undoubtedly recommend itself to a large circle of readers on each side of the Atlantic, by its patient research, its large mass of curious and interesting facts, its ingenious arguments, and its lucid, graphic, and attractive style." " The author takes a difi'erent view from Prescott of the reliability of the Monkish Chronicles — doubting their accuracy. The opinions and arguments of Judge Wilson in this connexion are endorsed by Hon. Lewis Cass, who first, in the North American Revieio, pointed out the inconsistencies and fables of the Spanish historians of the Conquest, even before Prescott wrote his history, and who, from his experience of fifty years in investigations of Indian life, is as capable of reliable judgment upon the work as any man in the country." — N. Y. Evening Post. " From the advance sheets, we judge most favorably of the work." — Evening Journal. "The Chapter Preliminary creates a desire to peruse the entire work, and to satisfy ourselves that the author is correct in stating that, beyond a cavil, every vestige of ancient civilization on this continent is of Egyptian or Phoe- nician origin." — Phila. Inquirer. " Tho book is one of conscientious research and historical truth, revealing many important additional facts to previous history." — City Item. PALENQUE EMBLEM PHCENICIAN, PHCENICIAN COINS. "ASHTEROTH, GODDESS OF THE SIDONIANS A WEW HISTORY CONQUEST OF MEXICO. LAS CASAS' DENUNCIATIONS OF THE POPULAR HISTORIANS OF THAT WAR ARE FULLY YINDICATED. ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, CO0NSEILOE AT LAW; AUTHOE OF "MEXICO ASB ITS RELIGION," ETC. PHILADELPHIA : JAMES CH ALLEN & SON, No. 25 South Sixth Street. J. B. LIPP7XC0TT & CO.— LINDSAY & BLAKTSTON NEW YORK: SIIKLDON AND COMPANY BOSTON: CROSBY. NICHOLS & CO. CTNCINNATI: RICKEY, MALLORY & CO CHICAGO: S. C. GRIGGS & CO. 1859. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, BY ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Northern District of New York. iniiP.S it DUSEXBERT. STEUEOITPERS. P 12-30 -W75 1^ L.np^ j.-fj'"''' J LIPPINCOTI & CO., PRINTERS. TO COLONEL AND MKS. POWELL. THE ACTIVE PAKT, MT DEAR UNCLE, TOU TOOK IN THE LATE WAK AGAINST MEXICO, AND TOUK SUCCESSFUL EFFOETS, MY DEAR AUNT, FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE AUTHOR'S HEALTH, AFTER HE HAD BEEN GIVEN UP BT PHYSICIANS, ARE HIS APOLOGY FOR DEDICATING TO YOU, JOINTLY, gi Moxh IN ■WHICH YOU BOTH MUST TAKE A LIVELY INTEREST. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ake due to M. Rousseau de St. Hilaire, Professor in the Department of Letters of the University of France (Sorbonne), Author of the "History of Spain," &c., &c., both for the flattering notice he has taken of our prelimi- nary work on Mexico, and for the advantages derived from his writings. Likewise, to the Hon. Lewis Cass, who, in the Ame- rican Quarterly Review, even before Mr. Prescott wrote his histories, pointed out the gross inconsistencies and fables of the Spanish historians of the Conquest; they are due also for his notice of our work when only the preliminary chapter had been published — a notice most highly prized, as it came from one who had devoted over half a century to the investigation of Indian affairs. To Aaron Erickson, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., we are also indebted for the advantages he has afforded us in the (yii) Vlll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. prosecution of our arduous investigations ; and to Major Robert Wilson, now at Fort Riley, Kansas. Nor may the dead be forgotten ; — to that once distin- guished litterateur, as well as Finance Minister, the late Albert Gallatin, father of American Ethnology, we owe the heaviest obligation for his complete exposure of one great imposture, the pretended Aztec picture ivritmg. Many others also who have laid us under oblige.tions, by the successful investigation of isolated branches of the subject we have embodied into a system ; and to Divine Providence, above all, we are indebted for restoration to perfect health, and for ability to consummate so great a labor, after having been given over by physicians, as a victim of hereditary disease. INTRODUCTION. An inspection of the country itself, first shook our belief in those Spanish historic romances upon which Mr. Prescott has founded his magnificent tale of the Conquest of Mexico. In a transition state between faith and disbehef, our first work was written. But, even then it was suggested that Bernal Diaz — whose personal narrative was the foundation of every subsequent account — might yet prove a myth. That proof is now presented in so uncontro- vertible a shape, as to carry with it, to the region of romance, all former histories of the great event which they afiect to chronicle. The despatches of Cortez are our only written au- thority. These are found to consist of two distinct parts — one an accurate detail of adventures consistent throughout with the topograj)hy of the region in which they occurred, as shown by our section maps ; the other, (ix) X INTRODUCTION. a mass of foreign material, apparently borrowed from fables of the Moorish era, for effect in Spain, This element removed, both the hero and the war occupy a more commanding position than has hitherto been assigned them. To locate these aright has been our effort. In doing so, we have not only had to modify our previously- expressed opinions, but also to introduce an entirely new theory to account for the pre-existence of American civi- lization. The popular belief having been proved fabulous, we had to construct another, consistent with the newly- discovered facts of archaeology. This will be found in the fifth chapter, supported by copious notes; while in the sixth is a condensed sum- mary of Spanish- Arabian history; showing the mine from which historians have drawn the enchanting tales they have transferred to an American soil. Our pictures of Indian character, are not imported from abroad, or extracted from fashionable novels, but drawn with care from real life. These are the peculiar features of our work. EXPLANATORY NOTE. Engratings. — The only engravings custom authorizes in works of this character, are the portraits of its heroes. Mr. Prescott has introduced into his first volume a fine engraving of Cortez — from a copy-painting which has confessedly no known original ! That engraving represents the hero in a full set of steel armor, which he could not possibly have worn, at least in American Indian wars. In his second volume there is an engraving which purports to be a representation of Montezuma in full costume. It is unnecessary to add, that this, like the other, is undoubtedly a modern fabrication. Having no certain originals, and not wishing to impose upon my readers factitious portraits, I have been compelled to depart from established custom. As a compensation, I have produced a correct representation of the pyramidal mound of Cholula, as it actually appears to persons approaching it from Pue- bla. An attempt was made to introduce it into my preliminary work, but the engraver misconceived the sketch. There are a great many fancy sketches of Cliolula restored, and Castanada has made a correct view of its modern front, as published in the fourth volume of Lord Kingsborough, with a modern road built up its face, but mine is pro- bably the only correct view of its southern front. All other pictures, quoted or designed, are to prove some doctrine of the text ; excepting the frontis- piece, the Palenque Cross, which differs from the representation of it in Stephens, but is identical with the copy in the fourth volume of Lord Kings- borough (Plate L., part 3, No. 41). The difference consists in one retaining more of the allegorical surroundings than the other. Maps. — The maps of Spanish America, before the time of Humboldt, were little better than the weather prognostics in the almanac. That distinguished philosopher and traveller corrected them so far as his personal survey ex- tended, which must necessarily have been quite limited. Mr. Prescott has introduced the same maps, with some further amendments, but allowed sup- posititious portions to remain. I have inserted in this work the American army survey of the valley of Mexico, to demonstrate that lakes could not have existed there in the time of Montezuma. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PRELIMINARY Page 21 CHAPTER I. THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE AZTEC AND OTHER INDIANS. How historic material must be gathered, 31 — Causes of the extermination of the Indians, 33 — The law of the forest, 34 — The effect of task labor on the Indians, 35 — The absurdity of assigning to them a Jewish origin, 35 — The modification of races at the dispersion, 36 — The pretended Jewish origin of the Aztecs, 37 — The origin of the Aztecs, 38 — The pretended Aztec cove- nant with the Devil, 39 — Where did the monks get their information ? 40 — The arrival of the Aztecs in the valley of Mexico, 41 — The first settlement in that valley, 42 — The value of Indian traditions, 42 — Indio-monkish tra- ditions, 44 — The ethnologist in Indian dialects, 46 — The founding of Mexico and Tacuba, 48 — Tezcuco in its glory, 49 — Aezahualcoyotl, the Magnificent, 49 — The adornments of his palace, 50 — The imperial children, 51 — The palace of Tezcocingo, 52 — He plays the part of David in the tragedy of Uriah, 52 — Aezahualcoyotl a religious reformer, 53 — Aezahualcoyotl a poet, 54 — A translation from his poems, 55 — The fabulous city of Tezcuco, 56 — The genius of Fernando de Alva, 57 — The value of De Alva, as wit- ness, 60 — Tezcuco without the fable, 60 — The federative system of the Aztecs and other Indians, 61 — Their law of descent, 62 — Indian law of succession, 62 — Their tribal divisions, 63 — Effect of this law on marriage and inheritance, 64 — Indian agrarian laws, 64 — Aztec laws of the common type, 66 — The existence of an Indian monarchy doubtful, 67 — Lord Kings- borough, 68 — The author's visit to Tezcuco, 70. (xiii) XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. SPANISH HISTORIANS AND SPANISH PICTURE WRITINGS. Historians of the conquest, 76 — Author's facilities for conducting an investi- gation, 77 — The result of the inquiry, 78 — Criticism necessary, 78 — The Spanish histories hut parodies on the book of Joshua, 79 — Their histories divested of Moorish elements, 80 — The object of Cortez' letters, 80 — The effect of the emperor's favor on evidence, 81 — Romance and history inter- mingled, 82 — A Moorish character given to the Indians, 84 — The influence of the holy office on history, 86 — MS. histories, 87 — Indio-Spanish tradi- tional history, 88 — Burning of Aztec picture records fabulous, 90 — Picture writings Spanish, not Aztec, 90 — The discrepancies among historians, 92 — The difficulty of vrriting a history of the conquest, 93 — The verisimilitude of Spanish authors, 94 — Bernal Diaz de Castillo, 95 — Modern historians of the conquest, 97 — Boturnini, 98 — A specimen of his picture writings, 101 — Veytia, 102 — Clavigero, 103 — Historians at Mexico, 104 — Alaman, 104— Bustamente and Lerdo de Tajede, 104— Mr. Wm. H. Prescott, 104— Robertson's History of America, 106 — Mr. L. H. Morgan's " League of the Iroquois" 106 — M. Dupaix, 107 — Alexander Von Humboldt, 107. CHAPTER III. THE COUNTRY OF THE AZTECS — THE TABLE-LAND OF AMERICA. Its mountain scenery, 109 — A country of silver, 112 — An isolated country, 112 — A tornado, 113 — The way to the interior, 115 — A tropical shore, 116 — A country in the clouds, 116 — Crossing the plateau, 117 — The vegetation and climate changing, 118 — A view of all the vegetable kingdoms, 119 — The century plant, 120— Morning twilight, 121— The desert, 122— The country of the table-land, 123 — The Aztec foreign policy, 123 — The Aztec dominion to the Pacific, 124 — The south-east Aztec provinces, 125 — Aca- pulco, 125. CHAPTER IV. THE GEOLOGY OF A COUNTRY PRODUCING THE PRECIOUS METALS. The geology in Mexican history, 129 — Civilized and savage gold diggers, 129 — Civilized digger a geologist, 130 — The gold diggers' geology, 131 — His speculation of floods, 132 — Intellectual superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, CONTENTS. XV 133 — The silver miner, 133 — The chemistry of mining, 134 — The gold digger avoids the primitive, 134 — The silver miner seeks for ores in the primitive rocks, 135 — Why this chapter necessary, 136 — The silver mines, 137— The Eeal del Monte mines, 137. CHAPTER V. THE EXTINCT EMPIRE OF CENTRAL AMERICA IDENTIFIED AS PHCE- NICIAN IN ITS ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND RELIGION. The antiquity of Central American ruins, 145 — Egyptian analogies, 146 — ■ Ancient Americans not Egyptian in manner of worship, 146 — Obstacles to Egyptian migration, 147 — The era of Egyptian prosperity, 148 — Philistia and Phoenicia, 149 — Tarshish and its commerce, 150 — The religion of Tar- shish, 152 — The Latin cross at Nineveh and Tyre, 152 — The ancient mag- netic cross, 153 — The cross the emblem of Ashteroth, 154 — Tyre the Paris of antiquity, 155 — Causes of decline of ancient nations, 156 — Sacrificing children to Molech or Saturn, 157 — The Phoenician Madonna at Palenque, 158 — Offering children to the cross at Palenque, 158 — The copper medallion alleged to have been found there, 160 — The tortoise the emblem of a Phoe- nician colony, 161 — The river \rall of Copan, 161— The alleged Phoenician MS., 161 — Recapitulation of Phoenician analogies, 162 — The bronze tools and weapons of antiquity, 163 — Steel by its cheapness supplanting bronze, 164 — A retrospect of antiquity, 165 — The dense population of ancient Cen- tral America, 166 — The result of commerce, 166 — Ancient routes of this commerce, 167 — Probable cause of its extinction, 167 — The oriental origin of Greek civilization, 169 — Greek ignorance of antiquity, 170 — The suc- ceeding era, 170 — Decay of races, 171 — Each continent has a common hive, 172 — Our cause proved by unwilling witnesses, 172 — Why the fabled visit of the Apostle invented, 173 — The proofs necessary, 173 — Priority of sailing vessels to galleys, 174 — The proper judges of evidence, 176 — The incon- gruity of races, 177. CHAPTER VI. SPAIN FROM THE TRADITIONAL ERA TO THE RISE OF CASTILE. The beginning of the *' historie of Spaine," 210 — " Osiris Denis, King of Egypt," succors Tartesse (Cadiz), 213 — " Hercules the Great, son of Osiris," slays the Gerions, and again relieves Cadiz, 214 — " Osiris Denis" identified as Rameses IV., 216 — Canonization of Hercules, 219 — Spain under the suc- cessors of Hercules, 220 — Why Neptune was first deified by the Libyans, XVI CONTENTS. 221 — Tyrians migrate to Tartesse, 222— The Grecian Hercules at Tartesse 223 — An unpoetical picture of him, 224 — The true character of Hercules, 224 — An immense yield of the silver mines, 226 — The traditional account of their discovery, 228 — Rise of the Carthaginian commonwealth, 230 — Carthaginians invited to Spain, 231 — Spain under the Carthaginians and Romans, 231 — Reasons for inviting the Moslems into Spain, 232 — Our in- debtedness to the Spanish Arabs, 234 — Cause of the decline of Arianism, 236 — Civilization of the Saracens peculiar, 237 — The time and place of Ma- homet's birth, 238 — Cause of the success of the Saracens, 239 — Tarik in- vades Spain, 240 — Gothic preparations for defence, 241 — Traditions asso- ciated vrith the field of Gaudalete, 241 — The moral power of Tarik, 242 — How the " faithful" regarded the battle, 244 — The Christians imitate the Egyptians on the same field, 244— The first day of the battle, 246— The battle of Gaudalete continued, 247 — The religious results of the victory, 248 — The genius of the Arabs for the arts of peace, 248 — The Caliphate of Cor- dova, 250 — Its rapid growth and prosperity, 251 — Progress of learning among the Arabs, 254 — They disseminate it through Europe, 257 — The effect of this civilization, 258 — The fabulous histories of Mexico drawn from Cordova, 258 — Our indebtedness to the Arabs, 261 — Compelled to follow Spanish historians, 262. CHAPTER VII. THE OEIGIN OF THE CASTILIAN EACE ; THEIR PROGRESS TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA; AND THE EVENTS THAT IMMEDI- ATELY FOLLOWED. Pelagius and Zimines found the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, 265 — Bene- fits resulting from their revolt, 266 — Cause of Moslem decay, 267 — Decline of the Castiiian race, 269 — Christopher Columbus, 271 — His character, 271 — Quintanello introduces Columbus, 273 — A vindication of King Ferdinand, 273 — Disappointments benefit Columbus, 275 — The motives that sustained him, 276 — The Atlantic crossed, 277 — The Indian population, when disco- vered, 278 — The enslavement of the Indians, 279 — The effect of slavery on the Indians, 281 — Columbus returns successful, 282 — Traces of civilization first discovered, 283 — The builders of these temples or chapels on truncated pyramids, 285 — Origin of the idea of Indian civilization, 287 — The apology for returning, 288 — The effect of this last discovery, 290 — Discrepancies in narratives, 291— The allegation of Indian idolatry, 292 — The island of Cozu- mel, 292 — Ruins on Cozumel Island, 294 — A temple found in a deserted district, 296 — The extinct race of Yucatan, 297 — Barter for gold and ob- serve picture writing, 299 — Human sacrifice, 301 — The end of Grijalva's expedition, 302 — Sociedad Mexicana, 303 — Don Juan Antonio Llorente, 303. CONTENTS. XVU CHAPTER YIII. CORTEZ INYADES MEXICO. Hernando Cortez, 304 — A miracle, 305 — Cortez' life in the West Indies, 306 — Cortez appointed to command an expedition, 309 — Cortez sails from the Havana, 309— Robertson resuscitates Spanish myths, 310— Bernal Diaz, 313 — Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 314 — Antique statues overturned by Cortez, 317 — A muster of forces, 317 — Adieu to ancient ruins, 318 — The battles at Tobasco, 319 — Second and third battle, 320 — A battle in which San Jago appears on a vrhite horse, 322 — How Cortez converts twenty Indian females, 323 — Landing at Vera Cruz, 324 — Dona Marina, 326. CHAPTER IX. CORTEZ SETTLES AFFAIRS AT VERA CRUZ, AND MARCHES TO TLASCALA. The character of Montezuma, 328 — His administration and policy, 329 — Tra- dition of the coming pale-faces, 330 — The Indian presents and their quality, 331 — The religion propagated by the Spaniards, 333 — Indian idolatry and cannibalism explained, 334 — The real and apocryphal Indian presents, 336 — The picture writings and the soldier's casque, 337 — How Cortez was appointed Captain-General, 338 — Cortez moves to Sempoalla, and his mis- sionary zeal, 339 — The fleet moved to oldest Vera Cruz, 341 — Expedition to Tzinpantzinco, 342 — Cortez acts the diplomatist, 342 — Cortez and others obtain each a squaw, 342 — Cortez exhibits his zeal for religion, 344 — Cor- tez sends agents and presents to Charles V., 346 — The council of the Indias on Cortez, 347 — The emperor favors Cortez, 348 — An attempted piracy, 349 — Did Cortez or a tornado strand his vessels, 349 — The march to the interior, 351 — The scenery peculiarly American, 352 — Its extraordi- nary beauty, 353 — The rapidity of Cortez' marches, 354 — The real merit of Cortez, 355 — Cortez crossing the high mountain, 355 — March across the barren land, 358 — The country through which Cortez marches, 359. CHAPTER X. OPERATIONS IN TLASCALA. The Tlascala of Cortez, 360 — Slascala according to Diaz, 361 — Tlascala ac- cording to the historians, 362 —The impossibilities in Cortez' statements, 362 — An unfortunate remark of Diaz, 364 — The facts in relation to Tlascala, 2 XVlll CONTENTS. 365 — The real advantage of the TIascalan alliance, 366 — Religious tolera- tion at Tlascala, 367— The Tlascalans and their government, 368— The campaign of Tlascala, 368 — First battle vrith the Tlascalans, 369 — Another great battle, 370 — The success of the TIascalan war, 370 — The consumma- tion of the TIascalan alliance, 371 — Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 372— Cholula, 376— Was Quetzalcoatl the Apostle Thomas? 378— The city of Cholula, 379 — Its political state and government, 380 — The simple truth about Cholula, 380 — The Cholula massacre, 382 — An ascent of the volcano, 384 — Preparations for a march to Mexico, 386 — Cortez enters the valley of Mexico, 386— Cholula, 388. CHAPTER XI. CORTEZ ENTERS MEXICO, SEIZES MONTEZUMA, AND OCCUPIES THAT CITY TILL DRIVEN OUT BY AN INSURRECTION. Advantage of having the person of Montezuma, 391 — A probable plot and counterplot, 392 — The Spaniards and Indians both doubtless designing treachery, 394 — Fabulous narratives of the enii'S and appearance of Mexico, 395 — The effect of historic fables on the modern city, 397 — Mexico as an Indian capital, 397 — Interviews with Montezuma before his arrest, 398 — The capture of Montezuma, 400 — Advantage gained by this treacherous act, 401 — Cortez prepares to go against Narvaez, 403 — The battle with Nar- vaez, 404 — Commencement of hostilities in the capital, 405 — The contest around the Spanish quarters, 406— Capture of the great pyramid, 408 — Other events before the night retreat, 408 — Unsatisfactory cause assigned for retreat, 409— Cortez' night retreat from Mexico, 410 — Recapitulation of the night retreat, 413— The fugitives at the " Hill oi Remedios," 414— Re- treat continued, 415 — The second night of the retreat, 415 — The retreat to Otumba, 417— The great battle of Otumba, 418— The battle concluded, 419 — Cortez reaches Tlascala, 420 — The author visits Tacuba, 420. CHAPTER XII. BUILDING OF THE BRIGANTINES, CAMPAIGN OF TEPEACA, AND RETURN TO THE MEXICAN YALLEY. Cortez begins a war of extermination, 426 — He determines to build a flotilla, 427 — Cortez enslaves the Indians of Tepeaca, 429 — Subjugation of Tepeaca and founding a colony, 430 — The branding of Indian women with a hot iron, 430 — The Spaniards disgust the Indians with Christianity, 431 — Gomora's fables on this campaign, 432 — Cortez secures the passes lo CONTENTS. xix Mexico, 433 — The policy of Cortez, 433 — The lagunas, and size of the brigantines, 434 — The diflBculties encountered in building this flotilla, 435 — A wonderful success, but marred by fables, 436 — How Cortez obtained supplies and friends, 436 — How he circumvented Las Casas, 437 — How Cortez justified his enslavement of Indians, 438 — The manner of transport- ing the flotilla, 439 — The fabulous number of Indians engaged, 439 — Why Tezcuco was selected as the flotilla station, 440— A muster of forces, 442 — The passage of the mountain, 444 — Cortez' entry into Tezcuco, 445 — Cortez fortifies his quarters, 445 — Cortez entrapped at Iztapalapa — his night retreat, 446 — An explanation of the Iztapalapa affair, 447 — Death of the Emperor Cuetravacin, 449 — How the statement of Cortez becomes possible, 450 — Cortez' account of it, 450 — Don Fernando, Lord of Tezcuco, 451 — A topographical survey of the Mexican valley, 452 — The Mexican causeways, 452 — The maps used in this chapter, 452 — Survey of Lieut. H. L. Smith, U.S. A., 460. CHAPTER XIII. THE SIEGE OF MEXICO. The youthful Emperor Guatamozin, 461 — Effect of the appearance of the "brigantines," 462 — Guatamozin's line of defence — his heroism, 463 — Transporting the " brigantines" to Tezcuco, 464 — Cortez makes a recon- noissance in force, 465 — Incidents of the march, 466 — More topographical blunders of Diaz, 467 — Sandoval's expedition to Chalco, 468 — More woman- branding — arrival of a Papal bull, 469 — Their sins pardoned by virtue of the bull, 469 — Cortez' expedition south of the lagunas, 470 — Cortez en- gages the mountain tribes, 472 — The beauty of the gardens of Guastipeque, 472 — The capture of Cuernavaca, 473 — Capture of Xochimilco, 474 — The second day at Xochimilco, 475 — The second reconnoissance to Tacuba, 476 — The character of this reconnoissance, 476 — The canal built by Cortez, 477 — A fabulous depth given to his canal, 478 — Adventurers attracted by the first despatch, 478 — A muster and division offerees for the siege, 479 — The land forces placed in position, 480 — By means of his brigantines Cortez captures the Pinon, 480 — The first battle on the water, 482 — The first week of the siege, 483 — A complete investment effected, 484 — Its results, 485 — The Chin'ampas, improperly called Floating Gardens, 485. CHAPTER XIV. CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF MEXICO. Commencement of the siege, 488 — The fabulous numbers of allies reduced, 489 — Cortez retreats and abandons a cannon, 490 — The advantage Cortez XX CONTENTS. derived from his cavalry, 490 — The result of two days of fighting, 491 — , Cortez divides his flotilla, 491 — Cortez makes another attack, 493 — Cortez burns the fabulous palaces of Mexico, 493 — Hunger, thirst, and the small- pox hasten the event, 494 — New fables and further reductions by Diaz, 494 — Submission of the neighboring hamlets — defeat of Alvarado, 495 — Re- markable fortitude of the Mexicans, 496 — The Mexican trenches — how made, 496 — Cortez suffers a serious repulse, 497 — Cortez rescued from the enemy, 498 — A fearful retribution, 498 — Indian peculiarities in war, 499 — Secondary expeditions during the interval, 500 — Cortez resolves to demolish the city, 500 — Cortez plans a successful ambuscade, 500 — Cortez providing cannibals with their food, 501 — Cortez in possession of seven-eighths of the city, 502 — The famine in the city, 502 — The miserable condition of the citi- zens, 503 — Guatamozln prefers death to a surrender, 503 — The capture of Guatamozin, 504 — The torturing of the prisoners, 505 — The motive not understood in Spain, 507 — Result of Cortez' policy, 508 — Cortez governed by policy, 508 — Exaggerations reduced to reality, 509 — Cortez one of the great men of his age, 510 — Cortez eclipsed by Pizarro, 511 — The youthful hero Guatamozin, 512. CHAPTER XY. A SUMMARY. Phoenician vestiges in the British Islands, 513 — Probabilities of their crossing the Atlantic, 514 — Argument from analogy, 514 — Traditional knowledge of American colonies, 515 — ^Extinction of an exotic race, 516 — Decay of modern exotics, 517 — Our disappointment with others, 518 — Our faith shaken at Tlascala, 519 — Extinguished at Cholula, 520 — The argument from the brigantines, 521 — Time occupied in the siege explained, 521 — Mexican Empire doubtless a confederacy, 522 — Difference of this from our own Indian wars, 522— What the Mexicans really were, 523 — The conclu- sion, 524. CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. In this work the standard Spanish authorities have been followed as long as they followed the truth. When- ever they departed from the path of physical possibili- ties we have also departed from them, and thenceforward groped our way, as best we could, through a crude mass of other materials. " Weight of authority" has not deterred us from rejecting whatever was manifestly untrue, nor have we relied on the sanction of a Superior or an Inquisitor to justify a false assertion. The picture writings copied into the monster volumes of Lord Kingsborough, we have denounced as Spanish fabri- cations ; as they, independent of containing internal evi- dence of imposture, do not purport to be originals. All the evidence we have in relation to them, is the state- ment of their ci-devant transcriber, the monk Pietro. He tells us they were copied from Indian records, continued for a period of thirty-two years subsequent to the con- quest. On this unstable foundation the whole fabric rests. If originals ever existed, and of Indian workmanship, to so late a date, they must have been the production of Romanized, and not of pagan Aztecs. In the second generation succeeding the conquest the (21) 22 CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. increased product of silver excited a general interest throughout Europe in the affairs of Mexico and Peru, and then the Aztec picture writings appeared ; but, the foreign market supplied, they disappeared, too, as mysteriously, under the management of Bishop Zumarraga, as the Virgin Mary herself, after she had furnished him with her miraculous portrait. It was then the ghost of Bernal Diaz was evoked to write a new narrative of the conquest ; one that should enlarge the general scope of that adven- ture, while it cut away some of the more monstrous fictions of its leader. Gomora, the chaplain of Cortez, is the leading historian of the conquest. Though his work is but a continuous laudation of his patron, the elegance of its style, and the beauty of its diction, supply the place of truth. He is but the De Foe of history, Cortez is his Crusoe, and the lagunas of Mexico the seas that witnessed his hero's adventures. Bernal Diaz* says of this writer, " we must write one thousand when Gomora says eighty thousand !" Denounced and thoroughly exposed both by him and Las Casas, yet is he still habitually quoted as an historic authority. A number of monkish historians appeared also about the time of Diaz. Their productions abound in state- ments absurd, contradictory, and impossible. All have but one object, — the glory of the Virgin and the church, — and all claim some unproduced picture writing for * We mean the book that bears the taining a full and true account of the title, " The Memoirs of Bernal Diaz discovery and conquest of Mexico del Castillo written by himself, con- and New Spain." CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 23 their authority. The better to advance this darling object, works in relation to the new world were, by law, finally restricted, to persons in the priestly office. The fact, then, that these authors composed under the eye of a Superior, and could not publish without a license from seven other independent censors, utterly forbids their citation as authority. Not only are there mistakes among these chroniclers, in matters of topography — they were to be expected — and fables which the church supported — and the church desired — these were to be expected also ; beyond these lies another cause of error; the monstrous exaggeration which pervades the entire fabric of every Spanish account of the conquest. Thread by thread, warp and woof, has received that dye, and now, to present the subject in the simplicity of un- adorned truth, appears almost impossible. Some fifty years later than Diaz a new historian arose, Fernando de Alva, the quadroon. By the magic of his pen alone, his native mud-built village of Tezcuco, became the metropolis of an extinct empire, surpassing that of Bagdad or the Great Mogul. This empire in the clouds depends too for its history on other unproved picture lorit- ings ; records, it is averred, that had escaped the alleged burning of Bishop Zumarraga. A hundred and fifty years more, and we reach a new batch of authors, who, in Italy and Spain, repeat the fables of their predecessors, with various modifications — Boturnini, Clavigero, Veytia, &c., standard authorities among our own writers. In an unguarded moment these chroniclers ventured to produce specimens of Indian pic- 24. CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. iure writing. To prove the Aztec theory of the flood, an Italian, in gown and curled wig, paddles a little boat in one, while other similar figures are engaged upon the sacrifice of a female victim, whose Italian head-dress, is about the only means of distinguishing her from a sheep. Three instances of record-burning are usually cited in connexion with the Spanish histories of Mexico. The first is that of the Toltec records, destroyed by the Aztec emperor, Ytzcoult. The second, the Votan MS. of the Phoenician era, committed to the flames by a Bishop of Chiapa after a copy had been taken ! This may be found in the Rev. Dr. Hawks's translation of Rihero. The last apocryphal auto is that of the Aztec and Tezcucan picture writings by Zumarraga. The tales of human sacrifice rest on as unreliable wit- nesses as those of the pictu7'e writing. Spaniards, compos- ing under constraint, necessarily repeated all the monstrous statements of Cortez. But Robertson not only reproduces them, in his history of America, — ^he goes out of his way to charge the Iroquois of New York with cminibalism I The accusation has as much foundation as that of human sacrifice. The origin of that fiction is due to the first' dis- coverers of Yucatan. These adventurers found, the Indians' huts and the ruins of Phoenician temples toge- ther, near the fresh water, along the whole coast. Upon the walls of those temples were, as at Palenque, repre- sentations of priests in the act of ofiering infants to the mask of Saturn {Molocli), and to the cross of Askteroth (the Latin cross), and also the marks of blood-red hands. In their ignorance, they supposed the existing race CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 25 also the builders of the temples, and when the story tra- velled back to Cuba from Europe, the Indians were trans- formed into a civilized people, practising human sacrifice. Cortez found this idea rife before he sailed, and carried it with him from Yucatan to Mexico, where, though no such ruins existed, it supplied a specious justification for his crimes. No claim is made to originality in this exposure of monkish fables, revamped for American history. A writer iu the North American Review for October, 1840, understood to be that veteran in literature and Indian affairs, Hon. Lewis Cass, U. S. Secretary of State, had already taken the initiative in that inquiry ; and the first volume of the transactions of the American Ethnological Society bears witness to the labors of another pioneer, once also a distinguished cabinet minister, the late Mr. Albert Gallatin. Nor can we indeed, when assigning to the Phoenicians every vestige of antique civilization on this continent, be deemed the asserter of any new truth ; that was the popular Spanish doctrine to the days of Dupaix and Stephens, and in reafiirming it we have drawn our strongest arguments from those very explorers. Monkish authors claim the Madonna, the infant and the cross, portrayed on the ruins of Yucatan, as their own. But this admitted, it does not prove the. visit of the Apostle Thomas, as they insist, but rather, if anything, the identity of the Romish with the Phoenician adoration of the Queen of Heaven. We identify them only as Phoenician. When any chapter treats of a particular division of 26 CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. country, there is usually appended to it the author's per- sonal survey of that section, besides the general description contained in the third chapter. The supplemental notes comprise also extended notices of the chief historians of the conquest. Both Robertson and the American historian Prescott, relying upon the historical romances they quote, have entirely mistaken the character and genius of Cortez. It was not in great battles, but in a rapid succession of skir- mishes, that he distinguished himself, and won, not the character of a Roman propagandist, but that of an adroit leader in Indian War. Mr. Prescott's non-acquaintance with Indian character is much to be regretted, otherwise he would have perceived the un-Indian dress which the Aztecs wear in the works of Spanish historians. In this work their natural character is restored, and their resist- ance shown to have been not one of j)itched battles, as he has presented it, but of plots and counterplots, night assaults, surprises, and ambuscades; the true Indian system of hostility. On newly discovered evidence Mr. Prescott has very properly produced a corrected edition of Robertson's his- tory. In like manner, on newly discovered evidence, and on a remarshalling of former witnesses, the statements of both, relating to America, are not only corrected, but the history of the empire of Montezuma and of the Peruvians entirely rewritten. On mature reflection we have also been led to modify our first published impressions, and, giving greater weight CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 27 to Cortez, to regard all subsequent narratives either as literary forgeries or as resting on the fictions of others. The reader will doubtless excuse the mass of notes in the fifth chapter. They were necessary to establish beyond a cavil the Egyptian and Phoenician origin of every vestige of civilization found on this continent. . MEXICAN HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES. The preliminary chapter of Mr. Wilson's forthcoming -work upon Mexico, which was published in this journal on the 26th instant, has turned our atten- tion to an article in the North American Review for October, 1840, under- stood to have been written by General Cass, and which corroborates the views of Mr. Wilson respecting Mexican antiquities. We give a few extracts from the Review. — National Intelligencer. To the American scholar and archaeologist we know no subject more inte- resting than the study of the true condition of the Mexican people when they fell under the Spanish yoke. And indeed it is an historical problem which well merits the favorable attention of the most general reader. There are certainly many considerations which throw doubts upon the vivid representa- tions that the conquerors and their immediate successors have left us respect- ing the government, state of society, religion, population, and progress of the arts among the several nations, or perhaps, more properly speaking, tribes, which inhabited the extensive regions, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, north of the Isthmus of Darien ; while, on the other hand, it cannot be doubted that they were in advance of the more erratic hordes beyond them, and reaching to the St. Lawrence and the great Lakes, in some of the elements of human improvement. -x- * * * Every one at all conversant with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, must have read with surprise the accounts of the immense armies which opposed the progress of the invaders, and of those also who ultimately joined them and facilitated their own subjugation, while they thought only of crushing a rival, an enemy, or an oppressor. Cortez, in his second letter to the emperor, dated October 30, 1520, estimates the number opposed to him in his first battle at 6000, in his second at 100,000, and in his third at 150,000. His friend and chaplain, Gomara, adopts the same estimate, with this difi'erence, however, that he reduces the enemy in the second battle from 100,000 to 80,000. But 28 CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who appears to have been a frank and hardy soldier, describing, in his old age, what he had seen and done in his youth, and who participated in all the campaigns of Cortez in New Spain, makes a wonder- ful deduction from the statements of the general in the force they encoun- tered upon these occasions. He says that the Indians were 3000 in the first battle, 6000 in the second, and 50,000 in the third. And he makes a remark upon this subject which furnishes a thread to guide the explorer in his ex- amination of this labyrinth, and which does honor to the judgment as well as to the principles of the veteran. He says : " When Gomara, on some occa- sions, relates that there were so many thousand Indians or auxiliaries, and on others that there were so many thousand houses in this or that town, no regard is to be paid to his enumeration, as he has no authority for it, the numbers not being in reality the fifth of what he relates." If further proof were wanting of this propensity to overrate and overstate, it may be found in the assertion of Solis that there were two thousand temples in the capital of Mexico when it fell into the possession of the Spaniards — a number which would have startled an Egyptian in the palmy days of priesthood in that temple-loving country, and which could find no parallel in the long extent from On to Thebes. And to render, if possible, this gross exaggeration still less excusable, Gomara, who entered Mexico with the conqueror, says that there were but eight places destined to the worship of idols in the city. * * * Even Clavigero, the panegyrist rather than the historian of Mexico, in his strictures upon the state of architecture among the original Mexicans, specifies only one pile of buildings as among existing ruins ; and, while he speaks of it as worthy of admiration, he says that neither this nor any other relic of Mexican work can " be compared with the famous aque- duct of Chempoallan." But unluckily this latter structure was built after the conquest, and planned and directed by a Franciscan missionary; while the former happened to be no Mexican ruins at all, being those at Mitla, which belong to an entirely difi"erent race. •» * -x- * * * No useful induction, proving the existence of an early state of civilization, can be drawn from the Mexican tumuli or from those found in the United States. This kind of primitive monument was constructed, as we have seen, in the earliest ages of the world, and by nations widely separated from each other, and they are, no doubt, the oldest relics of human labor which have come down to us. They are described by authors as existing in France, Ire- land, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Greece, Asia Minor, and several other coun- tries. Their double office of tombs and monuments is indicated by the Latin name tumulus given to these constructions, which signifies equally a toiab CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 29 and an elevation. One of the earliest works of this description -which his- tory mentions is the tumulus erected by Semiramis to the memory of her husband on the banks of the Tigris. Every reader, familiar with Homer, will recollect the funeral ceremonies of Patroclus and of Hector, and the mounds which were raised to their memory, and which contained their ashes. We have already adverted to the fact that all the Mexican constructions existing at the period of the conquest have long ago disappeared, with the exception of two or three ruins, which teach us nothing respecting the state of the arts at that period. Two centuries after the Spanish conquest, and perhaps a small part of this period, were found sufficient to sweep away all the works of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. If the temples, and houses, and fortifications, and walls of stone described by the early historians had corresponded at all to the magnificent accounts given by them, such a destruction would have been impossible. A much longer time would be necessary in any country to cause the disappearance of even wooden structures. We shall not stop to extend this view, for we consider it wholly unnecessary. We shall merely present a few statements from early authors to show the exaggeration to which they were addicted. * * * * * «• But Cortez himself is the great panegyrist of Mexican architecture, for he says, in his first letter to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that Montezuma " had, besides those in Mexico, other such admirable houses for his habitation that I do not believe I shall ever be able to express their excellence and grandeur ; therefore I sliall only say there are no equals to them in Spain." Alas ! for the remains of Roman and Moorish art, which constitute the pride of the Lusitanian peninsula. " Woe is me, Alhama !" The best commentary upon this text is that Cortez himself, not finding p house fit for his habitation in all Mexico, was compelled to construct one. Having much more faith in the ordinary operation of natural causes than in the judgment and accuracy of men who were surrounded by circumstances of a nature to excite and delude them, it is much easier for us to believe that there is gross exaggeration in these descriptions than that such constructions were reared by Mexican savages, and that they have all disappeared with- out leaving a vestige of their existence, and that they were built with stone axes, and by a people without domestic animals, and without any conven- tional representative of value, where the seller of maize must have exchanged his produce for a natte, and the workman, after his day's labor, picked up the articles as he could, we do not see how. CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. But there is no end to the exaggerations of Clavigero. In truth his rela- tion is unworthy of credit where it is in opposition to the moral circumstances of the Mexicans, as these can be deduced from the confused accounts which are in our possession. A proof of his credulity, or of something worse, is found in his seventh l)Ook, where he describes what he calls the Mexican " granaries." The reader would suppose, from the terms with which the description commences, that some important structure was about to be intro- duced, and it is only towards the conclusion that he finds these magnificent depositories are nothing but plain corn-cribs, such as every Indian and every frontier settler makes for himself in a day to contain his corn. They are formed, says Clavigero, "by placing round and equal trunks of the ojametl in a square one upon the other," &c. And what furnishes a singular contrast to the accounts given of the large stone buildings which have long since disappeared is the statement of Cla- vigero, " that there are yet existing some of these granaries so very ancient that they appear to have been built before the conquest." * * * After the foregoing chapter and extract were printed in the National Intelligencer, the author submitted his argument to the honorable reviewer above named, who gave it the following indorsement, which we publish by permission : — ■Washington, May 12, 1858. Dear Sir: — I thank you for your letter, and for the just sentiments it expresses. I was led, some years since, to investigate the truth of the early reports of the state of civilization among the Mexicans, at the time of the Spanish Conquest. I became satisfied, to use your language, that the accounts were not merel}^ exaggerations, but fabrications ; and I am glad to find that impression has been confirmed by the able and critical inquiry you have made. I shall not fail to peruse your work as soon as it comes out ; and I am sure I shall receive both profit and pleasure from it. I am, dear sir, Truly yours, LEWIS CASS. R. A. Wilson, Esq., We conclude this note by adding, Mr. Prescott was a contributor to the above-named review, and he did not publish his history until three years after this impeachment of his leading witnesses, yet he nowhere refers to the subject as we think he ought to have done. HISTOEY THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. CHAPTER I. THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE AZTEC AND OTHER INDIANS. How historic material must be gathered, 31 — Causes of the extermination of the Indians, 33 — The law of the forest, 34 — The effect of task labor on the Indians, 35 — The absurdity of assigning to them a Jewish origin, 35 — The modification of races at the dispersion, 36 — The pretended Jewish origin of the Aztecs, 37 — The origin of the Aztecs, 38 — The pretended Aztec cove- nant with the Devil, 39 — Where did the monks get their information? 40 — The arrival of the Aztecs in the valley of Mexico, 41 — The first settlement in that valley, 42 — The value of Indian traditions, 42 — Indio-monkish tra- ditions, 44 — The ethnologist in Indian dialects, 46 — The founding of Mexico and Tacuba, 48 — Tezcuco in its glory, 49 — Aezahualcoyotl, the Magnificent, 49 — The adornments of his palace, 50 — The imperial children, 51 — The palace of Tezcocingo, 52 — He plays the part of David in the tragedy of Uriah, 52 — Aezahualcoyotl a religious reformer, 53 — Aezahualcoyotl a poet, 54 — A translation from his poems, 55 — The fabulous city of Tezcuco, 56 — The genius of Fernando de Alva, 57 — The value of De Alva, as wit- ness, 60 — Tezcuco without the fable, 60 — The federative system of the Aztecs and other Indians, 61 — Their law of descent, 62 — Indian law of succession, 62 — Their tribal divisions, 63 — Effect of this law on marriage and inheritance, 64 — Indian agrarian laws, 64 — Aztec laws of the common type, 66 — The existence of an Indian monarchy doubtful, 67 — Lord Kings- borough, 68 — The author's visit to Tezcuco, 70. As the pilots of the olden time ventured upon unknown coasts by the guidance of the stars alone, so, the searcher after historic truth, among Spanish authorities, has likewise to go forth without compass or chart. Here and there he (81) 32 HISTORIC MATERIALS. may pick up material not in conflict with natural law — matter that bears the marks of apparent truth. This he must so weave, as to constitute the outHne of his history. He has to sift barrels of chaff for a grain of wheat; to con musty folios innumerable, and, when he has thus gathered that which is probable from among the obviously false, he must then in person carefully survey, also, the. country itself, to determine whether the apparently true is likewise the physically possible. He cannot trust to Spanish historians, even of the highest rank, in any matter that affects the interests of the church, or the interests of the state ; for he knows their works were licensed by the Inquisitors and Royal Councillors of Castile, after a most exact inquiry.* Those who are interested he must scan more closely still, as their glory is involved in the magni- tude of the affairs which they relate, in which they had borne, perhaps, a leading part. As for the supernatural, this is of course to be discarded, and with it every dramatic myth of the Virgin and the saints — often constituting as prominent a part as that of the prince in Shakspeare's Hamlet. He has to watch narrowly those, too, who, for popular applause, have changed history into mere romance, and gratified a morbid appetite for fiction under the color of historic truth. In writing a history of the Aztecs all must be rejected that is inconsistent with well established Indian traits. Mou- lin a subsequent note I have quoted the censors exercised their authority, from Lord Kingsborough an account even revoking the license after first of the seven eensorshipe of Spain, publication, and the extreme severity with which CAUSES OF INDIAN EXTINCTION. 33 tezuma must be presented without a Moorish dress, and his people as they were — -Indians, not Arabs. More than three hundred years have passed since Spain estabhshed her dominion over the valley of Mexico. Of the three confederate Indian states, Tezcuco, Mexico, Tlacupa (Tacuba) which before that time occupied the valley and lorded it over the Anahuac, Tezcuco alone retained its independent existence, unimpaired to the last. Its rights were zealously watched over by a king's agent sent from Spain.* The others, subjugated by Cortez, had their people reduced to servitude. So widely were thej^ sundered in their relations to the Spaniards, and to each other. If cruelty and severity were the true and only causes of the extinction of the Indian races, then Tezcuco should have flourished ; as Tezcuco suffered nothing by the war — when the Mexicans and Tacubans were enslaved. One enjoyed all a king's favor could confer, while the others were subjected to the miseries that con- quest entails. Yet the same result has befallen both — contact with the whites has exterminated alike, friend and foe. A forest life, a forest atmosphere, was their wont, together with such a living as that forest had furnished for generations untold. The beaver and the elk are not more certainly doomed by the destruction of our forests, than were and are that race of men, who were set apart in the primitive divisions of mankind as its lords. Like caged lions, a few generated and a handful survived the revolution in their mode of life — enough to evidence what * See note to subsequent page, extracted from Thomas Gage, page 90. 3 34 THE LAW OF THE FOREST AND THE ELK. once existed — enough to prove too that a race differing from our own in its organism were the primitive inhabit- ants of the whole of this continent. Spanish crime and Spanish cruelty has indeed destroyed its thousands, but the wasting of the forests of the table-land its tens of thousands more. The history of Tezcuco is a history of Tlascala. The Spanish king most faithfully fulfilled the treaties of Cor- tez with that tribe, and with Cholula. But the power of an absolute king was unequal to restrain the operation of a natural law. The Tlascalans have shrunken to a frag- ment ; like our own Six Nations, the Iroquois, they have melted away. The great state of New York was the home country of the latter, though their dominion ex- tended to the Mississippi and Cumberland.* They were Indians that neither feared nor suffered from the cruelty of the whites ; on the contrary, they gave protec- tion first to the Dutch, and then to the English settlers, * This territory, lying between the They held under their dominion Hudson and Lake Erie, and embrac- the greater parts of these vast terri- ing the most valuable portion of our tories by the slender tenure of Indian state [the state of New York], consti- conquest. But New York was their tuted the Home Country of the Iro- hereditary country, the centre of their quois, as distinguished from other power, and the seat of their council territory upon the north, south, east, fires. Here were their villages, their and west, which they held in subjec- fields of maize and tobacco, their fish- tion by conquest, and occupied only ing and hunting grounds, and the in the season of the hunt. At the era burial place of their fathers. The of their highest military supremacy. Long House to which they likened about the year 1660, the Iroquois in their political edifice, opened its their warlike expeditions ranged un- eastern door upon the Hudson, while resisted from New England to the the western looked out upon Niagara. Mississippi, and from the St. Law- — Morgan's League of the Iroquois, reuce to the Tennessee. page 39. INDIANS NOT OF JEWISH ORIGIN. dO nor had they cause to complain of their ingratitude. The Algonquins, allies of the French, have also wasted like chaff before the wind ; and this in spite of all the favors heaped upon them. They have perished, the victims of an inexorable law, which exterminates the inhabitants of the forest when other races of mankind appear and dwell upon its borders. This principle in the constitution of the human family was not understood by Las Casas. He saw only the cruelty the Indians suffered, and the rapid progress of their decay ; and concluded the one to be the cause of the other, without suspecting, that a higher law was involved in the result ; a law whose operation neither cruelty nor kindness could materially influence. His brethren, the monkish missionaries, in after ages reached the true cause and the remedy, empirically. The Indian, compelled to abandon a forest life, was subjected to task-labor. If he survived the hardships of his new condition he became the progenitor of a family of agriculturalists {^Paehlanos) — a race that is now repeopling Spanish America. This grand distinction, between the indolent and warlike abo- rigines, and their present degenerate descendants, who have endured the servitude of centuries, must be care- fully noted. Las Casas, and most monkish historians of the New "World, have laid great stress upon the probable Jewish origin of the North American races; and where they have not taken this ground, they have assumed them to be descendants of the captive Ten Tribes. Lord Kings- borough devotes nearly the whole of one ponderous vol- 36 MODIFICATION OF RACES. ume to a digest of the absurd reasoning of these monkish authors in favor of this improbable hypothesis. ^ Among the learned in Europe and here — not the learned in Indian affairs — the idea has been a popular one. The testimony upon which it rests does not indeed amount to much, though the Indians, one of the primitive races, may bear some slight resemblance to the Jews — the scion of ano- ther. Instead of believing America was peopled by acci- dent — by some stray party of vagabond Jews, or cast out Israelites — it is more reasonable to conclude that it received its proportion of the aboriginal population with the rest of the earth. Mankind was not created for the eastern continent alone, but to replenish the whole earth. When God confounded the languages of men — viz., sepa- rated them into distinct races, and scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth — did He neglect the western half? He that had power to create and afterwards to separate mankind into races, could certainly contrive many ways of transporting each to the region destined for it. Travellers who are daily brought into contact with a repellent stock, are slow to believe, that all have had a common origin. They conclude rather, without much reflection, to adopt the old Greek theory of autoch- thones, or that each race had its origin in the region in which it is now found. Thus, to resolve a difficulty of their own, they unnecessarily complicate the work of creation. Instead, we get at a simpler solution by adopting the theory — that on a common stock, certain peculiarities have been engrafted; fitting each race for some distinct portion of the globe ; and that this modifi- MODIFICATION" OF EACES. 37 cation in the organism of the different families of mankind, took place at the time of the dispersion ; and was accom- panied with a modification also, of the animal races divi- ded among the various dispersed branches. All this, too, may well be implied in the dispersion. The object of the " confusion of tongues" was to destroy the unity of the human family — which could hardly be accomplished by a simple confusion of words. To make the confusion per- petual there must be, too, a difference in the desires, the tastes, and ruling passions, otherwise the object would not be effected for which the dispersion had been decreed. In the one case a language of signs would supply that of words until the original could be again learned. In the other, on the supposition that they were divided into divers races, each would repel the other, and then a separa- tion would become inevitable. This is apparently the idea of Holy Writ in using both the expressions, ''one language," and "one speech."* It is tautology, if but one idea is expressed, but if unity of purpose as well as unity of words is implied, by " one language and one speech," the whole narrative becomes intelligible. Color appears less a peculiarity of race, than of cli- mate.f The Jew varies in that with the country he inhabits. But be his color what it may, his race is indelibly engraven upon his countenance. The Saxon, comparatively a modern emigrant from that great hive * Genesis xi. 1. tral Africa; while showing them to be t Dr. Livingstone attributes to heat of the same race with the coffee-and- and moisture the jet black of the in- milk colored dwellers upon the higher, habitants of the humid shores of Cen- and dryer portions of the country. 38 ORIGIN OF THE AZTECS. of nations — Central Asia — is now undistinguishable from the aboriginal inhabitant of Europe — the Celt.* None look for Jewish customs among them, or the Germans, and if they did, they would look in vain; though the Saxon must have left his oriental home a thousand years later than the American Indian. The Indians, remaining in a state of barbarism, may have retained many habits of their pastoral ancestors ; and the Israelites, oriental shep- herds during the greater part of their sacred history, must have had those common to every eastern nomad. This is about all the foundation which the thousand folios of monkish speculation possess on the subject of the Jewish origin of the Indians. A single glance, without an argu- ment, at the facial type of the two races, is sufficient to overturn so absurd a theory. The physiognomy of the Aztecs, unaided by tradition, clearly establishes their Californian origin, and places them in the great Indian family of the Pacific side — the black Indians. Yet, the difference between them and those of the Atlantic slope, is rather one of color and climate, than of organism or race. A milder temperature, a greater abundance of the necessaries of life, and exemp- tion from the hardships of a northern forest existence, has made them less fierce and untamable than their copper-colored brethren. This of itself accounts for the readiness with which they and the other tribes of the Anahuac submitted to the cruel servitude of their con- querors, without referring it to the " all powerful interpo- * We use the word Celt here as it the French and Spanish ambassadors was used in the discussion between at the Council of Trent. AZTEC COVENANT WITH THE DEVIL. 39 sition of the blessed Virgin and the saints," that idea belongs to poets and Mexican tradition-mongers. We come now to a peculiar feature of Aztec history — one to which the Spanish historian never refers without devoutly crossing himself — we mean the covenant rela- tions existing between the Aztecs and the author of all evil — the Devil. This forms the substratum of Spanish Mexican history — and is also " the foundation and key"* of the great work of Torquemada — his " Indian Monarchy." The title to one of whose chapters reads thus : — " How it has heen the wish of the Devil to substitute himself in the place of God by taking a chosen x^eople, lohich he constituted in the Mexicans^ Herrera, the royal historiographer of the Indians, expresses himself also in relation to this evil spirit : — " Never did Devil hold such familiar converse with men as he ; and accordingly he thought proper in all things to copy the departure from Egypt and the pilgrimage per- formed by the children of Israel" * Even Friar Sahagan, whose " Universal History of New Spain" occupies the whole of the seventh and part of the fifth volume of Lord Kingsborough, is troubled by hearing " a voice that ap- peared to him to exceed all human limits," and which he very devoutly ascribes to the Devil — the Devil, the child- ren of Israel, and the Jews are the staple of all Spanish historians of the Aztecs. The question as they state it is, " Were the Aztecs the " peculiar people" whom the Devil chose out of Aztlan — California, to lead through the wilder- ness and finally plant in Mexico ? In our humble opinion there are divers objections to this story, notwithstanding * Lord Kingsborough, vi., page 242. 40 SOURCE OF MONKISH INFORMATION. the " weiglit of historical authority'' upon which it ijests I The great Sahagan, " the father of Aztec history ;" Torque- mada, "who derived his information, like Sahagan, from almost fifty years' intercourse with the natives;" Herrera, the royal historian, and almost every other named as authority by our own, are filled with such childish trash. It would be unpardonable, perhaps, to presume these monkish chroniclers derived their knowledge from a living witness — from Satan himself! — "from an almost fifty years' intercourse" with one whose reputation for truth is even worse than theirs. The " best authenticated" story sets forth that the Devil led his peculiar people out of Aztlan — California, personally, and finally, after sundry migrations, planted them in the valley of Mexico ! It was a blessing to California, no doubt, thus to have got rid of that peculiar people ! But what motive there was in this exodus, and why they were thus led from that land of gold to the Mexican valley, does not clearly appear. Was it the cor- rupting influence of gold upon their morals ? or was it only a freak of Satan to withdraw them from temptation? Whatever the cause, these pretended movements of the Devil constitute " the foundation and hey'' of the official and duly licensed tales of the conquest of Mexico, and its imaginary Aztec Empire. Before the time of Cortez, the staple thread is the wonderful working of the Devil. Then the miracle of the conquest — in which the Devil clearly performed the principal part — succeeds, though his acts are wrongfully ascribed to the Virgin and the saints. Excepting in the interested testimony of Cortez, the adventures of the Devil have exactly the same AREIVAL OF THE AZTECS. 41 high, authority as that which endorses the Spanish history of the conquest ! The historians we have quoted give it the sanction of their exalted names ; and it has the sup- port of tradition, regulated by authority — that is, Spanish tradition! And these myths stand side by side with those of the conquest — with those of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin in the Guadalupe suburb, and with those of the Virgin of Remedies. Rejecting this agency in the Aztec migration, we find in it but an ordinary instance of the roving propensities of American Indians. They wandered from point to point, leaving colonies at each stopping-place, until one party more venturous than the rest entered the lower valley of Mexico — a spot possessing few attractions for any but savages.* It was then an everglade, containing several mud islands, conveniently located for fishing and the snaring of birds, that to this day abound in the long grass and rushes of the fresh water lagunas. On these islands they built huts, and there gathered nightly, when war or the chase did not prevent. There they listened to such tales of wild adventure as the childish fancies of Indians conjure up; or to historic traditions, the real * An island embosomed in a marsh Aztecs selected this place as the site has always formed a favorite retreat of their village ; and to reach it, it for an Indian tribe, whether among was necessary to make one or more the everglades of Florida, or the wild- footpaths across the marsh. As the rice swamps of north-western Canada. Aztecs had no beasts of burden, this Such a retreat is still more desirable must have been a task of no little when, in addition to the security it magnitude. To have made it thirty affords from an enemy, it is likewise feet wide would not only have been a a resort for wild ducks, as was and is work of immense difBculty, but would the case with the laguna of the Mesi- have destroyed the defensive character can valley. Hence, probably, the of their position. — Wilson's Mexico. 42 FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE VALLEY. and the fabulous united ; or to the adventures of their war-chiefs with hobgobhns and giants. And there they slept in peace too, protected by the morass that begirt them. Before entering the valley of Mexico, these rovers ap- peared at Tlascala; where the Nahuatlac, the language of the Aztecs, is still the predominant tongue, of the three spoken or that were spoken by that people. The next effort at colonization was the establishment of a small settlement on the most convenient spot for procuring salt. Such a spot was found where Tezcuco now stands ; and there, according to unanimous Indian tradition, was the original settlement in the valley. From Tezcuco, parties wandered off, fishing and bird-catching, so says tradition ; and from them came the founders of the cities of Mexico and Tacuba. As we have been driven to Indian tradition, to esta- blish an unimportant point, it is proper at once to fix the value hereafter to be given to such testimony. The chronicles of a primitive and patriarchal age must not be confounded with those of our forests. They are as much elevated above the latter as the patriarchs them- selves were above the condition of savages. The pas- toral life of those early times was unfavorable to the preservation of records. The few facts necessary to be perpetuated were the chronology of their family and their religion ; next in importance to these, was that of their domestic animals.* For as, on their purity of blood * " A Bedouin, wrapped in his rag- tent. He had been my guest the pre- ged cloak, was seated listlessly in the ceding evening, at Nimrod, and had VALUE OF INDIAN TRADITION. 43 depended the chief value of that property ; thus the purity of their own was scarcely less a subject of solicitude. So far chronological accuracy was an object with those famous dwellers in tabernacles. Among the Indians of Mexico none of these causes existed. They have indeed innumerable legends. The passion for romantic tales is not conj&ned to our fashionable circles j it extends to the remotest limits of the forest. In civilized society these are printed and read. There they are recited, by story-tellers or tradition-mongers, to circles of eager listen- ers. These tales are as wild as the homes in which they are rehearsed, and as childish as the untaught intellect would necessarily produce. Their number is legion.* announced himself on a mission from the Shammar to the Tai to learn the breed of the mares that had been taken in the late conflict. His mes- sage might appear to those ignorant of the customs of the Arabs, one of insult and defiance. But he was on a common errand, and although there was blood between the tribes, his per- son was as sacred as that of an am- bassador in any civilized community. Whenever a horse falls into the hands of an Arab, his first thought is how to ascertain its descent." — Latard's Nineveh and Babylon, page 187. * " The proneness of the Indian mind to superstitious beliefs is chiefly to be ascribed to their legendary lite- rature. The fables which have been handed down from generation to gene- ration, to be rehearsed to the young from year to year, would fill volumes. These fabulous tales for exuberance of fancy and extravagance of inven- tion not only surpass the fireside sto- ries of all other people, but to their diversity and number there is appa- rently no limit. There were fables of a race of pigmies who dwelt within the earth, but who were endued with such herculean strength as to tear up by its roots t&e forest oak, and shoot it from their bows ; fables of a bufi"alo of such huge dimensions as to thresh down the forest in his march ; fables of ferocious flying heads wingingthem- selves through the air ; of serpents paralyzing by a look; of a monster mosquito, who thrust his bill through the bodies of his victims ; drew their blood in the twinkling of an eye. There were fables of a race of stone giants, who dwelt in the North ; of a monster bear, more terrible than the buffalo ; of a monster lizard, more destructive than the serpent. There were tales of witches, and supernatu- ral visitations, together with marvel- lous stories of personal adventure. Superadded to the fables of this de- 44 INDIO-MONKISH TRADITIONS. The Indians have also some vague notions on the subject of religion, of ghosts and of spirits. But so ill-defined are and were these, that their Spanish oppressors have repre- sented them as utter pagans, while we consider them the worshippers of one Great Spirit. Much that is probably true in these relations, is intermixed with the impossible adventures of their braves. As in the case of every un- civilized race, the distinction between the fabulous and the real is not very clearly marked. Unsupported by other evidence, proof, such as this, is not therefore reliable as authority ; and yet the folios of Spanish Aztec history have no other foundation — the fiction of the Aztec pic- tured manuscripts being admitted. There is yet, however, another class of traditions — monkish ideas distilled through Indian brains. Contend- ing daily with the wild animals of the forest for a liveli- hood, the savage acquires a development of his sensuous abilities unknown to the dwellers in cities, or the culti- vators of the soil. These faculties outstrip his intellectual advancement. His very language is so barren of words, that the native orator is compelled to tropes and figures drawn from forest life, to give force to those wild harangues which distinguish the meetings of the tribes. The ideas and the language of the Indian are peculiarly devoted to the affairs of this life. When, therefore, their monkish teachers instructed them in a religion beyond the Indian myth of the Great Spirit, the work could not begin with- out the pre-creation of compound words to express their scription were legends upon a thou- bellished with fiction." — IMorgan's sand subjects, in which fact was em- League of the Iroquois, page 166. INDIO-MONKISH TRADITIONS. 45 meaning. Latin and Spanish formularies, these missiona- ries could compel their hearers daily to recite, but of course, they could not comprehend them. New words that grew inconveniently long, in process of time were arbi- trarily shortened, according to the rules of contraction in Indian languages. Many words, therefore, and the ideas expressed by them, were unintelligible beyond the limits of the missions.* Within the missions they were useful in two ways — useful to the monks in communi- cating incomprehensible ideas, and useful to the Indians in their replies. When questioned about the ancient my- thology, the latter had only to repeat with slight variations* the lessons daily taught, and this was entirely satisfactory to the most inquisitive ! True, the ^^fathers" were filled with astonishment often to find that there had been such a striking resemblance in the ancient worship to their own. But this, when corroborated by the crosses and madonnas portrayed on the ruined Phoenician temples of the hot country, they looked upon as evidence that the Apostle Thomas had actually preached the Gospel in the Anahuac.f In their eagerness to discover Romish cus- * The Iroquois rule of contraction composition of his work on the sam'i is to strike out the two last syllables subject which he entitled The Phoenix of the first of the words compounded, of the West, which I have not been and the two first of the next word, &c. able yet to procure, as it never was f Boturnini, speaking of his collec- printed. I say in reference to the tion of MSS. and paintings, says, " I preaching of the holy apostle that I likewise possess some historical no- am in possession of a painting on tices concerning the preaching of the linen of the most holy cross of the Gospel in America by the glorious mountain Tianguiztepetl, which I Apostle St. Thomas. They are Con- have before spoken of in Sec. 20, No. tained in thirty-four sheets of Chinese 20, of this catalogue, which is painted paper, and I suppose assisted Don in the form of a Tau, about a cubit Carlos de Siguenza y Glongora in the in height, and of a beautiful azure 46 THE ETHNOLOGISTS. toms among their converts, they neglected to sift carefully the evidence. They never dreamed these figments were their own, distorted by their passage through an Indian medium. Human sacrifice, we will leave for the present. Before closing this discussion of Indian peculiarities, we must refer to a new class of philosophers, that have arisen among us — the Ethnologists, who trace the pathways of tribes and nations by an analogy of words and language. With them the Persians and Saxons are alike offspring of the Sanscrit — and with the Bramins, have a common origin. This kind of evidence has really weight only when it is shown, that the original was a settled, if not a written tongue, before any migration took place. But applied to the ever shifting dialects of savage tribes, the facts assumes another phase. When a missionary settles among a new race, his first labor is to reduce the ver- blue, intermixed with figures resem- had also been deposited in the said bling white stars, having on its right cave since the Pagan times, and was side a shield likewise of a blue color, discovered by the music of angels with five white balls in the middle, being heard in the said cave on every undoubtedly emblematical of the five vigil of the glorious apostle. The most precious wounds of the Re- above-mentioned preaching is so deemer, which monuments have been clearly indicated in the histories of preserved from the time of Paganism the Indians, that it is even recounted to our days, without the rain or the in the paintings of the Chontales, other inclemencies of the atmosphere amongst whom a most miraculous to which they had been exposed cross was discovered besides the other having been able, during so many crosses which the Spaniards found in ages, to fade the colors. I also pos- the Island of Potonchan to which the sess a painting on linen of another Indians offered adoration, presenting most holy cross of wood, which was them flowers and incense, and invok- drawn by means of a machine, that ing them under the name of the God was made on purpose out of an in- Tluloc, the God of Rain. Many traces accessible cave of Mizteca Baxa, and moreover of the holy feet of the said which is at present venerated in the apostle have remained in different Convent Church of Touala, belonging places of New Spain." — Lord Kings- to the fathers of St. Dominic, which borough, yoI. VI., p. 418. FOUNDING OF MEXICO AND TACUBA. 47 nacular of those about him to a written form — by the combination of certain Latin letters which recall to him certain sounds. The grammar thus produced is a Latin one, slightly modified to the peculiarities of the case. The process of this language improvisator is purely arbi- trary — it is the work of an alien. In a distant portion of this same tribe there may be, perhaps, another missionary employing another set of letters to recall the self-same sounds, and one who may differ too in his grammatical variations. Here, we should have two distinct written, for one spoken language. We can also conceive a case, wherein those really different, might be represented by the same set of foreign characters. Thus much for Indian dialects turned into a modified Latin. Now comes the ethnologist. He compares these various foreign gram- mars, and from them reads the history of, as he supposes, races, and determines their origin ! For the present we give over the labor of rescuing Indian character from the false coloring given it by monks and savans, and begin our narrative. Near the foot of the laguna (pond) of Tezcuco, on the lowest spot of dry-land in the valley of Mexico, and close under its eastern moun- tain barrier, stands the "imperial city"* of that name. There died, and there was buried, Don Fernando, its first Christian lord or king; and there, beside him, in after years, were laid the bones of his friend Cortez.f A * This is the title applied to Tez- f Algunos anos despues de su cuco by Mr. Prescott, as we shall have muerte, y en complimiento de su occasion to notice hereafter ; he has ultima voluntad fueron conducidas adopted as an authority the quadroon sus cenizas d, este antigo teatro de sus Don Fernando de Alya. glorias, depositandose en una caja en 48 FOUNDING OF MEXICO AND TACUBA. pile, or rather wall, of rough stones marks their place of burial. On one side is a small stone chapel built by Cortez; on the other, a Franciscan church and convent of more ample dimensions, and of more modem construc- tion, where vegetate eight monks whose evil reputation pollutes the moral atmosphere of Tezcuco.* There, accord- ing to the quadroon, Don Fernando de Alva, also styling himself by the unpronounceable Indian name of Iztlilxo- chitl, was located the famous Nalhuatlan Academy (coun- cil) of Music, in which seats were provided for the three crowned heads of the empire,-]- viz., the lords of Tezcuco, of Mexico, and Tacuba. The last two scions of the ancient seat of empire; J for, from Tezcuco migrated the founders of the second imperial city of the lagima — el iglesia de San Francisco de Tez- coco, donde se conservaron hasta el mes Febraro de 1629, en que fuei'on conducidas y sepultadas con gran pompa y solemuidad en union de las de sue nieto D. Pedro que fallecio en Mexico en la capilla mayor del con- vento de San Francisco de esta capi- tal. Alii permanecieron los vestos del conquistador hasta el dia 2 de Julio de 1794 en que fueron transla- dados a la iglesia de Jesus. — Apuntes Historicos por Miguel M. Lerdo de Tezjada, page 260. * There are here eight Franciscan monks and a convent ; seven of these monks, I was assured, were living at home with their families and child- ren, but the eighth, who happened to be a cripple, lived in the convent. A major in the guard was pointed out to me, who, having committed a murder, took sanctuary in the church, where he remained several days, when — and we have his own word for it — the Virgin Mary appeared to him and freely forgave him. On this news getting abroad, there was great rejoic- ing in Tezcuco that the Virgin had at last visited them. — Wilson's Mexico. t " Seats were provided for the three crowned heads of the Empire." — Prescott, Vol. I., page 171. Three imperial capitals, and three crowned heads of the empire within a space of sixteen miles, in a moun- tain valley twenty miles in extent, and more than half that space filled with salt-marsh ! If the upper or northern valley of Mexico be added to it, then we have an additional ter- ritory of sixty by about twelve miles. Rather a limited space for three imperial crowned heads to occupy. X In Indian phrase it would be the Bark House, and the Archon would be the keeper of the Wamjjum. AEZAHUALCOYOTL THE MAGNIFICENT. 49 Mexico; erected upon a mud island* fifteen miles distant across the marsh. From Mexico migrated a third colony, which founded upon the opposite main land, and at the distance of about a league, the third and least important monarchy of the three — Tacuba. For a long time the question of the Arclionship was in abeyance among historians ; to which of the three impe- rial cities of the confederacy belonged the pre-eminence they knew not. Tezcuco at one time was in danger from the great renown of the island-city, and the melancholy interest excited by the fate of Montezuma and his people. But the brilliant genius of her above-named son, de Alva, the quadroon, — like most of his class, claiming imperial descent on his mother's side, — has fully established the ancient renown of his alleged ancestors, and the former magnificence of his native village. He has restored its fame and its title to leadership among historians, besides establishing its claim to the pre-eminent position of " the Athens of the western world, "f After following the migrations of savage tribes and listening to the songs of Indian strollers, the historic scene shifts, and the historian introduces us to the elegancies of what might well be called oriental civilization — to the voluptuous magnificence of the fabled Imperial Seraglio of Tezcuco ; to the grandeur of the court of its imperial lord, to his city and to his rural palaces, to his hanging gardens, and his villas, which combined all the sensuous * Every building in the city of Mexico, above the condition of a mud hut, is founded upon piles driven into the ground. f See Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol. I., page 173. 4 50 ADORNMENTS OF THE PALACE. delights, represented in the tales of the Arabians, or romances of the Moors. The scene opens with Aezahual- coyotl the Magnificent, under whose wise administration Tezcuco reached, as alleged, the climax of imperial great- ness. His is the golden age of her annals. Aezahual- coyotl distinguished himself as a warrior; leading forth the armies of the imperial confederacy to the conquest of rich provinces and powerful kingdoms. His dominion extended over vast regions of the hot country ; which produced in spoil and tribute sufiicient to support the most extravagant conceptions of his genius. While war was waged without, at home agriculture and the arts flourished. Cities and villages sprung up everywhere. The very mountain-steeps were made to reward the labors of the amculturist. o Aezahualcoyotl was said to be as successful in prose- cuting the arts of peace as those of war. He made his capital to rival Bagdad, in the days of its greatest pros- perity. His city palace, for he had divers others, was twelve hundred and thirty-four yards in length by nine hundred and seventy-six in breadth. The palaces of a numerous nobility also adorned his capital. Alabaster with stucco, in variegated colors, adorned the walls. Shrubbery and the richest ornamental trees of the tropics* formed, according to Moorish custom, a pleasant relief to the stiffness of architecture; while fountains enveloped in artificial dew both shrubs and trees. Among these arbors were baths and ponds stocked with beautiful fish, while gaudy plumed birds of the tropics filled exten- * Tezcuco is not in the hot country ! THE king's family. 61 sive aviaries. " Many birds and animals that could not be obtained alive were represented in gold and silver, so skilfully that they furnished the great naturalist, Her- nandez, with models for his work."* In the palace were accommodations provided, on a lordly scale, for the sovereigns of Mexico and Tacuba, when they visited the court, as well as apartments for the king and his harem, halls for public archives, a council cham- ber, and the courts of justice. But, notwithstanding the vast extent of this abode, and its three hundred apart- ments — so vast that it employed two hundred thousand workmen in its construction — the building was insufficient to shelter the king's children. His "sixty sons and fifty daughters"* were accommodated in buildings adjoining; where they were taught accomplishments suited to their station ; including the arts of working in metals, jewelry, and feather mosaic. This king's wealth and resources were so enlarged by his wise and prudent administration, that he was enabled to sustain a domestic establishment even greater than that of Solomon, as appears from the following items, which Torquemada declares he extracted from an imperial account-book,-|- viz. 4,900,300 fanagos, * Prescott, vol. I., page 173. his possession ; or an imperial ac- t Torquemada, Lib. 2, c. 53. It is count book of any kind. We can unfortunate that our very jBrst in- never find fault vrith a Spanish troduction to so distinguished an author for inventing embellishments author, as Torquemada really is, to exalt the achievements of the hero should be under such unfortunate of his history, for he enjoyed the same circumstances. It is unnecessary to license as the poets. But here we have inform the reader that the proba- unfortunately no such apology, but bility is, there never was any such an exhibition of the besetting sin of imperial account book as the one Spaniards — the "monks' evil," lying. Torquemada professes to have had in 52 PALACE OF TEZCUZIJSTGO. or hundreds weight, of corn, 2,744,000 fanagos cacao, and 8000 turkeys ! Dreadful eaters those Tezcucans ! Besides his numerous villas, this prince built Tezcu- zingo, or little Tezcuco, upon a conical hill, some five miles from the capital. It was approached by five hun- dred steps ; some of them hewn in the solid porphyry. About this hill were hanging gardens, terraced upon its sides ; while the crest was plentifully supplied with water from an aqueduct, carried for several miles over hills and valleys on huge buttresses of solid masonry.* In the reservoirs there was statuary, and jets of water raining continuous moisture upon the lower beds of these gardens. In the midst of this elysium were marble porticos, with pavilions, and baths of solid porphyry. In one was a winged lion, with a portrait of the emperor in his mouth. The water was also carried over artificial rocks in cascades, and carried about the gardens in canals. In the main reservoir was a large rock on which was sculptured the most important events of the reign, while in three smaller were marble statues representing each one of the three states of the empire. This Aezahualcoyotl played the part of David in the tragedy of Uriah. The old lord of Tepechpan had a beautiful girl, whom he was educating to become his wife, according to the custom of the country. This girl did the honors of the table to his Indian majesty, when a guest of the old lord. The consequence was, that a violent passion sprang up in the king for the betrothed of his * In this description the author has but must be distinctly understood as followed tlie most authentic historians, not endorsing them. DAYID AND URIAH. 53 hostj which he determined to gratify at the sacrifice of the old man's hfe. Accordingly he sent orders to him to assume the command of an expedition against the Tlas- calans. At the same time two persons were instructed to keep close by him, and to entice him into the thickest of the fight, that he might lose his life. The result of this plot was the same as in the case of Uriah : the doomed victim was slain by the enemy. After this obstacle was removed the royal courtship began, and of course terminated with the most happy results. In such cases the current of love does not run very roughly in its course. Dazzled with the brilliance of a royal lover, who had the additional charm of youth to commend him, the dusky maiden was not likely long to wear the weeds of widowhood for one neither young nor royal. Believing the death of her old lord one of the casualties of war, she was easily persuaded that a living king was better than a dead hero, and eventually became the wife of the royal murderer of her betrothed. Matters being secretly arranged, the intended bride appeared in public to witness some spectacle at Tezcosingo. There Aezahualcoyotl, the royal murderer, espied the beautiful virgin from a balcony, and inquired, in pretended ignorance, who she was, and where she was from. The gratification of the royal in- quisitiveness led to an acquaintance, which terminated in public pledges of mutual affection ; and in the end, the old lord's betrothed becomes the young king's wife. Thus ends the parody. Aezahualcoyotl plays also the part of the Calif Haroun, in the Arabian Nights, wandering about the markets to hear, likewise, what his people said of him. But, like 54 AEZAHUALCOYOTL A POET. most such listeners, he was not always gratified by what he heard. He was a religious reformer; abjuring the paganism of the Mexicans,* he restored the worship of the Great Spirit. He built a mound, and on it a tower nine stories high to represent the nine heavens, while over all a tenth was placed with a roof painted black outside, and profusely gilded with ornamental stars. Within, this upper story was encrusted with metals and precious stones. From the top of this tower [minaret] the worshijDpers were summoned to prayers at stated intervals. No image was allowed in this mosque. Such, according to de Alva, was the worship he encouraged. Aezahualcoyotl was not only a patron of the fine arts, but likewise of learning, and of learned men. In his council of music sat, by invitation, the most learned of the realm ; associated with whom were the three crowned heads of the empire. But the greatest achievement of this Indian prince was his dalliance with the muses. In the academy he contended with citizens for the prizes that were to be bestowed as the rewards of superior excellence. De Alva has preserved, in Castilian, poetic specimens, which he claims as the production of his alleged maternal ancestor, Aezahualcoyotl. These speci- mens, in look and color suggesting a Moorish origin, have yet so much real merit, they cannot fail securing for de * There was no hazard in telling quois, page 157.) As they worshipped the truth about the religious worship only one of these, the Great Spirit, it of Tezcuco, as that village was in was easy to represent them either as favor with Cortez. Besides the In- Monotheists, or Polytheists, according dian belief in the Great Spirit, they to the caprice of the author. Thus believed the sky to be filled with the Mexicans were Polytheists, and spirits, the spirit of the wind, the the Tezcucans Monotheists, though spirit of the corn, &c. — (Morgan's Zro- their religion was doubtless the same. AEZAHUALCOTOTL A POET. 65 Alva, whether as a translator or the real author, the reputation of superior genius. Whether the MS. of de Alva be regarded as a history or a fable, our interest in its author must be the same. To wipe out the disgrace that in his day rested upon a quadroon, and upon all tainted with Indian blood, he consecrated his talents. And in the production of a work, which has sufficient merit to have gained it a position among standard histories, he accomplished his purpose ; merging his own claims, as a poet, with those of his alleged ancestor of a despised race. We subjoin a specimen of this Indian's muse — to which is added a borrowed translation : — A CASTILIAN AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF AN EXTRACT FROM A POEM BY THE EMPEKOR OF TEZCUCO. " T en tan triste suceso los nobles descendientes de tu nedo de Principis el peso los que de nobles Padre nan nacido metando tu cabeza gustaran la amargura de podreza. Y traeran a la memoria quien fuiste en pompa de todos envidiada tus triumphos y victoria; y con la gloria y Magistad pasada cotejando pesares de lagrimas haran crecidus Mares. En Mexico famoso Montezumd valor de pecho Indiano ' The birds of thy ancestral nests The princes of thy line — The mighty of thy race — shall see The bitter ills of poverty ; — And then shall memory recall Thy envied greatness, and on all Thy brilliant triumphs dwell ; And as they think on by-gone years Compared with present shame, their teaw Shall to an ocean swell. Brave Montezuma's Indian band With Mexico the great And Aezahnalcoyotl's * hand Blessed Colhuacan's f State * As this emperoi- poet died in 1470, at the age of 72, it follows that this notice of Montezuma the Great was written about fifty years before he was born, and before the time of the first Montezuma. t As these Indian proper names are probably now unpronounceable by any persons living, it is well enough to adopt the practice of the inhabi- tants of Mexico, and call them all Montezuma. f This is the name given to Tezcuco. The common language of the valley is called Nahuatlac. 56 THE FABULOUS CITY OF TEZCUCO. k Culhuacan dichosa Whilst Totoqnil his portion drew de Ae^ahualcoyotl rigio la mano In Acatlapan strong and true Acatlapan la fuerte But no ohIiTion can I fear Totoquilhuastli le sali6 per suerte Of good by thee accomplished here Y ningun olvido temo Whilst high upon thy throne de la bien que tu regno dispusiste That station which to match thy worth estando en el supremo Was given by the Lord of Earth lugar, que mano recibiste Maker of good alone." de aquel Senor del Mundo factor de aquestas cosas sin segundo. Such, substantially, is the picture which poets and Jds- torians are alike accustomed to draw of the famous empire of Tezcuco — the intellectual creation of Fernando de Alva, styling himself Ixtliloxochitl — a creation so enchanting, that strangers have adopted it as a verity, without stop- ping to inquire whether this beautiful fabric rested upon air, or a more substantial foundation. This fancy-created city, it is pretended, however, was built of the most solid material. Its hanging gardens were upon a hill of ]3or- phyry. Its aqueduct was " carried over hill and valley for several miles, upon huge buttresses of masonry." Such a city existing at the time of the conquest, could not be entirely destroyed in the short period of three centuries, and every vestige of its magnificence obliterated by the slight earthquakes which have visited the valley of Mexico since. What it was then, it should be substantially now. We ought still to read the inscriptions on the '* large rock in the midst of the basin," as we do those upon the ruins of Nineveh. It has not been subjected to the casualties that befell that ancient city. Its ruins could not be used for building the mud village that has supjolanted it. Hardly four hundred years have passed since the alleged period of its glory, while as many thousand, with all the GENIUS OF FERNANDO DE ALVA. 57 casualties that time carries in its train, have been unable to blot out Nineveh's ancient grandeur. We can read to-daj its history upon its extensive ruins.* But nothing like this can be found upon the site of the alleged city of Tezcuco. There are no remains of ancient aqueduct, or hanging garden, nor of its magnificent palaces and surrounding villas, nor of its halls of justice. Even the walls of its vast enclosures have left no trace. Like the baseless fabric of a Chateau dJEspagne, there is not a wreck- — not eVen an epitaph. It is not often that a man, resting under the disabilities of a quadroon, can, by the force of his genius alone, wash away the stigma of impure blood, and still more, make even that a means of exalting himself to rank and no- bility. We may question the morality of de Alva, but not his intellect. Holding the humble position of an Indian interpreter, he, a hundred years after the con- quest, painted a genealogical tree, so beautifully, that the very birds might lodge upon its branches ; and the tra- veller, as he passes, can fancy he inhales its fragrance. By a happy combination of Moorish, Arabic, and Oriental story, he has produced a dramatic sketch so enchanting, that its many physical, moral, and mental impossibilities are entirely overlooked, and this fancy creation of de Alva is named and ranked with Spanish-American history.^ * See Layard's Nineveh and Baby- is only the counterpart of the fabu- lon ; also Nineveh and its Remains. lous picture Cortez drew of the im- t If the reader will turn to Folsom's perial city of Mexico, under the edition of the Letters of Cortez (trans- reign of Montezuma, with a few ad- lation), p. 110, he will find that this ditions drawn from Scripture His- picture, which our Indian author tory, Moorish Romances, and the draws of the imperial city of Tezcuco., Arabian Nights. 58 GENIUS OF FERNANDO DE ALVA. It was hard to give up so beautiful an historic dream, even after the author had explored the spot, and found there only the usual reliques of savage art, such as they are over the entire continent — rude stone images ham- mered out with hatchets of stone, and small Indian mounds. Nearly all else was dried mud,* except two churches. The reality we ascertain from de Alvas con- temporary, the English Friar, Thomas Gage, who sets it down as a small village, which might contain a popula- tion of three hundred Indians and one hundred whites, whose "chief riches come by gardening, and sending daily herbs and sailers to Mexico f-\ and, he might have * It is not proper to call adobes unburnt brick. With the word brick we connect the idea of clay. But adobes are not made out of clay un- less by accident. It is simply the surface earth (soil) stirred up in water and mixed with straw. It is moulded in very large blocks ; the ordinary width of a house wall, and dried by exposure to the sun in the dry season. f Friar Thomas Gage, just a hun- dred years after the conquest, thus discourses of Tezcuco and Mesical- zingo : — " And as we talked of the greatness of it [Tezcuco] in former times, so like- wise we now wondered to consider it to be but a small government where doth constantly reside a Spanish go- vernor (Indian agent) sent from Spain, whose power reacheth to those borders of Tlascala Guacocingo, and to most of the petty towns and vil- lages of the plain, which were formerly under the command and power of a king. But now are not able to make up above 1000 duchats a year, which is supposed to be the yearly revenue of the governor; and Tezcuco itself this day judged to consist only of a hundred Spaniards and three hundred Indian inhabitants, whose chief riches come from gardening and sending daily in their canoes herbs and sailers to Mexi- co. * * * At the end of this plain we passed the Mexicalzingo, which formerly was a great town, but now not of above one hundred inhabi- tants." — A New Survey of the West Indians, page 90. The above quoted English Friar was a contemporary of Ixtlilxochitl, the famous historian of Indian de- scent, and according to his own show- ing of the blood imperial of Tezcuco. The difference in the pictures which the two draw of the same place is certainly wonderful ! VALUE OF DE ALYA AS WITNESS. 59 added, in raking tequesquita* for the manufacture of salt in winter. By a clerical error in one of the volumes of Prescott,f de Alva is represented as flourishing at the beginning of the sixteenth century instead of the seventeenth,^ a man of three-fourths white blood flourishing at an Indian vil- lage twenty-five years before the arrival of the first of the whites from whom he was descended ! This error in dates has often misled careless readers in estimating the value of de Alva as a witness. He had, in fact, no greater facilities for obtaining information than Gage, except the oral and traditional records of his race, and none, perhaps, equal to ourselves, if we deny the fictive existence of the picture writings. So long as there was a restriction on discussion, and a rigid censorship of the press — or rather seven distinct censorships, § — these pretended picture re- cords were constantly appealed to, as authority for all sorts of historic fable. But, since the publication of Lord Kingsborough's faxi similes, this imposture has become patent to the world, as will be more fully shown in the following chapter. De Alva went a step further than the previous historians of Mexico, and alleged not only that he had consulted Tezcucan records, but even those more ancient still, that is, Toltec fragments which had escaped a pretended burning by one of the emperors * This is a compound of one-third logical society, gives the proper era — salt, muriate of soda ; one-third car- " the beginning of the seventeenth bonate of soda ; and one-third common century." — See Transactions, vol. I., earth. page 150. t Prescott, vol. I., page 206. | See Wilson's Mexico, page 128 ; % The Hon. Albert Gallatin, in the also note to page 247, in vol. VI. transactions of the American Ethno- Lord Kingsborough. 60 VALUE OF DE ALYA AS WITNESS. of Mexico, Ytzcoatl, sixty-two years before Montezuma.* But he does not explain how these strange witnesses, both Toltec and Tezcucan, disappeared. Like the plates of the Mormon Bible,-]- Mexican, Tezcucan, and Toltec picture writings disappear as soon as they are copied, and none but the initiated are permitted to see the originals ! The most delicate duty of the historian is to sift from these historical myths the grains of truth they may contain, and which are in danger of being lost in the mass of fable. There is a real, as well as a factitious, Tezcuco. But adobe, or dried mud, was probably the * The origin and history of the fabulous Aztec picture records may be briefly stated as follows : — The ambassadors sent to Cortez by Mon- tezuma probably made some rude marks on pieces of bark for aiding them, for they were only runners, in making a report to Montezuma. This Cortez probably noticed, and in his letters represented it, with his usual recklessness, as a species of writing. In the next generation after the conquest, when Mexico had become the absorbing subject of in- terest in Spain, on account of the discovery there of immense deposits of silver by the Spaniards, every- thing in relation to it became a mat- ter of interest to Europeans. Great inquiry was made for the relics of Aztec civilization, which now began to be considered a reality. Picture writings were first sought after, but none could be found. A few were manufactured, which were sold to strangers at a high price, as copies, and the disappearance of the balance was accounted for by the cunning churchman, Bishop Zumarraga — the inventor of the Miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe — by alleging that he had burnt them. t Many years ago, within a few miles of the author's residence, in western New York, there lived one Joseph Smith, called, familiarly, Jo Smith. He was decidedly a low fel- low, and much addicted to " big yarns." He professed to have had a revelation, which led to the dis- covery of the golden plates of a book, which he facetiously called the Mor- mon Bible. These plates, as soon as copied, disappeared, and his own statement is all we have in proof that they ever existed ! This is the foundation of Mormonism. Still nearer our residence, three sisters, the Misses Fox, were troubled with apparitions and strange noises, which was the starting point of " spiritual rappings," and table mov- ings. The spirit that animated these people and their dupes was the same as that of Spanish devotees. FEDERATIVE SYSTEM. 61 most costly building material ever used in that localit}^, until Cortez built there a small, rude chapel of stone. It is a spot admirably fitted for a village of Indian " salt rakers." That it must have been thus occupied from an extremely early period, is more than probable. The brackish waters of the lagitna, carried high upon the beach by the summer rains and westerly winds, sub- side with the return of winter ; leaving behind them an incrustation of tequisquita, which the natives gather and distribute through the interior as a substitute for salt. Some foreigners have here established a salt manufactory. There is, however, here a manufactory of glass ; so that Tezcuco must now be in a more flourishing condition, probably, than it ever was under its native chiefs — as they were then engaged in a continuous war with their immediate neighbors of Tlascala, for the last fifty years of their confederacy with Mexico. We now take leave of Fernando de Alva de Ixtlilxochitl, with the remark that an epithet, too common at Mexico, cannot with justice be applied to him — "he lies like a priest;" for if he does state what he knew to be untrue, he has done it far more elegantly than any of the priestly his- torians whose works we shall discuss in the following chapter. THE FEDERATIVE SYSTEM OF THE AZTECS AND OTHER INDIANS, AND THEIR LAW OF DESCENT. The glimmerings of truth in the ponderous folios of the monkish writers, are so indistinct as to render it diffi- cult to determine the exact relation Montezuma held to 62 AZTEC SUCCESSION. his people. He is represented as exercising the incompa- tible offices both of sachem, or civil ruler, and war chief, and also as belonging, or having belonged, to the priest- hood, which doubtless means nothing more than that he was one of the " keepers of the faith ;" besides, perhaps, exercising the rare and ill defined office of prophet. To account for these anomalies, I assumed, in my preliminary work, that he or his predecessors had acquired this posi- tion by successful usurpation; which involved a funda- mental change of Indian polity, that is, — his position was one of force. His office, such as it was, is alleged to have passed, on his death, not to his son, but, according to the law regu- lating the descent of sachem, to his brother, Cuitlahua, and then to his nephew, Guatamozin. This succession, it is claimed, carried with it the office of war chief, which is not hereditary. Thus, surrounded by difficulties and contradictions, I have preferred to hold until further developments the common belief, rather than wander too far from the beaten track, on insufficient evidence. Throughout these volumes, Cuitlahua and Guatamozin are represented then, as in all other histories of the con- quest, to have been chiefs and leaders in the war against the Spaniards. Further investigations may change this opinion ; but in the meantime no injury can result from still considering them as emperors of Mexico. The Indian system of federation is blended with their peculiar law of tribal, or rather artificial family organiza- tion. So, too, is their law of descent, which distinguishes them from all other races. This organization may be TRIBAL DIVISIONS. 63 enunciated as follows : — All Indian nations, so far as the inquiry has been carried, are divided into a certain num- ber of tribes or brotherhoods ; differing in number in dif- ferent confederations, but always the same in the nations of the same confederacy. Thus the nations composing the confederacy of the Iroquois were each divided into eight of these families, viz., the Hawk, the Heron, the Beaver, the Turtle, &c. The Creeks were divided into ten, the Ojibways into thirteen, the Delawares into three, &c. This accounts for the permanency of Indian con- federations : it was a peculiar application of the family organization. Among the Iroquois a Hawk of the Sene- cas considered himself a blood brother to the Hawks of the Oneidas ; so, too, the members of the Turtle, the Herons, and others. War could not arise among nations leagued together in this manner, without arraying bro- ther against brother ; that is. Hawk against Hawk, Tur- tle against Turtle, &c. An event almost impossible. The restriction it imposed upon marriage is the next most remarkable feature of this artificial family division of a whole confederacy. It was made as much an act of incest for one Hawk to marry another Hawk, or Snipe another Snipe, &c., as for a brother to marry his natural sister. There was no other legal restriction upon any member of the league marrying where his inclination led him. But his children, according to the law of descent in the female line, were not his, but his wife's. They belonged exclusively to her n tion, and to her brother- hood, and could never inherit either office or property from their father. This Indian law of descent seems 64 EFFECT ON MARRIAGE. never to have been comprehended by Europeans.* They often express surprise that the son of Montezuma did not succeed his father instead of the brother, and nephew; never once dreaming there was a legal prohibition in the way of that succession. Mr. Prescott, in his unfamiliarity with Indian law, supposed this to have been caused by the illegitimacy of the son of Montezuma. Between brethren of the deceased and the sister's son, the right of inheritance was equal, and could only be determined by an election in council. The electors were the wise men [the elders] and matrons of the tribe, among whom the mother of the deceased exercised a predominant influence. Montezuma, it is evident from his badge, belonged to the Eagle family, and, from neces- sity, his successors were also Eagles. But his son, not being an Eagle, could not inherit. The land laws of the Indians were also pecuhar. All land belonged in common to the community, and was parcelled according to the wants of its families; or, rather, there being usually much more than was required for cultivation, every one took possession of as much as he, or rather she, required. This could not be sold. But * Since the above paragraph was ceased chief's sister in preference to written, the author has read in Dr. his own offspring. When dissatisfied Livingstone's account of his Sixteen with one candidate, they even go to a Years' Researches in Central Africa distant tribe for a successor, who is the following : — usually of the family of the late chief, " The government of the Bunjui is a brother or a sister's son, but never rather peculiar, being a sort of feudal his own son or daughter." — Living- republicanism. The chief is elected, stone's Researches (Harper's edition), and they choose the son of the de- page 660. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 65 all improvements are individual property, which, in effect, ffives an indirect title to the land itself. o These fundamental laws of Indian society, seem to have entirely escaped the notice of all European authors, and were little known to American writers until fully elaborated by Lewis H. Morgan, Esq., and published in the " Proceedings of the American Society for the Advance- ment of Science, Eleventh Annual Repm't, part 2d, page 132, Cambridge, Mass., 1858. The same authority informs us, that the law of descent among the Chippewas is in the male line, an exception to Indian law which seems to have been borrowed from the whites. He continues as follows : — " It is well known that the early Spanish writers upon the conquest are full of contradictory assertions, exaggera- tions, and fabulous statements. Very little reliance is to be placed upon them. On the other hand, the institu- tions of our Indian races are obscure and complicated ; and can only be worked out by careful and patient re- search, carried down to minute particulars. Those of the Iroquois were unknown, until within the last twenty years, although the Jesuit missionaries, and both French and English travellers, had written volumes upon their civil and domestic affairs. The real structure and principles of the league eluded their inquiries. Its general features, though well known, were so encumbered with errors that the knowledge was of little value. It would not be sur- prising if the same were true of the institutions of the Aztecs. " Now the institutions of all the aborigines of this con- 5 66 A COMMON TYPE. tinent, have a family cast [type]. They bear internal evidence of a common paternity, and point to a common origin, but remote, both as to time and place! They all sprang from a common mind, and, in their progressive development, have still retained the impress of their original elements, as is abundantly verified. The Aztecs were thoroughly and essentially Indian. We have glimpses here and there at original institutions, which suggest at once, by their similarity, kindred ones among the Iroquois and other Indian races of the present day. Their intellectual characteristics, and the predominant features of their social condition, are such as to leave no doubt upon this question ; and we believe the results of modern research, upon this point, concur with this con- clusion. Differences existed, it is true; but they were not radical. The Aztec civilization simply exhibits a more advanced development of those primary ideas of civil and social life, which were common to the whole Indian family, and not their overthrow by the substitu- tion of antao:onistic institutions. " Judging, then, from the institutional point of view, the Aztec monarchy, as described to us by current histories, will not bear the test of criticism. So far as the struc- ture of the government is concerned, a serious doubt rests upon the whole narrative. The testimony drawn from the very nature of true Indian institutions, denies that the Aztec government was a monarchy. Nay, it asserts that it is utterly impossible that it could have been a monarchical government. Venturesome as this statement may appear, it is yet proclaimed and vindicated by the MONARCHY DOUBTFUL. 67 principles and structure of Indian society. If we could now break through the overlapping mass of fable and exaggeration, and bring to light the real institutions of the Aztecs, it would be found, there is every reason to believe, that their government was an hereditary oligar- chy, very similar to that of the Iroquois. That Monte- zuma, so far from being emperor of the Aztecs, was only one of a large number of sachems, who, equally, by their joint authority in council, administered the affairs of the commonwealth. As the leading sachem residing in the metropolitan city, he was first brought in contact with the Spaniards; and they, taking it for granted that he was the emperor, determined that he should be so, right or wrong. The splendor and power of the Aztec mon- archy, as set forth in their recitals, tended, in no inconsi- derable degree, to magnify their own exploits." Ihid. p. 142. " This is, in reality, a condensed statement of the actual history of our Indian races. They have under- gone a process of repeated and continuous subdivisions from age to age, but counteracted here and there by con- federacies. We know that these confederacies have existed, and still exist, in places, all over this continent ; as witness, among others, the league of the Iroquois, the Powhatan confederacy in Virginia, the Sioux league of the seven council fires, and the alliance between the Aztecs, Tezcucans, and Tlacupans. But, on the other hand, we have never known of an Indian monarchy on any part of it, unless we accept the pretended Aztec monarchy. By the junction of several tribes into one 68 LORD KINGSBOROUGH. nation, and several nations into a confederacy, the people are brought under the joint authority of the sachems of the several tribes, who, in general council, administer all such affairs as relate to the common welfare; leaving each tribe and nation to the particular government of its own sachems. Such a government was that of the Iro- quois ; and, substantially, without much doubt, the form of government which prevailed among the whole Indian family upon this continent." Ibid. p. 146.* Lord Kingsborough conferred a benefit upon the world he did not antici- pate, but none the less valuable on that account. As soon as the civil and ecclesiastical despotism of Spain ceased to give tone and color to its litera- ture, it became necessary to subject even its standard histories to the ordinary tests of criticism, to determine what was genuine, and what spurious ; since neither the sanction of a Superior, or of an Inquisitor, could longer give them currency. The whole of that magnificent myth — the chronology of the empire of Montezuma — rested solely upon the question of the genuineness of the picture writings. There was not a vestige of other evidence, except tradition, to sup- port it. The authors who appealed to these writings as their authority, were nearly all members of the demoralized priesthood of Spanish America, whose reputation for truth was at the lowest ebb. If these Mexican records were genuine, then there would be no stretch of credulity in giving credence to the statement of Fernando de Alva, that he had consulted Tezcucan and Toltec picture records. Having derived a great benefit from the labors of this superstitious lord, we can appreciate his lordship's sufferings and sacrifices in the cause of lite- rature, though from a difierent reason than the one that actuated him. An * There is one statement in the whereas they have, in fact, eighteen, foregoing chapter, on the authority This fact has been satisfactorily esta- quoted, which requires correction : — blished since the above chapter was " The Ojibways are divided into thir- vrritten. teeu tribes, or family divisions," LORD KINGSBOEOUGH. 69 idea of the magnitude of his labors may be derived from the fact of his having employed de Aglio five consecutive years copying all the copies of these records to be found in the royal and princely libraries of Europe. He found none in Spain or in Mexico, for the same reason, perhaps, that the manu- facturers of the vrood of the true cross, or other ancient relics, are said not to reserve any of the precious article for their private use ! If vre add to this item of expense the engraving and printing of the whole mass, we may form some idea of the extent of his enterprise. This work is one that would have reflected the highest honor oh the greatest of Spanish monarchs. Yet kings neglected it. What kings neglected, the Irish lord, whose name heads this note, effected through love to literature and devotedness to superstition. Sincerely believing those monkish legends that make up the mass of Aztec history, he consecrated his time and the whole of his ample fortune to bring them before the world in an attractive form. He did not hesitate to believe the devil had played a part in Aztec history, nor fail to adopt the theory of their Jewish origin. He ransacked history, ancient and modern litera- ture, to support this favorite theory of monkish chroniclers. In like manner the histories of Mexico were ransacked, every monk's opinion, every vague rumor, and even monstrous improbabilities (such as the story of the Apostle Thomas preaching the gospel in the Anahuac), were greedily swallowed, when they appeared to add color to his argument. He seems to have been entirely ignorant of the common rules of evidence, and makes no distinction between that which is improbable and fictitious and that which is real. A conglome- rate of extracts, and notes without system or order, or reference to the pages and editions in which they can be found, constitutes the sixth volume of his ponderous work. The whole of his seventh volume is occupied with the work of Friar Suhagan. The fifth volume contains the translation into Spanish of the " picture writings ;" a portion of the work of Dupaix, and that part of Suhagan, which contains the prayers to the gods. The sixth volume has the balance of Dupaix. The reader of Lord Kingsborough is constantly annoyed by his want of sys- tem, and the continual mixing of the important with the trivial, yet he can- not fail to be struck with the child-like faith with which his lordship embraces the most absurd of Spanish superstitions. He objects to the inconsistency of Protestants in denying the efficacy of relics, when the Scriptures declare the bones of Elisha raised a dead man to life ! And he never suspected any of his readers would object to such proof as the following; by which, among other evidences derived from Boturnini, he establishes ih.Qfact! of the preach- 70 THE author's visit to tezcuco. ing of the gospel by the Apostle Thomas in the Anahuac. " Many traces, however, of the holy feet of the said apostle have remained in New Spain."* From the four first volumes containing the " picture writings," the late Albert Gallatin drew the material for his labored scrutiny, and brought to light the important fact that the " picture writings" of any historic value were made thirty-two years after the conquest, while all others were merely fragmentary, of no ascertainable date, and no historic value.f That is to say, the "picture writings," to all appearance, wei'e part and parcel of the pious frauds perpetrated at Mexico, under the auspices of Bishop Zumarraga, to add glory to the Virgin Mary, and to gratify the national appetite of the Spaniards for " holy wars," which subject will be treated more at length hereafter. It would be wandering too far from the object of this note to enter here into the grave discussion of the merits of " picture writings." It is sufficient that the work of Lord Kingsborough has merits beyond those his lordship anticipated. But within the scope and intent of the author, it is about as valueless an expenditure of fortune as could well be devised. His Irish traits of character stick out at times most amusingly. He had learned, from his Saxon associations, the value of truth, and it never occurred to him that other nations might hold it in less estimation. He seems to have carried with him an idea that truth was an essential part of religion, and cannot understand how those who are evidently conscientious men can speak falsely. Boturnini's pretension to have once possessed a Toltec MS., taken from him by an English cruiser, he never seems to question. It is the same one which Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilsochitl received from the kings of Tezcuco, his ancestors. He never thought of questioning the veracity of Boturnini, and with equal avidity gulps down the marvellous story of the painting that Boturnini in so wonderful a manner obtained from a cave, which fully and unequivocally established the mission of the Apostle Thomas to America ! Lord Kingsborough is the personification of Irish credulity and Irish bungling.J THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. " It was the feast-day of the kings, los Reyes, when, after my return to Mexico, I was again in the saddle, riding out from Mexico toward the village * The mark of a foot on the rock is the antique " guide board." f Transactions of the Ameo'ican Ethnological Society, vol. I., pages 116, 145, 146, 306. X Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 245. THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 71 of Tezcuco. I had to take a by-way, as the Guadalupe road was blocked up in consequence of the holiday. In doing so, I had to leap a ditch or canal, in which both rider and horse came near closing their pilgrimage in a quagmire; but in time we were again upon the road. It is a dreary place about that rock of Tepeyac, or Guadalupe, and if the Virgin had not smiled upon the barren spot and made roses grow out of it, it would be as uninviting as one of the hills of the valley of Sodom. This hill is now called the ' Mountain of Crosses,' for upon it, in 1810, the first insurgent, Hidalgo, the priest of Dolores, won a battle against the royal troops, which should have been followed up by an entry into Mexico; but Providence ordered it otherwise, and the forest of crosses, that once covered it, proclaimed a bloody slaughter without any results. " The shores of Tezcuco approach the hill in the wet season, leaving but a narrow margin for the road, but in the dry season this margin is greatly enlarged. I have already explained the composition of teqidsquita, and the manner of its production.; here it was lying in courses, or spots, as it had been left by the receding and drying up of the water during the dry season. Little piles of it had been gathered up here and there to be taken to town for use, probably by the ])akers or soapboilers, who are said to pay fourteen reals — shillings — an aroha for it. Besides a little stunted grass, there was here no sign of vegetable life except a peculiar species of the cactus family, which resembled a mammoth beet without leaves, but bearing upon its top an array of vegetable knives that surrounded a most exquisite scarlet flower. " There was another sight by the road side more in keeping with, the gloomy thoughts which this desert place excites : it was the dead bodies of three men, who had been condemned by a military commission for robbing a bishop. They were shot, and their bodies were placed on three gibbets as a warning to others. The bishop, it is said, would have pardoned the robbery ; but for their excessive depravity in searching vvithin his shirt of sackcloth for concealed doubloons ! This was more than a bishop could en- dure. The worthy ecclesiastic had renounced the world and all its vanities, and had put on the badges of poverty and self-mortification for $50,000 a year, and wore disguises that ought to have shielded him from the suspicion of being rich ! " These military commissions are no new invention in Mexico, for the famous Count de Galvez, the viceking who built the castle of Chapultepec and deposed an Archbishop of Mexico, had a travelling military court, with chaplain and all spiritual aids, to accompany the dragoons that scoured the road in search of robbers. "When a fellow was caught, court, chaplains, and 72 THE author's visit to tezcuco. dragoons made rapid work in dismissing him to his long resting-place, and saying a cheap mass for the repose of his soul, and then again they were ready for another entei-prise. In this way the roads were made safe in the times of that viceroy. " Had I known the real distance to Tezcuco, I ought to have abandoned the journey on account of the lameness of my horse. But the miraculous Virgin, or, more probably, the extreme purity of the atmosphere on these elevated plains, had deprived me of the power of measuring distance by the eye. This is excessively annoying to a traveller. He sees the object he is attempting to approach at an apparently moderate distance, plain in sight, and as he rides along, hour after hour, there it stands, just where it seemed to be when he first got sight of it. I finally reached my destination in good time for a dinner, and for as good a night's 'entertainment for man and beast' as could be found in all the republic of Mexico. " When I turned the head of the lake, I was close upon the track which Cortez and his retreating band followed into the plains of Otumba. Poor wretches ! what a time they must have had of it in this disconsolate retreat — wounded, jaded, like tigers bereft of their prey! They mourned for their companions slain, but most of all for the booty they had lost. " They grieyed for those that went down in the cutter, And also for the biscuits and the butter :" And hobbled on, as best they could, while the natives pursued them with hootings and volleys of inefficient weapons. Passing this point and turning to the north-east, they entered the plains of Otumba, where they encountered the whole undisciplined host of the Aztecs, and scattered them like chaff before the wind. " Soon after I had passed the head of the lake and turned southward, I entered a cultivated country between tilled grounds and little mud villages along the road. These were the representatives of the magnificent cities enumerated by Cortez. That fine grove of cypresses which had been a land- mark all day was now close at hand, and I could form some idea of its great antiquity. But the day was passing away, and it was still uncertain whether safe quarters for the night could be found, where my horse, and the silver plates on his bridle, and the silver-mounted saddle, would be secure from robbers. " A good dinner and a clean bed could not have been found here a year earlier. But the new and enterprising firm of Escandon & Co., who now have the Real del Monte silver mines, had just completed a ' Casa Grand' THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 73 * Grand House/ in connection with the salt manufacture, which they carry on here solely for the use of that single mine. It was a neat one-story residence of dried mud [adobe), and worthy the occupancy of the proudest king of Tezcuco. Though the flagging of the interior court was not all completed, yet the managing partner had taken possession, and it was fitted up according to the most approved style of an Anglo-Saxon residence. As horse and rider passed into the outer door, there stood ready a groom to lead the former into the inner court, where were the stables for the horses, and I entered the house to enjoy the unlooked-for pleasures of English hospitality in this out- of-the-way Indian village. " The resident partner was an Englishman. His connection with the Real del Monte Company extended only to the manufacture of salt. But even this was an extensive affair, and had already absorbed an investment of $100,000, in order to provide the salt used in only one branch of the process of refining silver at that mine. The gentleman was now absent, but his excellent English wife and her brother knew full well how to discharge the duties of host even to an unknown stranger. The dinner was of the best, and there was no lack of appetite after a hard day's ride on a trotting horse. So we all had the prime elements of enjoyment. Entertainment for man and beast is among the highest luxuries to be found by the wayside. It was an equal luxury to my hosts in their isolated residence to receive a visit from one whose only recommendation was that the English language was his native tongue, " It is doubtful if the Emperor of Tezcuco ever knew what it was, on a raw winter's evening, to sit before a bright wood fire, in a fireplace, with feet on fender and tongs in hand, listening to an animated conversation so mixed up of two languages that it was hard to tell which predominated. Not all the stateliness to be found in Mexican palaces, where, in lordly halls, men and women now sit and shiver over protracted dinners, can yield pleasures like those grouped around an English fireside. The evening was not half long enough to say all that was to be discussed. As we sat and chatted, and drank our tea with a gusto we had never known before, we forgot altogether that we were indulging in plebeian enjoyments upon the spot where an emperor's palace had probably stood. Instead of such plebeian things as a wood floor and Brussels carpet, his imperial majesty may have here squatted upon a mat, and dealt out justice or injustice, according to his caprice, to trembling crowds of dirty Indians, whose royal feathers made them princely. Dignity and majesty are truly parts of Indian character, but a good dinner and a clean bed are luxuries that an Indian, even though he were an emperor, never knew. 74 THE author's visit to tezcuco. " My business here, and at Tezcuco, was to search for relics, and as soon as daylight appeared I was astir. But no relics could be found except some stone images so rudely cut as to be a burlesque upon Indian stone-cutting. There was an alleged sacrificial stone and a calendar stone built into the steps of the church of San Francisco, which were so badly done that the use to which they were said to have been applied could just be made out. Here, too, was a rude stone wall, built over the grave of Don Fernando, who had been converted to Christianity by Cortez ! There is also here one of those little chapels which indicate extremely limited means possessed by Cortez. " At the distance of a bow-shot from this is the site of the ' slip' (canal) which Cortez says he caused to be dug, twelve feet wide and twelve feet deep, in order to float his brigantines. Near by, the Indians were digging a new canal for the little steamboat which now plies on the laguna. When they reached a point less than three feet from the surface, they were stopped by the water. How could Cortez, under greater disadvantages, dig to the depth of twelve feet, without even iron shovels ? " I returned to the hacienda and inquired if there were no other relics. The proprietor assured me that' he had been unable to find any except the Indian mounds which he showed me, and some stone cellar steps that he had found in digging. And this is all that now remains of the great and magnificent city of Tezcuco, which had entered into alliance with Cortez, and which, for more than a hundred years after the conquest, was under the especial care of a superintendent sent from Spain, as an Indian reservation. " There are here eight Franciscan monks and a convent ; seven of these monks I was assured were living at home with their families and children ! but the eighth, who happened to be a cripple, lived in the convent. A major in the guard was pointed out, who, having committed a murder, took sanctuary in the church, where he remained several days, when — and we have his own word for it — the Virgin Mary appeared to him and freely forgave him. On this news getting abroad, there was great rejoicing in Tezcuco that the Virgin had at last visited them. From being stigmatized as a murderer, the object of this visit was almost adored as a saint, and became one of the principal men of the village, and was created a major in the new corps. " After I had surveyed the salt-works and the glass-works, I turned my horse's head toward Mexico by the road along the eastern shore, so that I made the complete circuit of Lake Tezcuco. "Thus far my visit to the royal city of Tezcuco had been perfectly suc- cessful ! The splendid high farming-lands extend from the shore to the THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 75 foot of the mountain strikingly in contrast with the flatness and barren- ness of the plain on the west side, which is so slightly elevated above the level of the lake that a few inches of rise in the laguna spreads out an immense sheet of saline water, and yet there is not a solitary evaporating vat where there is an unlimited demand for the evaporated article at fourteen shillings the aroba. " Cortez speaks of the fine fields of corn on the east side of the lake. But they could not have been finer in his day than they are at present, though they furnished him with the supplies that supported his army. I reached the head of Tezcuco at noontide, where the heavy water of the salt lake was driving up toward the fresh water, as described by Cortez, but it was under the pressure of a strong north wind." — Wilson's Mexico and its Religion. CHAPTER II. SPANISH HISTORIANS AND SPANISH PICTURE WRITINGS. Historians of the conquest, 76* — Author's facilities for conducting an investi- gation, 77 — The result of the inquiry, 78 — Criticism necessary, 78 — The Spanish histories but parodies on the book of Joshua, 79 — Their histories divested of Moorish elements, 80 — The object of Cortez' letters, 80 — The effect of the emperor's favor on evidence, 81 — Romance and history inter- mingled, 82 — A Moorish character given to the Indians, 84 — The influence of the holy office on history, 86 — MS. histories, 87 — Indio-Spanish tradi- tional history, 88 — Burning of Aztec picture records fabulous, 90 — Picture writings Spanish, not Aztec, 90 — The discrepancies among historians, 92 — The difficulty of vrriting a history of the conquest, 93 — The verisimilitude of Spanish authors, 94 — Bernal Diaz de Castillo, 95 — Modern historians of the conquest, 97 — Boturnini, 98 — A specimen of his picture vrritings, 101 — Veytia, 102 — Clavigero, 103 — Historians at Mexico, 104 — Alaman, 104 — Bustamente and Lerdo de Tajede, 104 — Mr. Wm, H. Prescott, 104 — Robertson's History of America, 106 — Mr. L. H. Morgan's " League of the Iroquois" 106 — M. Dupaix, 107 — ^Alexander Von Humboldt, 107. One of the most important achievements in modern literature, is its separation of history from romance : a result effected by applying the common rules of evidence to all historical statements. To this ordeal the histories of most civilized countries have been subjected for cen- turies. Spain forms an exception to the statement — an exception which includes her two most important quon- dam colonies — Mexico and Peru. The combined spiritual * This chapter was written before ment. As the same result is reached the two preceding ; and before the by a different course of proof, it is by author was aware of the labors of the no means a repetition, Hon. Lewis Cass in the same departr (76) HISTORIES OF THE CONQUEST. 77 and temporal despotism of those countries, for three hun- dred years, impeded, if it did not entirely prohibit, the progress of investigation. In our day, this despotism has been broken down ; and Spanish history is now before the same tribunal to which that of other countries has been subjected. But this purification has not, as yet, been applied to the chronicles of either Mexico or Peru. The Spanish holy wars have already been sifted of their fables, until nothing remains of those gorgeous histo- rical romances but their bleached and naked skeletons. But the holy war of New Spain — the conquest of Mexico by Cortez — continues the precise form and shape in which the monkish * historians fashioned it. Their writings, which should be styled a Romish theory of the conquest, still pass for its history, even among us ; and, on their authority, all Anglo-Saxon accounts of that event rest. These authors wrote under a permission from the Supe- riors of their respective orders, and published, if at all, under the license of seven distinct censors, two of whom were Inquisitors, yet are they constantly quoted as autho- rities, by modern inquirers into the conquest of Mexico. And on such unworthy warrant are founded the standard English and American versions. It was not the author's original design to call attention to the fabulous portion of these narratives. His plan was formed before he had discovered that they contained * The -writing of history, so far as vol. VI., page 265. The priests of it related to the New World, was, by New Spain (Mexico) were mostly the law of Spain, restricted to men in monks, priestly orders. — Lokd Kingsborough, 78 THE author's inquiries. them. Not until after his second visit to the country, and a careful examination of the sites in which the events occurred, did he discover the real value of these historical romances. Then, too, it was that he concluded Monte- zuma's empire must have been similar to that of the Iroquois,* in the zenith of their prosperity .-j- He was aided in attaining these results by a partial knowledge of Indian character, previously acquired,! by several years of professional and ordinary intercourse with Spanish- Americans, and by his large acquaintance with the pecu- liarities of a country abounding in precious metals. § The discovery of a common flint arrow-head — an indis- pensable part of the usual weapons of a North Ame- rican Indian — upon the pyramidical mound of Cholula,I| first aroused suspicion, and set the author upon this inquiry * See Morgan's League of the Iro- the country that had belonged to the quois. Senecas, he there enjoyed a good op- f Morgan's Iroquois. portunity of studying Indian charac- X The author's knowledge of the ter. character of the North American In- § The author resided three years dians was acquired before he had gain- and a half in California after the dis- ed any preconceived notions from the covery of gold. writings of others. His father, who || Perhaps no incident can better had lived among the Iroquois, or Six illustrate the utter absurdity of our Nations, in the family of Joseph taking second hand from Europeans Brandt, their head, and went through our ideas of a North American In- the usual forms of adoption in place dian than the very one under consi- of an Indian who had died, gave him deration. his first lessons on Indian character ; The author's first suspicions of the and a taste so early acquired was civilization of the Indians of the table- followed up in after life. His ances- land was the discovery of this arrow- tors, for several generations, dwelt head, such a one as used to be plough- near the Indian agency at Cherry ed up by scores near the place where Valley, on " Wilson's Patent," though he was born. This was sufficient to eK- in Cooperstown village was he born, cit an inquiry — an inquiry which in- Removing early in life to a part of volved a careful examination of the NECESSITY OF A SCRUTINY. 79 into the pretended civilization of Montezuma and his Aztecs. The investigation has resulted in his convic- tion that a large portion of the narrative of Cortez was designedly untrue, and written purposely to impose upon the emperor; and, further, that all the subsequent addi- tions to that author are pure fabrications. He was, more- over, led to believe that the narrative, bearing the name of Bernal Diaz,* was written for the purpose of sustain- ing other histories already needing a more ample founda- tion than that furnished by Cortez. It is probably no- thing more than the story of Gomora, with the absurdi- ties pointed out by Las Casas partially deducted. It will not do to denounce, in general terms, the vene- rable precedents so constantly quoted by our annalists. Their defects and their errors must be shown in detail, that the reader, as well as the author, may judge how much of the old folios are worthy of their repute, and how much must be rejected as monkish romance, or accounted physical evidences which the country seen, made of very hard flint, and of afforded — such is the effect produced the size represented in the drawing, on an American on seeing an arrow- Like our bayonets, it has three edges, head, and the end is formed into a shaft. On the other hand, the Indians of with the design of being fixed in the Tehuantepec havine brought to Du- socket of some pole or handle." — paix, the celebrated engineer of the Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page King of Spain, a very miserable spe- 468. cimen of a flint arrow or spear-head, * At the end of this chapter the he gives it a place among his drawings reader will find a summary of the of the remarkable curiosities of the author's opinion of the book of Ber- country, and discourses as follows in nal Diaz, or rather the book which relation to it :— " While I was prepar- bears that name ; also, in the progress ing to proceed thither, a military wea- of the work, the value of that autho- pon was brought to me which had been rity will from time to time be consi- found in those ruins. It is the barb dered. of a sort of dart such as I had never 80 OBJECT OF CORTEZ' LETTERS. as the embellishments of a holy war — a sort of parody- on the book of Joshua. Montezuma was an Indian — not a Moor. Our first duty, therefore, is to divest his empire of the European and Moorish vesture with which it has been shrouded. In vindicating his character, and the Indian character of his Aztecs, it will be needful to notice the Spanish idea of history, when that of Mexico was written. It will also be necessary to examine the testimony upon which that rests. The physical improbabilities and impossibilities contained in the letters of Cortez,* have been already noted in a former publication jf as also the contradictory testimony of Cortez and Diaz, on one material point — the greatness of Tlascala. From his distant El Dorado, Cortez wrote without a competitor. His object was to obtain the favor of his emperor, and to shield himself and guilty companions from the consequences of their crimes. Without any fear of contradiction, he transferred to the New World such captivating pictures as the Arabians had drawn of a land of gold ; and gave them a local habitation. If the emperor proved a little incredulous, the remittance * Mr. George Folsom has executed Priests." The third edition is en- a most excellent translation, which titled " Mexico, Central America, and was published by Putnam, in 1843. California." The three are published It is better than the original. We by the Harpers. Where the first edi- always quote the most accessible edi- tion is cited, it will be understood to tions, for the convenience of readers, refer to any of the three editions. f " Mexico and its Religion," is the Where other editions are cited, it will title of the first and smallest edition, be understood as referring to the ad- The second edition, enlarged, has the ditional chapters. " Wilson's Mexico" title of " Mexico, its Peasants and its will be a common reference. EFFECT OF THE EMPEROR S FAVOR. 81 of 1900,000* in virgin gold to an exhausted treasury, dissipated every doubt, and completely effected his object. Thus gold, and fabulous pictures of the niagiiificence -of- the New Spain which he had added to the dominions of the emperor, atoned for the crime of levying war with- out a royal license. Upon the good pleasure of the emperor depended, also, the judgment of his subordinates. The imperial will was all powerful with the seven bodies,f lay and ecclesiasti- cal, that exer-cised the censorship in Spain. Imperial favor gained inquisitors, and presidents at once discovered, in the unsupported statements of Cortez, conclusive evi- dence of a new triumph of the cross over the infidels. It was vain to object to Cortez as a witness, or, if we add DictZ, as witnesses, that they were interested in magnifying * The records of the Treasury at Madrid establish this important fact, and show how small a sum of pre- cious metals could at that time pro- duce a sensation in the world. At any ordinary gold-washings, Cortez, with the aid of the Indians he could engage for a few trinkets, must have dug this amount in a very short time. The most successful gold dig- ging in California was accomplished by the aid of Indians, who did not know its value. t To the little work of Boturnini on Mexico there are appended, 1. The declaration of his faith in the Roman Catholic Church in the most unequi- vocal terms. 2. The license of the Jesuit father. 3. The license of an Inquisitor. 4. The license of the Judge of the Supreme Council of the 6 Indias. 5. The license of the Royal Council of the Indias. 6. The appro- bation of the " Qualificator" of the Inquisition, who was a barefooted Carmelite monk. 7. The license of the Royal Council of Castile. Beyond all this, the writer must be a person in holy orders, and of sufficient in- fluence to obtain the favorable notice of the bodies these persons represent- ed, and who were instinctively hostile to the diffusion of all information, particularly in regard to the New World. Nor was this the end of the difficulty ; the license of any one of these officials could be revoked at pleasure, and, when republished, the work had to be re-" visSd." — See Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 269. 82 EFFECT OF THE EMPEROR's FAVOR. the empire * of Montezuma as equal to that of German}-, in order to enhance the grandeur of their exploits. Such suggestions disappeared at once before the sunshine of imperial favor, and disappeared for ever. Thus a tale, partly true, and partly invented, was incorporated with the history of Spam in an official statement. The suffi- ciency of the testimony to establish its truth, was deter- mined by its present advantages to Charles V. and those accruing to his successors. Nor was it inconsistent with the rules of evidence by which miracles were then proven to occur annually in Spain. This conquest of Mexico being a holy war, there was necessarily a succession of miracles — rather it was a continuous miracle; and no other or higher grade of evidence could be required than in the case of others. So judged both monks and. inqui- sitors ; and their judgment was then conclusive on such a point. The Anglo-Saxon idea of history requires not only exemption from all this spiritual and temporal cen- sorship, but likewise the broadest liberty of sifting truth from the various and often conflicting statements of con- temporaneous witnesses. A liberty incompatible with Spanish despotism. What freedom the Spanish historians enjoyed they held in common with the poets — that of dealing in the marvellous — of trifling continually with natural laws, by the intervention of the "ever blessed Virgin." This exemption from criticism exposed them, however, to the temptation of supplying their works with inventions in- * Folsom's Letters of Cortez, p. 38. ROMANCE AND HISTORY. 83 stead of facts ; and led them to assume the gaudy colorino- of romance instead of the sober garb of truth, since it was more Hkely to attract the pubhc favor. Bj this course, too, a second object was attained — the church was con- ciliated by new attractions thrown around a holy war. Such are Spanish historians from a remote period. Of this kind of history Mr. Prescott has written, — " In short, the elements of truth and falsehood became so blended, that history was converted into romance, and romance received the credit due to history."* If we discard the Virgin and the saints from the Spanish chronicles, we have only a romance remaining — a captivating romance, indeed, but still only a romance founded upon history. The violations of natural law, involved in the adventures of these " Christian heroes," can only be made credible to those who believe in the miracle-working power of the saints. Take for instance those of Cortez in the valley * The fabulous ages of Greece are no more reason for believing in the scarcely more fabulous than the close real existence of Bernardo del Carpio, of the middle ages in Spanish history, of whom so much has been said and which compares very discreditably in sung, than in that of Charlemagne's this particular with similar periods Paladins, or the Knights of the Round in most European countries. The Table. Even the Cid, the national confusion of fact and fiction con- hero of Spain, is contended, by some tinues to a very late age; and as one of the shrewest native critics of our gropes his way through the twilight own times, to be an imaginary being ; of tradition he is at a loss whether and it is certain that the splendid the dim objects are men or shadows, fabric of his exploits, familiar as The most splendid names in Castilian household words to every Spaniard, annals — names incorporated with the has crumbled to pieces under the glorious achievements of the land, rude touch of modern criticism. Did and embalmed alike in the page of" these Spanish historians become any the chronicler, and the song of the more reliable by passing under the minstrel — names associated with the surveillance of the Inquisition, and most stirring patriotic recollections — becoming subservient to the interests are now found to have been the mere of the church ? — Prescott's Miscella- coinage of fancy. There seems to be nies, page 152. 84 ROMANCE AND HISTORY. of Mexico. There nearly every important statement, as given by the historians, involves the violation of a natu- ral law, and is in conflict with the most familiar principles of modern engineering.* Though Spaniards are now freed from the yoke of cen- turies, their taste for the unadulterated truth has to be cultivated. Historians must wait upon national taste, and feed sparingly an acquired appetite. Unvarnished truth can but gradually supplant monkish fables, and rigorous rules of evidence are only to be adopted when miracles cease to be of daily occurrence. This alone will suffi- ciently explain why Spain has neglected to scrutinize her history of the conquest of that land which has now be- come a foreign country. The passion for romance had not abated when the last * Having before me the surveys and the levels of the American army engineers, I have presumed to doubt that vrater ever ran up hill, that navi- gable canals were ever fed by "back- water," that pyramids {ieocalli) could rest on a foundation of soft earth, that a canal tvrelve feet broad by twelve feet deep, mostly belovf the water level, was ever dug by Indians with their rude implements, that gardens ever floated in mud, or that brigantines ever sailed in a salt-marsh, or even that 100,000 men ever entered the mud-built city of Mexico by a narrow causeway in the morning, and after fighting all day returned by the same path at night to their camp, or that so large a besieging army as 150,000 men could be supported in a salt- marsh valley, surrounded by high mountains. In answer to the question why such fables have so long passed for history, I have the ready answer, that the Inquisition controlled every printing- office in Spain and her colonies, and its censors took good care that nothing should be printed against the ex- ploits of Cortez, whose banner was a Latin cross, and who had bestowed a large portion of his plunder on the church ; who had gratified the na- tional taste for holy wars by writing one of the finest of Spanish romances of history ; and had induced the Em- peror to overlook his crime by the bestowal of rich presents and rich provinces ; so that, by the favor of the Emperor and the favor of the Inquisition, a Jilibustero has come down to us as a Christian hero. — Pre- face to Wilson's Mexico and its Reli- gion. CORTEZ HIS OWN CHRONICLER. 85 remnant of Moorish power in Spain was extinguished. Hence arose the necessity of seeking the infidels in a new and unexplored arena; and in the New World, North American Indians were made to play the part of Moors. The mantle of the Cid was thrown upon the shoulders of Cortez. This champion of the cross,* according to the pro- gramme, with a handful of Christian warriors, drives before him legions of unbelievers — Indian villages grow into Moorish cities, adorned with mosquesf and palaces. Montezuma becomes a Sultan, the lord of a Moorish palace. He is waited on by Moorish emirs ; he is served by Moorish slaves; and calculates time by a Persian calendar. Evidently Cortez was as familiar with the his- tory of the Cid as Cervantes was with that of Amadis de Gaul. Still that hero is inferior to ours in one respect. Other men have immortalized his adventures. Cortez has immortalized his own J — a rare exception to that rule which forbids a hero to be his own chronicler. In record- ing his achievements he is unfortunate — he confesses to the practice of falsehood, though only with the Indians ! The witness, Bernal Diaz, is deficient in good morals, § and * " As we carried the banner of the dinary, has fabricated and interwoven cross and fought for our faith," &c. — a romance with such verisimilitude Cortez' Letters, page 64. that he has astonished the world. t " I assure your majesty that 1 | " This was a good hint to us in have counted, from a mosque or tern- future, so that afterward, when we pie, 400 mosques and as many towers had captured any beautiful Indian — all which were of mosques in this females, we concealed them, aud gave city [Cholula]." — Qo^t-ez' Letters [Fol- out that they had escaped. As soon som's Translation, JSf. Y., 1843), page as it was come to the marking day, 71. or, if any one of us stood in favor X Cortez, besides narrating his ad- with Cortez, he got them secretly ventures, which were truly extraor- marked [viz., branded with a red-hot 86 INFLUENCE OF "THE HOLY OFFICE.' apocryphal. Besides the poetical license common to their country, we have then these two narrators to support a vast historic fabric ! Still, like the story of the Cid, it has served its purpose — it has had its day and its gene- ration — the church it has served well, and a despotic king best of all ! Besides the reasons already given for distrusting the correctness of Spanish statements, there is another, more secret in character, but not less potent than all combined — fear of incurring the displeasure of that tribunal which punished unbelief with fire, torture, and confiscation. A tribunal which regarded suspicion of heresy as an offence,* could hardly have sustained itself had it not ex- ercised a controlling influence in shaping the literature of the country. The fanatically religious character of Spain, during the Moorish wars, was kept up after the fuel on which it naturally fed was exhausted, by the terrors which the " Holy Office," the Inquisition, inspired. Hy- pocrisy then mingled with enthusiasm in the presence of the reUgious,-f while the " Holy Office" extended its labors iron] during the night-time, and paid exhibited such a picture of total de- a fifth of their value to him. In a pravity. — Wilson's Mexico. short time we possessed a great num- * After a trial protracted through ber of such slaves." — Bernal Diaz, eighteen years, the Archbishop of vol. I., pages 31 and 32. Toledo vras convicted, on appeal to Never was there a band of Anglo- Pius VII., of " being strongly sus- Saxon outlaws, cut-throats, pirates, or pected of heresy." His death soon buccaneers that reached the point of after followed, whether from natural human depravity at which they could causes or " by procurement" is of no brand, as cattle are branded, with a importance to our present discussion, red-hot iron, swarms of women taken f The religiovs is a general term by violence, in order that they might applied in Catholic countries to all not make any mistakes in recognising persons who have assumed religious their numberless wives ! None but vows. It is applied as well to nuns Spanish heroes of a " holy war" ever as to monks. MANUSCRIPT HISTORIES. 87 from adjudicating men to be burned to the burning of manuscripts likewise.* There is a class of writers peculiar to Spain, whose works have exercised so great an influence upon its des- tinies, they must not be overlooked — those who have come down to us in manuscript. Thej are apparently of three degrees — the first composed of those not exactly incurring the displeasure of the " Holy Office," but not adjudged by it suitable to be licensed or printed — the second do not appear to have written for the press, but rather for the purpose of being read before the king, or to select circles of grandees; among whom these tomes appear to have been more highly prized than printed volumes. Of this class is Sarmiento's History of the Empire of the Peruvian Incas, which altogether surpasses that of Dr. Johnson's " Rasselas and the Happy Valley." In this Peruvian Empire of Sarmiento's creation, the despotism was so perfect that the private affairs of every * " The hymns of the ancient Mexi- to believe that the Inquisition would cans, which Sahagan translated into interfere in this way, before the work Spanish and inserted in the appendix had received the sanction of the head to the second book of his history of of the order. The Inquisition has New Spain, were destroyed by the enough to answer for without being order ofthe Inquisition, as a note to the made the stalking-horse for every original manuscript expressly states, offence against the moral law. Nor is it unlikely that the Phoenix Spanish historians abound in these of Siguenza perished in a pile lighted references to authorities, which they by the same hands." — Lord Kings- state got thus and thus destroyed. BOROUGH, vol. VI., page 533. They make doubtful statements, and I am inclined to think the above is then prove them by reference to au- one of the doubtful statements of Sa- thorities, which once existed, if we hagan. It is easier to believe that will credit them. Is this evidence ? — the historian invented the statement, Author. to add importance to his work, than 88 SPANISH TRADITIONAL HISTORY. individual were regulated by authority. Yet every one was happy and contented ; though from the day he was born until the day he died none acted voluntarily.* No- thing could have been more grateful to the ears of a despot such as Philip II., than this contribution, which so forcibly illustrated the beauties of despotism. And most faithfully has it been preserved among the royal treasures of the Escurial. This manuscript, so unobjectionable however to those in authority, was never printed. But its author, as President of the Council of the Indias, took good care it should be the model of all subsequent narratives that obtained his license. The third class consisted of those displeasing to any one of the censors or officers of the Inquisition. There is another show of historic authority, also, con- stantly appealed to by Spanish authors to prove state- ments of doubtful credibility — tradition. The appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe — the pious fraud of Zumar- raga — is an instance of the kind. The form of the miracle has entirely outgrown the limits of the early narratives, and now rests for its authority partly upon the relation given by Juan Diago, and partly upon tradi- tion. So with the histories of this Conquest, They rest partly upon the narrative of Cortez and the doubtful one of Diaz, and partly upon tradition — the latter an inexhaustible mine to which all can resort to prove the untrue or the impossible. The restrictions imposed upon discussion in Mexico, when under despotic rule, make these traditions, * Prescott's Peru, vol. I., page 114. SPANISH TRADITIONAL HISTORY. 89 however, of no value as authority. They are the mere echoes of those who regulated public opinion — the monks. The most wonderful exploits of Cortez, or the most re- markable acts performed by the Virgin at Guadalupe, were duly communicated to the common people. With many marvellous additions, these became the staple of tradition. They passed from one to another, with embel- lishments, of course ; and none dared gainsay the story, or its new increase, on peril of conventual displeasure. "Where there is freedom, there is a reasonable ground to suppose the errors of tradition will be corrected. But in the city of Mexico the power of its priesthood was not destroyed until the present year f and still, by a curious coincidence, the Radical party are as much interested in sustaining the glory of the Empire of Montezuma as the priests themselves. The one that it may uphold the credit of the church, the other the renown of the ancient nationality. The two great traditionary events are the burning of the Toltec picture writing by the Mexican emperor, Ytzcoatl, sixty-two years before the reign of Monte- zuma, and that of the Aztec annals by Zumarraga-^ — * The power here referred to is the is a very common way of accounting indirect methods the clergy had of per- for the disappearance of papers ; even secuting obnoxious persons through the oft repeated story of the burning the moneyed power of the church, of the Alexandrian Library is dis- through vexatious accusations in the puted by Mohammedans with a fair church courts, &c. By the late de- show against its probability. cree Juerez the jurisdiction of the church courts in civil matters has " the burning of the library op been revoked. Alexandria. f This allegation of burning records " Many Christian writers, either on 90 PICTURE WRITING SPANISH, NOT AZTEC. both of these most probably originated with Zumarraga himself — a cunning and artful man; wielding substan- tially all the power of the church. On secular affairs, even now, tradition in Mexico is the most unreliable authority a stranger can admit ; and, after a very little experience, he settles down upon the old maxim, to believe little he hears; and, following that closely, he will come off safest in the end. In religious matters tradition is even less worthy. We have already referred to that mad enthusiasm of an Irish lord,* upon the subject of the monkish theories of the Aztec origin, and the benefit he has conferred by account of their want of knowledge, or from an. unfounded prejudice against the true faith (except Gib- bon and other eminent authors), accuse our Caliph of the unpardon- able crime of having ordered the contents of the famous library that once adorned this city to be used as fuel for the five thousand baths which are said to have been here. In the first place they ought to have known that Mahommedan tenets teach all true believers to hold papers of all kinds sacred, and never to touch them, even with their feet, nor allow them to be thrown into an unclean place, as they may contain the name of the Almighty Allah — contrary to the cus- toms of the Christians of the present age, who have no regard even for their Bible, and would use its leaves, if damaged in any way, as useless papers. Secondly, it is quite absurd to think the same Caliph would com- mit such an act of insanity, who, on his visit to Jerusalem as a conqueror, ordered the great university there to be repaired at the public expense, and who would not say his prayers within the grand temple of that holy place, for fear of its being spoiled by his sol- diers following his example. Besides, the General Amru, who was a lover of science and literature, and a man gifted with poetical talent, would by no means make himself an instrument of such an act of irrational madness." — Autobiography of a Mohammedan Oentleman. One of the singular effects of Mo- hammedanism is the value it places on truth. In this respect Moslems compare favorably with the best of those Christians whose priests possess the dispensing power. * The main objects of Lord Kings- borough's monster work appear to be — 1st. To establish a Jewish origin for the Aztecs ; and 2d. The preaching to them of the gospel by the Apostle Thomas. PICTURE WRITING SPANISH, NOT AZTEC. 91 publishing the much talked of, but never before scru- tinized, Mexican picture writing. It resulted from this publication, that these far-famed records were at once de- nounced as of Spanish and not of Aztec origin. They were not in truth originals, but purported to be their copies, made when such productions were in demand at remunerating prices. The late Albert Gallatin was the first to subject these picture records to a severe scrutiny, while at the same time he pointed out the discrepancies among the Spanish historians of the Aztec Empire. The results of his laborious investigations are contained in the first volume of the transactions of the American Ethno- logical Society. The two most valuable specimens of these records are duplicate copies, the one called the Codex Yaticanus, and the other the Codex Tellurianus.* Each follows the Spanish chronology ! The Vatican Codex, as appears from the text, is a copy by an Italian called Father Pietro, in the year 1556, about the date of the Virgin Mary's appearance at Guadalupe. Perhaps he ob- tained the originals as Zumarraga did her portrait. The proof in favor of the one is exactly the same as in the other — the statement of an interested party ! Until some evidence, or shadow of evidence, can be found that these quasi records are of Aztec origin, it would be useless to examine the contradictions, absurdities, and nonsense they present.f Unless some further light than the world at * Judging of the value of the his- posed. — How. Albert Gallatin in torical records which may have been Transactions, vol. I., page 145, of destroyed by those which have been American Ethnological Society. preserved, the loss is perhaps less to f On the two opposite sides of the be regretted than is generally sup- first hall we entered, of the Mexican 92 DISCREPANCIES AMONG THE HISTORIANS. present possesses should be discovered, the whole story must be considered as one of Zumarraga's pious frauds. The same venerable ex-minister has also rendered an important service to literature by simply collating the standard Spanish authorities, when they give dates, for the occurrence of important historical events. Fifty and a hundred years are ordinary discrepancies with them.* No two agree in their relation of those said to have occur- red during the last hundred years prior to the advent of the Spaniards. These discrepancies are so glaring as to make the whole unworthy of credit. While none pro- Museum, I saw spread out the picto- rial chronology of two dynasties that had passed away — the viceregal line of potentates standing over against the royal line of Aztec emperors. The portraits of the vicekings, from Cortez down to the last of his succes- sors, stretch entirely across one side of the hall, and about the same num- ber of Indian cagiques are daubed upon a piece of papyrus that is fastened upon the opposite wall. It requires the greatest possible stretch of liberality for one accustomed to Indian efforts of this kind to dignify such intolerable daubs with the name of paintings. And yet this is the picture writing of the Aztecs, with which the world has been so edified for centuries. If there is or ever was an Iroquois Indian that should under- take to stain so miserably, I verily believe he would be expelled from his tribe. To make it manifest that this was intended for a chronological re- cord of the imperial line, black lines were daubed from one of these effigies to another. From a printed label in Spanish affixed to this wonderful relic, I learned that it was intended to represent the wanderings of the Aztecs from California. — Mexico and its Religion. * From a long table of the contra- dictions among the standard authors take the following items : — Mexicans leave Aztlan Mexicans arrive at Huel- colluacan Mexicans arrive at Cti- comoturic Mexicans arrive in the valley of Mexico . . Mexicans arrive at Cha- pultepeo Foundation of Mexico o . B 3 > S'« UJ 1064 1168 1141 1229 { 124S 1275 1260 Vi-lb 1168 124S 1325 The variations in dates in the pic- ture writings are equal to these. — Transactions, vol. I., page 162. To complete the list of absurdities and contradictions, it must be borne in mind that the picture writings bring the history down to the years 1555 and 1560 — nearly forty years after the conquest ! That the dates DIFFICULTIES TO BE ENCOUNTERED. 93 duce the authorities on which their statements rest, it is impossible to confide in any. Evidently their tales are only the embodiment of vague Indian tradition inwoven with the speculations and inferences of the cloister. The whole case, as they present it, makes a very strong argument indeed against the Aztecs ever possessing his- toric records of any kind, or any accurate system of com- puting time. The story, that a class was set apart to preserve a record of important political events* as they occurred, like the other statements to which we have alluded, rests on air. Such is literature founded on the sanction of censors. Here would seem to be the proper place to sum up the difficulties to be encountered in an attempt to write a history, according to Anglo-Saxon ideas, of the Empire in the test are expressed in hierogly- ditional. Facts may be misunder- pliics not according to the Aztec, but stood, or misrepresented by contem- according to the Spanish, or Christian poraneous writers. But men who era ; that the Spanish pretended trans- keep a diary, priests charged with lation is evidently derived from some the care of recording facts as they other source than the picture records, occur, cannot be mistaken as to the Boturnini introduces a plate into dates of such plain and simple facts his collection that has broad Italian as the death of a king, and the acces- countenances. — See Ihid., passim. sion of his successor, which take place * If the difference of dates between in their own town, and under their the several authors, even for the events eyes. When therefore we find that which took place within one hundred no two authors agree in that respect, years before the Spanish conquest, and that the difference exceeds fifty, throws some doubts on the authenti- and occasionally one hundred, years ; city of the documents from which we may safely conclude that within they were derived, there can be no a few years after the conquest, there doubt with respect to more ancient did not exist a single original histori- times. It is evident that the accounts cal painting, in which events prior to given by the several authors are not the fifteeenth century were faithfully derived from any contemporaneous recorded under their proper date. — historical records, and are purely tra- Transactions, vol. I., page 164. 94 VERISIMILITUDE OF SPANISH AUTHORS. of Mexico and of its conquest. The standard Spanish annalists are, at best, only monkish romancers, and while a Moorish coloring has been given by them to their record of events, the system of despotism then existing, precludes the idea of an unadorned history. Before the present generation, assertion could not, in Spain, be subjected to the scrutiny common to neighboring states. It depended for its value upon the good pleasure of those in power — so, the licensed history of the Aztecs before the con- quest, may be founded upon the gleanings of some vague Indian traditions, and may as well be, the inventions of the historians themselves. The simple existence of Aztec picture records is extremely problematical, and the events of the conquest have no other authority than the statements of a party or parties interested in magnifying their own exploits, while a sevenfold cen- sorship precluded exposure. To all this, add the stand- ard of truth is proverbially lower in Spain than in Anglo- Saxon countries. The cloud that rests upon every record of Mexican history has thus been frankly and fully stated, that the reader may not expect a series of captivating dramatic scenes, translated from Spanish folios; where, perhaps, they have lain buried among monkish speculations since the days of the Arabians. There is a verisimilitude in much of this quasi-history that would deceive, if it were possible, the very elect ; still we must not follow shadows. A striking feature in Spanish literature is the plausibiUty with which it has carried a fictitious narrative through its most minute details, completely captivating the unini- BERNAL DIAZ. 95 tiated. If its supporters were not permitted to write truth, tliey succeeded in getting up a most excellent imitation. In Bernal Diaz the alleged individual affairs of private soldiers are so artfully interwoven with the general his- tory as to give the effect of truth to the whole. There being no fear of contradiction, this practice of inventing familiar details could be indulged in to any extent, w^hile the beauty and simplicity of such a style fixes at once the doubting. Step by step the reader is led along, absorbed in the perils that environ the hero of the history ! and, whether his genius, or the Virgin Mary, rescue him, the student at least experiences a great relief. He breathes decidedly easier, and yet, he has mistaken a romance for a history; and now, unwilling to break its charm, he dares not question its probability. This feeling influences all, and must be encountered by every author, who attempts to discard those venerable myths that for centuries have passed undoubted; and, besides, he must labor here and there, in books, in nature, in In- dian customs, and in personal observation, to gather the items, one by one, that are to be woven into an Anglo- American history of the Aztecs and the conquest of their kingdom. BERNAL DIAZ. The name that usually follows Cortez, when the conquest of Mexico is discussed, is that of Bernal Diaz de Castillo. We hear nothing of him until he appeared on the stage as an historian, or rather as a narrator of the events of the conquest — a witness to sustain historic tales fifty years after the war. The pretence for his appearance at so late a day, is to vindicate the claims of the companions of Cortez, for a share in the glory of the conquest. 96 BERNAL DIAZ. The real cause was, doubtless, the urgent necessity to have a second witness to sustain the story, as well as to enlarge the scope of the narrative to the dimensions to which the historic fictions had swelled it. Perhaps, too, something had to be done to counteract the effect of Las Casas, while in favor with the emperor. But who was Bernal Diaz ? This would be a strange question to ask in a country where there was liberty of speech and liberty of the press, but in Spain the censorship was not only repressive, it was " suggestive." It not only suppressed the writings of authors, but compelled them to father sen- timents the very opposite of those they wished to publish. Take the case of poor Sahagan, who wrote what he claimed to be the Indian version of that event, but believed to have been a refutation of the histories of the con- quest. When his book was allowed to see the light, after a delay of many years, it was found that his alleged Indian account had been suppressed, and the regular Spanish one substituted. Las Casas, whose "Apology for the Indians"* occupied thirty-two years of his life, was allowed only to pub- lish that which treated of St. Domingo. But his refutation of the histories of the conquest of Mexico is wholly suppressed, his account terminating at the landing of Cortez at Vera Cruz. To have proved the Conquistadors buccaneers would have spoiled a Holy "War, which was just what the Inqui- sition would not allow. With such facts before us, it is safe to declare that not a single statement of fact that affected either the interests of the king or the church was ever published in Spain or her colonies during the three hun- dred years of the existence of the Inquisition ; but what was published was modified to suit the wishes of the censors, without any regard to the senti- ments of the putative author. Who then was Bernal Diaz ? How came he to be familiar with the writings of Las Casas that never saw the light ? Had he access to the secret archives of the convent ? He refers to the account of Las Casas as follows : — " These [the slaughters at Cholula] are, among others, those abominable monstrosities which the Bishop of Chiapas [Las Casas] can find no end in enumerating. But he is wrong when he asserts that we gave the Cholulans the above-mentioned chastisement without any provocation, and merely for pastime."* The history of Diaz is among the standard literary productions of that age, and is a very picture of candor and simplicity. On every page there are such evident efforts at verisimilitude as to raise a suspicion in the mind of those familiar with Spanish peculiarities that something more than * Lockhart's Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 207. BERNAL DIAZ. 9' a simple narrative was the object of writing this book fifty years after the conquest. By supposing the author only sixteen years old when he came to America, Lockhart makes him seventy years of age. But if we suppose him to have been of a reasonable age when he began his adventures, he must have been between eighty and ninety when this book is alleged to have been written. Gomora had overdone the matter in the superhuman achievements which he had ascribed to Cortez, while Las Casas had pointed out his incon- sistencies, and proved the conquerors cruel monsters. Something, then, had to be done to avert the odium that was beginning to attach to this cru- sade against the pretended infidels. In Spain, where a padlock was upon every man's mouth, and where each one buried his suspicions in the most secret recesses of his heart, and trembled lest, even in his dreams, a thought of impiety might reach the ear of a Familiar, history could always be made to conform to the interests of the church. Since the records of the Spanish Inquisition have become the property of the public, and the manner in which the facts of history were trifled with, is now understood, it is a question more easily asked than answered. Who wrote such and such a book ? Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz ? We have seen that it points out the monstrous exaggerations of Gomora, and cuts down those of Cortez more than half, yet the statements of Diaz are still incredible. It is a very religious book, as the Spaniards understand the word religion,* and reflects great credit on the church. On the evidence hereafter to be presented, we have with much deliberation concluded to denounce Bernal Diaz as a myth, though in this conclusion we differ decidedly from Mr. Prescott, who says : " Bernal Diaz, the untutored child of nature, is a most true and literal copyist of nature. He introduces us into the heart of the camp. All the picturesque scenes and romantic incidents of the campaign are reflected in his pages, as in a mirror. The lapse of fifty years had no power over the spirit of the veteran. The fire of youth glows in every line of his rude history." — Pres- cott, vol. II., p. 478. MODERN HISTORIANS OP THE CONQUEST. Repeating what we have already proved — that the statements of the early historians are irreconcilable with each other, and often, while self-contra- dictory, puerile, absurd, and impossible ; yet they all claim to rest upon picture records that have disappeared. To their authorities each one adds * Not godliness, but that kind of devotion which consists in externals. 7 98 MODERN HISTORIANS OF THE CONQUEST. statements, also, as of his own knowledge, which are impossible. At Mexico, Tezcuco, and throughout the country of the Aztecs, we find unmistakable relics of savage art. Every apparent exception can be accounted for, without admitting the Aztecs to have been a civilized people, though giving a fair value to all the evidence, or color of evidence, to be found at Mexico or anywhere else. Besides, we have ventured, too, to assert that these alleged histories were fabricated for the purpose of conferring glory on the Virgin and the Church ; the better to accomplish which, all vrritings in relation to the new world were confined to the priesthood. Such are the materials out of which the modern Spanish historians of the conquest have compiled their works. They can have no other possible authorities. The pretence that they have had any secret or other source of information, is a mere subterfuge, that has often misled our historians, and induced them to quote Boturnini, Clavigero, and others we shall presently notice, as authority. To write a history for American readers, the author must start from an American point of view, with some real knowledge of Indian character, and some knowledge, too, of the character of the Spaniards, and of their religious notions. Then he will be enabled to pick out a few truths from such doubtful writers, and that is all their value. M. DuPAix cannot be treated as we treat historians. He speaks from his personal observation as an engineer. His arguments are legitimate. His defect consists in an inability to discriminate between the products of civilized and savage art. In his notes he battles stoutly against the unbelief in Aztec civilization then prevalent at Mexico ; and not unfrequently cites savage art as evidence of Indian civilization. Where the two overlap each other, where hatchets of stone and tools of brass are found, he unwittingly confounds them. We shall speak of him when we are done with the historians. BOTURNINI. Chevalier Lorenzo Boturnini Benaduci, Royal Historiographer of the Indlas, is the author of " An Idea of a new General History of North Ame- rica," and of an unpublished volume, entitled a " New History of Mexico." He is the first of the modern historians, as a hundred years only has elapsed since he completed his historical labors, in the year 1749. As he is often quoted as an authority by Anglo-Saxon authors, it is neces- sary he should be noticed here. He was an Italian by birth, sent to Mexico in the year 1735, as the agent of the Countess Santibaney, one of the ten thousand pretended descendants of Montezuma. While at Mexico the active spirit of a devotee began to develop itself. He was overwhelmed with devo- BOTURNIlSri. 99 tion, on contemplating the transcendent miracle! of the appearance of the Immaculate Virgin at Guadalupe, and his whole soul was absorbed in gather- ing matei'ials to celebrate her praises. He was the prototype of Lord Kings- borough in superstition ; but a thousand-fold more intoxicated with the glorious condescension of the blessed Virgin and the saints. Having gathered all the materials relating to the miracles performed by the Virgin at Guada- lupe, and all the other materials relating to those of the conquest, he hastened to Rome in his hot zeal, and there obtained from the Pope a bull, autho- rizing the coronation of that miserable daub, " the miraculous picture of the Virgin," at Guadalupe.* * The Virgin of Guadalupe. — I learn from a proclamation of an archbishop of Mexico, that "the adoration of this holy image" [pic- ture] exists not only in Mexico, but in South America and Spain, and that it has propagated itself in Italy, Flanders, Germany, Aus- tria, Bohemia, Poland, Ireland, and Transylvania. I shall be ex- cused for giving the substance of this miraculous apparition, since it is now an article of be- lief of all good Romanists, having been proved before the Congrega- tion of Rites at Rome to have been a miraculous appearance of the Mother of God upon earth, in the year and at the place aforesaid. And the proclamation farther in- forms us that his holiness, Bene- dict XIV., was so fully persuaded of the truth of the tradition, that he made " cordial devotion to our Lady of Guadalupe, and conceded the proper mass and ritual of de- votion. He also made mention of it in the lesson of the second noctur- nal . . . ., declaring from the high throne of the Vatican that Mary, most holy, non fecit taliter omni nationi." Juan Diego had a sick father, and. THE VIRGIN OP GUADALUPE. like a good and pious son, he started for the medicine-man. He was stop- ped by the Virgin at the spot where the roundhouse on the extreme right of the picture is situated. She re- proached him with the slowness of the Indians in embracing the new reli- gion, and at the same time she an- nounced to him the important fact that she was to be the patron of the In- dians, and also charged him to go and 100 BOTURNINI. This last transcendent " act oi piety" betrayed him into difficulty. Either he neglected to obtain the sanction of the Council of the Indias, or that body, adjudging him to be a maniac or fool, had him cast into a 'prison at Mexico. This mishap proved the stepping-stone to royal favor. Being sent to Spain, he was taken from prison to become the historiographer of a half- witted king. In this office he had full scope for indulging his passion for superstition. Like all devotees, he possessed an abundance of zeal, and lacked only moral principle !* For, whether upon the banks of the Ganges, or at Mexico, whether in the service of Juggernaut, or of the Virgin, the effect is the same on the devotee ; he lacerates his body as an atonement for his sins — and becomes oblivious of moral obligations in the exact ratio of his fanaticism. I have yet to find a devotee, with rope and sandals and lacerated body, who is not " a 1 — r by instinct," and a scamp in practice. Yet, by a singular order of Providence, those of them most addicted to falsehood appear ordinarily the most credulous — they seem given up to strong delusions. report the same to Zumarraga [the pseudo-burner of Aztec records], who then enjoyed the lucrative office of Bishop of Mexico. Juan obeyed the heavenly messenger, but found him- self turned out of doors as a lying Indian. The second time he went for the medicine-man he took another path, but was again stopped on the way at the spot where the second roundhouse now stands. She now required him to go a second time to the bishop, and, in order to convince him of the truth of the story, she di- rected the Indian to climb to the top of the rock, where he would find a bunch of roses growing out of the smooth porphyry. The Indian did as he was commanded, and finding the roses in the place named, he gathered them in his tilma, and carried them to the bishop. The spot is marked by a small chapel. On opening his tilma before the bishop and a company of gentlemen assembled for that purpose, it was found that the roses had im- printed themselves around a very coarse picture of the Virgin. This is the story of the miraculous appear- ance of our Lady of Guadalupe. The bishop was hard to convince at first, but when he considered that the Indian could not himself paint, and had no money with which to pay an artist, and, above all, as there was a fair chance of making money by the transaction, he finally yielded to con- viction. — Wilson's Mexico. * The broad moral distinction that separates the non-idolatrous Christ- tians from their idolatrous brethren, seems to extend to the heathen, far beyond European influence — in the interior of Africa ; the heathen that are non-idolaters being altogether superior to the idolatrous. "But other incidents which happened sub- sequently showed, as well as this, that idolaters are not so virtuous as those who have no idols." — Living- stone's Africa, page 332. BOTURNINI. 101 Boturnini is the very personification of this sort of imposture and cre- dulity. At the city of Mexico, where there were no literary treasures, he pretends he gathered those, " he would not exchange for all the gold and silver, diamonds and pearls in the world," as he states in presenting a peti- tion to the Council of the Indias, for a redress of grievances ! He accounts for the loss of his pretended Toltec picture records, which would have established the visit of the Apostle Thomas to America, by alleging their capture by an English cruiser on their way to Spain ! His Italian, with a BOTTJRNINl'S FAC-SIMILE OF AZTEC PICTURE 'W^EITINGS. 102 VEYTIA. big wig and gown, in a little boat proves the existence of an Aztec tradition in relation to the flood, to the satisfaction of the learned! In the second line of the above picture writing, the man cutting a woman, or perhaps a sheep, with a knife, is offered as proof of human sacrifice ! The third is a disputed line. The monks insist that it exhibits the Indians leading victims to sacrifice. But Dupaix contends that such representations indicate a victory, and are emblematical of conquered provinces ! If only such contemptible-looking creatures were offered, as the ones represented in the picture, it might almost reconcile us to human sacrifices. But this is a question for the learned in hierographics ! VEYTIA. Next to Boturnini comes his intimate companion and literary executor, Veytia. He was a native of that city of priests, Puebla of the Angels ; a city more noted for its miracles, than for the virtue of its women, as Madame Calderon had occasion to learn to her great annoyance.* There, as in Italy, * Perhaps I could not present a more deplorable picture of the moral condition of the ladies of Puebla, who are celebrated for being so very de- vout, " but not very virtuous," than by copying the following from Ma- dame Calderon de la Barca's " Life in Mexico :" — " Yesterday (Sunday), a great day here for visiting after mass is over. We had a concourse of Spaniards, all of whom seemed anxious to know whether or not I intended to wear a Poblana dress at the fancy ball, and seemed wonderfully interested about it. Two young ladies or women of Puebla, introduced by Senor , came to proffer their services in giv- ing me all the necessary particulars, and dressed the hair of Josefa, a little Mexican girl, to show me how it should be arranged ; mentioned seve- ral things still wanting, and told me that every one was much pleased at the idea of my going in a Poblana dress. I was rather surprised that every one should trouble themselves about it. About twelve o'clock the president, in full uniform, attended by his aids-de-camp, paid me a visit, and sat about half an hour, very amia- ble as usual. Shortly after came more visits, and just as we had supposed they were all concluded, and we were going to dinner, we were told that the secretary of state, the ministers of war and of the interior, and others, were in the drawing-room. And what do you think was the purport of their visit? To adjure me by all that was most alarming, to discard the idea of making my appearance in a Poblana dress ! They assured us that Pob- lanas generally v^qtq femmes de rien, that they wore no stockings, and that the wife of the Spanish minister should by no means assume, even for one evening, such a costume. I brought in my dresses, showed their length and their propriety, but in vain ; and, in fact, as to their being in the right, there could be no doubt, CLAVIGERO. 103 the abundance of monks and priests detei-mines the character of the women. This author brings down the history of Boturnini to a period about seventy- five years before the conquest. He died somewhere near the year 1780. CLAVIGERO. We have already seen this author's chronology amounts to nothing, it is so utterly conflicting and contradictory. But, as he follows Veytia, in chronological order, and is looked upon as a standard by the learned ! we must notice his work — Antiqua Studia de Mejico. What facilities he had for acquiring knowledge, of the subjects on which he writes, does not appear. He was born at Vera Cruz in the year 1732. Being a member of the Order of Jesus, he was of course expelled from the country with its other members. In the year 1767 he took up his residence in Italy, where he devoted himself to illustrating the antiquities of a country of whose antiquities he knew nothing, though born in it. The manufactured antiquities of Mexico and nothing but a kind motive could have induced them to take this trouble ; so I yielded with a good grace, and thanked the cabinet coun- cil for their timely warning, though fearing that, in this land of procras- tination, it would be difficult to pro- cure another dress for the fancy ball. " They had scarcely gone, when Senor brought a message from several of the principal ladies here, whom we do not even know, and who had requested that, as a stranger, I should be informed of the reasons which rendered the Poblana dress objectionable in this country, espe- cially on any public occasion like this ball. I was really thankful for my escape. " Just as I was dressing for dinner, a note was brought, marked reservada (private), the contents of which ap- peared to me more odd than pleasant. I have since heard, however, that the writer, Don Jose Arnaiz, is an old man, and a sort of privileged charac- ter, who interferes in everything, whether it concerns him or not. I translate it for your benefit : — " The dress of a Poblana is that of a woman of no character. The lady of the Spanish minister is a lady in every sense of the word. However much she may have compromised herself, she ought neither to go as a Poblana, nor in any other character but her own. So says to the Senor de C n, Jos§ Arnaiz, who esteems him as much as possible." — " Life in Mexico." " If priests were angels, the town would be rightly named, for it is a city of priests and religious; men who have consecrated their lives to begging, and count it a merit with God to live on charity. Convents of male and female religious abound, and, as the books tell us, $40,000,000, in the form of mortgages upon the fairest lands of the Vega of Puebla, is consecrated to their support under the supervision of the bishop \" — Mexico and its Beligion. 104 MR. PRESCOTT. had brought so good a price in foreign countries they had all been carried away nearly two hundred years before Clavigero was born. He makes a display of his knowledge of the grammars of the Indian languages, but long after those languages had dwindled into a contemptible mongrelism. He is introduced by Prescott, as one "who had made himself intimately ac- quainted with [Mexican] antiquities, by a careful examination of the paint- ings, &c." — so utterly ignorant are the most intelligent of our people in relation to the actual state of things at Mexico ! The only piece of picture writing remaining being apparently too valueless to find a foreign purchaser. HISTORIANS AT THE MEXICAN CONQUEST. DON LUCAS ALAMAN — DON CARLOS BUSTAMENTE. Since the independence, the priests' party, at Mexico, has furnished two distinguished literati, who have devoted their talents to illustrating the super- stitious portions of their country's history — Don Lucas Alaman and Doh Carlos Bustamente. The letter has written a voluminous history of the mira- culous apparition of the ever-blessed Virgin, at Guadalupe. Manuel M. Lerdo de Tajede, on the red-republican side, has written a volume — a history of Vera Cruz — in which he has followed Mr. Prescott, literally. These are all. MR. PRESCOTT. A more delicate duty remains — to speak freely of an American whose success in the field of literature has raised him to the highest rank. His talents have not only immortalized himself — they have added a new charm to the subject of his histories. He showed his faith by the expenditure of a fortune at the commencement of his enterprise, in the purchase of books and MSS. relating to " America of the Spaniards." These were the materials out of which he framed his two histories of the two aboriginal empires, Mexico and Peru. At the time these works were written he could not have had the remotest idea of the circumstances under which his Spanish autho- rities had been produced, or of the external pressure that gave them their peculiar form and character. He could hardly understand that peculiar organ- ization of Spanish society through which one set of opinions might be uni- formly expressed in public, while the intellectual classes in secret entertain entirely opposite ones. He acted throughout in the most perfect good faith ; and if, on a subsequent scrutiny, his authorities have proved to be the fabu- lous creations of Spanish- Arabian fancy, he is not in fault. They were the standards when he made use of them — a sufficient justification of his acts. EOBERTSON. 105 " This beautiful world we inhabit," said an East Indian philosopher, " rests on the back of a mighty elephant ; the elephant stands on the back of a monster turtle ; the turtle rests upon a serpent ; and the serpent on nothing." Thus stand the literary monuments Mr. Prescott has constructed. They are castles resting upon a cloud which reflects an eastern sunrise upon a west- ern horizon, Robertson's history op America. Dr. Robertson, principal of the University [High School] of Edinburgh, has immortalized himself by informing the world that the Iroquois [the Six Nations of New York], eat human flesh.* As the writer of this note is an Iroquois (not in blood, it is true, but by the adoption of an ancestor), he is bound by the customs of his tribe — Is he too a cannibal? Such is the unmi- tigated nonsense with which the most learned men of Europe tarnish their volumes, when they write about American Indians. They are so profoundly ignorant of their real character, they are unable to sift fabulous statements from those which are true. Hence they put them all together, and then exhaust themselves in profound reflections upon Indian customs, existing only in the imagination of inventors of marvels. How few can believe the world has been deluded by monkish fables palmed oS" as Aztec history! But here is a Scotch historian — who could have had access to the records of the war and colonial offices at London — gravely informing the world, that a people most advanced of all American Indians, allies, too, of the British crown for two hundred years, were cannibals ! taking as his authority a Jesuitical author, instead of applying to the proper department of his own government for information. It is not true that American Indians eat human flesh, except under those extreme circumstances, when white men do the same.f * Robertson (Harper's edition), tionary mob of Madrid. So monstrous page 172, book IV. It can be found an act of atrocity may be questioned. in any edition, by referring back from But it is done by Indians when infu- note (71). " Let us go and eat that riated, and in the midst of slaugh- nation," &c., is the figurative Ian- ter, so rare, however, as to excite the guage of Indians for going to war. greatest horror among the Indians f Besides the inducement of ex- themselves ; the very purpose for treme hunger, there is another, very which it was perpetrated. Wilkinson rare indeed among Indians, as well as speaks of the injustice of the Greeks whites — ^it is, as an act of vengeance, in charging the Egyptians with can- Barrow, in his " Bible in Spain," nibalism ; construing their figurative mentions an instance of seeing a hu- language literally. No less injustice man hand, drawn exultingly from his is done to the Indians, bowl of soup by one of the revolu- 106 MORGAN. This historian and Presbyterian minister was consecrated to preach doc- trines that seem never to have touched his ovrn heart. His sympathy for that burlesque of godliness, exhibited by the enemies of his faith, makes such an idea improbable. He did not discriminate between the self-vighteonsness of the bodily torturing devotee, and the humble faith of the true believer, nor perceive that these tvfo characters differ as essentially, as the morbid sympathizer with fabulous suffering does from the real philanthropist — the very fountains of the heart being dried up in the one, while in the other they are daily expanding. He was captivated by the convent life of abstinence and bodily mortification attributed to Charles V. Without stopping to inquire into its truth, he makes it the theme of one of his most brilliant rhapsodies. But lo ! when the secrets of the convent were at last revealed, the records proved the ex-emperor passed his time in gluttonous feasting, and in financiering for his son. He is equally unfortunate in his eloquent paragraphs on the supposed voluntary stranding of Cortez' ships ; a little investigation showing that that famous captain had brought his vessels into such a position, on a tideless lee shore, as to expose them to destruction from the first "white squall" that should thereafter occur, and where, from the nature of the coast and the character of the winds, it was hardly possible he could have stranded them voluntarily. He has devoted his finest efforts to subjects that had only a fabulous exist- ence, thus exposing himself to ridicule in the fondness he exhibits for the vin- dictive enemies of his own faith. He may not have read the letter of Charles to his daughter Joanna — written in his last hours — urging her to induce the Spanish Protestants to recant, and then to commit them to the flames. But he knew enough of the emperor's real character to make him an unfit subject for the eulogiums of a Presbyterian minister. Such are the inconsistencies of this writer of elegant periods, designed to pass for history. Not only does he accuse the Iroquois of cannibalism, at the very time they were petitioning the sovereign of England for chaplains, but holds up to Protestant admiration the chief persecutor of his own brethren. In the figurative language of the Indians : He ate the flesh and drank the blood of his brothers ; and roasted them in the fire — for when he praised the enemy that did these things, he did them himself. We shall notice him hereafter. LEWIS H. MORGAN, ESQ., OF ROCHESTER, N. Y. This is the only author, so far as the writer of this note is awai-e, who has correctly portrayed aboriginal character. But his history, "The League of HUMBOLDT. 107 the Iroquois," had only a limited success. How could it have been other- wise ? He did not follow Robertson 1 He did not derive his information from European sources, but simply from the Indians themselves, among whom he lived and moved ! This was enough to insure his condemnation. The lite- rary merits of his book are of a high order, and the character and standing of the author such as to give weight to his statements. But all this amounts to nothing — he presumed to tell the truth in spite of historic authorities! For this the literary world could not forgive him. EXPLORERS. M. DUPAIX. When men could at length breathe freely under the liberal administration of Charles III., they began to express their disbelief in the Aztec empire of the monkish historians. In the time of Dupaix, the disbelief amounted to a public opinion, as is evident from his manner of contending with it. The same unbelief of intelligent Spaniards is thus expressed in the language of Robertson (note 154), on the authority of persons long resident in New Spain, and who have visited every part of it, — " There is not in all the extent of that vast empire a single monument or vestige of any building more ancient than the conquest," — a statement strictly true, if we except the Phoenician remains of the south country, which in some places extended over the border, and into the limits of New Spain. In this condition of public sentiment at Mexico, the King of Spain directed M. Dupaix, a captain of royal engineers, to make an exploration of the country in search of ancient monuments of the Aztec empire. The result of that exploration was em- braced in Castanada's drawings and accompanying notes of Dupaix, which are transcribed into the fourth and sixth volumes of Lord Kingsborough. Dupaix was utterly unfit to make this reconnoissance — as we stated in a former note — from his ignorance of Indian character, and his inability to distinguish the products of savage art from those of the extinguished race of the southern provinces, when the one chanced to overlap the other, as in the case of the Indian arrow-heads found in the ruins of Mitlan : he even attri- butes the Spanish causeways of the valley of Mexico to the Aztecs ; confound- ing a carriage way across the marsh with the ancient Indian footpaths. With much enthusiasm, and great learning in his art, he arrives at conclu- sions exactly opposite to those which his facts justify, viz., that the Aztec empire was composed of civilized people. BARON ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. It is a delicate duty to criticise a philosopher. Within his proper sphere it 108 HUMBOLDT. would be little less than madness. He was the first Protestant traveller ever admitted to visit freely the American dominions of the King of Spain. But a philosopher, even, may err, when he attempts to account philosophi- cally for the mud-gardens floating in the valley of Mexico, in spite of the laws of gravity and capillary attraction. Humboldt was too busy with his philosophy to play the critic, nor were the means which we now enjoy for doing so accessible. He took for granted the historic fables, and, like Robertson, speculated upon the consequences of In- dians eating human flesh ! His opinions, like those of other great men, are good for nothing on subjects he has not investigated. He had no reverence for monks, and made them the butt of his keenest irony. Still he assumed their books and MSS. to be true, and philosophized upon their contents. The only defect in his work is, that he started from false premises, and of course his conclusions amount to nothing. CHAPTER III. THE COUNTRY OF THE AZTECS — THE TABLE-LAND OF AMERICA. Its mountain scenery, 109 — A country of silver, 112 — An isolated country, 112 — A tornado, 113 — The way to the interior, 115 — A tropical shore, 116 — A country in the clouds, 116 — Crossing the plateau, 117 — The vegetation and climate changing, 118 — A view of all the vegetable kingdoms, 119 — The century plant, 120— Morning twilight, 121— The desert, 122— The country of the table-land, 123 — The Aztec foreign policy, 123 — The Aztec dominion to the Pacific, 124 — The south-east Aztec provinces, 125 — Aca- pulco, 125. The advantage of studying physically, reading as it were, the country that is the subject of discussion, will justify us in turning aside a little to contemplate nature, in the extraordinary development that it presents in Mexico. A vast table-land, higher than the tops of our mountains, stretches nearly from ocean to ocean. Stripped of its timber by Spanish recklessness, it now pre- sents to the eye of the traveller a naked plain ; broken only by isolated peaks, rising high above the level that, even in the tropics, marks the limit of human habita- tion. Snow and ice are there frequently to be seen among the primitive rocks, apparently as unaltered by the lapse of time, and as undisturbed by the sun and storms of centuries, as the adamant on which they rest. In some places difficult of access, immense trees, hoary with age, flourish as they flourished before the white man's axe (109) 110 MOUNTAIN SCENERY. disturbed their quiet. Others dwarfed, yet old, the pig- mies of the forest, occupy the uttermost limits of vegeta- tion. Through these scattered woodlands stretch down- w^ard long lines of ice and snow ; like the gray locks of some venerable Titan. The mountain masses are but empty caldrons, where in ages past boiled and simmered those elements, which in their fiery crucibles became "primitive rocks, pumice, and scoria," according to the mysterious workings of nature's laws. Now, as though the genial influence of fire had never been felt there, all is bleak, chill, and ice-bound, within and without* those * " We climbed on, having reached the basaltic rock at an elevation of 16,805 feet, and vrith exhausting labor we travelled upon it until toward even- ing, when we came to that immense yawning abyss, the crater. The mouth was about three miles in circumfer- ence, of a very irregular form. Into this we entered, and soon arrived at the house which was to be our lodging for the night. " Morning came to our relief, and with it the film had passed from our eyes. We looked up to the top of the mountain above us, and then down into that fearful abyss into which we were soon to descend. We could eat no breakfast, and could drink no coffee, and so we were soon ready for our day's journey. We followed a narrow foot- path until we reached a shelf, whei-e we were seated in a skid, and let down by a windlass 500 feet or so, to a land- ing-place, from which we clambered downward to a second windlass and a second skid, which was the most fear- ful of all, because we were dangling about without anything to steady our- selves, as we descended before the mouth of one of those yawning cav- erns, which are called the ' breathing- holes' of the crater. They are so called from the fresh air and horrid sounds that continually issue from them. But we shut our eyes and clung fast to the rope, as we whirled round and round in mid aiv, until we reached another landing-place. From this point we clambered down, as best we could, un- til we came among the men digging up cinders, from which sulphur, in the form of brimstone, is made. " We took no measurements within the crater, and heights and distances here can only be given by approxima- tion. We only know that all things are on a scale so vast that old Pluto might here have forged new thunder- bolts, and Milton's Satan might here have found the material for his sulphu- rous bed. All was strange, and wild, and frightful. " We crawled into several of the ' breathing-holes,' but nothing was there except darkness visible. The sides and bottom were, for the most MOUNTAIN SCENERY. Ill temporary forges, where nature once combined the mate- rials composing the earth's crust. Whether the comple- tion of her labors, or the exhaustion of fuel, extin- guished- this cluster of mountain-fires, the wit of man will never perhaps determine. They burned fiercely once, they are quiet now; and this is all we can say. They tell us nothing in relation to those causes, that part, polished by the molten mass, which had cooled in passing through them ; and if it had not been for the ropes around our waist, we should have slipped and fallen we knew not whither. We almost fancied that, in the moving currents of air, we heard the wailings of the damned in the great sulphurous lake below. The stones we threw in were lost to sound unless they hit upon a projecting rock, and fell from shelf to shelf. The deep dark- ness was fearful to contemplate. The abyss looked as though it might be the mouth of the bottomless pit. What must have been the effect when each one of these ' breathing-holes' was vomiting up liquid fire and sulphur into the basi n in which we stood ? How immeasurable must be that lake whose overflowings fill such cavities as this ! It is when standing in such a place that we get the full force of the figures used in Scripture in illustrating the condition of the souls that have perished for ever. " We are at the top once more ; and now that our eyesight, which we lost in climbing the mountain, is restored to us, we will take a view of the lower world. Looking toward the west, every object glows in the brightness of the rising sun, except where the mountain casts its vast shadow even across the valley of Toluca. How strangely diminished now are all familiar objects that are visible ! The pureness of the medium through which things are seen presents distant objects with great dis- tinctness, but it will not present them in their natural size, for it cannot change the angle of vision. The vil- lages upon the table-land were appar- ently pigmy villages, inhabited by pigmy men and pigmy women, sur- rounded with pigmy cattle, and garri- soned by pigmy soldiery. It is, by an optical illusion, Lilliput in real life. Had the English satirist placed him- self where Ave now stood, he would have more than realized the picture which his fancy painted. He might have seen the marshalled hosts of Lil- liput marching to the beat of drum, in the proud array of war. " If you wish to see all the sights, you must walk around the mountain, and look down its steepest side, where there is no table-land, into the 'hot country.' The distance is so vast, the descent so steep, that an inexperienced climber suffers from dizziness. If you climb to the very summit, 250 feet above the mouth of the crater, you will find more surface about you. But it is a point where few can desire to remain long, or to visit it a second time." — Frank Kelloti's statement in Wilson's Mexico. 112 A COUNTRY OF SILVER. geologists insist are still at work in the bowels of our mother earth. The country of the Aztecs abounds in mines of silver. But their discovery is of European origin. In the past, before the evening and the morning had begun to measure time, nature had rent and torn the porphyritic rocks asun- der, and thrust up through their open seams those veins, which have since been wrought so deep into the bowels of the earth ;* and from which an average of twenty-six mil- lionsf of pure metal has been annually exported. The Indians once washed gold, it is believed, from the heavy clay of the channels, or in the eddies along the shores of the rivulets of the low country. But their conquest and enslavement effectually killed the goose that laid the golden egg ; for though gold washing may yield a profit to individual labor — as it is found native, and not wrought out, like silver, from the ore — still, with the loss of liberty, its search would necessarily cease. The distinction be- tween these metals in their native state, was well under- stood in the most remote antiquity; for Job declares, " There is a vein for silver and a place for gold, w^here they find it." Nature, it would appear, intended to isolate the country of the Aztecs from the rest of the world, though placing it between two oceans. On the Pacific side, she shut it in by a succession of mountain ridges. Its northern or Atlantic border she bounded with an iron wall rising ten * In the notes to another part of this could not have been much less from volume, the depth and magnitude of the first opening of the mines, if we the silver shafts will be stated. make allowance for smuggling. fThis is the present product. It A TORNADO. 113 thousand feet above the sea, and with a narrow strip of low shore, to which pestilence and malaria forbade ap- proach. Upon that belt also she concentrated the fury of every tempest that sweeps the Gulf of Mexico. Such are the obstacles she interposed to intercourse with the rest of mankind. But the passion for gold, and the trade in silver, has triumphed over all. Merchants inhabit, and ships constantly visit, at all times, a pestilential port, without a harbor, or even good holding-ground ; and that, too, though exposed alternately to the vomito^ or the fear- ful tornado called the Norte. The author once witnessed a visitation of the latter in its utmost fury. The port was filled with shipping, when a well known monitor, the sinking of the atmosphere upon the mountain northward, foretold the impending danger. A crowd gathered upon the shore, from that attraction of mutual sympathy so keenly felt towards men in immi- nent peril. All looked intently at the heavens, as they gathered black, and saw far off on the horizon the clouds and waves mingled together in one great vaporous mass. Now and then were brief intervals of bright skies; again to be quickly overcast, and shrouded by a more intense darkness, while the temperature fell to a degree of chilliness unusual in the '' hot country." The howling of the wind was terrific. The crowd was near enough to see, or at least to catch glimpses of the shipping. Every extra anchor that could be got at was soon thrown out. But to little purpose : a coral bottom is but poor holding-ground in a Norther ; and one by one the fleets 114 A TORNADO. SAN JUAN DE ULT7A. began to drag ; even the castle, San Juan de Uluaf' itself, seemed at times as though it would be torn from its rocky foundations and dashed upon the town. The terror of those on land was hardly to be described, as they saw the apparent destruction of both vessels and crews so nigh. Now and then one would hold a little by some new obstacle the anchor caught, but the resistance giving way, it soon moved again, approaching the shore, to which all tended, excepting those sheltered under the lee of the castle and island. They did not all drag at once, or together, but one by one, as their powers of endurance gave out ; and one by one they drove toward the beach with little of help, or hope, if the storm continued. Even ■*This famous castle, vrhich stands fact, its only present practical advan- upontheislandof Ulua, isnowfast go- tage is derived from the light-house ing to decay. As a fortification it is no which stands upon one of its towers. — longer of great value, although it is Esterior Comercio de Mexico. M. M. computed that more than |16,000,000 Lerdo de Tegido. Mexico, 1853. was expended in its erection. In THE WAT TO THE INTERIOR. 115 that little gave place to despair, as vessel after vessel approached the land ; and, as they were dashed upon it, men held their breath, watching the hardy seamen strug- gling in the waves. One staunch vessel without cargo being carried broadside on, her crew leaped out of her and ran off safely. Was it such a tempest as this that stranded the vessels of Cortez ? ^^^4 VERA CRUZ IN A STORM. The traveller of our day finds his advantage in landing where Cortez disembarked. Following his route north- ward along the belt which separates the precipitous mountains from the sea, he reaches a little river, which has opened a gorge [gordo) through that barrier to the upper country. This narrow strip of level land is noted for its intense heat, its excessive fertility, the pesti- 116 A TROPICAL SHORE. lential character of its atmosphere, and the mahgnity of the poisons which it engenders. On the surface, it is Paradise. Beneath, death lurks in a thousand forms, to entrap the unacclimated. Noted in the history of the conquest, it has an abundance of attractions for those who dare to linger by the way. It is all wilder- ness. Yet the graceful features of the creepers, hang- ing from branch to branch of the sycamores, and the shady arbors formed by their dense foliage, look as though a gardener's hand could be traced in so much regularity ; still it is only nature's own, and there the wild birds build their nests, and breed and sing without disturbance. Often has the author, riding through these forests, dis- mounted by some running brook, and, while his horse was feeding, almost fallen asleep under the soothing influ- ence such an atmosphere inspires when heated from fast riding beneath a vertical sun ! Those moments belong to sensations that can neither be described, nor appre- ciated by those who have not experienced them. Poets have exhausted their power in painting the beauty of this spot, where every sense is satiated with enjoyment. Yet our gratification is alloyed by evils that remind us Paradise is not to be found on earth. Here the whole animal king- dom is busily laboring for the destruction of its kind. Reptiles prey upon each other ; parasitic plants aflBx them- selves to the trees, and suck out the sap of their exist- ence ; and man, though he enjoys to a surfeit the boun- ties of nature, must watch narrowly against the poison that comes to mar his pleasure, and to teach him the A COUNTRY IN THE CLOUDS. 117 wholesome lessoii; that true happiness is only found in heaven. When this region of temptation has at length been passed, and a point reached where the road turns to- ward the interior, we have to climb a hilly gorge — Cerro- gordo. Through it a new climate, new scenes, and new productions are continually presented, until the famous plateau of Jalapa, in the region of clouds and perpetual moisture, is attained — more than four thousand feet above the sea. It is an extensive plateau, half way up the mountain. The beautiful convolvulus jalapa does not flourish there, it is brought from the Indian villages of Colipa and Masantla, situated in the valleys that run among the hills. The myrtle, too, whose grain is the spice of Tabasco, is produced in the forests by the river Boriderus; the smilax, whose root is the true sarsapa- rilla, grows likewise deep down in the humid and umbra- geous ravines of the Cordilleras ; while the cocoa is brought from Acayucan. In the ever-green forests of Papantla and Nantla, dwells the epidendrum vanilla, whose odorif- erous fruit is used as a perfume.* These characteristic productions are from the mysterious mountain valleys, where, thousands of years before any of the present gene- ration, an unknown race of men flourished ; a race as civil- ized as were the people of Palmyra or Egypt, a fact clearly indicated by the ruins in the forests of Misantla and Pa- pantla ; their existence is as unknown to the Indians who now wander about the dilapidated edifices, and isolated * Humboldt's Essay Politique. 118 CROSSING THE PLATEAU. pyramids of the " hot country," as to us ; but of these we shall speak when we come to discuss their antiquities. These places lie to the south of the territory occupied by the Aztecs ; and in the lower valleys. The climbing is not ended by our arrival at the first plateau, above the ordinary level of the clouds. A moun- tain is still beyond and above us. A broad plain and valley lie, indeed, between the traveller and the new ascent, which he must make to reach the true table-land of the Aztecs. The valley is not deep, nor is the plateau broad, that he crosses to the base of the mountains ; yet is it so luxuriant, nothing but the gorgeous language of the Spanish poets can well picture to the dweller in northern climates its attractions. It is a spot more beautiful even than that already described — beautiful as a fairy land. The road now before us hes across the mountain of Perote, at an elevation of more than ten thousand feet,* the highest a stage-coach has yet reached, one from which may oftentimes be enjoyed a view of all the vegetable "kingdoms of the world in a moment of time." The coveted seat is that on the top of the coach above the driver, whence the traveller may enjoy a last, lingering look at this paradise of nature, before the mountain ridge intervenes between the world behind and the great salt desert next to be traversed. The valley passed, we ascend so rapidly that before an hour goes by we can mark a changed vegetation, and observe the products of a colder climate ; and this change is a barometer, which, * 10,400 feet. See Humboldt's Essai Politique. VIEW OF ALL THE VEGETABLE KINGDOMS. 119 in Mexico, marks the ascent and descent as regularly as the most nicely adjusted artificial instrument. So accu- rately are these strata adapted to those of the atmo- sphere, they lead us to imagine that cultivation has laid out the different fields as they rise one above another upon the side of the mountain constituting the eastern enclosure of the table-land. The fertility of the soil does not seem to diminish ; yet the character of the vegetation changes step by step, as we wind our way towards the summit of the Perote. At La Hoya the road becomes so steep as to reduce the travel to a walk ; perhaps the better opportunities thus had to survey the novel sights that present themselves at every turn of the road, more than repay the increased fatigue. When wearied with climbing, or breathing the rarified air of this altitude, if the visitor seat himself by the roadside he catches momentary glimpses, among the floating clouds, of the country through which he passed in his ascent from the coast. We see a long distance through such a medium, but it is only a bird's-eye view we have, and the mass is more than vision can fully take in. Soon some ragged cloud passes across the picture ; and the eye loses the details of the scene, and with it, a strange epitome of all the excellencies of all the climates. Still there is time to divide this world below into sections ; and then the beholder contemplates in part, and at length realizes as a whole, the scene we have presented. The art of man never has, and never can, produce such a combination in the courses of vegetation. Standing at an elevation where pine trees grow in the tropics, where 120 THE CENTURY PLANT. a fence encloses the field, on which a storm of snow and sleet has fallen only a few hours before, we look down upon hills and plains, one below another, each in the descending scale, exhibiting more and more of tro- pical production, until the region of cocoa-nuts and ban- anas, sarsaparilla and palms, jalap and vanilla, is reached in the perspective. It is a specimen chart, in which all the climates and productions of the world are within the scope of a single glance. When the highest ridge is crossed, we descend into an entirely different world. A fine grain-growing country, through which well cultivated fields stretch out as far as the eye can reach. Farmhouses scattered here and there strikingly remind the traveller of his northern home at the same season of the year. Its most striking peculi- arities are the fences, formed by rows of the maguey or century plant, growing by the side of a ditch. There it reaches its greatest per- fection, and adds mate- rially to the fine appear- ance of the enclosures, seen as it is everywhere. It grows wild upon the mountains, it springs up in all uncultivated places, and is grown as a domes- tic plant, in little patches, and also in fields of leag-ues o in extent. It thrives luxu- \< ^ THE MAGUEY, PEEPARED FOR EXTRACTING PULQUE. THE CENTURY PLANT. 121 riantly in the richest soils, yet shows itself in the desert plains, too, where nothing else except a few spears of stunted grass and chapparal can exist.* * The uses to which this plant is applied are more numerous than the methods of its cultivation. When its immense leaf is pounded into a pulp, it is converted into paper and also into a substitute for cloth. The fibre of the leaf, beaten and spun, becomes a beautiful thread, resembling silk in its glossy texture, yet when woven into a fabric, more resembles linen than silk. This thread is now and ever has been the sewing thread of the country. The leaf of the maguey crudely dressed and manufactured is woven into sail-cloth and sacking, and forms the bagging in common use. The ropes made from it are of that kind called Manilla hemp. It is also the best material in use for wrapping paper. Cut into coarse straw it forms the brooms and whitewash-brushes of the country, and as a substitute for bristles is used for scrub-brushes. Finally, it supplies the place of hair combs among the common people. But the great value of the maguey plant arises from the amount of intoxi- cating liquid it produces called pulque. The maguey furnishes the chief source of intoxication among the com- mon people of the table-land. There are two species of this plant cultivated. One of them flourishes in the desert portions of the country, from which an abominable liquor is distilled, called mescal or mejical. The other is the flowering maguey, or century plant, of which so many fabulous stories are told in the United States. This is one of the wonders of the vegetable world. FLOWERING MAGUEY. Its juice is gathered from the cen- tral basin by cutting off a side-leaf and cutting out the heart, just before the sprouting of the hampe, for whose sustenance this juice is destined. The basin, thus formed, yields every day from four to seven quarts — according to the size and thriftiness of the plant — for a period of two or three months. The process of taking it out of the 122 MORNING TWILIGHT. There is something, too. exceedingly attractive in the appearance of the heavens upon this elevated table, 7692 feet above the ocean. The morning starlight is most beautiful. It is so much clearer, and the stars are so much brighter than in the dense atmosphere we inhabit, that the traveller, though half chilled and sleepy, rouses himself to contemplate the brilliant sights above. The brightest that he has watched from childhood up are brighter now than ever, and new ones fill the void in his celestial chart; even their satellites are to be seen dancing around the well known planets. The North Star is still visible, now 19° only above the horizon, but the Dipper has almost disappeared. The Southern Cross, that myste- rious combination, and emblem of the faith of South- ern America, which only reaches the meridian at mid- night prayers, is here 25° above the horizon, and shining brilliantly. To watch these, besides many other unknown plant is a little curious. Into the end and is readily sold for eight, and some- of a long gourd is inserted a cow's times as high as twenty-five cents a horn, bored at the point ; through this quart, producing a very large revenue horn and into the gourd the juice is upon the cost of the plant. It is not sucked up by applying the mouth to ordinarily sold at wholesale ; but each a hole in the opposite side of the gourd, maguey estate has its retail shops in From the gourd-shell the juice is emp- town, from which the whole product tied into a bottle formed from the skin of the estate is retailed out. One man, of a hog, which still retains much of who has five of these shops in the the form of the animal. To form this city of Mexico, keeps his carriage ; bottle of honey-water into pulque, all and is reckoned among the magnates that is necessary is to put into it a of the land, deriving, from this source little of the same material which has alone, it is said, $25,000 a year. The been laid aside till it became sour, excise which government derives from which operates like yeast, causing the the sale of this liquor, which, in taste, honey-water to ferment. resembles sour buttermilk, amounted As soon as the maguey-juice in the to $817,739 in the year 1793. — Mexico hog-skin has fermented, it is pulque ; and its Religion. THE DESERT. 123 and unfamiliar constellations, the short hours of the night are well spent on the driver's box. Gradually you de- scend into what appears to have once been the bottom of a salt lake. The ground there is everywhere partially incrusted with a compound called tequesquita, composed of equal parts of muriate and carbonate of soda, and insoluble matter (common earth) ; this material is used by Mexicans as a substitute for salt and soda. A stunted grass grows here and there, scattered in patches over the had land, as these barren plains are called ; and the dry earth, rarely moistened for six months together, is fre- quently covered with drifting sand, driven about by the fierce winds of this desert. How great the change from those scenes we lately passed! The celestial chart, admired with so much rapture, gradu- ally rolls itself up, and, as the sun comes out, we gage the dreariness around. It is truly a had land — a land of evil — a land for prowlers ; where vultures watch for the carcasses of the djring, and robbers ply their calling with little fear of detection. In the midst of all, there hes a little lake, which looks, a while, like an enchanted scene, and then disappears from our sight. The desert of the table-land over, we are in the midst of fruitful fields of wheat and maguey, of Indian corn and barley. And now the traveller has a new view of the immense mountain barriers, that shut in his vision. Two extinct volcanoes,* twin giants, are at hand; at * Popocatepetl (the moantain with fancied resemblance to a woman laid a smoking mouth) and Izlacihuatl — out in a winding-sheet, the white woman — so called from a 124 AZTEC DOMINION TO THE PACIFIC. their feet lie the countries of Cholula and Tlascala; of which we shall speak at length, as we follow the footsteps of Cortez to the valley of Mexico. Upon the table-land, to the north and westward, the Aztecs do not appear to have extended their conquests. That country was occupied by fierce and warlike tribes, and had few attractions for those who follow war as a trade, for the moving cause of military expeditions, the spoils of the conquered. Their conquests were in a southerly direction, where a rich spoil lay feebly protected by effe- minate tribes. The struggle with the Tlascalans was rather to shut them in, that Mexico might enjoy this plunder without a rival, than for conquest. The whole foreign policy of the Aztecs seems to have been embraced in this idea — a monopoly of the plunder of the hot country. This explains their rapid progress in wealth, without any advance in civiHzation. A chain of garrisons, from Mexico to Avhere Vera Cruz now lies, and from Mexico to the Pacific, shut off the northern tribes from the prolific "hot country" — the region of their most successful forays — a region abound- ing in the ruins of an ancient civilization, strangely in contrast with their own barbarism; and the barbarism of all North American Indians. If we follow the Aztec border southward to the Pacific we cross again mountain ridges, that in a descending series occupy the space between the table-land and the waters of the ocean. This series is of more recent origin than that which meets us on the Atlantic side. Nature has not yet grown quiet there, and, as we near the sea, SOUTH-EAST AZTEC PROYINCES. 125 we enter the region of earthquakes, where rocks are rent and villages overturned by the violence with which the earth is sometimes shaken. In the days of Spanish power an extensive trade in silver, and in the merchan- dise of the East, was carried on across these mountains by the aid of mules, to the land-locked harbor of Aca- pulco — a spot so romantic as to deserve a special notice. That harbor appears like a nest scooped out of the moun- tains, into and out of which the tide ebbs and flows by a double entrance riven by an earthquake in the solid rock. Tradition says another once existed, which an earthquake closed, while it opened the present channels. There is still in the sharp mountain ridge, that shuts it from the sea, another opening, dug by the labor of man, at a point opposite the entrance of the harbor ; to let in the cool sea-breeze upon one of the hottest and most un- healthy places upon this continent. Such, in substance, is and was the little city of Acapulco, the seat and focus of the Oriental commerce of New Spain, and of the Span- ish empire. South and east of the Mexican valley he the coun- tries whence the Aztecs appear to have derived their richest spoils, and which probably witnessed their highest military achievements- — Tabasco, Chiapa, Oajaca, Guata- mala, Yucatan. Over a portion of these " hot countries" they exercised an ill-defined jurisdiction, and gathered thence, not only spoil, but also among other trophies cer- tain vestiges of an antique civilization unknown to other tribes. This, resembling in its ruins that of Nineveh and Egypt, constitutes the only real enigma our subject 126 ACAPULCO. involves, and it hence becomes our duty to contribute towards its solution. ACAPULCO. In order to complete the picture of the interior, let us now make a jour- ney in another direction — from Acapulco northward to the city of Mexico — the route that the East India trade used to follow. But, first of all, let us discourse a little time about this port of Acapulco, once so famous upon the South Seas. It was not discovered when Cortez built, in Colima, the vessels that went to search for a north-west passage ; but when they had returned from their fruitless voyage, they anchored in the mountain-girt har- bor of Acapulco. The discoveries of the celebrated navigator, Magellan, fixed the commercial character and importance of this seaport. He had sailed through the straits that bear his name, and coasted northwardly as far as the trades. And from thence he bore away to the Spice Islands, discover- ing on the voyage the Philippine Islands, where the city of Manilla was founded. By this voyage he demonstrated that the advantages of a route, across the Pacific were so superior to a voyage around Cape Horn, as to jus- tify the expense of a land transit from Acapulco to Vera Cruz, and reship- THE author's itinerancy. 127 ment to Spain. Now that the Panama Eailroad is made, this demonstration may prove advantageous to other nations. The practical advantage of this discovery was the establishment of the Manilla Company, whose annual galleon carried out 1,000,000 silver dol- lars to purchase Oriental products for the consumption of Spain and all her American colonies. In this galleon sailed the friars that went forth to the spiritual conquest of India. In it sailed Spanish soldiers, who followed hard after the priests, to add the temporal to the spiritual subjugation of Oriental empires. To this harbor the galleon returned, freighted with the rich mer- chandise of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. When the arrival of the galleon was announced, traders hastened from evel-y quarter of New Spain to attend the annual fair. Little vessels from down the coast came to get their share of the mammoth cargo. The king's officers came to look after the royal revenue ; and caravans of mules were summoned to transport the Spanish portion of the freight to Vera Cruz. Thus, for a short time, the population of this village was swollen from 4000 to 9000, which fell off again when the galleon took her departure. Such was the commercial condition of the town of Acapulco down to the time of the independence. From this time it was lost to commerce, until it was made a half-way house on the voyage to California. The town lies upon the narrow intervale between the hills and the harbor. It is built of the frailest material, and is destroyed about once in ten years by an earthquake. The castle of San Diego stands upon the high bank, and, though command- ing the entrance to the harbor, is itself commanded by the surrounding high lands, and has so often been taken by assault during the last thirty years as to be considered untenable. It was still dark when I left Alta in order to clear the Peregrine Pass, and reach Tierra Colorado that day. In a few hours I gained the top of the pass, and sat down to take a survey of the zigzag way up which my mustang had climbed, and of the extensive region of hill and mountain country before me. It is difficult to believe that over this slight mule-path all the Spanish com- merce of India has passed, and cargoes of silver dollars, amounting to hun- dreds of millions, during a period of three hundred years. Over this pass armies have continued to advance and to retreat with one uniform result : if the army is a large one, it is starved out of the country ; if it is a small one, it is destroyed. Here prevails not only that harmless cutaneous affection, the Quiricua, which causes people to appear spotted or painted {Pinios), but also the goitre. . . . Not stopping to examine the ruins of great antiquity near this place, I rode 128 CUERNAYACA. on six leagues farther, -when I arrived at the venerable city of Cuernavaca, the place selected by Cortez as the finest spot in all New Spain. This waa bestowed upon him, at his own request, by the Emperor Charles V. as a resi- dence. It merits to this day the distinction that has been given to it as one of the finest spots on earth. It stands close under the shadow of the huge mountains that shield it from the northern blast, and it is at the same time protected from the extreme heat of the tropics by its elevation of 3000 feet. The immense church edifices here proclaim the munificence of Cortez, while the garden of Laborde, open to the world, shows with what elegant taste he squandered his three several fortunes accumulated in mining. The combina- tion of a fine day in a vcfluptuous climate, the beautiful scenery, and the happy faces of the people celebrating New-Year's day in the shade of the orange-trees, made an impression upon a traveller not easily forgotten. — Wilson's Mexico and its Beligion, page 132. CHAPTER IV. THE GEOLOGY OF A COUNTRY PRODUCING THE PRECIOUS METALS. The geology in Mexican history, 129 — Civilized and savage gold diggers, 129 — Civilized digger a geologist, 130 — The gold diggers' geology, 131 — His speculation of floods, 132 — Intellectual superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, 133 — The silver miner, 133 — The chemistry of mining, 134 — The gold digger avoids the primitive, 134 — The silver miner seeks for ores in the primitive rocks, 135 — Why this chapter necessary, 136 — The silver mines, 137— The Real del Monte mines, 137. A COUNTRY like Mexico, whose staple is the precious metals, has a history and character peculiarly its own. It cannot be measured by the standard of others, nor its com- mercial prosperity by the products of its agriculture and manufactures. The treasure that lies beneath its surface is constantly scattering with a capricious hand fortunes to individuals — fortunes as delusive to the lucky recipients as disastrous in their results to the community. These instances beget a passion for sudden wealth, in all classes, and affect even the tone and character of the body politic. The geology of such a country necessarily influences its history. The one cannot be well understood without first considering the other. The two precious metals give rise to two classes of miners — those who delve for silver in the primitive rocks, and those who wash gold, either from the debris of moun- 9 (129) 130 GOLD DIGGERS. tain rivulets, and exhausted river-beds, or grind it from the original quartz matrix, as yet undisturbed by moun- tain torrents. The Mexican Indian easily learned the simple processes by which the shining bits of gold could be gathered from the " rough rock" or " hard pan-clay" bottom of living streams ; and that these could be wrought into attractive ornaments for his person, his weapons, and his wigwam — the only uses to which he could ajDply it. The civilized gold digger brought both art and skill to obtain that which to him has not only a value, but is a standard of all values. He quickly learned, too, that metal was to be found, as abundantly where now no signs of water exist, as in the banks and eddies of streams themselves. If by the exercise of his intellect he con- cluded that beneath an existing range of hills water had once ran, there he knew gold had been deposited likewise of old. Relying on these conclusions, this man unhesita- tingly embarks both labor and capital in a shaft or in a drift through the earth and rocks, that impede his access to the spot fixed, as the probable depository of an aurifer- ous clay. Herein consists the chief difference between the Indian and the civilized miner. The one employs labor, without calculation, in the acquisition of a metal of no other value, in his estimation, than its use as an orna- ment. The other exerts his intellect, as much as his hands, in the acquisition of a metal precious to him in every sense. The civilized digger's employment involves him in the mazes of geological science. He searches for gold as readily beneath the " everlasting hills" as in the running THE CIVILIZED DIGGER. 131 waters, though no evidence exists that water has run in those exhausted river-beds he seeks, since the oldest of the present mountain chains were formed. He feels his way among the ruins of an ancient world, as he follows the course of its choked-up rivers and subverted valleys, and thus material forms become familiar to him, that existed and passed away, apparently, long before the advent of Adam. In his daily employment he has to act upon principles, that to other classes of society are merely sub- jects of abstract speculation. The one idea that the sur- face of this solid earth has not always continued as now since the time of its creation directs his labors. Changes that appear to have taken place in countless ages past, and changes that have occurred comparatively but yester- day, to him, are registered unmistakably upon the moun- tains and in the valleys. Bewildered by the speculations to w^hich his daily employment leads, he is forced to con- clude that an almost infinity of years separates him from that distant past. The Beginning. A miner's avocation restricts his philosophy to the practical. He has no occasion to meddle with the wild speculations of popular geologists. The outlines of science are sufficient. In detail there may be different theories to which he does not object. The waters of the ocean may be the product of combustion deposited drop by drop. The mountains and the broken surface of the land may have been caused by the bubbUng and breaking of its crust from liquid fire, and seven distinct floods may have occurred before the creation of Adam — he cares not ; his business is with facts, not theories. Before the sun and 132 SPECULATIONS ON FLOODS. moon actually shone upon our globe, there may have been days that were really geological eras ; not such as, after that event, were measured by a single revolution of the earth upon its axis. These are all subordinate ques- tions to him, unworthy of inquiry. To those engaged amid the disturbed strata of the earth in search of gold the theory of floods is popular, and they readily admit the disappearance of race after race of animal creations, as the result of the ordinary cataclysms that preceded the advent of man. So constantly the seeker finds what he believes are sea marks, or the beds of ex- hausted rivers, in unexpected places, that he not only adopts the theory of frequent floods, in the chaotic era, but looks, perhaps, even upon that of Noah as the result of natural causes — the dry land and the sea changing places. The miracle with him is rather the preservation of Noah and those in the ark than in the changes that occasioned it. These practical geologists believe the mine- ral they seek was disengaged from its quartz matrix in ages long past, and, though scattered since by the action of water, that it rested there until borne thence in the eddies of some new-formed river. All gold-diggers do not thus reason ; nor even all those of Saxon origin. But the secret of the success of the latter in a single one of the many neglected placers of Spanish America is told, when we say they think while they labor. Laboring with greater energy, too, than the Spanish-American natives, they tax their intellectual powers at the same time to the utmost to increase the profit of their toil. The Spanish- American, like his In- SILVER MINES. 133 dian ancestor, works sluggishly, without thought or reflec- tion. He relies upon the sober-stante^ to direct him in temporal affairs, and on the monk to manage his spi- ritual concerns. This blind labor, useful in the silver mines, is utterly at fault amid the gold claims. The successful gold digger must be a free man, and the amount of his intelligence in a great measure determines his success. The silver miner has an utterly different mission. He searches for a less precious mineral, contained in ores, in the rifts of the primitive rocks. His enterprise must be aided by vast capital, and a thorough combination of tools, labor, and science. Geology is not only appealed to in the search, but the most intricate combinations of chemistry in the separation. The highest engineering talent is also requisite to conduct the excavation of the shafts. A first class silver mine employs more men and animals than would build a moderately sized pyramid ; and a mountain of "primitive" formation is sometimes pierced with more galleries than the rock of Gibraltar, The success of these princely investments depends en- tirely on chemical processes — processes it is not likely the Aztec Indians either knew or ever practised. It is not to be supposed, then, that the Spaniards found them in possession of silver, notwithstanding the statements of Cortez. Let us run over the many chemical operations resorted to in separating the silver from the ore. Roll brimstone, * Master-workman. 134 CHEMISTRY OF MINING. procured in Durango, or in " the volcano/' and converted into sulphuric acid, at the mint in Mexico, is there, after it has changed silver into a sulphate, in disengaging par- ticles of gold, itself converted into sulphate of copper, blue vitriol, in precipitating the silver ; in this form it is sent to the miner. The salt required is made from iequis- quita. Lime is burned upon the mountains. Besides these, litharge and sulphate of iron are used also in addi- tion to quicksilver. All the machinery and scientific discoveries of modern times are needed also, to obtain less than an average of ten per cent, from the ore. Were the Aztecs capable of such a combination of science and labor ? Gold and silver regions appear to have been alike sub- jected to great geological changes. But the period these occurred in the gold, preceded similar disturbances in the silver districts, by, perhaps, an almost infinity of years. Electricity may have operated in decomposing the quartz matrix j and the floods that have swept the districts most abundant in gold, seem to have spread it broad-cast over the mountain's base; whence other torrents have borne it into valleys then existing that have since changed their form. The gold-digger's operations are, therefore, all in secondary formations, and in beds of silt. He avoids the mountains and precipitous rocks, unless, perchance, one of these may have been thrust into some spot that has made a tunnel necessary to success. Not so with the silver miner. His labors are exclu- sively confined to the mountains of primitive formation. GOLD AND SILVER MINERS. 135 excepting in certain districts of Sonora,* where the matrix seems to have decayed ; and the ore often appears to be in the silver, rather than the silver in it. Thus the silver miner lives, and obtains his metal among rocks, into the interior chambers of which he has penetrated by the aid of gunpowder and steel; and without these, no silver has yet been procured in the country of the Aztecs. We have done with the geology and the chemistry « " The 'Good Success Mine' (Bueno Suceso) was discovered by an In- dian, who swam across the river after a great flood. On arriving at the other side, lie found the crest of an immense lode laid bare by the force of the water. The greater part of this was pure massive silver, spark- ling in the rays of the sun. The whole town of Batopilos went to gaze at the extraordinary sight as soon as the river was fordable. This Indian extracted great wealth from his mine, but, on coming to the depth of three Spanish yards [varas), the abundance of water obliged him to abandon it, and no attempts have since been made to resume the working. When the silver is not found in solid masses, which requires to be cut with the chisel, it is generally finely sprinkled through the lode, and often serves to nail together the particles of stone through which it is disseminated." " The ores of the Pastiano mine, near the Carmen, were so rich that the lode was worked by bars, with a point at one end and a chisel at the other, for cutting out the silver. The owner of the Pastiano used to bring the ores from the mine with flags flying, and the mules adorned with cloths of all colors. The same man received a re- proof from the Bishop of Durango when he visited Batopilos for placing bars of silver from the door of his house to the great hall [sala) for the bishop to walk upon." The next mine of interest in our progress northward is the Morelos, " which was discovered in 1826, by two brothers named Aranco. These two Indian peons were so poor that, the night before their great discovery, the keeper of the store had refused to credit one of them for a little corn for his tortillas. They extracted from their claim $270,000 ; yet, in Decem- ber, 1826, they were still living in a wretched hovel, close to the source of their wealth, bareheaded and bare- legged, with upward of $200,000 in silver locked up in their hut. But never was the utter worthlessness of the metal, as such, so clearly demon- strated as in the case of the Arancos, whose only pleasure consisted in con- templating their hoards, and occasion- ally throwing away a portion of the richest ore to be scrambled for by their former companions, the work- men." — Ward's Mexico, vol. II., page 578. 136 WHY THIS CHAPTER WAS NECESSARY. necessary to the business of gathering the precious metals. Sufficient has been said to show why the gold fields in the hands of Anglo-Saxons yield a return immensely greater than in those of the intellectually debased Spanish- Americans ; and why the production of silver requiring a combination of science and mechanical powers unknown to the Aztec tribes, was inconsistent with their civiliza- tion ; while the possession of gold was not — which is the important point we have sought to develope in this chapter. Beyond this we have no connection with the subject; and the ignorance of the civilized world, before the discovery of the precious metals in California, is our apology for referring to it at all. Silver Mines. — Pachuca is the oldest mining district in Mexico. In its immediate vicinity are the most interesting silver mines of the republic. These were the first that were worked ; and immediately after the conquest were very productive. They were wrought for generations, and then aban- doned ; again resumed, after lying idle for nearly a century, and operated for almost another hundred years ; then abandoned once more — they were resumed again while I was in Mexico. They now produce that princely revenue to Escandon & Company, of which I have already spoken. The Hakal {Haxal) in part belonged to the number of those which the English Real del Monte Company worked on shares, with poor success, twenty-five years. It lies about three-fourths of a mile from the village of Pachuca. That company devoted their chief attention to the mines upon the top of the mountain, at an elevation of nine thousand and fifty-seven feet, and seven miles distant from this place, and these mines were comparatively neglected. The new company, immediately upon taking possession, devoted particular attention to the Hakal, which resulted in their striking a bonanza* in the Rosario shaft, which was yielding, from a single pit, about §80,000 a month, if I recollect rightly. The ore of this mine is of a peculiar quality, * This is the name given to a rich section of the vein. SILVER MINES. 137 and its silver is best separated from the scoria by the smelting process, of which I shall treat more fully when I come to speak of the mines of Regla. The Guadalupe shaft, close by the Eosario, was doing but little when I was there, as it does not belong to the same proprietors. On the night of my arrival they had just completed the work of pumping the water out of the San Nicholas, famous in the early mining history of Mexico. The Real del Monte Mine. — Mounted on a good horse, and followed hy a lackey, I rode up the zigzag carriage-road which the English company con structed a quarter of a century since, in order to convey their immense steam machinery to the top of the mountain. This road is still kept in a good state of repair, and forms a romantic drive, for those who keep carriages in the mountains. The sun was shining upon the cultivated hills and rolling lands far below us, as we jogged along our winding way, up the mountain. At every turn in the road new beauties presented themselves. But it was getting too chilly for moralizing, and both lackey and I were pleased when we reached the village, upon the top of the mountain, which bears the name of Real del Monte. The house of entertainment here is kept by an English woman, who seems to be a part of the mining establishment. While in her domicile I found no occasion to regret that I was again elevated into a cold latitude. After a hearty breakfast at the tavern, I called at the office, or, as it is here called, " the Grand House" {Casa Grande), and was introduced by Mr. Auld, the director, to the foreman, who took me to the dressing-room, where I was stripped, and clad in the garb of a miner, except the boots, which were all too short for my feet. My rig was an odd one ; a skull-cap formed like a fireman's, a miner's coat and pants, and my own calf-skin boots. But in California I had got used to uncouth attire, and now thought nothing of such small matters. We therefore walked on without comments to the house built over the great shaft, where my good-natured English companion, the fore- man, stopped me, to complete my equipment, which consisted of a lighted tallow candle stuck in a candlestick of soft mud, and pressed till it adhered to the front of my miner's hat. Having fixed a similar appendage to his own hat and to the hat of the servant, that was to follow us, we were considered fully equipped for descending the mine. While standing at the top of the shaft, I was astonished as I looked at the size and perfect finish of a steam-pump that had been imported from England, by the late mining company. With the assistance of balancing weights, the immense arms of the engine lifted, with mathematical precision, two square timbers, the one spliced out, to the length of a thousand, the other 138 SILVER MINES. twelve hundred feet. These fell back again by their own weight. They were the pumping-rods, that lifted the water four hundred feet to the mouth of a tunnel or adit, which carried it a mile and a quarter, through the moun- tain, and discharged it in the creek, above the stamping-mill. There is a smaller pump, which works occasionally, when the volume of water in the mines is too great for the power of a single one. A trap-door being lifted, we began to descend by small ladders, that reached from floor to floor in the shaft, or rather in the half of the shaft. The whole was fifteen or twenty feet square, with sides formed of solid masonry, where the rock happened to be soft, while in other parts it consisted of natural porphyritic rock cut smooth. This shaft was divided into two parts by a partition, which extended the whole distance from the top to the bottom of the mine. Through the one materials used in the work were let down, and the ore drawn up in large sacks, consisting each of the skin of an ox. The other half of the shaft contained the two pumping timbers, and numerous floorings at short distances ; from one to another of these ran lad- ders, by which men were continually ascending and descending, at the risk of falling only a few feet, at the utmost. The descent from platform to plat- form was an easy one,^ while the little walk upon the platform relieved the muscles exhausted by climbing down. With no great fatigue I got down a thousand feet, where our farther progress was stopped by the water that filled the lower galleries. Galleries are passages running off horizontally from the shaft, either cut through the solid porphyry to intersect some vein, or else the space which a vein once occupied is fitted up for a gallery by receiving a wooden floor and a brick arch overhead. They are the passages that lead to others, and to transverse galleries and veins, which, in so old a mine as this, are very nume- rous. When a vein sufficiently rich to warrant working is struck, it is fol- lowed through all its meanderings, as long as it pays for digging. The opening made in following it is, of course, as irregular in form and shape as the vein itself. The loose earth and rubbish taken out is thrown into some abandoned opening or gallery, so that nothing is lifted to the surface but the ore. Some- times several gangs of hands will be working upon the same vein, a board and timber floor only separating one set from another. When I have added to this description that the business of digging out veins has been continued here for near three hundred years, it can well be conceived that this moun- tain ridge has become a sort of honeycomb. When our party had reached the limit of descent, we turned aside into a gallery, and made our way among gangs of workmen, silently pursuing their SILYER MINES. 139 daily labor in galleries and chambers reeking with moisture, while the water trickled down on every side, on its way to the common receptacle at the bot- tom. Here we saw English carpenters dressing timbers for flooring, by the light of tallow candles, that burned in soft mud candlesticks, adhering to the rocky walls of the chamber. Men were industriously digging upon the vein, others disposing of the rubbish, while convicts were trudging along under heavy burdens of ore, which they supported on their backs by a broad strap across their foreheads. As we passed among these well-behaved gangs of men I was a little startleid by the foreman remarking, that one of the car- riers had been convicted of killing ten men, and was under sentence of hard labor for life. Far from there being anything forbidding in the appearance of even murderers, now that they were beyond the reach of intoxicating drink, they bore the ordinary subdued expression of the Meztizo. According to custom, they lashed me to a stanchion, as an intruder ; but, upon the fore- man informing them that I would pay the usual forfeit of cigar itos on arriving at the station-house, they good-naturedly relieved me. Then we journeyed on and on, until my powers of endurance could sustain no more ; when we sat down to rest, and to gather strength for a still longer journey. At length we set out again, sometimes climbing up, sometimes climbing down ; now and then stopping to examine different specimens of ores that reflected back the glare of our lights, with dazzling brilliancy, and to look at the endless varieties in the appearance of the rock, that filled the spaces in the porphyritic matrix. Then we walked for a long way on the top of the aqueduct of the adit, until we at last reached a vacant shaft, through which we were drawn up, and landed in the prison-house, from whence we walked to the station, where we were dressed in our own clothes again. REDUCTION OP ORES. When the underground wanderings were ended, and dinner eaten, it was too late in the day to visit the refining works ; but on the next morning, bright and early, I was in the saddle, on my way to the different establishments connected with this mine. First, upon the river, at the mouth of the adit, was a stamping-mill, where gangs of stamps were playing in troughs, and reducing the hard ore to a coarse powder. A little way farther down the stream the ore was ground, and then, in blast ovens or furnaces, was heated until all the baser metals in the ore became charged with oxygen, to such a degree, that they would not unite with quicksilver. The ore was then carried and placed in the bottom of large casks, and water and quicksilver were added, and then they were set rolling by machinery for several days. 140 SILVER MINES. until the silver had formed an amalgam with the mercury, while the baser metals were disengaged from the silver. The whole mass being now poured out into troughs, the scoria was washed from the amalgam, which was gathered and put into a stout leathern bag, with a cloth bottom, and the unabsorbed mercury drained out. The amalgam, resembling lard in appear- ance, was. now cut up into cakes, and placed under an immense retort, and fire applied ; by which the mercury, in form of vapor, was driven through an orifice in the bottom into water, where it condensed, while the silver remained pure in the retort. This is called the barrel process, and is used for certain kinds of ore. I had come self-introduced to the Real del Monte, but that had not pre- vented my receiving the accustomed hospitality of the establishment. A groom and two of their best horses were at my service during my stay. As the weather Avas fine, and the road a first class English carriage-way, I heartily enjoyed the ride down the mountain gorge, until it opened upon the broad plain, where the second refining establishment, that of Vin- cente, is situated. FALLS OF EEGLA. The Falls and Basaltic Columns of Regla. — The Patio, or open yard of Regla, on Avhich the principal portion of the ores of the Real del Monte com- pany are " benefited,", or, as we should say, extracted, is situated deep down in a barranca, where both water-power and intense heat can be obtained to SILVER MINES. 141 facilitate the process of separation. The immense amount of mason-work, here expended in the erection of massive walls, would make an imposing appearance, if they had been built up in the open plain ; but here they are so overshadowed by the mason- work of nature, that they sink into insignificance, in comparison. The bank, some two hundred feet high, of solid rock, as it approaches the waterfall on either side, has the appearance of being supported by natural buttresses of basaltic columns — columns closely joined together and placed erect by the hand of nature's Master-builder, Still, all would have been stiff and formal, had the sides of the barranca been lined only with perpendicular columns ; but broken and displaced pillars are piled in every eonceivable position, against the front, while a vine with brilliant leaves had run to every fissure, and spread itself out to enjoy the sunshine. The little stream, that had burst its way through the upright columns, and flowed over the broken fragments, fell into a perfect basin of basalt, heightening immensely the attractions of the spot, I sat down upon a fallen column, and for a long time continued to contemplate the unexpected scene, of which, at that time, I had read nothing. There was such a mingling of the rich vegetation of the " hot country" with the rocky ornaments of this pretty waterfall, that I could never grow weary of admiring the combined grandeur and beauty of the place, from which Peter Terreros derived his title, Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla, became one of the rich men of the last century, in consequence of a lucky mining adventure. In olden times the water in the Real del Monte mines had been lifted out of the mouth of the Santa Brigeda, and other shafts, in bulls' hides, and carried up on a windlass. When near the surface, this simple method of getting the water out has great advantages, on account of its cheapness, and is now extensively employed in Mexican mines. But after a certain depth had been reached, the head of water could no. longer be kept down by this process, and, in consequence, the Real del Monte was abandoned about the beginning of the last century, and became a perfect ruin ; for no wreck is more complete than that which water causes, when it once gets possession, and mingles into one mass, floating timbers, loosened earth, rubbish, and soft and fallen rock. By the mining laws of Mexico, the title to a mine is lost by abandoning and ceasing to work it. It becomes a waif open to the enterprise of any one, who may choose to " redenounce" it. The title to the soil in Mexico, as in California, carries no title to the gold and silver mineral that may be contained in the land. The pre- cious metals are not only regarded in law as treasure-trove, but they carry with them, to the lucky discoverer, the right to enter upon another person's property, and to appropriate so much of the land, as is necessai'y to avail himself of his prize. All California land claims are subject to this legal condition. 142 SILVER MINES. The Count's Fortune. — This Peter Terreros, at first a man of limited capital, conceived the idea of draining this abandoned mine by means of a tunnel or adit [socabon) through the rock, one mile and a quarter in length, from the level of the stream till it should strike the Santa Brigeda shaft. Upon this enterprise he toiled, with varied success, from 1750 until 1762, when he completed his undertaking, and also struck a bonanza, which continued, for twelve years, to yield an amount of silver, which in our day appears to be fabulous. The veins which he struck, from time to time, as he advanced with his socabon, furnished means to keep alive his enterprise. When he reached the main shaft, he had a ruin to clear out, and rebuild, which was a more costly undertaking than the building of a king's palace. Yet his bonanza, not only furnished all the means, for a system of lavish expenditure upon the mines, and refining-works, but also, surplus profits sufi&cient to enable him to lay out half a million annually, in the purchase of plantations, or six millions of dollars in the twelve years. This is equal to about 500,000 pounds' weight of silver ! Besides doing this, he loaned to the king a million of dollars, which has never been re-paid, and built and equipped two ships of the line, and presented them to his sovereign. This once humble shopkeeper, Peter Terreros, after such displays of munifi- cence, was ennobled by the title of Count of Regla. Among the common people he is the subject of more fables, than was Croesus of old. When his children were baptized, so the story goes, the procession walked upon bars of silver. By way of expressing his gratitude for the title conferred upon him, he sent an invitation to the king to visit him at his mine, assuring his majesty, that if he would confer on him such an exalted favor, his majesty's feet should not tread upon the ground while he was in the New World. Wherever he should alight from his carriage, it should be upon a pavement of silver, and the places where he lodged should be lined with the same pre- cious metal. Anecdotes of this kind are innumerable, which, of course, amount to no more than showing that in his own time his wealth was prover- bial, and demonstrate, that in popular estimation, he stood at the head of that large class of miners, whom the wise king ennobled as a reward for successful mining adventures, and that he was accounted the richest miner in the vice- kingdom. The state and magnificence which he oftentimes displayed sur- passed even that of the Viceking himself, without embarrassing an estate, the largest ever accumulated by one individual, in a single enterprise. How HE EXPENDED HIS MoNEY. — Count Pctcr is estimated to have expended two and a half millions of dollars, upon the buildings constituting the refining establishment of Eegla, which goes under the general designation of i\\Q patio. SILVER MINES. 143 Why his walla were built so thick, or why so many massive arches should have been constructed, is an enigma to the present generation, as, in the bottom of a barranca, they could not have been intended for a fortress. The Chemical Processes in Silver Mining. — But let us go in and examine the different methods of "benefiting" silver here applied. The ores from the Rosario shaft of the Hakal mine of Pachuca are stamped and ground, and then thrown into a furnace, after having been mixed with lime, which in fire increases the heat; while upon the open ^orto we shall see that lime is used to cool the ore. Litharge (oxide of lead) is added, and the mass is burned until the litharge is decomposed, the lead uniting with the silver, while the oxygen enters into the slag, which the baser metals, or scoria, in the ore, have formed. This is cast out, at the bottom of the furnace. The mass of molten lead and silver is drawn off, and placed in a large oven, with a rotary bottom, into which tongues of flame are continually driven, until the lead, in the compound, has become once more oxidized, forming litharge, and the silver is left in a pure state. This is the most simple method of "benefiting" silver. The Patio. — A little beyond the furnace is a series of tubs, built of blocks, from the broken columns. In the centre of each revolves a shaft with four arms, to each of which is fastened a block of basalt, that is dragged on the stone bottom of the tub, where broken ore mixed with water is ground to the finest paste. Here the chemical process of " benefiting" commences. A bed is prepared, upon the paved floor (patio) in the yard, in the same manner as a mortar bed is prepared, to receive quicklime dissolved in water. Into which is poured the semi-liquid mass. This is called a io7'ta, and contains about 45,000 lbs. Upon this four and a half cargas, of 300 lbs. of salt is spread, and then a coating of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) is laid over the whole, and then it is tramped by mules. If the mass is found to be too hot, for the advantageous working of the process, lime in sufiicient quantities is added to cool it ; and if too cool, then iron pyrites (sulphate of iron) is added. The mules are then turned again upon the bed, and for a single day it is mixed most thoroughly together, by tramping, and by turning it with shovels. On the second day 750 lbs. of quicksilver are added to the torta, and then the tramping is resumed. The most important personage, not even excepting the director, is called " the tester ;" for the condition of the ores varies so much, that experience alone can determine the mode of proceeding with each separate torta, and upon the tester's judgment depends, oftentimes, the question whether a min- ing enterprise, involving millions of dollars, shall prove a profitable or unprofit- 144 SILVER MINES. able adventure. Perhaps he cannot read or write, though daily engaged in carrying on, empirically, the most difficult of chemical processes. To him is intrusted the entire control of the most valuable article employed in mining — the quicksilver. He is constantly testing the various tortas spread out upon the ^a^to ; to one he determines that lime must be added ; to another, an oppo- site process must be applied, by adding iron pyrites. When all is ready, with his own hands, he applies the quicksilver, by expressing it through the pores of a little cloth bag, as he walks over and over the toria, much after the manner of sowing seed with us. The tester determines when the silver has all been collected, and amalgamated with the mercuz-y. Whether the tramping process, and the turning by shovels, shall continue for six weeks, or for only three, is decided by him. When he decides that it is prepared for washing, the mass is transported to an immense washing machine, which is propelled by water, where the base substances are all washed from the amalgam, after which it is resolved into its original elements, of silver and quicksilver, by fire, as already explained ; with the loss of about seventy-five to one hundred pounds of mercury upon each torta. Having thus described, with some minuteness, one of the most extensive silver mines in the world, where an average of 5000 men and unnumbered animals are employed, it will not be necessary to go into details, as we notice the many other celebrated mines of Mexico. — Mexico and its Religion. CHAPTER V. THE EXTINCT EMPIRE OF CENTRAL AMERICA IDENTIFIED AS PHOENICIAN IN ITS ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND RELIGION. The antiquity of Central American ruins, 145 — Egyptian analogies, 146 — Ancient Americans not Egyptian in manner of worship, 146 — Obstacles to Egyptian migration, 147 — The era of Egyptian prosperity, 148 — Philistia and Phoenicia, 149 — Tarshish and its commerce, 150 — The religion of Tar- shish, 152 — The Latin cross at Xineveh and Tyre, 152 — The ancient mag- netic cross, 153 — The cross the emblem of Ashteroth, 154 — Tyre the Paris of antiquity, 155 — Causes of decline of ancient nations, 156 — Sacrificing children to Molech or Saturn, 157 — The Phoenician Madonna at Palenque, 158 — Offering children to the cross at Palenque, 158 — The copper medallion alleged to have been found there, 160 — The tortoise the emblem of a Phoe- nician colony, 161 — The river vrall of Copan, 161 — The alleged Phoenician MS., 161 — Recapitulation of Phoenician analogies, 162 — The bronze tools and weapons of antiquity, 163 — Steel by its cheapness supplanting bronze, 164 — A retrospect of antiquity, 165 — The dense population of ancient Cen- tral America, 166 — The result of commerce, 166 — Ancient routes of this commerce, 167 — Probable cause of its extinction, 167 — The Oriental origin of Greek civilization, 169 — Greek ignorance of antiquity, 170 — The suc- ceeding era, 170 — Decay of races, 171 — Each continent has a common hive, 172 — Our cause proved by unwilling witnesses, 172 — Why the fabled visit of the Apostle invented, 173 — The proofs necessary, 173 — Priority of sailing vessels to galleys, 174 — The proper judges of evidence, 176 — The incon- gruity of races, 177. The wreck of an extinct southern empire is the grand enigma of our continent. The remains of ancient cities — homogeneous in their character — extend the whole length of Yucatan, and re-appear in Honduras and Tehuantepec. These ruins are not those of temporary structures, nor of such as the revolutions of a few centuries would destroy. In their solidity they strikingly remind us of the best 10 (145) 146 EGYPTIAN ANALOGIES. productions of Egyptian art. Nor are they less venera- ble in appearance than those which excite our admira- tion in the valley of the Nile. Their points of resem- blance, too, are so numerous, they carry to the beholder a conviction, that the architects on this side the ocean, were familiar with the models on the other. They bear the impress of vast wealth and resources,* and appear as though built at different eras ; while repeated renewals of their stucco indicate as strongly an actual use for many centuries. These ruins are Egyptian in their obelisks or square columns.^ In their painted statues, their hierogiyphical tablets and plinths, J their painted sculpture § and their paintings. 1 1 In the use and application of hierogiyphical inscriptions,^ they are Egyptian ; and so too in some of their common emblems.** They are EgyjDtian likewise in their pyramids,'|-|' and in the purposes to which their vaults are applied. Nor are some of these structures a whit behind their models in dimension .|J Those extant show the remains of a stone casing like those of their prototypes.§§ Each people also excavated sepulchres in the rock.||ll And on the upright face of the block called the " sacrificial" stone, we recognise the Egyptian celebra- tion of victory .^^ Their approximations of the arch*** too are the same; and so likewise their use of bronze for tools. fff * See Note (1), at the end of this chapter. f ^^ote (2). J Notes (3) and (4). I Note (5). || Note (6). f Note (7). ** Note (8). ft Note (9). 1% Note (10). §§ Note (11). III! Note (12.) Hf Note (13). »** Note (14). Iff The subject of bronze weapons and tools is fully discussed in a subse- quent part of this chapter. ANCIENT AMERICANS NOT EGYPTIAN. 147 Yet, with all these striking points of resemblance, the ancient inhabitants of Central America were not Egyp- tians, Their largest pyramids were not complete, but truncated ; and upon these lofty platforms the temples of their idol-worship were constructed.* Neither were the American dead embalmed, but, when decomposition had done its work, their bones were packed in jars, and depo- sited in the vaults of their pyramids.^ The divinities of both races appear to have been in part identical, but their methods of worship different. All the gods of anti- quity had their emblems. Among the Egyptians these emblems were living animals. They represented Apis by a bull. Thoth by an ibis. Phre by a hawk. Seb by a crocodile. Anubis by a jackal. And in this form fifteen divinities appear upon the standards among the figures of the gods in the tomb of Rameses IV. at Bab-al- Melook.J To these emblems certain of the divine honors were paid, which were due to the god, others were reserved for the image. Hardly an animal or insect in Egypt, but was the emblem of some divinity, and held sacred in some of its cities. In Central America the existence of sacred animals or insects is still doubtful. § Among the ancient races we find a diversity in the titles and forms of worship paid the same divinity ; most perplexing to the student of mythology. The Philistine, the Phoenician, and the Egyptian deities were manifestly of Hindoo origin ;|| and, apparently under another modi- fication of form, the Central Americans adored the same gods. The burdens of superstition and caste so impeded * Note (15). t Note (16). % Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. I. p. 19. I Note (17). II Note (18). 148 ERA OF EGYPTIAN PROSPERITY. the people of the Nile as to render them incapable of great and distant commercial enterprises, while the sea was also unclean to them. We should therefore be sur- prised to find strong evidences of their actual presence in America, but, not to find there, their gods. Rejecting those fables, which rank Noah as the first king of Egypt, and Mizraim, the son of Ham, as the second sovereign of the first dynasty, we must also reject, of course, those more absurd, which assign to that country a dynasty of gods, and a dynasty of demigods, and then, some thousand years of human rule, before the time of Adam. We find, however, other grandchildren of Mizraim,* the Philistines of Scripture, leaving the country of the Caphtorimf and spreading over Egypt, the island of Crete, and a part of the land of Phoenicia or Canaan ; giving their own name to the latter country — - Palestine.! It was probably this highly civilized and commercial people, who for six hundred and fifty years ruled Egypt under the name of the Shepherd Kings (Hyksos) — a name given them as a reproach — " for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians"§ of high- caste. 1| Manifestly the kings of Egypt, in the times of Abraham, felt no aversion to shepherds, as one sought to take to wife Sarah, brought up in a shepherd's tent-TJ Two hundred and thirteen years later we find a king of the same race on the throne, as we judge from his inter- view with Jacob, the prince of shepherds.** About three hundred years later a king [dynasty] arose that knew not * Note (19). t Note (19). J Note (19). § Gen. sxxvi. 34. II Note (20). i Gen. xii. 18, 19. ** Gen. xlvii. PHILISTIA AND PHCENICIA. 149 Joseph ;* that is, acknowledged not the obligation due to his memory. This clearly refers to the expulsion of that race of kings, who had treated his kindred with favor ; that is, the shepherd kings ;f and explains also the cause of that persecution which arose against Israel. The new rulers, professing the Egyptian superstition, turned the whole force of their fanaticism against the peaceful shepherds of Goshen. The disastrous effect of this upon the commercial interests of the country we can at once comprehend, by reference to India, where a race abhorrent to the natives, both rule the country and con- duct its commerce, and, in their efforts to enrich them- selves, enrich the Hindoos. The expulsion of the British, we know, would immediately be followed by the persecu- tion of all professing their religion, and ultimately, by the extinction of all foreign commercial enterprise. Thus was it in Egypt. The long-continued and wise administration of the " Shepherds" had raised it to the highest pitch of prosperity; and during their rule, or immediately suc- ceeding it, the greatest of the public works were con- structed. J With their expulsion, the decline of prosperity began, and its commerce fell into the hands of neighbor- ing states. During the 430 years that Israel abode in the land of Goshen, the five nations of Phoenicia increased so rapidly in population and commerce, that ten of the twelve spies sent by Moses reported against the practica- bility of successfully invading the country, even with an army of six hundred thousand fighting men.§ Their * Note (21). t Note (22). J Note (23). § Numbers i. 46. 150 TARSHISH AND ITS COMMERCE. report was, that the cities were great and strongly forti- fied.* Joshua, indeed, afterwards invaded it with an army of only equal number, but still incalculably supe- rior, from, the forty years' warfare and discipline of the wilderness. Yet the contest was so unequal, he relied almost solely upon the interposition of divine power for the victory ! f If we adopt the common idea, that the family of Mizraim populated Egypt, then it is not difficult to believe, that the country of Caphtor J — the first resi- dence of the Caphtorim and Philistim — was within, or adjacent to, its limits. These nations appear to have entered the country of Canaan, and established their five lordships there before their own expulsion from Egypt, perhaps even before their first conquest of that country. § Joshua evidently regarded the country as a part of that land, and so apportioned it to the tribes. || They, the Philistians, are called by one of the later prophets — helpers of Tyre ; ^ and through their country the Tyrian commerce, to and from India,** ]3assed, until David, having subjugated both Edom and Philistia, diverted this transit to his own states. We learn afterwards the servants of Hiram navigated to Ophir the ships of Solomon ; supposed to have been called Tarshish ships from their great size, viz. — ocean-going ships. But where and what was Tarshish? For there was probably a country as well as a metropolitan city bearing that name. It was not Carthage, as the LXX. supposed, for Carthage was a Phoenician colony. The Tarshish, * Note (24). t Note (25). J Gen. x. 14. ? Calmet, vol. II. p. 342. || Josh. x. 45, 46, 47. f Jer. xlvii. 4. ** Note (26). TARSHISH. 151 who gave name to the city and country we have to con- sider, was a descendant of Japhet.* In profane history the city was called Tartessus,-)- and situated without the Straits of Gibraltar — ^^vas probably the ancient Gadir, now Cadiz ; J in the country of the Turdetanians,§ the original Iberians or Basques, as distinguished from the mixed people who were called Celt-Iberians. In the prophet Ezekiel's enumeration of the customers of Tyre, he places this city in the first rank, " by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches, silver, iron, tin, and lead." || It is the general notion that the tin which Tarshish brought to Tyre came from Cornwall in England, as until a late day only has it been found elsewhere.^ To procure this metal, so important to the world before the process of hardening brass had been lost,** arose the early naviga- tion of the Celts, of civilized Iberia, to the barbarous country of Britain ! It seems like romance to talk of huge ships from Tarshish, navigating the ocean in the times of the Pharaohs,ff and populating Britain and Ireland, from the then over populous Spain. But we have, in proof of the large ships of that remote era, a painting in the tomb of Rameses IV., celebrating a victory obtained by his galleys over a fleet of vessels, propelled by sails, without the aid of oars,JJ while in the people themselves lies the evidence of a very remote migration from Spain to Britain and Ireland. The Celts of those islands are to this day recognised as brethren by the Basques or people of Biscay,§§ viz., as Celt-Iberians ; and, as such, admitted * Gen. X. 4. f Herod. I. c. xliii. % Note (27). § Note (28). II Ezek. xxyii. 12. ^ Note (29). ** Note (30). ft Note (31). $t Note (32). U Note (33). 152 RELIGION OF TARSHISH. to the enjoyment of the fueros of the provinces,* from which Spaniards are excluded. We have already ventured to suggest a common idolatry among all the highly commercial nations of antiquity. They all appear to have derived their gods from India; the eastern starting point of commerce, as Tartessa was its western. But as we journey westward, each nation adds new titles, and varies its forms of worship. Thus, Egypt, Philistia, and Phoenicia have the same deities in fact. But Egypt alone used living emblems to represent them, and adopted the Indian system of caste. f The heroes of Egypt are the demigods of Phoenicia ; nor is it straining a point to add of Tarshish, since the temple there of Hercules was so famous, that, in Grecian fable, the pillars which adorned it were synonymous with the rock of Gibraltar and its counterpart on the African coast (Calpe and Abyla) .J In the next chapter we will give the probable reason for the deification of this Hercules at Tartessa. Three of these nations indulged in the orgies of Priapus (Bacchus) . " They went to Baal Peor, and separated themselves to that shame." § The serpent too, was, to them all, the emblem of fruitfulness,|| while ano- ther tale reminds us that the heathen crosses of Ireland were covered with elaborate sculptures of serpents and turtles, which the pious zeal of Saint Patrick caused to be effaced.^ . Among the Egyptian mysteries, the Latin cross was placed beneath the monogram of the moon, thus 9 ; an * Note (34) . t Note (35). % Note (36). I Hosea x. 10. || Note (37). f Note (38). THE ANCIENT MAGNETIC CROSS. 153 appropriate position for her emblem, when Astarte (Ashte- roth) personifies her.* But, among the Phoenicians, whose principal employment was commerce, that goddess is re- presented standing on a galley, her right hand j)ointing to the prow, while her left grasps the staff of a Latin cross — the magnetic compass of antiquity .f Hercules, emblema- tized by the loadstone, claimed also a position among the gods, and took precedence of Apollo, the representative of the sun ; thus, Hercules- Apollo, J though at first only a demigod — an Egyptian hero — or canonized king.§ In the interchange of commerce and of deities, between the x^ssyrians and Phoenicians, we find Astarte, or Ashte- roth, an object of worship at Nineveh. The three em- blems on her medals, a star, a crescent, and a cross, adorn the neck of a king as there portrayed in the act of wor- shipping the Queen of Heaven. || We find the cross like- wise attached to a necklace, or collar, in the dress of the oriental prisoners on an Egyptian ruin of the time of Rameses II., fifteen centuries before the Christian era.*|l" The mariner's magnetic cross of ancient times is thus f COINS FROM CALMET, NO. 6. PLATE CXL. AND PLATE XYI. * Note (39). II Note (42). t Note (40). g Note (41). i[ See Wilkinson-, I., p. 376. 154 THE CROSS AN EMBLEM OF ASHTEROTH. described by Boulak Kibdjalick, an Arabian author of the thirteenth century (1242).* " They take a cup of water [the cup of Apollo, called also that of Hercules],-}- which they shelter from the wind. They then take a needle [the arrow of Apollo or of Abaris], which they fix in a peg of wood [reed] or a straw, so as to form a cross. They then take the magnes [magnet] and turn round for some time above the cup ; moving from left to right, the needle following. They then withdraw the ynagnes [the stone of Hercules], after which the needle stands still, and points north and south."^ Whether a permanently polarized needle was an improvement of the Chinese or Phoenicians, is of little importance ; for purposes of ado- ration, the original form would most naturally be used, as it would be considered the most venerable. We have called attention to the prominency of the cross among the emblems of the favorite goddess of the Phoenicians, Astarte ; as this dispels one of the mysteries connected with the Central American ruins. Occupying a significant position among Egyptian mysteries, that symbol is the leading emblem on Phoenician medals also, both ancient and modern ; on those bearing inscriptions in the Sidonian character, on those inscribed in Greek too, and even in Latin — when medals of the Syro-Phoeni- cians. On one of these coins Calmet remarks as fol- lows : — '' Nos. 2-4, medals of Sidon, the inscription in Greek, ' The Sidonian Goddess,' agrees exactly with the appellation — 1 Kings v. 5, 33, ^ Ashteroth, goddess of the * Note (43) t Note (44). X Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., page 144. TYRE THE PARIS OF ANTIQUITY. 155 Sidonians.' No. i, ' Astarte holding the cross, standing on a ship, the measure on her head. 12, Astarte standing in her temple holding the long cross in her hand. An altar burning before the temple,' * &c. More illustrations are needless, as the foregoing sufficiently establish our point, that the Latin cross was a religious emblem of the Phoeni- cians — typical of the 'Queen of Heaven.'"-]- To show his contempt for this Phoenician Yenus,J Alexander the Great ordered two thousand of the principal citizens of Tyre to be executed upon this, her emblem ! From that time, it seems to have been a practice among the oriental Greeks, to crucify the basest of malefactors. The reader will doubtless excuse us for turning aside here to notice a striking similarity in the situation of the Israelites, the Protestants of antiquity, and ourselves, the Protestants of the present. The adoration of the cross, and the Queen of Heaven, was an abomination to them, as it is to us ; and they were, as we are, under a divine prohibition to make no similitude. But their hewers of wood and drawers of water, as the Celts among us, adored this emblem, and also the Queen of Heaven, which fami- liarized them to it. Tyre was the Paris of antiquity, the centre of voluptuousness, the regulator of fashions, the seat of gentility, and there the neighboring people learned what constituted the genteel in religion — to combine voluptuousness and faith in the sensuous presentation of spiritual truths. There, too, the aspiring were taught to despise the simple forms of their own country, and to adore the cross and Queen of Heaven. From the time * Calmet, vol. II., pp. 606-7. f Note (45). J Note (46). 156 CAUSES OF DECLINE OF ANCIENT NATIONS. of Solomon,* indeed from the time of Joshua, this ado- ration, the building of high places,f and the setting up of her emblem, were the besetting sins of Israel. So is it to those classes among us, who find a passage to heaven like the needle's eye. Tacitus has been laughed at, by all the scholiasts | of the last five hundred years, for accusing the Jews of worshipping an ass ; and yet modern inves- tigation has established the charge. A class of Jews, who borrowed their religious ideas from Tyre, adored, in the last phase of their apostacy, that sentimental animal, the jackass ! § The Madonna and Child are associated with the donkey upon one of the latest medals of Astarte ; a medal dating long after the Christian era!l| Whether, among the improvements now going on in fashionable circles, the jackass will be again introduced, to excite the devotional sentiments of worshippers, is a question for the future to determine ! It is the last phase of sentiment ! From the time of Noah a series of civilized nations had been growing, that, at the end of a thousand years, at- tained a point of commercial prosperity hardly reached by modern races. Nineveh multiplied her merchants above the stars.^ Egypt, Philistia, and Phoenicia, crowded with millions of civilized inhabitants, were also utterly- corrupted by this golden era. The Almighty could endure no longer, and the decree went forth for their extermi- nation. Wars, from that time, are rather the rule than the exception. The Phoenicians, who seem to have been sinners above the rest, were the first to feel the blow, — * Note (47). t Truncated pyramids? % Note (48). I Note (49). il Note (50). f Nahum iii. 16. INFANT SACRIFICE. 157 "For," saith Moses, "every abomination to the Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods."* Thus buman sacrifice was the assigned cause for that indiscriminate slaughter of both the men and women of Canaan by the Israelites. The sacrifices to Molech, or Saturn, were the remarka- ble features of Phoenician worship. These sacrifices were the immolation, in a furnace placed at the feet of a bronze statue, or beneath the mask of Saturn, of the choicest infants of the nation. This form of apostacy was con- stantly taken by the Jews : even their kings made their children to pass through the fire to Molech.f This wor- ship of Saturn is distinctly to be recognised among the ruins of Palenque. It is there portrayed upon the walls.| We have there the hideous mask of that deity ; the eyes widely expanded, the tongue hanging out, as thirsting for victims. Four persons are represented in connection with this mask. The principal, an old priest, in the act of offering a child is opposite a younger ofiicial, who is also making an offering ; behind the elder stands a trumpeter, or an old man blowing some instrument; behind the other, a female spectator, taking so lively an interest in the proceeding as to suggest she may be the mother of the victim. § The structure called the House of the Pigeons, at Uxmal, has this hideous masked face over each doorway, surmounted by an elaborate head-dress. || * Deut. xii. 31. f 2 Kings xxii. 6 ; 2 Kings xvi. 3. J Note (51). § For a description of the offering above referred to, see Stephens, vol. II., page 352. II Stephens's Yucatan, vol. I., page 306. 158 THE PHffiNICIAN MADONNA AT PALENQUE. The large circular stone block, now at the city of Mexico, and known as the Calendar Stone, has this also for its central ornament* There is likewise a painting on the ruins, near the Hacienda of Tankuche, of another of these masks,f and others elsewhere, but these are suffi- cient to identify the above-mentioned edifices with the worship of Saturn. By reference to antique coins and medals we have shown the cross was the emblem of the " Queen of Heaven" — the Astarte of the Canaanites or Phoenicians. That she was a favorite deity is clearly evident, and the seduc- tions of her worship, as clearly enticed the Jews from the service of their God, and eventually occasioned, the de- struction of their Holy City .J After this goddess had furnished the Greeks and Romans with models for both their Venus and Ceres,§ according to her different attri- butes, we find her, in her last phase, giving to baptized Rome her Madonna. Now, if we turn to the ruins on this side the ocean, we find, at Palenque, one having broad entablatures covered with hieroglyphics ; there, on each of the four square columns, or jambs between the doors, is moulded in stucco the figure of a female holding a child on her left hand and arm, in the same manner as Astarte aj>pears on the Sidonian medals. Dupaix thus describes them:|| "They [the four females represented on the square columns] are apparently absorbed in devo- tion, and the faces of all are turned towards the central sanctuary. Two are placed on each side, holding in one * Note (52). t Yucatan, vol. I., pp. 205, 306. % Jeremiah -si § Note (53). II Vol. VI. page 499. SACRIFICING INFANTS TO THE CROSS. 159 hand a gift, with the other supporting a child, offering it as it were to the law !" It may be added, that the heads of these figures are covered with allegorical devices, as is the case with almost all those yet found there. The commonest emblem on these remains is the cross. Dupaix, who is anxious to vindicate the Latin cross from all connection with infant sacrifice, says : " It is never plain, but loaded with ornament." At Mitla we have the Maltese cross j* and at other places divers varieties of the Greek cross, mentioned by him, and represented on the plates of his draftsman, Castanada.f At Palenque the representation of a cross, is so prominent as to give the ruined building in which it is found, the name of La Cruz. The figures already described as offering a sacrifice to Molech, are there represented presenting a child to the cross.f Dupaix, an ardent Romanist, thus describes the scene : " Beside it [the cross] stand four grave personages, who contemplate it with an air of deep veneration. The tallest of them is offering to it with upraised hands a child of singular shape, apparently a new-born infant; admiration is depicted in the counte- nances of the others. Of the two figures placed in the background, one appears to be that of a man bending under the weight of years, apparently in the act of blow- ing a musical instrument, which he holds with both hands to his mouth. The last personage in this group is a grave and majestic figure, apparently an admiring spectator." J Was this last intended for the mother ? » Note (54). t Note (54). X Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI.,p. 481. 160 STATUE OF ASTARTE RECOGNISED. IKPANT SACRIFICE. Thus far had we carried the argument, but had here been compelled to stop, for want of further evidence ; and the very stereotype plate that at first occupied this page, expressed our regrets that we were not able more com- pletely to identify the Palenque statue as Hercules. At our publishers', however, the eyes of that distinguished Orientalist, the Rev. Mr. Osborn, chanced to fall upon a proof of the American goddess in the fourth note to this chapter, which he at once recognised as Astarte, repre- MEDALLION FOUND — TURTLES AT PALENQUE. 161 sented according to an antique pattern. Her head-dress, he insisted, was in the ancient form of the mural crown, without the crescent, the prototype of that worn by Diana of the Ephesians, and so too, he insisted, was her necklace of "two rows." In support of his position, he referred to the late discoveries made in the region beyond Tiberias, and to divers others of a recent date, while he corroborated our theory of the Palenque statue. There are, also, abundant secondary Phoenician re- semblances. Among the coins of Tyre are two upon which the serpent is the prominent figure. On one it encircles a large egg ; on the other, it is coiled around a tree. In the work of Dupaix, there is the representation of a copper medallion, already mentioned, purporting to have been found at Palenque ; on one side of which is a tree, with a scaly serpent entwining itself around the trunk.* Of the prominent position occupied by the ser- pent throughout, we have already spoken in discussing Egyptian analogies. The tortoise was a symbol of the Tyrian colony of Thebes, in Greece. And these two, the serpent and the turtle, are ever recurring emblems upon American ruins. At Uxmal is a building called " The House of the Tur- tles," from a head or row of tortoises around the cornice.f Divers turtles in stone have been also discovered among them. In a large box filled with terra cotta antiques once offered to the author, perhaps three-fourths of the whole * See Castanada's copy in vol. IV., L. 2, pict. 2, of Lord Kingsborough. For Dupaix' description, see vol. VI., page 475. Same, f Yucatan, vol. I., page 184. 11 162 EIVER WALL — ALLEGED PHCENICIAN MS. collection was made up of serpents and turtles, with alle- gorical variations. We omitted to notice, in its proper place, the Phoeni- cian resemblance of the river wall of Copan. The reader will recollect that the great pyramid of Copan rests, or rather abuts, against a river wall between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty feet in height ; a counterpart of the famous sea-wall of Tyre. The Phoenician origin of these remains has always been a popular theory among Spaniards. But the way they proceed to its proof, is in keeping with their usual prac- tice. They produced the coiyy of an apparently antique MS. in strange characters, which, when deciphered, estab- lished the Phoenician origin and character of the Central American Empire. The non-appearance of the original, was accounted for in the same manner as that of the Aztec picture writings — an over zealous bishop had com- mitted it to the flames ! This time it was not the re- doubtable Zumarraga, but a bishop of Chiapa.* The story is a fabrication out of the whole cloth, yet it serves to show, that at the time of this pretended copy, there was a general opinion prevalent, among the intelligent portion of the population of New Spain, favorable to this belief. The world must have been prepared for such an announce- ment, or so transparent an imposition could not have obtained currency. Like the Mexican picture records, the fictions of Cortez had prepared mankind for the dis- covery of Indian evidences, so that when the Monk Pietro produced his copies, thirty years after the conquest, and * Note (56). RECAPITULATIOlSr. 163 announced 'the burning of their originals, the world ac- cepted the last as true, and paid a handsome price for the imposition. Describing the style of architecture exhibited by the ruins, Stephens calls it Greek antique. But Grecque antique is Theban — Etruscan — Phoenician — Cyclopean — like Mycenge and Argos. The work is certainly equal to the best specimens o^ antique, or Phoenician art. The cross, as a religious emblem, is Phoenician. The offering of infants to Saturn is Phoenician too ; as are also the orgies of Baal-peor or Priapus, the Bacchus of Greece and Rome. The statue found among the ruins of Palenque, is claimed by some to be the tutelary divinity of the city, and, from the resemblance of the symbol it presses to its breast to the mural crown of the Phoenicians,* to be that of Her- cules also. We admit the proof of this important link is incomplete. There are the same emblems of civil life too, and, in addition, the serpent, the tortoise, and a one- ness of architecture and art, besides other resemblances supposed to have been held in common with the Egyp- tians, tools and weapons of bronze. But still an indispu- table Hercules is wanting, though Mr. Osborn again comes to our aid. The next point is the non-discovery of implements of steel or iron. Had they been found, the fact would have destroyed the Phoenician analogies. For none have been met with, of the corresponding era, in Egypt. The finest works of its sculpture, like those of Central America, were evidently executed with bronze tools, hardened by some now unknown agency. * Note (57). 164 BRONZE TOOLS AND WEAPONS. So many ages have passed since brazen swords,* dag- gers,-}" and spears were used by civilized nations, we are apt to consider their employment an evidence of barbar- ism.J Though the Greeks at the siege of Troy may have been barbarians, other nations who used bronze weapons were not. And it must be recollected that, for at least a thousand years before, bronze performed all those duties to which we now apply steel, by the most polished of all ancient nations, the Egyptians, in their Augustan age. Travellers and philosophers are alike perplexed by its successful use in the working of granite and porphyry, on either side of the Atlantic. Wilkinson § has made a most valuable suggestion, which in part, but only in part, re- moves the difficulty. Picking up a bronze chisel, among the granite scales in an unfinished tomb at Thebes, he found the head had been battered by the mallet, while the edge remained uninjured, though soft as ordinary bronze. Thereupon he suggests, that the elaborate sculptures of this people, must have been executed by the process known to us as engraving. 1 1 He produces also pretty satisfactory evidence of the employment of emery, in some portions of their work. Could this be proved, it would account for the execution of much, which cannot be now done by any known method. But the sword, the spear-head, the adze, and the hatchet, could hardly have been aided in their work by emery ! Still, time, in the revolution of so many centuries, may have taken from these weapons and tools that quality of extreme hardness, which they must have once possessed. So, too, the bronze hatchets found by the * Note (58). t Note (59). t Note (60). § Note (61). || Note (62). A RETROSPECT OF ANTIQUITY. 165 first Spaniards in the hands of savages, near to the re- mains at Cozumal, may once have been a good substitute for steel. The difference in price between bronze and iron must have early recommended the substitution of the latter. But until its conversion into steel had been discovered, it could have been of little use in war or art. With bronze every plan that could save the wear of such costly implements would be adopted. This will account for the common Indian stone wedges and hatchets at Mitla, beside others of copper [bronze].* May not this account also for the appearance of a like phenomenon in the north of Europe ? The common weapons of an Indian are represented in the sculpture at Kaba in Yucatan.-j- The figure there is a trophy, or was designed to represent a savage. Yet the work upon it plainly indicates, the artist did not alone use the implements of savages, but possessed some metallic substance, capable of as keen an edge, as any we can produce.| Far from being barbarians, we find them skilled even in the art of fortification, their works near Mitla, exhibiting the covering angles of an enclosing wall, not surpassed in modern structures of the sort, as is shown by the drawing of Castanada.§ Let us now take a retrospect of that commercial world we have evoked from the tombs and ruins of a remote antiquity. Starting with the civilization acquired from the family of Noah, in the long period of a thousand years, the nations ran a course of material prosperity, so successful, that, a single one of the family, Egypt, was * Note (63). t Yucatan, vol. I., page 413. J Note (64). g Note (65). 166 IMMENSE POPULATION OF ANCIENT CITIES. able, out of the surplus revenues of a single reign, to erect the great pyramid.* The five kindred nations of Canaan — a land of merchants or traders f — crowded their small country with walled cities ; fortified in anticipation of the coming hosts of Israel. Edom excavated others in the rocks, while the Philistians strengthened themselves to resist Joshua. In Italy, the Etruscans, children of Japhet, Turdetani, then created those memorials of their attain- ments in art — the vases that now defy competition. Then the Celts and Turdetani, [Celt-Iberians,] were so numerous they sent forth distant colonies in ocean-ships, and brought from Britain the tin of Phoenician, and Egyptian manufacture,^ that, in the ruins of Nineveh, w^e find commingled with Chinese articles. Immense as are the commercial centres of modern times, they can hardly have equalled those of antiquity. " When Nine- veh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey," ships crowded her quays from India and China, while caravans from Damascus and Aleppo, loaded with the merchandise of Tyre and Egypt, filled her streets, and jostled with others from Bactria, north and east. Yet was there a city greater even than Nineveh : No [Thebes ?] in Egypt ; so lordly as to win the title of popu- lous even there.§ Then each of the five cities of Philistia was in itself a lordship — unitedly they subjugated Israel, and possessed Cyprus and Crete. What then was India, when these were mere commercial dependencies to which she had communicated their wealth, their religion, and * Note (66). f A definition of the word Canaan. X Note (67). 2 Nahum iii. 8. ANCIENT EOUTES OF COMMERCE. 167 even the form and pattern of their temples ? * This was the condition of civilization in the golden age — that era when Central America was at the zenith of her prosperity — Palenque even being equal to Thebes in extent.f It is impossible to explain away the vast resources of antiquity by averring that those structures, the ruins of which astonish us now, were but the fruits of despotism, and the product of slave labor. It is not despotism alone, or slaves laboring without wages. For they eat, they con- sume, and they waste. Slave is the most expensive of all labor ; J and despotism finds its security in the lightness of the public burdens. The lands of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Central America are the same now as when they sustained a population almost incredible, yet are they waste. Com- merce or the systematic exchange of the commodities of different and distant portions of the earth, can alone solve these mysteries. Without commerce, the richest produc- tions of the earth rot — even gold is valueless without a market. § When India, China, Japan, and the Islands of the Eastern Sea were the attractive points of ancient com- merce, was it always carried on by the hazardous route of the Red Sea, and the wider ocean, or by that of the Tigris and Euphrates ? The course of the trade-wind to America, was most likely adopted. Merchandise un- laden in a harbor of the Caribbean Sea had but a short transit to the noble bay of Fonseca on the Pacific. Five hundred years of prosperous commerce with the Mediterra- « Note (68). t Note (69). J Kote (70). 'i Note (71). 168 PROBABLE CAUSES OF EXTINCTION. iiean and with India otherwise hardly accounts for the magnitude of the thirty ruined cities, already discovered in Yucatan alone. And there may lie buried in its forests, and as yet undiscovered, even others, greater and more numerous. But whence came the untold millions that peopled that region ? They have so utterly perished as to be beyond the reach of tradition by at least a thousand years. Is their extinction that of the races of ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Spain, and Italy? "Was it the consequence of their overthrow, or the effects of climate ? On the eastern continent a prospering commerce fur- nished the revenues to set up and sustain immense armies, and kept alive those exterminating wars, which finally destroyed it and reduced the world to barbarism — a bar- barism so profound, too, as would forbid our belief in the existence of kingdoms and empires highly civilized, if it were not for their epitaphs so unmistakably written upon their tombs, or sculptured in the ruins of their public edifices. Our historic period reaches only to the verge of that era of decline and subjugation — to the time, when the re-colonization of Greece had commenced. The Greeks were a people whose ideas of commerce extended only to a row-boat.* Their successors, the Komans, had but one passion — and war, not commerce, was that one. Yet the freedom of intercourse between province and province of their vast empire, and the excellence of their military roads, gave to trade an internal expansion * Note (72). EXTINCTION OF EXOTICS. 169 unknown in any other era. But, though it furnished the sinews of Roman valor, it did not extend, save in one direction, beyond the hmits of the empire ; viz., to India. The intercourse with Central America must have declined with the decline of oriental kingdoms, and ceased with the extinction of those nations and races with whom it originated. A natural law, dormant during the many ages of active intercourse and colonization, began to mani- fest itself among the colonial population of Central America, as soon as all connection with the old world ceased. Extinction is the doom of every immigrant population in an uncongenial climate (habitat), when migration ceases to keep up and renew the original stock. Intermarriage with the aborigines may have hastened the work of decay, by producing mongrels, abhorrent and exceptional, to the laws of our being. Colonists, too, from Central America, may have wandered over the whole of our continent, building here and there truncated pyra- mids, such as we find, not of hewn stone, but of earth, in which to bury their dead. But the law applied alike to them as to their Central American ancestors, and they too perished, leaving no other memorial than these burial mounds contain. Doubtless the Indians borrowed this system of interment, without ceasing to be Indians. At least such is our solution of the Central American enigma. Let us examine the apparent objections to this common sense view of it. It is customary to ascribe to the Phoenician colony at Thebes, in Boeotia, the origin of the Grecque antique in 170 GREEK CIVILIZATION ORIENTAL. architecture and in art — that is, to admit its Phoenician origin. But modern Greek art and architecture, it now appears, were borrowed also.* We have Doric columns in Central America,f and Ionic in the ruins of Nineveh. J Thus what we have been accustomed to consider as pecu- liar to Grecian art, is, after all, but a copy from barbaric orio-inals. The Greeks were indeed but imitators of orien- tal creations. Their mythology, even was foreign,§ and, that they could not comprehend, they expressed in myths and fables. The greatest of Egyptian heroes, and patron of Phoenician commerce, they represented as a demigod, armed with a club, wandering through the world in search of adventure. His twelve divisions of the zodiac are fabled as his labors, says the scholiast on Hesiod.|| The two pillars that adorned his temples in oriental worship are typified by them as two mountain peaks — Calpe and Abyla — and the Egyptian custom of granting or refusing the rights of sepulture, becomes in their hands the fabled court of Pluto. ^ The Greeks appear to have been selected from their imitative powers, to perpetuate such of the. arts and civi- lization of the elder world, as were to be preserved from that decree of extermination, pronounced by the Almighty against its nations. Commerce had been the chief cause of the total demoralization of antiquity, and of this, they were permitted to preserve only a boat navigation. They heard indeed of the stone of Hercules, of the cup of Aby- * Note (73). t Note (74). J Note (75). § Note (76). II Note (77). T[ Note (78). GREEK IGNOEANCE OF ANTIQUITY. 171 ris, and of the arrow of Apollo, but they little dreamed that under these myths lay hidden, the compass of the ocean mariner. They had heard too of the Atlantis,* but not of the vast and distant country it personified. The mysteries of Egyptian worship and Phoenician com- merce were shrouded in Grecian fable. Whatever the Greeks imperfectly comprehended of the affairs of other nations they thus expressed. Glimmerings of antiquity, we may obtain from Grecian sources, but nothing more. For the rest, we are indebted to records, graven on the walls of tombs, on broken monuments, and ruined temples. " Art thou an honest pirate or an enemy that visits our shores?" said an heroic Greek to his youthful visitor. From such, the ancients studiously concealed, not only the extent and routes of their commerce, but the use of that mysterious power which directed their ships across the ocean. A nation who considered piracy a lawful calling, were certainly but dangerous neighbors. Though the Greeks undoubtedly confined their imperfect navigation to the internal seas, that argues little against a pre-exist- ing outside commerce. The Romans, in arts and com- merce were their imitators, and when they fell, another thousand years of barbarism passed, before the Tartar races, that had repeopled Europe, turned their attention to navigation. And yet, with little more than three hundred years of experience, how mighty are the revolu- tions and transformations commerce has produced ! When * Note (79). 172 DECAY OF RACES. our experience has extended through as many centuries as that of the elder races of mankind, we may judge them by our own knowledge, instead of through that of the Greeks and Latins. Races of men, like the trees of the forest, have their beginnings, their maturity, and their decline. Some of soft and delicate fibre, are rajoid, both in growth and in decay. Others, as the oak, of slower rise, are firm of texture, and of long endurance. Some are the lignum viice or sapote — ^lasting as the lintels in the ruined temples of Yucatan. Our generations correspond to the forest products. Grafting and moculation may sometimes im- prove the quality of the crop, but they cannot resuscitate an exhausted trunk. That pseudo-philosophy which encouraged the immixture of races has had its day. It flourished once in spite of the living argument our own quadroons, and the mingled blood of Spanish-America, furnished against it. Each continent would seem to hold a common hive of nationalities. In America it is found upon the high table-lands of the central plateau ; * from thence migration appears to have flowed eastward, west- ward, and southward. From the table-lands of central and eastern Asia, in like manner, sprang the races and migrations that have successively peopled Europe and western Asia. Africa alone appears exceptional. Its various tribes, as repugnant to others as divided among themselves, form the enigma of ethnology. The Kabils, the Mauritanians [Berbers], the Nubians, Abj'ssinians, * Note (80). UNT^ILLING WITNESSES SELECTED. 173 Bushmen [Pigmies],* Kromen, Negroes, CafFers, Hotten- tots, &c., refute the idea of a common parentage since the original dispersion.f This miracle is the result of a peculiar elemental condition, continued through several thousands of years. We now presume we have sufficiently vindicated, the antiquity, oriental origin, and commercial character of the extinct empire of Central America, and, that we have accounted for its decay and ultimate extinction. Those who have argued in favor of a North American origin for these ruins, we have summoned as our witnesses, and, from a mass of facts collected by them, proved the oppo- site to their inferences. Proving our case by such testi- mony, we have admitted their statement of fact, only rejecting their conclusions. On their showing we rest our cause, though we have yet stronger evidence, objec- tional perhaps on the score of prejudice, to those seeking cause of cavil. After a very superficial view of some outlying portions of these ruins, we ventured to afiirm, contrary to received notions, that they were extremely ancient, and had existed for thousands of years.J At that time, we had not sufficientl}^ investigated the question, and were un- prepared to abandon the common belief in their aboriginal origin. The labor necessary to the production of this chapter, has not only carried conviction to the mind of its author, but brought together a mass of testimony, beyond * Note (81). t Note (82). t Note (83). 174 WHY THE VISIT OF THE APOSTLE INVENTED. the reach of doubt — testimony, sufficient to prove a tradi- tional title in a court of justice — an Egyptian title, to Central American civilization, and a Phoenician title, to the religion, that at that early period was dominant on this continent, under the influence of eastern colonies, while it fully explains the necessity the Eomanists were under of inventing the fabulous mission of the Apostle Thomas to account for the religious emblems which they recognised as belonging to their own superstition. Fragments of this civilization, like waifs from a foundered ship, are scattered over North America, and not unfrequently found as trophies in the more recent funeral mounds of our Indians.* The aborigines thus incidentally aided in preserving to us evidence that a people of Roman linea- ments,-]- extended their dominion as far north, as the plains of the Anahuac, and the valley of Mexico.^ We commenced this investigation confining ourselves to strict proof, and have therefore foregone every oppor- tunity of indulging in the curious speculations that natu- rally arise, when such a mass of testimony is before us, upon the two important points — of the great antiquity of these ruins, and their indisputable oriental origin. It has not been proved, beyond a doubt, that the object in the right hand of the Palenque statue, was a mural crown. Had it been so, we should have insisted, that the statue itself, was the Phoenician Hercules — Malcroth, Prince [patron] of the city. And, that if the Hebraic form was * Note (84). t Note (85). % Note (86). PRIORITY OF SAILING VESSELS TO GALLEYS. 175 used in his adoration, if practised there, it could not fail to have exerted a lasting; influence upon the surrounding Indian tribes. A difficulty besets us in the outstart, when we attempt to connect this antique people with the classic era. It is not so much the want of the mariner's compass, among the Greeks and Romans, as the non-existence among them, of vessels fitted for ocean navigation, that we have to overcome. Their galleys were notoriously incapable of the voyage — a distance of three thousand three hundred miles from the Canary Islands. Their crews, " ten men to a ton,"'=' made the transit impossible to them. The tombs of the Pharaohs have solved this difficulty. There we find ships of commerce — ships propelled by sails alone. They were then in existence before the time of Moses, and, consequently, hundreds of years before the Greeks had a national existence. For purposes of piracy or war, the galley perhaps surpassed the sailing vessel, and when war usurped the place of commerce, the oar superseded the sail. Yet the ship may have rode triumphantly upon the ocean, centuries after the galley had driven it from the internal seas. But, as soon as ships, propelled by the wind alone, disappeared from the coasts of Spain and Gaul, the pathways of the ocean were lost, and the empire beyond the seas, remembered only as a tale of the harha- rians. There are in every community those, who take an array * Note (87). 176 THE PROPER JUDGES OF EVIDENCE. of great names, rather than evidence, for the foundation of their behef There are those too, who judge a work only by the elegance with which its periods are strung together. And, besides these two, we have to encounter also the opposition of savans — men who live and judge the outside world through the medium of books alone. These hold as of no account, all but Greece and Rome, and receive no idea of antiquity that does not come through them. For any, then, too wise to learn or too thoughtless to inquire, this chapter is not designed. Let those, alone, who subject their knowledge to the ordeal of reason and common sense, judge, if there is reasonable ground, to doubt, the foreign origin of these American ruins. Investigation is daily wiping out, one after ano- ther, the popular theories which our ignorance adopted. As the foundations of these air structures melt away, those who dwelt in them may be heard anathematizing innovators. Many there are, who have dealt in Spanish romances, supposing them to be history; and these are slow to abandon their delusions. At enormous expense they have gathered volumes of authorities; will they readily admit them to be cheats and counterfeits ? They grudge the time too they have spent in their perusal ; and are loth, as well they may be, to lose it. But individual loss and injury is perhaps inevitable in the search after truth. Men cannot be held down to the theories of bar- barism. These must give way to knowledge, or the intelligent, as in Roman Catholic countries, be driven to infidelity. THE INCONGRUITY OF RACES. 177 THE INCONGRUITY OF RACES. The advantages arising from transplanting the human race, as well as vegetables and plants, are manifestly great. But transplanting should never be confounded with intermixing tribes, whether they be human, or of the lower animals, or of plants. When God, in his infinite wisdom, saw fit to choose out a family, that he destined to continue for thousands of years, He transplanted it into a new soil and climate, and subjected it to divers migra- tions. First it went down into Egypt, and then, " with a high hand and an out- stretched arm," He brought it up out of JEgypt, and after a sojourn of forty years in the wilderness. He re-established it in the land of Canaan. This is the origin of the most perfectly developed race of the present time. Whether in the tropics, or in the most northern latitudes, the Jew is the same intellec- tual and physical man, and carries about with him the indelible marks of a descendant of the patriarchs, who were commanded not to intermarry with the people among whom they dwelt. The Jew may wander, and sojourn in strange lands, but he cherishes with national pride the blood of Abraham, which he insists, still flows in his veins, and he is most careful, of all things, to transmit it pure to his children. Though Canaan abounded with frag- ments of nationalities, his boast is that his blood is not intermixed with any of them. To the history of the Jews we might add the experience of the Franciscan missionaries of California, that for a healthy offspring a man must marry among his own clan. The constant complaints we hear of the deterioration of imported animals, of choice breeds, is the result of a disregard of this law of propagation. The importations of Merino sheep, and afterward of the Saxon, proved a failure, chiefly from this cause. Those engaged in the importation of English cattle begin already to make the same complaint, which they would not have done, had they taken the precaution to import their foreign stock in families. The Mulatto is an apparent, not a real exception to the rule. He is superior to the Negro, often superior to his white father ; but it is a superiority for a generation only, and carries with it the seeds of its own dissolution. The mule is superior to the donkey, but lasts only for a generation. The Oregon ox, a cross between the Spanish and American breeds, is superior to either of the pure breeds. But it is the concentration in one animal of what might be the material of divers generations. I once asked a Dutchess county farmer the cause of the great superiority of his crops of wheat, over those of his neighbors, and his reply was, that he 12 178 THE INCONGRUITY OF RACES. always brought his seed from a distance, changed it often, and took good care not to let it intermix with the wheat of that region. The same, or, rather, greater results have attended the transportation of American seeds and plants to California ; there a new soil and a new climate have produced upon all the staples of agriculture such an improvement, as to astonish men, who have made this branch of industry a study. It is the result of the migration of plants, where there are no plants of the same character to intermix, and so deteriorate the race, by crossing the breed. In trees the same law holds unchangeably. We produce fine fruit by inoculation and by grafting ; but experience has taught us never to inoculate upon a grafted stem, but always upon a natural branch. As the Conquistadors selected the best-looking Indian women for the mothers of the Meztizos, so the fruit-raiser selects the best natural stems to inoculate with his artificial varieties of fruit. In this way we get better fruit, by exhausting the root, and a whole race of plants are sometimes worn out by mixture, from too close a proximity of the difier- ent families of the same genus. In the laws which Moses gave to the children of Israel, we find a provision against the evils of intermixtures in the pre- cept: "Thy cattle shall not gender with diverse kind." "Thou shalt not sow thy field with divers seeds." In these precepts God has taken care to guard the wholesome generation of plants, as well as of animals. The successful intermingling of Protestant Saxon immigrants, with our own people, in the second and third generations, is not an exception to this law, as both are but branches of the same stock, and are successfully planted together. Nor is the mortality, which follows the Catholic immigration, an exception to the beneficial law of migration, for habits of intemperance account for their shortened lives ; and though their off'spring is abundant, yet it is all tainted with an inheritance of disease, and too many of the children suffer the ruinous consequences of having drawn "still slops" from a mo- ther's breast, in infancy. For physically, and in the chain of families, most truly are the sins of the fathers visited upon the children, to the third and fourth generation. Besides, most of them are Celts, a race doomed to extinc- tion. Our collection of material for an argument will be complete Avhen I have added, that the trees most prolific of artificial fruit die the earliest, and sufi'er most from running sores ; that the vines, cultivated artificially to produce choice wines, sufi'er most from the mildew, and that potatoes of the most arti- ficial varieties are the ones that have sufi'ered most from the rot. When the cholera first visited Mexico, its passage through the country was like the NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 179 ravages of the Angel of Death, among the Meztizos, and the fragments of decaying races. And this progress toward depopulation cannot be stayed by the infusion of a vigorous stock. The law of sexuality in plants, leads to the intermarriage of the vigorous with the decaying, by the intermixture of blossoms ; nor can human plants long vegetate together without intermar- riages, which engraft the vigorous constitutions with the virus of the decaying. — Wilson's Mexico, page 312. NOTES TO CHAPTER V. (1) {They hear the impress of vast wealth and resources. P. 146.] — "The whole exterior of this building [' House of the Governor' at Uxmal], presents a surface of seven hundred feet ; the * House of the Nuns' is two thousand feet, and the extent of sculp- tured surface exhibited by the other buildings, I am not able to give. Com- plete drawings of the whole would form one of the most magnificent series ever offered to the public, and such as it is yet our hope one day to be able to present. The reader will be able to form some idea of the time, skill, and labor required for making them ; and more than this, to con- ceive the immense time, skill, and labor required for carving such a sur- face of stone, and the Avealth, power, and cultivation of the people who could command such skill and labor for the mere decoration of their edi- fices. Probably all these ornaments have a symbolical meaning: each stone is part of an allegory or fable, hidden from us, inscrutable under the light of the feeble torch we may burn before it, but which, if ever revealed, will show that the history of the world yet remains to be written." — Central America, vol. II., page 434. Stkphens. (2) {These ruins are Egyptian in their obelisks or square columns. P. 146.] — The obelisks, or square co- lumns of the Egyptians might, with propriety, be called the Egyptian in- scribed columns. They appear to have fulfilled a double office at Copan and Palenque. " In front and rear are sculptured idols, before which stands or has stood an altar. Their sides are covered with hieroglyphical inscriptions. At Co- pan the sculpture and inscriptions are cut into the polished stone face of the column.'^ — See Stephens's Central America, vol. I., ch. VII. At Palenque the columns are cover- ed, and the inscriptions and sculpture are upon stucco. At Uxmal the more modern — the round column makes its appearance, — Ibid., vol. II., page 428, — giving countenance to the idea that Copan was much the oldest city, and that Uxmal was the most modern of the three. (3) {In their painted statues, their hieroglyphical tablets and plinths, P. 146.] — " It is the only statue that has ever been found at Palenque. We were at once struck with its expres- sion of serene repose, and its strong resemblance to Egyptian statues. . . . Round the neck is a necklace, and pressed against the breast by the right 180 NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. hand is an instrument, ap- parently with teeth [the mural crown?] The left hand rests on a hiero- glyphic [cartouche], from which descends some sym- bolical ornament. . . . The figure stands on what we have always consi- dered an hieroglyphic [plinth], analogous again to the custom in Egypt of recording the name and office of the hero or other person represented." — Ibid., vol. II., page 349. As the back of this statue is of rough stone, it was probably imbedded in a wall, but wrenched from its resting-place at the instigation of Spanish fanaticism, and tumbled, face downwards, among rubbish ; probably one of those liideous idols, in their estimation, over whose destruction the Ro- mish chroniclers so de- voutly exult ! If the in- strument held in the right hand of this statue is in fact the mural crown, then we have here for the pa- tron of the city of Pa- lenque, the Phoenician Hercules, Mal- cruth [prince of the city]. (4) [P. 146.]— "Her head is richly adorned, and her neck also graced with a necklace of two rows. The figure is supported by two columns. It is well executed, and in good pre- servation, bearing some resemblance to the ancient statues of the Egyptians. The same symmetry is observable in THE PALENQUE STATUE. Mexican [Ancient American] sculp- ture as in Mexican architecture, and to this figure its due and proper pro- portions must have been given by in- struments corresponding to our rule, level, and compass." — Dupaix in vol. VI. Lord Kingsborough, page 426. M. Von Humboldt, in his Essai Politique, vol. II., page 172, thus no- tices this statue : — " M. Dupe, a cap- NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 181 AMERICAN ISIS OR ASTARTE. tain in the service of the King of Spain possesses the bust, in basalt, of a Mexican [an antique], which I em- ployed M. Massard to engrave, and •which bears great resemblance to the calautica of the heads of Isis." (5) [In their painted sculpture. P. 146.] — Speaking of the idol obelisk, which forms the frontispiece to his first volume, Mr. Stephens remarks, page 137, " Originally it was painted, the marks of red color being still dis- tinctly visible." Again, on p. 138, " The character of this image [the Palenque statue], as it stands at the foot of the pyramidal wall, with masses of fallen stone resting against the base, is grand, and it would be difficult to exceed the richness of the ornament, and sharpness of the sculpture. This, too, was painted, and the red is still distinctly visible." Again, page 139, " All these steps, and the pyramidal sides, were paint- ed." Page 311, vol. II., " The stucco is of admirable consistency, and hard as stone. It was painted, and in dif- ferent places about it we discovered the remains of red, blue, yellow, black, and white." " The oldest Egyptian sculptures on all large monuments were in low relief, and, as usual, at every period, painted." — Wilkinson, III., p. 303. " The introduction of color in archi- tecture was not peculiar to the Egyp- tians. It was common to the Etruri- ans, and even to the Greeks." — Wilkinson, III., p. 298. " In the temple of Theseus, at Athens, vestiges of colors are seen on the ornamental details." — Ibid., p. 299. (6) [Their paintings, p. 146.] — At page 311, vol. II., Yucatan; "Eor a long time we had been tantalized with fragments of painting ; giving us the strong impression that in this more perishable art these abo- riginal builders had made higher at- tainments than in that of sculpture, and we now had proof that our im- pression did them justice. The colors were green, yellow, red, blue, and a reddish brown ; the last being invaria- bly the color given to human flesh. • . . They exhibit a freedom of touch which could only be the result of dis- cipline and training under a master." Reddish-hrown, the color invariably given to human flesh, is Egyptian. Wherever human flesh is represented in Egyptian painting it is invariably by this reddish-brown." — See the plates of Lepsius, passim. "Red is adopted, as a standard color, for all that meant human flesh. 182 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. There are indeed some exceptions, viz., they represent a fair lady, byway of distinction, with yeUow. Where the red is supposed to be seen through a thin veil, the tints are nearly of the [our] natural color." — PharaoTi Neclio, Calmet, page 206, vol. IX. (7) [Hierogli/pJiicalinscriptions. P. 146.] — The ancient Central Ameri- cans may have recorded secular affairs in phonetic letters, but all the inscrip- tions in and about their religious edi- fices — " which are the only ruins that remain," C. A., vol. I., page 133 — " are in hieroglyphics." We have al- ready noticed the hieroglyphic plinth, and the cartouche in the left hand of the Palenque statue. One of the altars at Copan (C. A., vol. I., page 140), *' is six feet square and four feet high, and the top is divided into thirty-six tablets of hieroglyphics. On each of the four sides of this altar are represented four individuals. On the west side are the two principal personages, with their faces opposite to each other. The other fourteen are divided into two equal parties, and seem to be following their leaders. Each of the two principal figures is seated cross-legged, in the oriental fashion, on a hieroglyphic, of which the serpent forms a part. Between the two principal personages is a re- markable cartouche, containing two hieroglyphics, well preserved, which reminds us strongly of the Egyptian method of giving the names of the kings or heroes in whose honor monu- ments were erected." The two sides of the square columns at Copan were covered with hieroglyphics, cut into the stone face after the Egyptian fashion ; and not only in the buildings at Palenque and Uxmal, but in nearly every other one of the ruined cities of Yucatan, there are remains of hie- roglyphics after the Egyptian custom. (8) [Commoii emblems. P. 146.] — The serpent was an Egyptian as well as a Phoenician emblem. It was the representative of plenty — the Aga- tha Daimon. It is found on plate LXIX. of Calmet, vol. V. of Coins of Egypt, Nos. 20 and 21, with ears of corn [wheat] and a poppy. " In front of this hall [in the tomb of Pharaoh Necho], facing the en- trance, is one of the finest composi- tions that ever was made by the Egyptians, for nothing like it can be seen in any part of Egypt. . . . The whole group is surrounded by hiero- glyphics, and enclosed in a frame richly adorned with symbolical fig- ures. The winged globe is above, with the wings spread over all ; and a line of serpents crowns the whole." — Belzoni's description as copied by Calmet, IV., page 202. " At the head of the court-yard [house of the Nuns, so called at Ux- mal], two gigantic serpents, with their heads broken and fallen, were wind- ing from opposite directions along the wholeya^acZe." — Central America, vol. II., page 426. As the serpent appears as an archi- tectural ornament on nearly every one of the ruined edifices of Yucatan, it is not worth while to make further quotations. On the copper coin, or medal, found, as is alleged, at Palenque, the ser- pent constitutes the prominent em- blem, as will be hereafter noticed. We have not given the opinions of Mr. Stephens, or of the Spanish king's engineer. Captain Dupais. Their statements of fact should NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 183 have greater weight with us, from the circumstance that both believed the Central American ruins were the product of American Indian civiliza- tion ! "In the first compartments [of the pavilion of Medinet Aboo], the king [Rameses IV.] appears seated under a canopy, the cornice of which is formed by a row of the royal ser- pents." — Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. II., p. 273. (9) \_Their pyramids. P. 146.] — The great pyramid of Copan is greater in its dimensions than the great pyramid of Egypt, though trun- cated. On page 142, vol. 1, C A., we have : "On the left side of the passage is a high, pyramidal structure, with steps six feet high, and nine feet broad, like the sides of one of the pyramids of Saccara, and 122 feet high on the slope. The top is fallen, and has two immense Ceba trees growing out of it." On page 138, " At a short distance is a detached pyramid, tolerably per- fect, about 50 feet square and 30 feet high." On page 134, " Beyond are the remains of two small, pyramidal struc- tures. . . . Between the two pyra- mids there seems to have been a gate- way." On same page, " At the south- east corner is a massive pyramidal structure, 120 feet high on the slope. On the right are other remains of ter- races and pyramidal buildings ; and here also was probably a gateway, by a passage 20 feet wide, into a quad- rangular area, two sides of which are massive pyramids, 120 feet high on the elope." It would be difficult to find a style of building more perfectly Egyp- tian than this. " Were I writing descriptions of all that I have seen in Egypt, I would linger a long time in sketching this temple of Dakkeh, which is in excel- lent preservation, and is one of the finest specimens of the later temples of Egypt which now remain. " Approaching the temple in front, the traveller sees rising before him two lofty towers, built of hewn stone, without windows, rising to a height of sixty or eighty feet. At their bases they may be each about eighty feet broad, and the walls recede as they rise, so that the summits are much smaller than the bases. The two are connected by the gateway of the tem- ple, which is between them, and the outside of all is covered with sculpture in relief, of gods and kings innumer- able. Each of these towers contained within it four chambers, one above the other, and the stones are smooth, and polished as they were two thou- sand years ago. Passing through the gateway the visitor finds himself in the court of the temple, once surrounded with lofty walls, perhaps with rows of columns, all now fallen. Crossing the court he enters the temple itself. In most of the large temples of Egypt this portion is reached through a por- tico on which all the treasures of ancient art were lavished. Gorgeous columns supporting elegant capitals, which in turn supported architraves that were carved in every form of hiero- glyphic lore, stood in rows often four deep, and behind them a lofty door- way opened into the holy of holies. "Not so the temple at Dakkeh, which is but small. The entrance from the court is into the first of a succession of chambers, on all which art has expended itself. Every inch of the walls is covered with sculpture, beautifully executed, and standing as 184 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. fresh and sharp as on the day it was finished. The first room opens into a sort of corridor, which opens into the ancient adytum, or holy of holies. But a later monarch has erected an addi- tion to the temple, in the rear, and cut a doorway to it, so that this is the rear chamber, and is perhaps the most per- fectly preserved of any room in Egypt. I might except a, small sepulchral room, which opens on the eastern side of the old adytum. It was once a grave, doubtless, of some priest or prince, long since rifled of the trea- sure of dust it was holding for the resurrection. But the robbers left the walls of stone, and the lion sits calmly over the empty sarcophagus, and the gods stand where they stood a thousand years ago. Every part of this chamber is exquisitely sculp- tured, and the sculpture remains astonishingly perfect. I took impres- sions of many of them on paper, and the face of one of the heads of Isis was well worth preserving." (10) [Egyptian in dimension. P. 146.] — It is a very difficult matter to get at the exact dimensions of an Egyptian or an American pyramid, from the mass of debris accumulated about their bases. The best measure- ments are but approximations. The world has been sadly imposed upon in this matter. Even Humboldt un- dertakes to give us the dimensions of that mass of loose earth, absurdly called the pyramid of Cholula ! " Lee Bruyn," we quote second hand, "gives the base side (of the great pyramid of Ghizeh) at 750 feet. Greaves states it to be 693 ; the differ- ence between these computations is 57 feet, which, divided by the average, and added to the lesser sum, will show one side to be 721, which, multiplied by four, the sum total of the entire square base will be 2884 feet. That of Copau, 2866. Taking Greaves' num- bers, each side 693 by 4, equals 2772. Mr. Stephens' measurement of Copan is 2866 : ninety-four feet greater than the Egyptian." This pyramid of Copan, the reader will recollect, is not only truncated, but also cut off by a river wall, so as to have but one com- plete pyramidal side, while the two other pyramidal sides extend to and about the wall. This river wall Ste- phens estimates at from 130 to 150 feet in height ! — C. A., vol. I., p. 153. (11) [Casing of stone. P. 146.]— "The Palace," as it is called, at Palenque, stands on an artificial eleva- tion 40 feet high, 310 feet front and rear, and 260 feet on each side. This elevation was formerly cased with stones, which have been thrown down by the growth of trees. — See p. 310, Corres. vol. 2. On page 440 Stephens says, what we all know to be true, that the pyramids of Egypt, in their original form, pre- sented a face entirely smooth; and whore they now present the appear- ance of steps, it is caused by the fall- ing of the triangular casing-stone. This is the condition of things about the pyramids and truncated pyramids of Central America. (12) [Sepulchres in the rock. P. 146.] Here we have to appeal to Du- paix, who minutely describes the exca- vated tombs in the solid granite at Mit- la, &c., LXXXVII, and XCI. p.451,vol. v.. Lord Kingsborough describes two of these. Stepliens never having visit- ed Mitla, denies the existence of Ame- rican excavated tombs. NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 185 (13) yCelebration of victory. P. 146.] — No Connecticut manufacturer of Egyptian mummies is more expert in the fabrication of antiques than the Mexican Spaniards. Knowledge of this fact should not lead us to reject that which is actually genuine. After a very careful personal examination of the stone called the " calendar (!) stone," and the other stone called "a sacrificial (!) stone," I am inclined to believe both of them relics of antiquity. How they came into the possession of the Spaniards is another question. "But one matter of peculiar interest among many others there [among the Phoenician ruins at Malta], is peculi- arly interesting, and that is an appa- rent calendar stone in the outer floor of the largest room, worn, perhaps, by the feet of those people during many ages, and, perhaps, by the storms and rains of centuries. This stone appears to me evidently intended to mark the variations of the sun's rising between the tropics, that the idolatry of sun- worship might be more systematically accomplished." — Kev. Mr. OsBORisr. The "calendar" stone, so called, has the mask of Saturn upon it, and doubt- less in some way was connected with his worship. The Spaniards have mutilated the "sacrificial" stone, by hollowing out a pretended blood bowl and gutter on the top, to constitute it a testimonial in favor of their allega- tion against the poor Aztecs ; that they indulged in human sacrifice. The carving of these stones appears to be of great antiquity, and to have been executed with tools not now in use. This kind of sculpture could be success- fully imitated, but the Spaniards were too ignorant of antiquity to do it. Dupaix, a very devout Komanist, describes it as a stone of victory. This it doubtless is. It is a circular shaft, of sufiacient height and diameter for an altar. On its upright surface is repeated eighteen times a distin- guished personage holding a captive by the hair. This, Dupaix supposes to indicate the number of conquered provinces — eighteen. "In one [of the four temples of Mewe on the Upper Nile] a king appears, holding a number of captives by the hair, who stretch their hands towards him in an attitude of suppli- cation, while he threatens to strike them with the hatchet." — Kenrick, vol. I., page 8, The "sacrificial" stone is most likely intended to represent the same idea. (14) [Approximations of the arch. P. 146.] — Throughout every part of Central America, Chiapa, and Yuca- tan, the same method is to be traced, with slight modifications. The stones forming the side walls are made to overlap each other, until the walls al- most meet above, and then the narrow ceilings are covered with a layer of flat stones." — Stephens's Yucatan, vol. I., page 429. Wilkinson, in his " Manners and Cus- toms of the Ancient Egyptians," vol. 1. p. 132, also vol. I., pages 116 and 117, insists that the arch was in use among the Egyptians. But Stephens is more explicit in defining the kind of arch. He says, ( Yucatan, I., page 433) " No. 4 is the most common form of arch used by the ancient American builders. A striking resemblance will doubtless be observed, indeed they may almost be considered identical, and it may be added, that at Medeenet Haboo, which forms a part of the Ancient Egyptian Thebes, a similar contrivance was ob- served by Mr. Catherwood. From this it will appear that the true principles 186 NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. of the arch were not understood by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or Etrusca,ns, or by the American build- ers. It might be supposed that a coin- cidence of this strongly marked char- acter, would go far to establish an ancient connection between all these people, but, without denying that such may have been the case, the probabili- ties are greatly the other way." That is, Mr. Stephens having a pet theory to sustain, — that the Indians were the builders of those ancient cities of Yuca- tan, would like to deny the legitimate deduction from his own testimony. (15) [^Platforms iceTe constructed. P. 147.] — Every one of the ruined struc- tures yet discovered in Yucatan or Central America, is built on a trunca- ted pyramidal structure. Were these the houses of the " high places" erect- ed in the cities of Samaria, after they had adopted the idolatry of the Phoe- nicians ? See 2 Kings xxiii. 15 and 19. (16) [Vaults of their pyramids. P. 147.] — Col. Galinda first broke into this sepulchral vault, and found the niches and the ground [the floor] full of red earthenware dishes and pots, more than fifty of which, he says, were full of human bones, packed in lime ; also several sharp-edged, and pointed knives of cliaya, a small death's- head, carved in green stone, its eyes nearly closed, the lower features dis- torted, and the back symmetrically perforated by holes, — the whole of ex- quisite workmanship (viz., an en- graved gem.) — C. A., vol. I., p. 144. Such are the reputed contents of one of the vaulted chambers of the great pyramid of Copan. (17) [Doubtfid existence of sacred animals or insects. P. 147.] — Among the articles alleged to have been dug up in the Grand Plaza of Mexico are a number of colossal baboons. The reader must understand the author does not vouch for their genuineness : he only suggests the probabilities of the case. " Among the fragments on this side were the remains of a colossal ape or baboon, strongly resembling in outline and appearance the four monstrous animals, which once stood in front, attached to the base of the obelisk of Luxon, now in Paris, and which, under the name Cynocephali, were wor- shipped at Thebes." — C. A., vol. I., page 134. {18) [Of Hindoo origin. P. 147.] — " The faces of both figures were painted blue." — Belzoni's Descrip- tion of the Paintings in the Tomb of Pharaoh Necho. " It is probable that the reader has been somewhat startled at the blue visage of the deity [above referred to] . It afi'ords one more proof of conformity with the deities of India. Such being the complexion of Chrishnu and Siva, also the poets sing his neck's celestial blue." Dr. E. D. Clark's Travels, vol. III., p. 58, refers to the con- duct of the Sepoy regiments when brought from India to Egypt in 1801, recognising the divinities of their own country among the sculptured figures of an Egyptian temple. They regarded the temple of Dendara as sacred to their own god Vishnu. They also fell down before the gods in the temple of Tentyra, and claimed them as of their own belief. — Mrs. Graham's Residence in India, page 53. Dagon was clearly the chief deity of the Philistines. She was identi- cal with Astarte of the Phoenicians, NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 187 and appears to have been so consi- dered bj their neighbors — the He- brews. Thus, in 1 Chron. x. 10, " And fastened his [Saul's] head in the temple of Dagon ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 10, "And they put his armor in the house of Ashteroth" [Astarte]. The method of representing this deity by the Phoenicians and Philis- tines shows her to have been a sea goddess ; by the Phoenicians she was represented as standing on a galley ; by the Philistines as coming out of the mouth of a fish ; full robed and crowned with a proper emblem in each of her four hands. — See Plate LV.,vol. v., Calmet. This plate (LV.) is copied from Maurice's " History of India" (Plate VII., p. 507) ; it repre- sents a young person crowned, having four arms, each holding its proper symbol ; coming out of a great fish. " The centre piece (Plate LVI., toI. V., Calmet) proves sufficiently that the Greeks borrowed their compound forms from the East. To suppose that Egypt communicated its mytho- logy to India is to reverse the order of events. The Hindoo [Hindu] idea certainly was the parent of all the Titans and Nereids of Grecian anti- quity. This gem shows with what readiness they adopted it, and the heads below sufficiently show with what tenacity they retained it. * * * Consulting the oldest fragments of Chaldean mythology * * * the mon- sters represented on them are but counterparts of the Indian Vishnu. Besides the two figures of the hu- manized fish, viz., Dagon, it con- tains a bird, probably a dove, and the winged globe." Dagon signifies wheat. Another title would properly be Ceres. But Ceres was sister to Saturn ! [Molech.] " Lastly, Ceres is sometimes described with the attri- butes of Isis, the goddess of fertility, among the Egyptians. Berosus [a priest in the temple of Belas at Baby- lon 400 years before Christ] says that Oaunos had the body and head of a fish, and above the head of the fish a human head, &c. An Egyptian medal represents half the body of a woman, the tail of a fish, &c. " Astarte was probably the same as the Isis of Egypt, who was repre- sented with the head of an ox, or with horns on her head. But the manner of representing Astarte on medals is not always the same. " Cicero says (lib. iii., de Nat. Deo- runi) that Astarte was the Syrian Venus," &c. Plate XL., Calmet, coin No. 1, Alexander Severns, on the reverse Astarte, holding a Latin cross, the em- peror placing a wreath on her head I We have had to shorten these quo- tations as much as we could without marring the efi"ect of authorities. The sum of them all seems to be, that the Hindoos were the first to fall into idolatry, and with the progress of commerce westward spread the ncAv religion. The Egyptians, having had the longest intercourse with India, adopted both the religion and cus- toms of India. The other ancient commercial nations, less intimately connected with the Hindoos, adopted their religion, but not their customs or forms of worship. As this idolatry travels to a distance from the starting point, we find new titles and new attributes assigned to the most pro- minent divinities. The variations are not greater, however, than among Christians. 188 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. The Being whom we worship we do not call by his name Jehovah, but by some one of his attributes. So it appears to have been with the wor- shippers of false gods. (19) [Gmndchildreno/Mizraim. P. 148.] — " Have not 1 brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistians from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir :" Amos ix. 7. Cal- met, following a distinguished Orien- talist, Major Wilford, ^5. Research. 3, p. 72, supposes that Caphtor was Cashmire, and that the shepherds that invaded Egypt were Oriental shepherds, viz., Palli ; and that there were two irruptions of Palli, and that the Philistians were an off-shoot from the first eruption of Palli. And that Crete was also overrun by these Palli. (Calmet I., p. 35.) This may be very poetical. A more probable location of Caphtor would be one of the islands of the desert, beyond Egypt, or one in the Delta — Caphtor meaning an island. Issuing from their own country, wherever it may have been, they overran Egypt, Philistia, and the islands of Crete, and perhaps Cyprus, even before the time of Abraham, 484 years after the flood. (20) [Of Mgh-caste. P. 148.]— " The Egyptians are divided into seven classes [castes]. These are the priests, the military, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters. They take their names from their profession." — Herodotus 2, clxiv. (21) [Knew not Joseph. P. 149.] — The idea which the Alexandria translators (the LXX.) attached to this expression of the sacred text has caused the confusion in ancient chro- nology, which perplexes the reader of Scripture as much as the Archisolo- gist. The text says (Ex. xi. 12-40) that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 430 years. They (the LXX.) saw fit to count this 430 from the visit of Abraham, the grandfather of Israel ! for the above cause, and for the additional reason that only three names between Levi and Moses are mentioned, the unimportant ones, as is not uncommon in Scripture, pro- bably being omitted — that is, they shortened this 430 to 280 years. — See Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. II., page 265, wherein the increase of the people from 70 persons to 603,550 fighting men, it is shown, would require at least the longer period. Like the Philistians the Israelites fell into idolatry during their long sojourn in Egypt; adopting the gods of the Egyptians, without adopting their customs — for Moses charges them to put away the strange gods that were among them, &c. (22) [The shepherd Jdngs. P. 149.] — It has been customary to attri- bute the Egyptian abhorrence to shep- herds, to their hatred of the Hyksos, who had so long ruled over them. A parity of reasoning would prove the Hyksos to have been a commercial people ; for the Egyptians did not less abhor navigators. — Kenrick, vol. II., pages 25, 36, found the magnetic compass in common use. — See as above. (45) [" Queen of Heaven." P. 155.] — " But ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that Gad [Baal-gad], and that furnish a drink- offering to Mini [Ashteroth.] Isaiah Ixv. 11, in the margin. The chil- dren gather wood, and the fathers kindle a fire, and the women knead their dough to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven." Jeremiah vii. 18. See also the passage before quoted from Jeremiah xliv. 17, wherein the people, after their flight into Egypt, QUEEN OF HEAVEN. say that they will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and pour out drink- offerings to her as they had done their kings, their princes, and the people, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem." (46) [PhoenicianVenus. P. 155.] — Cicero says (Lib. iii., Nat Deorum), that Astarte was the Syrian Venus. (47) [Time of Solomon. P. 156.]— For setting up this Madonna of anti- quity, either with a cross in her arm, or with a child, as she appears in some of the medals, is the offence that cost Solomon his kingdom. "While she is identified by Greek authoi's as their Venus, she is clearly the Queen of Heaven as at present adored, with the story and good cha- racter of the Virgin Mary borrowed, as the Phoenicians borrowed the story of Samson, to add it to the traditions of Hercules. So that, upon careful inquiry, we find that there is nothing new in the world. "And Solomon went after Ashte- roth, the goddess of the Sidonians," &c. 1 Kings xi. 5. The same as many of our good Protestants are now doing, and setting up her emblem on their places of worship. Do they ex- pect to incur divine displeasure, as Solomon did ? " Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they [the Canaanites] shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you." Judges ii. 4. (48) YAll the scholiasts. P. 156.]— The error of Taci- tus, which has caused him to be so much laughed at by pedagogues of all degrees, was misjudging the Jewish nation by the specimens that congregated at the metropo- NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 197 lis — Tyre, For it will be seen, by the medals, that both Tyre and Sidon were — provincial metropoles. SIDONIAN GODDESS AND CHILD. (49) [That sentimental animal, the jackass. P. 156.] — Astarte, "the Phoenician Venus," or Madonna of antiquity, with an infant in her arms, pointing to an ass standing beneath her altar. One of the fathers of the Romish church would doubtless explain this medal thus : " This medal is orthodox, because the inscription is in Latin. Though still the 'Queen of Heaven,' she is no longer ' The Goddess of the Sidonians,' but ' The^ai(ro?iess of the Sidonians.' The word metropolis in- dicating that this city had become the seat of a bishop, and the attributes of the Virgin Mary are by right ap- plied to her in the same manner as those of Samson had been assigned to Hercules. And now she, like Hercules, is deserving the adoration of a saint. The jackass, standing beneath her altar, is the image of the one on which she rode into Egypt, or of the one on which her son rode into Jerusalem, and therefore worthy to be adored." There are an abundance of Protest- ants who could see profound senti- ment in this exposition, provided always it was popular in Paris. To dwellers in a Protestant country, such an exposition m.ay look like trifling. But to the author, who has seen the whole population of a city following in solemn procession a jack- ass, with an image upon it, and heard learned divines expounding the spirit- ual application of this festival of the jackass, it is by no means an unusual exhibition of Romish buffoonery. (50) [Christian era. P. 156.] — This coin may explain a charge un- justly brought against the Christ- ians — that they destroyed infants in their secret meetings. In the last era of Phoenician — or rather now Syro-Phoenician — com- merce, its merchants and mariners were doubtless to be found in all the important seaports of the Roman em- pire ; practising in secret the abomi- nations of their peculiar superstitions, having, in common with the Christ- ians, the same religious emblems, crosses, madonnas, &c., while they spoke the same language with the Oriental Christians — Syro-Greek. Those who form their opinions from outward appearances would naturally confound these two religions of Sy- riac origin. (51) [Portrayed upon the walls. P. 157.] — This sacrifice is not referi'ed to in Captain Dupaix' reconnoissances, but in the woi-k of Stephens it forms so prominent a feature as to be selected for the frontispiece of his second vol- ume on Central America. The probable reason for this omis- sion by Dupaix may be found in the fact that the same parties who offer a child to Saturn, also offer a child to the cross. It would hardly have done to publish such a fact in Spain or Mexico in his day, though the great- est and most liberal of all Spanish 198 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. kings, Charles III., was then on the throne. (52) [For Us central ornament. P. 157.] — We may repeat here what we have said of the sacrificial stone. The appearances are in favor of its being the production of the ancient inhabit- ants, but its connection with the cal- endar of the ancients may or may not be true. Like all Spanish notions of American antiquities, it is more likely to be wrong than right. (53) [Venus and Ceres. P. 158.] — " Astarte was the same as Venus." Cal. III., p. 531. We have already shown in certain of her attributes she was identical with Ceres and the Isis of Egypt. As the objects of divine honors are usually called from their various attributes, this confusion of names should not dis- turb us. THE MALTESE CEOSS. P. 159. (54) Lord Kingsborough, vol.VI., p. 379: " On the opposite side of the rock is a circular shield, which is divided vertically ; the right is divided into two quarters. In the upper appears the plan of a city situated on the bank of a lake. The lower quarter contains various ovals in close rows, while underneath the shield are five or- namental arrows, horizontally placed. To the right appears an unfurled standard, which, it is extraordinary. should display on its surface a cross of the Order of Malta, and at the top a helmet, on which is figured the head of an eagle, with an hiero- glyphic." — Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., p. 429. (55) [Adored or worshipped. P. 160.] — Protestant readers are too apt to confound adoration and worship, or to consider the distinction like the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. But among the heathen and the Romanists it is a vital dis- tinction. Adoration is due to all divinely inspired, and to the sacred emblems. But worship is due only to the gods, or to God. The system is the same, the difference is in names only. (56) [BisJiop of Chiapa. P. 162.] — Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapa, is the new MS. burner ! The imposture that hardly rises to the dignity of a humbug, occupies a conspicuous place in the volume of Bivero, entitled, on the cover, "Peru- vian Antiquities. F. S. Hawks. Put- nam." That the reader may see for himself, we quote a passage entire from Rivei^o. " Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapa, possessed, as he himself states, in his * Diocesan Con- stitutions,' published at Rome in 1702, a document in which a certain voy- ager or traveller named Votan mi- nutely described the countries and nations which he had visited. This MS., it was found, was written in the Tzendal language, and was accompa- nied by certain hieroglyphics cut in stone ; by order of the same Votan, the MS. was to be permanently depo- sited in a dark house or cavern in the province of Soconusco, and there con- NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 199 fided to the custody of a noble Indian lady, and of a number of Indians, the places of all of whom, as they be- came vacant, were to be resupplied. Thus it continued preserved for cen- turies, perhaps for 2000 years, until the bishop above named, Nunez de la Vega, in visiting the province, obtain- ed possession of the MS., and in the year 1690 commanded it to be de- stroyed in the public square of Hue- gatan, so that the curious notices which it contained would have been completely lost if there had not ex- isted in the hands of Don Ramon de Ordonez y Agidar, in Ciudad Real, according to his own statement, a copy made immediately after the conquest, and which is in part published by Cabrera." — Page 12. People unacquainted with the posi- tion and character of the Spanish priesthood, have inquired how it was possible for a statement to be put in circulation, if it was not true, that Zumarraga, in the public square of Tezcuco, burned the Mexican picture records? A perfect answer is con- tained in the above quotation. The boldness of the imposture is one of the grounds of its success, and might well apply to the whole priesthood, of Spain and her colonies, a remark of Cicero, that it was strange they could look each other in the face without laughing. The bishop occupies the place of the augur or conjurer in the heathen system, or the medicine-man among the Indians. After the place of the Holy Sep- ulchre had been lost for some three hundred years, it was revealed to a bishop in a dream, say the ancient chronicles. The bishop's dream and the Holy Scriptures are at issue about the location, but what is a declara- tion of Scripture to a bishop's dream? It was a bishop's dream that dis- covered the body of St. James, the Apostle, in a marble coffin, in a wood at Iria [in Castile], in 797. See Grim- SHAW, 179 (F). To such an impos- ture is Spain indebted for a patron saint. (57) [Mural crown ofthePhcenicians. P. 163.] — Standing alone, notwith- standing its strikingly oriental cast, we should hesitate ; but in the midst of so many other Phoenician types, we insist that we have made out a complete case of circumstantial evi- dence, which authorizes us to pro- nounce it an American Hercules, a counterpart of the Phoenician Hercu- les, or " Mal-carth" (as he was called) ; from Mai and Cardt, the "Prince of the City.'-* Here again we must be pardon- ed for referring to a statement written out at our request by the author of "Palestine, Past and Present," after this work had been steorotyped, who had come to the same conclusion, from comparing his own drawings with those in Lord Kingsborough. " The Maltese images," he adds, " are remarkable for their singular positions, and the min- gled uncouthness of their sculpture, and evidence of excellence in the master who executed them." (58) [Brazen sivords, P. 164.]—" Yet we find their [the early Romans'] swords constantly made of bronze." — Wilkinson, vol. III., page 245. (59) [Daggers. P. 164.]—" They [the Egyptians] had even the secret of giving to bronze or brass blades a certain degree of elasticity, as may be seen in the dagger of the Berlin Museum." — Ibid., p. 253. 200 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. (60) [Evidence of barbarism. P. 164.] — "It is a remarkable fact that the first glimpse we obtain of the history and manners of the Egyp- tians, shows us a nation already ad- vanced in all the arts of civilized life, the same customs and inventions that prevailed in the Augustan era of that people." — Ibid., p. 260. "Men tilled the gi-ound with bronze, iron not yet being known." — Hesiod's Works and Days, V., p. 151, " The Greeks, in the heroic ages, seem to have been ignorant of the use of iron." — Robertson's Am., p. 22. (61) [Wilkinson. P. 164.]— " The chisel which I found at Thebes, which, though it contained alloys, is far from being brittle, and is easily turned by striking it against the stone it was once used to cut." — Ibid., page 252. (62) [Process known to us as en- graving. P. 164.] — " The hierogly- phics, or the obelisks, are rather en- graved than sculptured, and judging from the minute manner in which they are executed, we may suppose they had adopted the same process as engravers, and even in some instances employed the wheel and drill." — Ibid., page 251. (63) [Beside tJiose of copper. P. 165.] — "Availing myself of this favor- able opportunity, I made a large col- lection of stone implements, with the intention of selecting out of the num- ber the most perfect specimens. I was most desirous of obtaining metal instruments ; and it was not long be- fore I procured several of copper [bronze?] of various sizes and shapes. But what I chiefly wished to discover were iron tools ; my inquiries after this metal were however fruitless." — Dupaix in Lord Kingsborouh, vol. VI., page 457. " Long experience proves that gold, silver, and copper, when wrought, whether exposed to the open air or buried beneath the surface of the earth, will remain for many ages iu an uncorroded state ; but this is not the case with iron, which from its nature is exposed to the attacks of rust and moisture, which in time ef- fects its entire decomposition." — Ibid. ■ " The inference that the iron, or steel used in the construction of these ancient edifices, if any, had, in the progress of centuries, decomposed in the humid climate of Central America, is legitimate. But the probabilities are against the use of iron by the Central Americans. Hardened bronze, or brass, was the most probable metal employed in dressing stones, and in their sculpture. " The only test of a genuine stone among the mass of Spanish counter- feits, is that some part of the surface should present the appearance of hav- ing been rubbed by another stone. This is substantially the idea of Du- paix. " I should also observe that stones which have been fashioned by the simple friction of one against an- other, would acquire a plain surface from having been ground, and would likewise have a certain polish, which is in fact perceptible on the surface of the slabs, as well as of the lesser stones, which enter into the composi- tion of the Mosaic ornaments, the most interesting feature in these mon- uments." — Ibid. (64) [As keen an edge as any ive can produce. P. 165.] — " But the great interest of this lintel was the carving. The beam, covered with hieroglyphics at Uxmal, was faded and worn. This was still in excellent preservation; the NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 201 THE FORTRESS OF MITLA. lines were clear and distinct ; and the cutting under any test, and without any reference to the people by whom it was executed, would be considered as indicating great skill and proficiency in the art of carving wood. The con- sciousness that the only way to give a true idea of the character of this carving was the production of the beams themselves, determined me to spare neither labor nor expense to have them transported to this city." — Yucatan, vol. II., page 406. (65) [Drawing of Castanada. P. 165.] — Speaking of the immense blocks of stone still lying in the quar- ries near Mitlan, Dupaix remarks — Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 456 — " Proceeding about a league in an eastern direction from Mitlan, I discovered the ancient and famous quarry of stone of the nature of granite, which was the bed from whence were procured the volumi- nous masses employed in the erection of these various monuments They afterwards had occasion to raise from the quarry these enormous blocks of which they formed architraves and columns, some of which, in an unfin- ished state, are even still scattered on the surface of the ground. Nearly the same is reported by travellers in Egypt, who have found at the pre- sent time, in the ancient quarries of granite, which supplied the materials of the colossal figures and obelisks. But what, we may inquire, was the power employed in raising these stones from their primitive bed t" We can now readily answer this question, by referring to the painting on the walls of Sennacherib's palace, where is portrayed the whole pro- cess of moving a colossal winged bull. It is precisely the same pro- cess Layard used in removing one of them, viz. : a platform, or boat on 202 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. movable rollers thrown under it. The lever moving it from behind, •while ropes, fastened in front, vcere dragged by muscular power. — See the representation in Latard's Nineveh and Babylon. (66) [^The great pyramid. P. 166.] — There was probably never a military expedition, on a large scale, that yielded a net profit to the success- ful party ; so that the attempts to ac- count for the construction of pyra- mids from the wealth acquired by the plunder of neighboring nations, is as absurd as to explain it by saying it was the product of despotism and slavery. Every man of common sense must be aware that pyramids, like other great works, can only be built out of the revenues of the country, unless the system of borrowing money was known to the ancients. (67) [Egyptian manufacture. P. 166.] — "The tin [in the bronzes at Nineveh] was probably obtained from Phoenicia; and consequently that used in the bronzes in the British Museum may actually have been exported nearly three thousand years ago, from the British isles, .... The Sidoni- ans, and other inhabitants of the Phoenician coast, were the most re- nowned workers in metal of the an- cient world, and their intermediate position between the two great na- tions, by which they were alternately invaded and subdued, may have been the cause of the existence of a mixed art amongst them. In the Homeric poems they are frequently mentioned as the artificers who fashioned em- bossed metallic cups and bowls ; and Solomon sought cunning men from Tyre, &g." — Layard, page 162. " la a trench on the south side of the ruin was found a small green and white bottle, inscribed with Chinese characters. A similar relic was brought to me by an Arab from a barrow in the neighborhood. Such bottles have been discovered in Egyptian tombs, and considerable doubt exists as to their antiquity, and as to the date and manner of their importation into Egypt. . . . Bottles precisely similar are still ofi'ered for sale in the bazaars of Cairo, and are used to hold the koll or powder for staining the eyes of ladies."— I6ic?., page 238. " Wilkinson, in his ' Ancient Egyp- tians,' vol. II., page 107, gives a draw- ing of a bottle precisely similar to that described above, and mentions one which, according to Rosellini, had been discovered in a previously unopened tomb of the 18th dynasty, but there appears to be considerable doubt on the subject." — Ibid. " It will be observed that most of the Egyptian relics discovered in the Assyrian ruins are of the time of the 18th dynasty [the era of Moses, and Joshua, and the Judges], or of the 15th century before Christ." — Ibid., page 240. (68) [Form and pattern of their tem- ples. P. 167.] — We have established the identity of the rock temples of Egypt with those of India. But we have not insisted that there is a perfect identity in i\iQ forms of their idolatry, as is the custom among authors, but simply that there is a substantial identity. The forms of worship vary in all ancient nations. The divisions of castes are not identical among the ancient Egyptians and the Hindoos. There are sacred animals, too, in both countries, but sacred in difi"erentways. In India various animals are apparent- NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 203 ly sacred in themselves, but holding an ill-defined relation to some divinity. In Egypt, they are emblems (Ken- rick, vol. I., page 385) of divinities who also have their images. The white bull, even holding a subordi- nate position to the statue of Amon [Amnion, or the great god], as is man- ifest by his being led before the sta- tue, according to the following ex- tract : — ■ " The statue next appears, carried in procession by twenty-two priests, hidden, all but the feet and heads, by the drapery of the platform on which the statue is erected. The king walks before the god [statue], having a staff in one hand, a sceptre in the other, and the red crown of the Low County on his head. He is preceded by a white bull, before whom a priest burns incense." — Kenrick, vol. II., page 274. We may notice here a common error in relation to the idolatry of the Israelites. In prescribing the mode in which he was to be worshipped, the God of Israel saw fit to allow the use of a ritual, portions of which are apparently of Egyptian origin ; but when it came to the arrangement of the Holy of Holies, there is an entire variance. Upon the mercy-seat, where (according the Egyptian system, the presence of the Divinity would have been represented by an emblem) In- finite Wisdom saw fit to have itself represented by a void space, as the proper representative of an invisible being. Upon the outer edges of the mercy-seat, over the ark, were placed two cherubs facing each other, and looking down upon the space between them, which symbolized the presence of Jehovah. Herein was strikingly manifest the difference between Je- hovah and " the gods of the nations." This absence of a visible image, or of a material emblem, constantly re- minded His people that their God was an invisible Spirit, and they that wor- ship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Upon this mercy-seat the Phoenicians would perhaps have placed a cross, and behind it a Ma- donna and infant. The Philistines would have placed there the dove, the emblem of the Philistian Astarte. [See medals of Askelon.] The Egyp- tian would have placed there a cat, or a bull [golden calf], or a crocodile, with an image of the god a little behind and above the altar. " The next morning we reached Gerf Hossayn, one of the most interesting points on the upper part of the river Nile. It was somewhat like Abou Simbel, being cut out of the solid rock. In the large hall which is en- tered from the front, are six colossal statues, each of which is elegantly painted, and the colors remain fresh and brilliant. Behind each open space between the statues is a niche in which three figures are seated. Pass- ing through this elegant hall, once magnificently beautiful, you enter the second room, of which the ceiling is supported by four square columns, and beyond this is the Adytum [Holy of Holies] , with altar and four seated statues behind it, waiting vainly, as they have waited so many centuries, for worshippers." — Corresp. The history of the nation of Israel is the history of a continued struggle between these two systems of repre- senting divinity — a continual struggle between the spiritual worship of an invisible Jehovah and the sensuous 204 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. representation by images and emblems of the divine power. The sin of the golden calf was apparently not the introduction of a new god, but rather an attempt to conform their worship of God to that of the surrounding nations by intro- ducing emblems — by representing the presence of the Almighty by the em- blem of a golden calf. So with the sin of Micah, who had a house of gods, or rather a house dedicated to God, in which idolatrous emblems were used in the worship of the In- visible. The introduction of these foreign and pagan elements into Christianity has led to a great deal of infidelity. A gentleman, who had been taught that the cross was an emblem of Christian origin, was led into infide- lity by discovering it upon the Egyp- tian ruins, and in use there as an emblem. (69) [Equal to Thebes hi extent. P. 167.] — " For five days did I wander up and down among these crumbling monuments of a city which I hazard little in saying must have been one of the largest the world has ever seen." — Norman's Yucatan, New York, 1843, page 108. " Evidently the city of Chichen was an antiquity when the foundations of the Pantheon at Athens, and the Cloaca Maxima at Rome, were laid." —Ibid., p. 177. " Ruins of Palenque, as described by Del Rio, London, 1822, are 75 miles in circumference, length 32, and breadth 12 miles ; about equal to Thebes in' Egypt, full of monuments, statues, and inscriptions." — Frazer's Magazine, vol. I., p. 216. (70) [Most expensive of all labor. P. 167.] — Slaves, when they labor, must be fed, and experience has de- monstrated that the waste attending their employment, and that of hired taskmasters, is more than the savings in wages. Money would have been saved by the kings of Egypt had they constructed their pyramids by con- tract. With all its attendant evils, this kind of labor has been thought necessary in those climates where valuable crops are to be suddenly gathered and cured when free labor cannot be depended upon. (71) [Even gold is valueless ivitliout a market. P. 167.] — In the year • 1848, gold dust was at one time ex- changed for Chili dollars, at the rate of eight silver dollars for an oz. of gold, while its real value was more than seventeen dollars. (12) [Row-boats. P. 168.]— "Their vessels were of inconsiderable bur- then, and mostly without decks. They had only one mast, which was erected or taken down at pleasure. They were strangers to the use of anchors. All their operations in sailing were clum- sy and unskilful. They turned their observations towards the stars, which were improper for regulating their course, and their mode of observing them was inaccurate and fallacious. When they had finished a voyage, they drew their paltry barks ashore, as savages do their canoes, and these remained on dry land, until the sea- son of returning to sea approached. It is not, then, in the heroic ages of Greece that we can expect to observe the science of navigation and the spi- rit of discovery making any consider- able progress. During the period of disorder and ignorance, a thousand causes concurred in restraining curi- NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 205 ositj^ and enterprise within very nar- row bounds." — Robinson's America, page 22. " Whatever acquaintance with the remote regions of the earth the Phoe- nicians or Carthaginians may have acquired, was concealed from the rest of mankind with a mercantile jealousy. Everything relative to the course of their navigation was not only a mystery of trade, but a secret of state. ... As neither the progress of the Phoenician or Carthaginian discoveries, nor the extent of their navigation, were communicated to the rest of mankind, all memorials of their extraordinary skill in naval affairs seem in a great measure to have perished when the maritime power of the former was annihilated, &c. . . . Their [the Greeks'] early voyages, the subject of which was piracy rather than commerce, were so inconsiderable, that the expedition of the Argonauts from the coast of Thes- saly to the Euxine Sea [to plunder Colchis, the western terminus of the northern caravan route, viz., to ob- tain the golden fleece], appeared such an amazing effort of skill and courage as entitled the conductors of it to be ranked among the demigods, and ex- alted the vessel in which they sailed to a place among the heavenly con- stellations." — Ibid., page 21. " Amazing instances occur of their ignorance, even of those countries which lay within the narrow limits to which their commerce was con- fined. When the Greeks had assem- bled tbeir combined fleet against Xerxes at Egina, they thought it un- advisable to sail to Samos, because they believed the distance between that island and Egina to be as great as the distance between Egina and the Pillars of Hercules. They were either utterly unacquainted with all the parts of the globe beyond the Me- diterranean Sea, or what knowledge they had of them was founded on con- jecture, or derived from the informa- tion of a few persons whom curiosity and the love of science had prompted to travel by land into the Upper Asia, or by sea into Egypt, the ancient seats of wisdom and arts. After all the Greeks learned from them, they ap- pear to have been ignorant of the most important facts on which the accurate and scientific knowledge of the globe is founded." — Ibid., p. 22. "Modern writers make a sad jum- ble whenever they touch ancient navi- gation. They transfer the ideas de- rived from our practice, which, in most things is changed, in some re- versed. A Phoenician vessel was able to stow five hundred emigrants, with provisions, for a long voyage. To apply to their navigation the passages descriptive of the row-boats of the Greeks and Romans is a solecism and an anachronism. They neither made their way by the speed of oars, nor sheltered themselves by hauling out their vessels." — Pillars of Hercides. (73) [Were borrowed also. P, 170.] — " The arts passed from Assy- ria to the sister nations, and to Ionia. There is much in the bas-reliefs I have just described, to remind us of the early works of the Greeks immedi- ately after the Persian war, and to illustrate a remark of the illustrious Niebuhr, that ' a critical history of Greek art would show how late the Greeks commenced to practise the arts.' After the Persian war, a new world opens at once, and from that time they advanced with great strides. But everything that was produced 206 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. r^wvi rv/VAfv twhf^ IONIC COLUMN FOUND AT NINEVEH. before the Persian war — a few of those works are still extant — was, if we judge of it without prejudice, alto- gether barbarous." — Layard's Nine- veh and Babylon, page 393. ■Tiimnii' ll'iii'iiii'iiiiiiriiiiininiiiiiriii'iiii''iiiiri!ii''iririif'iiiii'f (74) DORIC COLUMNS IN YUCATAN. P. 170. (75) [Ionic in the ruins oj" Nineveh. P. 170.] — "Amongst the objects in metal was an elegant casket, or ves- sel, probably of gold or silver, the upper part of which, shaped like the wall of a castle, with battlements and towers, rested upon a column whose capital was formed by Ionic volutes — another instance of the use of this order of architecture on the banks of the Tigris."— 7&i'cZ., p. 380. (76) [Their mythology even was foreign. P. 170.] — "I can by no means impute to accident the resem- blance that exists in the rites of Bac- chus [Baal-Peor], in Egypt and in Greece ; in this case they would not have differed so essentially from the Grecian manners, and thej' might have been traced to more remote an- tiquity : neither will I afiBrm that these or that any other religious cere- monies were borrowed of Greece by the Egyptians. I rather think that Melampas found all these particulars which relate to the worship of Bacchus, from Cadmus and his Tyriau com- panions, when they came from Phoe- nicia to what is now called Boeotia. " L. Egypt has certainly communi- cated to Greece the names of almost all the gods. That they are of barba- rous [foreign] origin I am convinced, by my different researches. The names of Neptune and Discori I have mentioned before; with these, if we except Juno, Vesta, Themis, and the Nereids, the names of all the other deities have always been familiar to Egypt. In this instance I do but repeat the opinions of the Egyptians." — Herodotus, book II., sec. 49. (77) [Scholiast on Hesiod. P. 170.] — " The zodiac, in which the sun performs his annual course, is the true career which Her- cules traverses in the fable of the twelve labors ; and his marriage with Hebe, the goddess of youth, whom he espouses after he has ended his labors, denotes the renewal of the year at the end of each solar revolution." — J. DiACOMUs' Schol. ad Hesiod, The- ogony, page 165. NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 207 (78) [FaUed court of Pluto. P. 170.] — " The tomb which the inscrip- tions of the Roman times call that of Memnon is really that of Rameses V. Everything, according to this author [Champollion], relates to the soul of the defunct king, which, being mys- tically identified with the sun, is re- presented as passing successively through the twelve hours of the day and of the night. The same idea is astronomically exhibited on one of the ceilings. A female figure, bent so that the body, legs, and arms oc- cupy three sides of a symbol of the heavens ; twelve divisions in the up- per, and as many in the lower part, represent the day and night. During the day, the sun is accompanied by various divinities, changing in each horary division ; at night his bark is towed by them. Adjoining to them are tables of the influences of the stars on different parts of the body during each of the twenty-four hours. The hall which precedes that in which the sarcophagus is found, is conse- crated to the four genii of Amenthe, the Egyptian Hades. In the most complete tomb it exhibits the appear- ance of the king before the forty-two judges, or assessors of Osiris. In that of Rameses V. are forty-two co- lumns of hieroglyphics, containing the laudatory sentences which the judges pronounced." — Kenrick, vol. I., page 142. (79) [The Atlantis. P. 171.]— " It was a priest of Sais who com- municated to Solon the tradition of the existence of the island of At- lantis, as we learn from the Timeus and Criteas of Plato." — Lord Kings- borough's note, vol. VI., page 492. The following is the passage as translated from Plato, by Lord Kings- borough, page 493. " This island [Cuba?] is larger than [the portion of] Africa and Asia [known to the Greeks] united, and from it there was a passage to other islands, which was practicable to voy- agers of that age ; and from the lat- ter to an entire continent, which was situated opposite to them, being skirt- ed by that which is the true sea, for the portion enclosed within the straits [of Gibraltar], of w^hich we have been speaking, resembles a lake, to which admission is afforded by a nar- row inlet ; but the other is in reality a sea, and the land which encompasses it may, with the greatest truth and justice, be designated a continent." The prophecy of Seneca, in rela- tion to the country beyond the ultima thule in his Medea, is well explained by his intimacy with the writings of Plato. (80) [The central plateau. P. 172.] — Between Fort Riley, in Kansas, and the Rocky Mountains, the soil is too light for cultivation, except in the valleys of the rivers, and is destitute of timber, except along the margins of the watercourses. The climate of this vast region is proba- bly the most exhilarating upon this Continent, and the Indians found there and in its southern extension appear to be the most perfectly devel- oped of the aboriginal races. The author has found the summer climate here, substantially that of Mexico in winter, in a short season completely resuscitating his health, after he had been pronounced incura- bly diseased by his physician. (81) [Bushmen [Pigmies). P. 173.] — Here we have another Greek 208 NOTES TO CHAPTER V. fable to turn into a reality, the pig- mies of the interior of Africa, -who, according to Homer, waged a relent- less war with the cranes. The mountain range that extends southward from Nubia to the extreme southern limit of that continent, with divers breaks and interruptions, is in- habited by a race of such insignifi- cance as almost to deserve the name of pigmies, though better known as Bushmen. (82) ^Original dispersion. P. 173.] — The author's personal knowledge of African races extends no further than to those brought to the West In- dies by the slave trade, viz., negroes for the most part. The rest of his knowledge is second-hand informa- tion. These appear to change their appearance materially, even in the hot and humid portions of our conti- nent, while on the high table-lands their extinction is rapid. " Of the Mexican Negro race I never knew but two, and one of them held the post of captain in the army, and the other was the naked alcalde, mentioned in a former chapter, who was discharging the functions of ' Judge of First Instance.' The reasons assigned for the disappear- ance of this race from Mexico, after HO large an importation of slaves as that which took place in the last cen- tury, is the incongeniality of the cli- mate of Mexico, particularly of the table-lands, to the negro constitution. At the breaking out of the Mexican revolution, almost the only negro slaves in the country were in the de- partment of Vera Cruz. The sugar- planters of the hot country of the interior, finding it impossible to carry on their estates bv the use of negro slaves, attempted to reduce the mor- tality among their working people by raising up a race of those disgusting- looking beings called Zambos, a cross of negroes and Indians ; but it was attended with the usual ill success that has followed every attempt to cross or intermingle difi'erent and dis- tinct races of men, animals, or even plants." — Mexico and its Eeliyion, page 311. (83) [Thousands of years. P. 173.] — The close resemblance be- tween the apparently most ancient of these works and those of the Egyp- tians and other Eastern civilizations, does not involve the idea of a common origin or of intercourse, but only leads to the suggestion that the hu- man race, in its progress, naturally follows the same path, whether upon the eastern or western continent, and that it is separated by a cycle of thou- sands of years from the civilization of our day. ..." I rest the theory that what of this kind we have seen at the city of Mexico are but fragments from the wreck that befell the American civilization of antiquity, which had succumbed before the inroads of northern savages. This is sufficient inquiry into antiquities till we come to the Museum.'' — Ibid., page 246. The further we go from the centre of this ancient population, the moro modern and varied the original type, until we reach Papantla, in the state of Vera Cruz, where we are presented with an entirely new style of pyra- mid. " The pyramid of Papantla," says Humboldt, " is not constructed like the pyramids of Cholula and Mexico. The only materials employed are im- mense stones. Mortar is distinguished NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 209 in the seams. The edifice, however, is not so remarkable for its size as for its symmetry, the polish of the stones, and the great regularity of their cut. The base of the pyramid is an exact square, each side being eighty-two feet in length. The perpendicular height appears not to be more than from fifty-two to sixty-five feet. This monument, like all the Mexican teo- callis, is composed of several stages. Six are still distinguishable, and a seventh appears to be concealed by the vegetation with which the sides of the pyramid are covered. A great stairway of fifty-seven steps conducts to the truncated top of the teocalli, Avhere the human victims were sacri- ficed. On each side of the great stairs is a flight of small stairs. The facing of the stories is adorned with hiero- glyphics, in which serpents and croco- diles, carved in relievo, are discerni- ble. Each story contains a great number of square niches, symmetri- cally distributed. In the first story we reckon twenty-four on each side, in the second twenty, and in the third sixteen. The number of these niches in the body of the pyramid is three hundred and sixty-six, and there are twelve in the stairs toward the east." — Essai Politique, vol. II., p. 172. (84) [^Mounds of our Indians. P. 174.] — In Stephens's Yucatan, vol. II., page 343, we have an account of a modern penknife found among a jarful of antiques, in an excavated funeral mound. The articles the deceased valued 14 most were undoubtedly those that were selected. (85) [0/" Roman lineaments. P. 174.] — No person can have run his eyes over the plates of Castanada without being struck with the great prominency given to the nose. If that peculiarity of the nose is Etrus- can in its origin, as insisted upon by many, then we should claim the an- cient Central Americans as Etrus- cans. For the author neither saw sculptured upon a stone, or in any drawing of ruins, an Indian physi- ognomy. (86) [Valley of Mexico. P. 174.] — As soon as we rise to the plain of the Anahuac the items of sculpture become isolated, as remark- ed in the text, like the waifs from a foundered vessel. The finest of these having been dug out of funeral mounds, like the famous slab from the mound [pyramid ?] of Cholula. But as soon as we come again into the hot country, we find within the jurisdiction of Cordova, at the old town of Guatusca, we have a sacred structure not far inferior to that of Papantla. It is thus described by Du- paix in Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI. : "XII. This represents a goddess," &c. (87) [Ten men to a ton. P. 175.] — "How could commerce be car- ried on in vessels that required oars to pull them at the rate of ten men to a ton, the crews of which had to land for their meals?" — Pillars of Hercules, page 186. CHAPTER VI. SPAIN FROM THE TRADITIONAL ERA TO THE RISE OF CASTILE. The beginning of the ''historie of Spaine," 210 — "Osiris Denis, King of Egypt," succors Tartesse (Cadiz), 213 — " Hercules the Great, son of Osiris," slays the Gerions, and again relieves Cadiz, 214 — " Osiris Denis" identified as Rameses IV., 216 — Canonization of Hercules, 219 — Spain under the suc- cessors of Hercules, 220 — Why Neptune was first deified by the Libyans, 221 — Tyrians migrate to Tartesse, 222 — The Grecian Hercules at Tartesse, 223 — An unpoetical picture of him, 224 — The true character of Hercules, 224 — An immense yield of the silver mines, 226 — The traditional account of their discovery, 228 — Rise of the Carthaginian commonwealth, 230 — Carthaginians invited to Spain, 231 — Spain under the Carthaginians and Romans, 231 — Reasons for inviting the Moslems into Spain, 232 — Our in- debtedness to the Spanish Arabs, 234 — Cause of the decline of Arianism, 236 — Civilization of the Saracens peculiar, 237 — The time and place of Ma- homet's birth, 238 — Cause of the success of the Saracens, 239 — Tarik in- vades Spain, 240 — Gothic preparations for defence, 241 — Traditions asso- ciated with the field of Gaudalete, 241 — The moral power of Tarik, 242 — How the " faithful" regarded the battle, 244 — The Christians imitate the Egyptians on the same field, 244— The first day of the battle, 246— The battle of Gaudalete continued, 247 — The religious results of the victory, 248 — The genius of the Arabs for the arts of peace, 248 — The Caliphate of Cor- dova, 250 — Its rapid growth and prosperity, 251 — Progress of learning among the Arabs, 254 — They disseminate it through Europe, 257 — The efi'ect of this civilization, 258 — The fabulous histories of Mexico drawn from Cordova, 258 — Our indebtedness to the Arabs, 261 — Compelled to follow Spanish historians, 262. From the study of antique ruins we must now turn to the history of the Spanish peninsula — a land noted from remote antiquity as the battle-field of conflicting races. Upon that soil representatives of the three grand divi- sions of the human family have met in hostile arraj^-, and near the straits, at divers times, by the chance of battle, (210) BEGINNING OF THE "HISTORIE OF SPAINE." 211 decided its possession. The contest between the Mauri- tanians [Libyans] and Celts, for the possession of the jDeninsula, began with our historic period. An old chroni- cle of the sixteenth century, translated by Edward Grim- shaw, and printed at London, 1612, folio,* narrates the story of Gerion and his three sons, who were Libyans. This family cruelly oppressing the people of Spain, Osiris Denis j- [Rameses IV.], king of Egypt, generously came * " The Generall Historie of Spaine ; written in French, hy Lewis Materne Torqvet. 1583. Translated into English, a?id continued unto these times, 6^ Edward Grimshaw. London. 1612." This ponderous folio is for the present purpose much more valuable than histories of a later date. The late historians having omitted a large mass of traditional matter, which seems to have had a much better foundation than a larger mass of Romish origin, which has found its way into standard histories, though possessing no other claim to truth than the license of an In- quisitor. f The reader may smile at this combination of the name of the Egyp- tian god, supposed to preside over the destinies of the souls of the deceased — the god of purgatory, and of the final judgment — and the Celtic patro- nymic, Denis. Whether this prefix was intended simply to indicate that this king was allowed a royal burial, by a decision of the Court of Osiris — that is, put into the list of Egyptian saints, to whom sacred offerings were to be made — or a confounding of the popular god of the Egyptians with the name of this king, we have no means of determinine;. " The Sethos of the lists [of Egyp- tian kings], and the monuments is Setei-Menephthah II. He is called Osirei-Menephthah by Rosellini and Wilkinson, as the figure of Osiris oc- curs instead of Set, in some varia- tions of the shield." — Kejstrick, vol. II., p. 253. " Armais of the ancient authors, is the Osirei I. of the monuments, 1385 B. c." — Wilkinson, vol. I., page 48. London. 1837. Captain Head speaks of Osiris as the father of Osirtasen ; also, " The principal deities, Osiris and Isis, re- presented the sun and moon, and were thought to have unlimited power over terrestrial afiairs." — Captain C. F. Head's Journey from India. London. 1833. Page 32. This last is probably the true rea- son of these divinities obtaining such popularity in Egypt as to eclipse all the other gods, and lastly, obtaining even popularity at Rome, in the de- cline of the empire. " Osiris being king, instructed the Egyptians in the arts of civilization, teaching them agriculture, enacting laws for them, and establishing the worship of the gods, and afterwards traversed the world for the same pur- pose, subduing the nations, not by 212 BEGINNING OF THE ^^HISTORIE OF SPAINE. to their relief with a mixed army of Egyptians, Syrians [Phoenicians], and Africans, and in hattell slew Gerion, the father : — " This is the first battell that was given in Spaine that any mention was made of since the deluge. And for that he came neither to conquer nor to enrich himself, being moved by zeal of justice." Then the chronicler goes on to say that this king returned to his own country without securing any advantage to himself. He even arms, but persuasion, and especially by the charms of music and poetry, which gave the Greeks occasion to identify him with Dionusos." — Ken- rick, vol. I., page 344. " All Egyptians do not worship the same gods in a similar manner, ex- cept Isis and Osiris, the latter of whom is said to be Dionusos; these all worship in a similar manner." — Herodotus, II., sec. 42. "But that which made the Osirian worship so popular in Egypt in time of the Pharaohs, as it served after- wards to diffuse Isaic religion through the Roman empire, was its connection with the mysterious subject of the state of man after death." — Kenrick, vol. I., page 341. The upshot of our present informa- tion is, that the Egyptians deified and worshipped their deceased kings and someof their benefactors, who were not royal, and queens even. So that, in- stead of saying that the gods ruled over Egypt for the first 17,000 years of the kingdom, we should read, their kings, for the first 17,000, or rather for the first 170 years of the kingdom, con- stituted their gods of the first class. And that the kings that ruled for the balance of the 34,201, or rather the 342-01- years before Menes, were held to be gods of the intermediate class — demigods. The Egyptian priests must be regarded as all other idola- trous priests are and always have been, liars by instinct, and cheats by profession ; for idolatry and the nega- tion of the moral principles are al- most synonymous. Men begin to adopt idolatrous ideas as they ap- proximate the point of total depra- vity, and when they have reached the depths of Hindoo degeneracy, they have reached at the same time the perfection of idolatry, as it was in Egypt in the time of Herodotus. When a Romish priest is considered poor authority for statements of fact, can it be supposed that a pagan Egyp- tian priest would hesitate at any falsehood that he supposed would add dignity to his god when conversing with Hex'odotus ? For this reason we find the whole theory of Egyptian mythology incorrectly stated by that father of history. I supposed that I had become pretty well versed in total depravity, until a Bengalee was brought before me to swear out a bench warrant, when I learned that there was still a lower depth than I had supposed, a want of conception of moral wrong in the commission even of perjury. OSIRIS DENIS SUCCORS CADIZ. 213 restored the seigniory of the Turdetanians to the three sons of Gerion, with an admonition " not to follow the wretched avarice of their father, lest their end should be like his." The reader will at once recognise in this scrap of tradi- tional history an explanation of the battle scene upon the walls of the palace of Kameses IV., at Medinet-Aboo, to which his attention was called in the last chapter. This, as yet, is the only instance discovered, of a battle, in whole or in part, fought by Egyptians upon the sea ; nor is it surprising, as the sea was unclean according to their superstition. In this action the Egyptian vessels are represented as galleys, with sails and oars, while those of the enemy are pictured as ocean ships, viz., propelled wholly by the wind. People of the same race, at least wearing similar armor to the enemy, are seen fighting in the Egyptian ranks. It is in fact the portraiture of a civil contest in which the Egyptians participate.* The dates * "Anaval fight between the Egyp- The above author supposes these tians and the nation whom they have foreigners in the Egyptian service to just before defeated by land. It is have been mercenaries permanently the only representation of a naval in Egyptian service. The Gerions battle remaining among the Egyptian would most probably have both Lib- monuments. The Egyptian vessels yans and Celts in their army, have both oars and sails, those of the From remote antiquity the Libyans enemy sails only. They differ in of Mauritania, as well as those dwell- their build. The prow of the Egyp- ing further to the eastward, have been tian vessel is the head of a lion, of noted as mercenaries in the armies the other that of a water-fowl. It is of different nations. This represent- remarkable that among the crew of ation may be taken either way — that the hostile vessels are many of the Libyans only are intended to be re- same nation, distinguished by their presented as fighting on both sides, helmet, with the horn and disk, who or it may be intended to represent serve in the army of the enemy." — Celts and Libyans. Kenkick, vol. II., page 279. 214 HERCULES SLAYS THE GERIONS. too upon the walls well correspond with those of our author, if we make allowance for the error of 218 years in the chronology of the Alexandrian translators [the LXX.], as already explained in the last chajDter. The events immediately succeeding being fixed on or about the time when Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt. Thus, 300 years after this history was written, it is sub- stantially verified by discoveries upon the walls of an Egyptian ruin. Our author says further this " Osiris had many sons,* among the which was Hercules the Great, whom they surname the Egyptian Apollo, Mars, and Oran." He then goes on to recount the exploits of Hercules, beginning with the "notable punishment" he inflicted on the three sons of Gerion for their ingratitude. For this Hercules having collected a great army of divers nations, he passed into Spain, where he found the Gerions ready to receive him and give him battle. But, he being grieved at the thought that so much innocent blood should be shed for the offence of these three men, he oifered to fight them all in single combat, which offer being accepted by the Gerions, they were all " slaign." For this victory he was honored by the Turdetanians and other Spaniards. " Her- cules," continues our author, " after he had settled their afiairs, and planted two pillars, the one in Europe and the other in Affrick, and two others in the island still * According to Lepslus, the 20th thers and sons of Rameses IV., thus dynasty begins with Rameses IV., confirming our chronicler. Though and his four successors bear the title Wilkinson, vol. I., page 76, places of Rameses V., VI., VII., VIII. Rameses III., IV., V., and VI. in the These four are supposed to be bro- 19th dynasty. HERCULES. 215 called Gadir [Cadiz or Tartesse], for a mark and testi- mony of conquest and toyle, lie took his course towards Italic," having intrusted the government to Hispal, one of his captains. This man dying soon after was suc- ceeded by Hispan, " a wise and an active man, and a lover of virtue, as they write of him." From this Hispan we have the present name of that country — Hispaniola. Her- cules returned to Spain after the death of Hispan, and for many years governed the country in person, and then, our author adds, what is more than doubtful, " he died there, and was buried in the island of Tartesse in a sumptuous and stately tomb."* This Hercules reigned afterwards in Egypt under the title of Rameses V.,-|" succeeding his father, Rameses the Fourth, as we shall presently show. * It is not unnatural that Cadiz, or Tartesse, should be claimed as the burial-place of Hercules, considering the great honors that city bestowed on his memory. t Herodotus not only tells us " the Egyptians do not worship heroes," but he also says, "Hercules is cer- tainly one of the most ancient deities of Egypt, and as they [the Egyptian priests, most probably] themselves affirm, is one of the twelve who were produced from the eight gods 17,000 years before the reign of Amasis." — B. 2, p. 83, sec. xliii. The Egyptian priests evidently de- signed to mislead Herodotus in rela- tion to the mysteries of their religion, and also conceal from him the rela- tion which the kings approved of Osiris held to their gods. He is not even consistent with him- self, for he states, " The successor of Pheron, as the same priests informed me, was a citizen of Memphis. His shrine [?] is still to be seen at Mem- phis ; it is situated at the south of the temple of Vulcan, and is very magni- ficently decorated." — Book 2, sec. cxii. " The priests afterwards recited to me from a book the names of 330 sovereigns [successors of Menes] ; in this continued series 18 were Ethio- pians." — B, 2, sec, c. Though so much learning and in- dustry have been expended in correct- ing from the monuments the historical lists of Egyptian kings, no allowance seems to have been made for the effect the decisions of the court of the god Osiris had upon these lists. Those who had conferred great benefits on the country, though they were not even of the royal family, would be buried in the sepulchres of the kings, as in the case of the Jewish high- priest, Jehoida (2 Chron. xxiv. 16) — 216 DENIS — DIONUSOS? We cannot suppose these two celebrated heroes, father and son,* usually placed at the beginning of the twentieth dynasty, to have been of the unmixed Egyptian faith, as it would involve an absurdity. They certainly could not record upon the walls of their palace exploits that made them impure in the eyes of their co-religionists. If they were of that heretic family usually called shepherd kings as a reproach ; viz., kings of " low caste" — hyksos, then we must believe the forty- tvv^o judges, the assessors of the court of the god Osiris, were of the same faith also. And from the laudatory sentences recorded on the walls of the same custom, to the extent of a kingly burial prevailing among the Jews. In this way we may account for the enormous number of 330 kings in the period above mentioned. The lists, too, before whom incense was to be burned would not contain the names of kings who had been denied royal sepulture. Wilkinson makes the arrival of Joseph contemporaneous with Osir- tasen I., of the 16th dynasty [1706 B, c], and his death during the reign of Osirtasen II. [1635 b. c], of the 17th dynasty.— Vol. I., p. 42. There are many and serious objec- tions to fixing upon Rameses Y. as Hercules, but not so many or so great as there would be in fixing on Ra- meses the Great [the 2d], or indeed on any other king of Egypt. The truth is, this discovery of the deifica- tion or canonization of the Egyptian kings is a new idea to the learned, and its effects on Egyptian history were not duly weighed before our pre- sent work was written. * " The principal memorials of Rameses V. are the lateral inscriptions of the obelisk, which Thothmes I. [of the 18th dynasty] erected at Kar- nak. His tomb at Bab-el-Melook is small ; the sarcophagus remains in it, but has been broken. Rameses VI. has in several places effaced the name of his brother, as if some hos- tility had preceded his elevation to the throne ; but we have no memo- rials of his reign, and can only con- jecture that it was long, from the unusual amount of labor bestowed on his tomb. It is 342 feet in length, descending by a gradual slope to the depth of 25 feet below the ground, and divided into a number of cham- bers. The whole surface of the walls and ceilings is covered with a profu- sion of colored sculptures of minute size, chiefly astronomical and myth- ical. One of them is the judgment scene before Osiris, already de- scribed." — Kenrick, vol. II., page 283. It is more likely that religious fanaticism was the moving cause of the mutilation of his public memo- rials, than the unnatural envy of a brother. EGYPTIAN CANONIZATION. 217 their tombs we adopt this hypothesis, at the risk of in- curring a good deal of ridicule.* These sentences enti- tled them to receive certain divine honors as benefactors of mankind — honors analogous to those the Roman Catho- lic church bestows on the dead it canonizes.^ The Roman Catholic institution called the Council of Rites, whose office it is to adjudge and admit the spirits of deceased persons to the adoration of saints, is analogous to this court of OsiriSjJ if not actually borrowed from it, at the * " The tomb which the inscription of the Roman times calls that of Memnon, is really that of Rameses v., the Meiamun, or his successor, according as Champollion asserts. Everything, according to this author, refers to the soul of the deceased king, which, being mystically identifi- ed with the sun, is represented as pass- ing successively through the twelve hours of the day and of the night. The same idea is astronomically re- presented on the ceilings. ... In the most complete tombs it exhibits the appearance of the king before the forty-two judges, or assessors of Osiris. In that of Rameses V. there are forty- two columns of hieroglyphics, con- taining the laudatory sentences which [each of] the judges pronounced." — Ibid., vol. I., p. 142. f It is quite difficult for Protest- ants to comprehend the distinction between adoration and worship, as in their system the words are synony- mous. But in the mind of a Catho- lic there is a clear distinction. He worships God, but only adores the saints, and certain religious emblems. Dupaix speaks of " the holy Latin cross, which we adore." — Loed Kings- borough, vol. VI., p. 481. That is, they concede to such objects divine honors, inferior to those they pay to the Deity. So it appears to have been the case with the Phoenicians and the Egyptians. They adored the cross, the sacred bull, crocodile, cat, jackal, &c. They burnt incense before them, as the Catholics do before the cross, and the saints, and acknowledge their admission into supernatural relations, and also invoked their intercession with divinity. A PUBLIC WEIGHEK. % " The centre is occupied by a large scale beam, which Anubis has erected ; in the one scale is a vase, shaped like a heart, and supposed to 218 ANALOGOUS TO THAT OF THE ROMANIST. time when the Egyptian gods became popular at Rome.* This reconciles the remark of Herodotus, " the Egyptians do not worship heroes," f with the representation on the represent the moral qualities of the deceased; in the other is the figure of the goddess of truth, with the ostrich feather on her head, and the emblem of life in her hands. Thoth, standing by, notes the result of the weighing in a tablet or roll of papy- rus. Horus, then holding Thoth's record in his hand, advances towards Osiris, who is supposed to pronounce sentence of reward or punishment, according to his report. In some of the judgment scenes other figures are introduced, representing the assessors who aided in the judgment. Their full number was forty-two, after the analogy of the earthly judges, by whose sentence was to be determined whether the deceased," &c. — Kenrick, vol. I., page 342. The same author attributes the su- perior popularity of Osiris over the other gods of Egypt, to the relation which he held to the souls of deceased persons. This doubtless was the cause of his popularity among the Greeks and Romans. The processions of the images of Christian Rome are but slight modifications of those on the Nile, from the city of Thebes. So, too, the Roman Council of Rites is the slightest possible variation from its Egyptian original. The Papal assessors are not pre- sided over by the image of Osiris, but there is a substantial agreement in all else except names. * " Osiris is the only Egyptian god who has a detailed mythic history similar to legends of the Greek my- thology, and doubtless this analogy of their own recommended the Osirian and Isiac rites to the Greek and Ro- man devotees." — Ibid., I., p. 357. t Herodotus, L., Book 2, "The Egyptians are commonly said to have nothing answering to the hero-wor- ship of the Greeks. They did not believe in those unions of gods with mortals which, according to the Greeks, gave birth to a race half human, half-divine. [Her. II., p. 143.] But they paid religious honors to eminent persons after their decease, not unlike the Greek hero-worship in those ages in which the notion of a divine descent had long ceased, and when Miltiades, Brasidas, and Ara- tas had each his heroum. Thothmes III., on the tablet of Karnak, pre- sents ofi"erings to sixty of his predeces- sors, so does Rameses, on the tablet of Abydos." — Ibid., I., p. 361 ; same on p. 146. Even in the matter of assigning days to each saint is not original with the Catholics, for Herodotus says that the Egyptians were the first people who assigned each day in the year to the god to whom it was appropriated, viz. : patron saint. " I shall be excused for giving the substance of this miraculous appari- tion, since it is now an article of be- lief of all good Catholics, having been proved before the Congregation of Rites at Rome to have been a miracu- lous appearance of the Mother of God upon earth, in the year and at the place aforesaid. And the proclama- CANONIZATION OF HERCULES. 219 tablet of Karnakj where a king appears making offerings to sixty of his predecessors.* It is adoration, not worship, there represented. The solution of this tradition, concerning Osiris Denis and his son Hercules, probably is, that the elder of the two returning to his Egyptian kingdom, left the affairs of the Turdetanians to the jurisdiction of the three sons of Gerion, who following the evil course of their parent, Hercules was sent into Spain with an army, composed as the former one, to restore affairs. Having slain the Gerions, either in battle or in personal encounter, this Hercules sailed to Italy. After the death of his two captains, His- pal and Hispan, he returned again to Spain, and personally tion farther informs us that his holi- ness, Benedict XIV., -was so fully persuaded of the truth of the tradi- tion, that he made * cordial devotion [adoration] to our Lady of Guada- lupe, and conceded the proper mass and ritual of devotion. He also made mention of it in the lesson of the second nocturnal . . . ., declaring from the high throne of the Vatican, that Mary, most holy, non fecit iali- ter omni naiioni.' " — Mexico and its Religion, p. 232. The saint holds a double relation to the Romanist. He is not only deemed worthy of the adoration of the latter, in common with the emblems, but he also acts as intercessor for the faithful, with the Deity. This office of a saint is borrowed by the Roman- ist from the offices of Christ, and added to the Egyptian idea of hero adoration. But there is even a re- semblance to this "in the Egyptian ritual of the dead, as noticed by Lep- sius, in which the name of Menkera occurs as a deceased king, and that it is frequently found on scarab^ei, which had been used as amulets, and which, from the style of their work- manship, must have been executed long after his death. This clearly points to a deification of Menkera, or to some cause for which his name was held in special reverence." — Ibid. * "Another remarkable monument of the age of Thothmes III. is the cham- ber, on the walls of which he is repre- sented making offerings to sixty of his predecessors. . . . His name [that of Thothmes], appears to have been held in high veneration by posterity, and is found on a great number of scarabcei and amulets." — Ibid., II., p. 193. " The most important additions in this portion of the enclosure were made by Thothmes III. In one of the chambers built by him, he is re- presented sacrificing to his ancestors the kings of Thebes." — Ibid., I., page 146. 220 SUCCESSORS OF HERCULES. managed, at least, the military affairs of that country ; making Tartesse or Tarshish the seat of his government. On his final departure the people of Tartesse manifested their gratitude by the erection of a statue and the bestowal of a mural crown, and by according to him the title of Malcruth — prince of the city. It may have been after his canonization in Egypt that the temple was built for his adoration at Cadiz, where was deposited that myste- rious stone of Hercules — the magnet. The commercial city of Tarentum, in Italy, in like manner honored his memory with a statue, which significantly held in one hand the cup of Apollo, and in the other a key to unlock the mystery.* Tyre and Sidon, the associates of Egypt in this memorable relief of Tartesse, also awarded similar honors. Returning to Egypt, he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, under the title of E-ameses Y.,f and had a prosperous and successful reign, as we must believe from the laudatory sentence of the judges of the court of Osiris. As the orthodox Egyptians did not admire foreign exploits, they adored him not as a success- ful adventurer, but as a benefactor of his people. " This was about the time," says our chronicler, " Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt,J or a little before." The successor of Hercules, in Italy and in Spain, was Hesperus, brother to Atlas, from whom Italy and Spain * We have, in the last chapter, J This would make Hercules con- fully explained the myth in relation temporaneous with Joseph. But as to this cup. we do not know the evidence on which f In the preceding notes we have this date rests, we cannot indulge in fully explained the grounds of our any speculations on the probable opinion that Rameses V. was Her- consequences of two such noble cha- cules. racters coming in contact. NEPTUNE. 221 received the name of Hesperid.es. " But Atlas, envious of his brother's greatness, came with an army and dis- possessed him of the kingdom, forcing him to flee to Italic." Atlas,* parting from Spain, left that kingdom to Orus,f who, in his turn, was succeeded by his son Siceleus. " This man's raign concurrs with the time that God sent plagues upon the Egyptians by the hand of Moses and Aaron." Siceleus being dead, his son Lusus held the sceptre of Spain. " After him Vius, or Siculus his son, reigned, whome they call Neptune,^ for that he entertained many ships and galleys at sea. He passed also into Italic and Sicilie as his predecessors had done, to succor the Spaniards, who were seated in those regions, against whome the Cyclops and others of the country renewed the warr. After him many strangers thrust into Spain upon divers occasions, but for one only cause, which was for spoile, being easie to take by reason of the simplicitie of the Spanish people." It is probable that none of those above named were in reality kings of Spain, but simply leaders of Libyan mer- cenaries, hired by the opulent merchant cities of that country. At one time fighting the battles of Spaniards, at another mutinying and sacking, or attempting to sack, the cities that had given them employment. Their rela- tion to these " free towns" being substantially the same that it was to Carthage in after centuries. These hired * Here is another of the leaders of J " They [the Greeks] are indebted the Libyans of Mauritania, that after- to Africa for this god [Neptune], wards Tvas worshipped as a divinity. where he has been long known and t This would seem to imply that honored." — Herodotus, II., sec. 1. Horu^, the Egyptian god of the hours, was of Libyan origin. 222 TYRIANS MIGRATE TO TARTESSE. " sons of Sem," * as our chronicler calls them, having in all ages of antiquity been noted as much for their turbu- lence as for their courage. Neptune, whom they afterwards deified, appears to have been one of their distinguished captains. In command of the Tartessian armies and war galleys, he doubtless overran Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily; performing such acts of heroism both on sea and land as to merit a place among the gods in the estimation of his contemporaries. From Libya his fame and his worship travelled to Greece, as we have seen, while in the imagi- native tales of mariners he still holds the undisputed dominion of the ocean. In the mean time an African named Tefta seized upon Gadir [Cadiz], and of all the main land thereabouts, call- ing himself king of Spain. After him came his son Remus. " To Remus they make his son Palatius to suc- * The most popular moonshine of of Japhet, it has likewise perished, so the day is the common notion that the far as we can trace it, excepting the population of the Eastern Continent two fragments we have often alluded was divided thus : — Europe was peo- to — the Basques and some add their pled by the descendants of Japhet, associate Celts — Celt-Iberians. The Asia by the children of Shem, and modern notion of the ethnologists Africa by the children of Ham. however is, that the Celts even are of Among all ancient geographers Egypt the new migration — Indo-Europeans. is reckoned as part of Asia, at least See Pritchard. as far as the Nile. Assyria, Pales- All the families and races of men tine, and Egypt we know were at that are now existing upon the earth, first all peopled by descendants of so far as we can trace them, are de- Ham. Beyond this we know of no rivable from Shem. The Libyans are country that was certainly peopled clearly so, notwithstanding the at- by descendants of this putative father tempts that have been made to prove of the black races of Africa. that they were Gauls, or that they were All the races of men that we can the descendants of Phut, viz.. Ham. positively trace to Ham have certainly Thus Josephus pretends : " Phut was perished, and the reasonable infer- the conductor of Libya. It is beyond ence is, that the family of Ham has the river in the region of Mauritania." become extinct. So with the family GRECIAN HERCULES AT TARTESSE. 223 ceed." Palatius being dead, " the Tjrians of Phoenicia, who had now learned the way to Spain, came with their king [Ery three], and a good store of ships, who, giving them [the Spaniards] to understand that he had been commanded by an oracle to come and build a temple to Hercules, Libique, in the island of Tartesse, that is Calls [Cadiz], were not only received, but Ery three was also chosen king of that part of Spain, and built a stately temple in the island to Hercules."* Then follows the story of the Grecian Hercules, of whom it is well to remark what the reader has, perhaps, already anticipated — that the pure and magnanimous character here given to him would hardly be popular with the imaginative and unscrupulous Greeks. Neither would his peculiar fidora- tion be suitable to their taste. Hence the necessity for a Grecian Hercules with traditions modified so as to reflect their peculiarities, and bring him in conformity with their ideas of a demigod. " This Hercules [the Grecian] was but an insolent fel- low, yet well beloved of the Grecian princes, by reason of his boldness and his strength of bodie, fit to rob and steal, whereunto the nobilitie of that age was commonly addicted. The wealth of Spaine, which was so much spoken of in Greece and Asia, made him effect [under- take] this voyage after the first Trogan war against Leomedon. Having then gathered together all the pyrates and thieves he could, as well in Europe as in Asia,"f he visits Italy and Sardinia, and finally arrives at Cadiz, and there in his temple offers sacrifices to Hercules the Great. * Grimsha-vt, p. 8 (M.) t Ed. Grimsha-t, p. 9 (F.) 224 UNPOETIC PICTURE OF HERCULES. Then follows an account of his contest with the Titans, whom our chronicler supposes to have been no other than the Curetes. He enlarged the town of Erythree, and left many Tyrians and Sidonians there who had followed him. " These people changed the name to Gadir, which, in the Phoenician tongue, signifies terme or limit [ultima thule]."* Those who have feasted on the sublime tragedy of Euri- pides, or of Seneca — the Medea — will hardly enjoy the prosaic reflections of our quaint author when he turns the heroic verses of ApoUonius Rhodius into the following unmitigated prose : — " Of this Hercules the poets have fained all that is written of the conquests, prowess, and travels of many other Hercules more ancient and better men than he. He was a Grecian, but not of Greece itself, but of that part of Italic which they call the Great Greece and of Tarentum, bred up at Beoce,f nurished in theft, fornication, and execrable murthers, a companion and counsellor to Jason in the voyage to Colchis, J at the spoile of the treasure of ^Erete, and the rape [carrying off] of his daughter Medea, the author and executioner of the ruin of Leomedon, king of Troy." As Hercules is the prominent character of profane antiquity, both in history, fable, and song, we must be * There has been so much learned lantis, and of the continent beyond nonsense expended in conjectures the ocean. about the location of this ultima thule, f Boeotia, the reader will recollect, that it is a pity to spoil it all, by sug- contains the Phoenician colony of gesting that Seneca, when he uttered Thebes. the memorable prophecy contained J In a former chapter we took oc- in his Medea, was familiar with the casion to suggest that the Argonautica Timeus and Crition of Plato, and with was a piratical expedition, to plunder his description of the Island of At- the city of Colchis. TRUE CHARACTER OF HERCULES. 225 pardoned for devoting so much space to him, and to the benefactions he is believed to have conferred on divers conflicting races and families of mankind. Flourishing at a time when Paganism was weaving itself into a dege- nerate civilization, he permitted no emblem or image to be introduced into his temple at Tartesse, and, instead of a Pagan ritual, established there one strikingly similar to that of the Mosaic. And this, even after Paganism had become predominant, was retained in that peculiar form at Tyre and Cadiz. In Tartesse and Tyre, as already noticed, he was honored with a statue and a mural crown, and title of Malcrath — prince of the city. The commercial city of Tarentum in Italy likewise gave him a statue, that significantly held in one hand a key, and in the other the cup of Apollo.* In Greece he was honored as the author of the monthly divisions of the year.-|- In his own kingdom, Egypt, the twenty-four hours are repre- sented on the walls and ceiling of his tomb, while, from * " The statue of Hercules at Ta- ris" — the needle magnetized. " Her- rentum, enumerated by Pliny in his cules-Apollo" — the statue of Hercules list of Colossi, had a key in one hand holding the cup of Apollo — the key and a cup in the other. On the coins to this mystery, of Crotona Hercules bore a cup in his It may here be added that the hand." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., batylis was probably not brought page 152. from the cabose, or shrine, until the The reader will recollect that in a ship was about passing the line of former chapter we quoted from an the entrance of the ocean, where, with Arab author of the thirteenth cen- the mysterious rites now transferred tury, a description of the antique to the equatorial line, the compass compass, which fully explains the was brought forth, purport of those mystical expressions f The reader will recollect the quo- of antiquity — " The stone of Hercu- tation in the last chapter from Scho- les" — the magnet stone. " The cup liast on Hesiod, stating that the twelve of Apollo" — the cup in which the labors of Hercules were the twelve needle floated. " The arrow of Aba- months of the year. 15 226 YIELD OF SPANISH SILVER xMINES. an inscription of the Roman era, we learn that he was the Memnon.* In the fanciful creations of Homer, the Mem- non appears also as the handsome son of Aurora.f Well worthy was such a hero of a statue so contrived, that at the rising of ^ very sun it gave forth each day harmonious sounds. His history, like most of his statues, is in part broken and defaced, but so exceedingly attractive is the portion remaining, that the more we look upon that the more cause have we to regret the missing parts. Broken and defaced as it is, it still gives forth a sweet melody at the rising of every inspiration for noble achievements. Well might Abdasor and Asseramor J invoke, on a marble candelabrum, his blessing on their uncertain voyage, and the brothers, Dionysius and Serapion, add to it the title of Archegetes — the great pilot. Here follows our author's version of the famous disco- very of silver by the Pyrenean shepherds, b. c. 880 years. This is one of the remarkable events of antiquity, and fully accounts for the importance of Spain in early times. It was the California of the ancients, from whence they derived their supply of precious metals, while Tartesse or Cadiz was its San Francisco,§ where congregated the adventurers of all nations to reap the profits of mining * " The tomb which the inscription his blessing attend them on their un- of the Roman times calls that of Mem- certain voyage," is inscribed on the non, is really that of Rameses V., shaft of a marble candelabrum, pre- Meiamun, or his successor, as Cham- served at Malta. Under which is pollion asserts." — Kenrick, I., p. 142. inscribed in Greek, Dionysius and f Odessea, ^ 188, X 521. Serapion, sons of Serapion, Tyrians, X " Abdassar and Asseremor, sons to Hercules Archegetes. of Asseremor, son of Abdassar, per- § " Silver spread into plates is form this vow to our Lord Melcrat, brought from Tarshish, and gold from the tutelary divinity of Tyre. May Ophir." Jer. x. 9. YIELD OF SPANISH SILVER MINES. 227 speculations,* or in other ways possess themselves of some portion of its abounding wealth. f The fact, that the whole narrative of this discovery has been regarded as fabulous, for thousands of years, only demonstrates that such discoveries are exceedingly rare, and not within the experience of the mass of men, yet it probably did not * That the reader may see that these representations of the abun- dance of silver produced anciently in Spain are not beyond credibility, we subjoin some notices of the abundance of silver on our ovrn frontier, and in the region of Arazonia. " We have the following record in evidence of the masses of silver ex- tracted at Arazuma. Don Domingo Asmendi paid duties on a piece of virgin silver which weighed 275 lbs. The king's attorney [Jiscal] brought suit for the duties on several other pieces, which together weighed 4033 lbs. Also for the recovery, as a curi- osity, and therefore the property of the king, of a certain piece of silver of the weight of 2700 lbs. This is probably the largest piece of pure silver ever found in the world." — Ward's Mexico, vol. II., p. 278. f " The mining laborers have their romances, which are as wild as the yarns of the sailor, and have for their almost universal theme the miracu- lous acquisition and loss of a fortune. The hero possesses princely wealth to-day, though yesterday he was suf- fering for food, and to-morrow he will be again bereft of all by the fickle turns that Fortune makes in the wheel of destiny. The wildest of our ro- mances never come up to many inci- dents that have occurred in their own mine; and when they attempt fiction, it is on the pattern of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I do verily believe that all that class of Arabian tales are but the reproduction of the romances from the Oriental gold-wash- ings. " The most important mines in the state of San Luis Potosi are those near Cuatorce, in which more won- derful things have occurred than in the wildest of the 'romances.' The story of Padre Flores is a familiar one, but will bear repeating. " The padre, being tired of the idle life of a pauper priest, bought, for a small sum, the claim of some still more needy adventurer. After fol- lowing his small vein a little way, he came to a small cavern containing the ore in a state of decomposition. This, in California, would be called a ' rot- ten vein.' With all the difficulties to be encountered in obtaining a fair value for mineral in a crude state, the poor priest realized from his ad- venture over $3,000,000, which was considered a very fair fortune for an unmitred ecclesiastic." — Mexico and its Religion, page 375. " The ores of the Pastiano mine, near the Carmen, were so rich that the lode was worked by bars, with a point at one end and a chisel at the other, for cutting out the silver. The 228 TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT. surpass the Spanish silver discoveries in Potosi and in Sonera* since his folios were written. Those of our readers who are familiar with a silver- producing region can, without difficulty, detect the evi- dences of truth in the accounts that have reached us, and can easily calculate the amount of exaggeration in the traditions. They know that, when the " lodes crop out," owner of the Pastiano used to bring the ores from the mine with flags fly- ing, and the mules adorned with cloths of all colors. The same man received a reproof from the Bishop of Durango when he visited Batopilos, for placing bars of silver from the door of his house to the great hall Ysala\ for the bishop to walk upon." — ^Ward, vol. II., page 578. " In the case of the famous mine of the priest Flores at Cuatorce, which he blasphemously named ' the Purse of God the Father,' where there are marks of divers attempts being made to undermine them, though without success. But the case is a different one when the bonanza is upon a high ridge, and it can be undermined by drifting in from a lower level. Then commences a lively contest to deter- mine who can dig the fastest, and make the most rapid progress in this contest of mining and undermining. " The Marquis de los Rayas owes his title and his princely fortune of $11,000,000 to a successful contest of this character. The Santa Amita was in bonanza, yielding an ore so preg- nant with gold that the crude mass often sold for its weight in silver." — Mexico, page 384. * " In Sonora, silver is most com- monly extracted from the ore by the simple process of fusion. But in the district of Batopilos, it is, or rather was, found pure. If we should adopt the theory that veins of ore extend through the entire length of Mexico, then I should say that they ' crop out' in Sonora. " The ' Good Success Mine' [Bueno Suceso] was discovered by an In- dian, who swam across the river after a great flood. On arriving at the other side, he found the crest of an immense lode laid bare by the force of the water. The greater part of this was pure massive silver, spark- ling in the rays of the sun. The whole town of Batopilos went to gaze at the extraordinary sight as soon as the river was fordable. This Indian extracted great wealth from his mine, but, on coming to the depth of three Spanish yards [varas], the abundance of water obliged him to abandon it, and no attempts have since been made to resume the working. When the silver is not found in solid masses, which requires to be cut with the chisel, it is generally finely sprinkled through the lode, and often serves to nail together the particles of stone through which it is disseminated." — Ward, vol. II., p. 578. TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT. 229 they often assume an appearance as of molten silver, suddenly cooled, and it is not wonderful that people ignorant of the nature of mineralogical deposits should suppose these to have been produced by the burning of the mountain forests. "About 880 years B.C.," says the chronicler, " was the memorable fire in the Pyrenee Moun- tains, and it continued many days, the veins of the earth were so moved with this violent heat,* as the silver melt- ing ran down by streams : whereof jDyrates and strangers, which did traffique there, being advertised, they came run- ning to this booty. The Phoenicians, among others, under a kind of traffique, and with the exchange of certain trifles of small value, loaded their ships above once, being con- ducted as some write by Sicbee [AcerbasJ husband to * We have to repeat here a former note : — " The mines upon the mountains of Cuatorce are said to have been dis- covered in 1778 by a negro fiddler, who, being compelled to camp out on his way home from a dance, built a fire upon what proved to be an outcrop of a vein, and, in consequence, found in the morning, among the embers, a piece of virgin silver. It is a doubtful question among those who are anxious about trifles whether the name Potosi given to this mine, owes its origin to the similarity between the mode of its discovery to that of the celebrated mines of that name in South America, or to the vast amount of silver at one time taken from it." — Ward, vol. II., page 578. " The next mine of interest in our progress northward is the Morelos, ' which was discovered in 1826 by two brothers named Aranco. These two Indian peons were so poor that, the night before their great discovery, the keeper of the store had refused to credit one of them for a little corn for his tortillas. They extracted from their claim |270,000 ; yet, in Decem- ber, 1826, they were still living in a wretched hovel, close to the source of their wealth, bareheaded and bare- legged, with upwards of $200,000 in silver locked up in their hut. But never was the utter worthlessness of the metal, as such, so clearly demon- strated as in the case of the Arancos, whose only pleasure consisted in con- templating their hoards, and occa- sionally throwing away a portion of the richest ore to be scrambled for by their former companions, the work- men.' " — Ibid. 230 RISE OF CARTHAGE. Eliza Dido ;* yea in so great abundance as they made the anchors of their ships of silver."f The rise of the Carthaginian commonwealth, it seems^ grew out of these successful mining adventures, or rather from quarrels about the disposition of the profits. Acerbas became too rich for a subject,^ and in consequence his brother-in-law King Pigmaleon of Tyre, slew him "through envie and covetousness," and also undertook himself to lead an expedition to Spain. His enterprise was disastrous. He having died at sea the expedition was abandoned, and his companions found their way to Cadiz, which was a material addition to the population of that town, "so as in the end it became a mighty commonwealth." But Dido fled in the mean time, with her husband's wealth, to Carthage, a town which had previously been founded by one Carchedon, a Tyrian. Dido greatly enlarged the city, " which did increase daily both in people and in wealth," which w^as about one * "The sister of the king [Pyg- womaiily devoi ion were alike conspicu- malion] was the renowned princess ous, and consequently she was worthy known in poetry and general history of being allied to a prince possessing as Dido, but whose name while yet the exalted virtue and character of in Tyre was Eliza, or Elizabeth — Acerbas." — Jot^Es's Ancient Am., Tpage which name, translated from the ori- 258. ginal language, means an oath. It f This exaggeration should, by is therefore probable that the attach- no means, destroy the credibility of ment and devotion of the princess for the general outlines of the narrative. Acerbas must have commenced in her J The same difiBculty occurred in earliest days. There was no princess Peru, where the younger Pizarro, of antiquity endowed with more en- found in the rich mine of Potosi, the larged attributes of the mind than means to support his insurrection, the Tyrian Elizabeth. Her resolu- He was too rich to be a subject, tion, active courage, intellect, and CARTHAGINIANS INYITED TO SPAIN. 231 hundred and thirty-five years before the foundmg of Kome.* It was not until about 562 b. c. that Carthage began to take a leading part in the internal affairs of Spain, being invited there by the people of Cadiz, who had become involved with all the surrounding states. These G aditanians " being rich merchants and seeking to make their profit of all things, they took away men from the neighbor towns and villages, and carried them to sell as slaves in strange countries. These inhuman practices did in the end stir up the other people of Spain against the Gaditanes, who, finding themselves not strong enough to oppose so many enemies, resolved to call in the Cartha- ginians, who in the end became masters of Spain, until the Romans stayed them," as says the old chronicler; from whom for the present we must now part company. The reader is doubtless sufficiently familiar with the progress of the Carthaginian arms in Spain to justify us in passing over the detail of battles, massacres, and plunder, which preceded the subjugation of that country. It is one of cities ruined, and provinces devastated, and the infliction of untold misery upon an unoffending popu- lation. But scarcely was the object of all this slaughter and pillage accomplished, when that peninsula passed under the dominion of new masters — the Romans. In the course of centuries of provincial existence, it became completely Romanized in language, civilization, and * Grimshaw, page 12 (H.)— The poetic license when he makes ^neas reader must of course understand a contemporary of Dido, that Virgil probably indulges in a 232 EEASONS FOR INVITING THE MOSLEMS. religion. But when its imperial mistress, in the lowest stage of her degeneracy, gave paganism a Christian baptism, then Spain became a pasture-ground, where priest and prelate watched their flocks, not for the fleece alone, but often for the carcass likewise — a country in which priests were councillors and prelates dictated in secular afiairs. In her spiritual courts they plundered the estates of the faithful, while they placed their seven sacraments as so many toll gates upon the road to Paradise, to extort still more. The worms that feasted on the live flesh of a dying king,* not inaptly personify the relation of its priests to the Spaniards of the imperial era. A nation so disordered could offer no adequate resistance to the Vandals or the Suevi, and as the only remedy, they invited the Goths, though Arians, from their transpyrenean kingdom to Spain. These barbarians seem to have dealt faithfully with their Roman allies, as they continued to live under a separate government two hundred and four years; for it was not until within ninety-four years of the advent of the Saracens, that all Spain sank under the Gothic dominion. One hundred and twenty-four years before that event King Ricardo, the Goth, declared himself a Catholic, and compelled his people to adopt the dogmas of that church. At a council held by him at Toledo it was decreed, that "whoso cometh __4into the communion shall say after the priest the w^ords * " An infinite number of insects could make a wretched anatomie of [piojos), breeding of that corrupt his body as well as of the meanest of matter, and dispersing themselves his subjects." — Ed. Grimshaw, page over his [Philip II.'s] whole bodie, 1284 (sec. I.) gave him to understand that nature REASONS FOR INVITING THE MOSLEMS. 233 of the [so-called] Apostles' creed."* So that, by a. shallow artifice, the Arians were deprived of their political rights. Bj the same council, Jews, then forming a large propor- tion of the population, were excluded also from all " political employment." The secularized estates of the clergy in the hands of bona fide proprietors were re- assumed by this unconscionable priesthood. Thus the Gothic kingdom of SjDain, though conducting successfully an aggressive war in Africa,f was filled with discontent at home. The intolerable burdens imposed upon it by its own religious guides, compelled a Christian nation to seek relief under the dominion of the Moslem. A mere hand- ful of Saracens, thus aided, not only vanquished an army tenfold their number in the field, but, in a single month^ subjugated the entire peninsula. Its re-conquest required seven hundred years of continuous war, and the assistance of all Christendom, to eflect it.;j; * Grimshaw, page 143 (sec. F.) draw all his adherents with him — t " How could there be a strug- the Archbishop of Seville could quit gle in an open country by 12,000 the camp with all his followers — a against 100,000, where arms and fact which has no parallel — and join courage were equal — where both were the invading Mussulraen. There ex- warlike? The Goths were engaged isted these links between the two m continual warfare between them- people not to be found in the romances selves ; they were making incursions of the Spanish writers, or in the into France ; they were at the very phrases of Gibbon. Thus the enter- time masters, by recent triumphs, of prise ceases to be a fable, and regains the sea, and possessors until that very its just station as one of the most year, of strong places in Africa, hardy and successful of human whence they were carrying on ag- achievements." — Pillars of Hercules, gressive war against the Moors ! We vol. I., page 94. have therefore to look for some other % "Read the annals of Spain; cause than the effeminacy of the one, you will find that Don Alphonso I., and the valor of the other. Count of Castile (which took Toledo from Julian could put the Moors in posses- the Moors, and united it to Castile), sion of Ceuta, and in joining them was virtuously assisted by great troops 234 THE SARACENS. We have now reached the dawn of modern civiHzation — the advent of the Saracens. As a nation they have passed away ;* but, though their existence be terminated, their literature remains, the common property of all Europe. It is easy to understand, that, a horde of Arabian shepherds, filled with courage and fanaticism, might accomplish the military exploits history accredits to their arms. But, to believe them the authors of a new civiliza- tion, so perfect, so elegant, so enduring, as to survive its originators, is even harder, than to receive as unvar- nished truth, one of their sweet and captivating poems. f There is evidence that large portions of our modern literature, and our architecture, whether Gothic,J Lom- of French. The same Spanish histo- ries make mention that, at the siege of Saragossa, in the year 1118, Don Alphonso VII. had in his armie Wil- liam of Poitiers, Ratron of Perche, with them of Cominges, and Bigorre, the Viscount of Lanedan, the Bishop of Lescar, and many other Frencli noblemen and knights . . . their own writers doe witness that in the army of King Don Alphonso IV., of Cas- tile, there were 100,000 strangers, and most French [in the battle of Muradal], and in like manner at the battle of Salado, at the siege of Al- gezires, and such like actions." — Argument of the French Ambassadors at the Council of Trent, copied in Grimshaw, page 1103 (F.) * We are fully aware that the tillers or cultivators of the soil, in Syria and Egypt, are for the most part of pure Arabic blood. But that elegant, industrious, and polished people we understand by the word Saracen, have disappeared, the vic- tims of that inexorable natural law that dooms to extermination the in- termixtures of repugnant races, though they may have embraced the same religion. t We should have said romances, if the expression would not be a contradiction : for while the name is clearly of Provencal origin, the thing itself is as clearly Moorish. X The most surprising feature of Europe of the middle ages, is the architectural elegance of the churches, and other public edifices. The chaste and severe architectural style of these buildings is in striking contrast with the tawdry, toy-shop idolatry of the worship and childish ornaments that betray their almost savage mental condition. The bitter hate systematically in- culcated by the priesthood of Europe, THE SARACENS. 235 bard,* Norman,f or SaxonJ so called, — and most of our is the cause of covering up, under flimsy disguises, the important fact that these edifices were built by Arab architects, while the imagery was the product of their own childish efforts. Painting and statuary were abhor- rent to the Islaim faith, and of course would not be cultivated by Arabs, and hence the necessity of looking to other sources for a supply of images and pictures for Christian adoration ! " The Gothic. — That the grandest styles [of architecture] should be known by the name of the rudest people — that architecture should be called after dwellers in tents and tenants of huts — that the Goths should have ceased to exist before the Gothic was invented, is, indeed, a phenome- non. . . . Had it been known that ecclesiastical architecture came from a Mussulman source, surely we should not have heard of ' the Gothic spring- ing from the Bible,' and like foolish speeches." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. II., pp. 265, 266. "It is no novel idea that northern architecture was derived from the Saracens, but our supposed inter- course with that people is confined to the crusade, which coinciding indeed with, or shortly preceding the Gothic style, &c. . . . But the intercourse of Northern Europe with the Sara- cens preceded the crusades by four or five centuries, and the intercourse of England with Africa preceded Islam- ism. The first architectural move- ment in England, in the age of St. Winifred, by half a century the erec- tion of the mosque of Omar at Jeru- salem, one of the noblest monuments in the world." — Ibid., vol. II., page 269. * The Lombard style arose in the south of Italy, after these people had come in contact with the Sara- cens, and learned their arts, and em- ployed their artists." — Ibid. f The Norman. — The second ar- chitectural age in England was that of the Normans ; it was preceded by the conquest of Calabria and Sicily, inhabited by the Saracens, who ex- celled, as the ruins left behind them attest, in the very highest branches of this art. " The oldest of the specimens [of Norman] we have in Sicily, is the Capella Palatin, built soon after the conquest of that island by Roger. . . . There is a wide band running round the apse in Arabic characters. The inscription is a long string of honor- ary epithets applied to Roger. In the cathedral of Cefula there is a per- fect Norman arch, levelled or cham- fered, and exactly the same as we see them in the north of Europe. This edifice bears a Latin inscription, at- tributing to a Saracen the honor of the construction." — Ibid., vol. II., page 273. " These Normans were in continued intercourse with their native country on the British Channel. Passing constantly through France, they soon afterwards conquered England. It was this people who gave the great impulse to architecture in the eleventh century, in England and France, and thus arose the style known by their name ; not merely raising those build- ings by the wealth they possessed in Normandy, or acquired in England, but even from the contributions made from the booty of Calabria and the spoils of Sicily." — Ibid., vol. II., page 272. X " Saxon. — The most common 236 DECLINE OF ARIANISM. modern improvements and inventions,* even the first hints of our Protestantism, are of Saracenic origin. Though pohtical causes there operating, preserved the Roman superstition unchanged until a late period, and natural causes have worn away the vestiges of Saracenic descent, yet the imprint of the Arabian is everywhere still visible, in Spain. As Christians we cannot sympathize with the Arian heresy, but we do most sincerely with the inhabitants of the Eastern and Western, the Greek and Latin empires, who, to escape the intolerable burden of priestly despotism, were led to seek refuge in it, and deny the divinity of the Son of God. The relief however was only temporary. Arianism having a negative, rather than a positive existence, died with the suppression of those priestly abuses upon which it fed.f It rather declined than was and primitive style of Moorish arch- ing is the flat wall cut into the semi- circle, supported without entablature on wall or column. That is exactly the Saxon ; it was only known to them after they had crossed the seas. . . . The Saxon race came in contact with the Saracens in the earliest times of Islaim by pilgrimages to the Holy Land — they served in the armies of the Greek emperors. " From the time of Constantino an uninterrupted connection of the Arabs and the Northmen, during four cen- turies, is attested by 20,000 Saracenic coins in the cabinet of Stockholm, found in Gothland, and along the eastern coast of Sweden." — Ibid., page 270. * " The perusal of the catalogue of the Escurial, suggested to M. Villemain, the remark that most of the modern discoveries of which the date and the name of the inventor are set down as certain, were no more than inventions of the Arabs, which he had appropriated. Such in this case was the fact. Amalphi, the earliest of European commercial states, arose under the Greeks and Saracens. To the latter people it owed the lead it took in instruction and navigation. Centuries and gene- rations before Flavio de Gioja was born, the needle was known at Amal- phi." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., page 139. t The excessive hatred always ex- hibited towards the Arians, is mainly owing to their exposure of orthodox abuses ; being a sort of philosophical Unitarians, they exhibited an exact contrast to the sensuous worship of the orthodox. CIVILIZATION OF THE SARACENS. 237 crushed by the secular power. So long, however, as it prevailed the people enjoyed a respite ; but, when its power was gone, priests and prelates resumed their former practices, with appetite whetted by long abstinence. The cry of the suffering nations once more rose to heaven, until Providence sent them a deliverer in the person of the Arabian impostor ; to that country we must now turn to examine this new element in Spanish history. Persecution had driven multitudes of Jews and Arians to take refuge in Arabia. Among its wild and inhospita- ble fastnesses they gathered strength, while nursing an inexorable hate against the orthodox superstition, baptized with the name of Christianity, and this, not for forty years only, but for centuries. Thus a peculiar civilization grew up on the borders of the Eastern Empire, the anti- pode of Greek and Latin Catholicism, and found a read}^ sympathy in the crude theism of the wanderers of the desert. Who has not wondered at the sudden transforma- tion of Arabian nomades to the extraordinary civilization of the Caliphat? Yet it was not so instantaneous as superficial observers represent. It required, on the contrary, centuries for its formation out of a wreck of disjointed religions, whose zealots were its material.* As it reached maturity side by side of a nominally Christian * " Their [the Arabs'] country had licacies of the Greeks and Persians, been peopled at the expense of the They were inured to hardships of all Grecian Empire, -vrhence the vio- kinds, and consequently much better lent proceedings of the different reli- fitted than their effeminate neighbors gious sectaries forced many to take to endure the fatigues of war, as the refuge in Arabia. The Arabs were event very fully verified." — Enclopce- not only a populous nation, but un- dia Brit. II., page 152. acquainted with the luxuries and de- 238 TIME AND PLACE OF MAHOMET'S BIRTH. empire, between them there necessarily arose a state of chronic border war; for the new order could not fail to assume a character of antagonism to its neighbor's idol- atrous worship, while, at the same time, that worship offered a pretext to justify continued forays within its borders. Among such a people was Mahomet born about the year 565, of our era,* at the little town of Itarip near Mecca. He was duly instructed in the Arian heresy by the monk Sergius,*|- according to received authorities. To this negative doctrine, when he had reached the age of forty years, he added a positive character, in his own pretended revelations. To the mine already prepared for an explosion, this last addition proved the kindling match. His success was so rapid, as to surpass the most extrava- gant anticipations. For his armies, when they broke into the empire, had but to contend with its taskmasters. The people gladly submitted to the rule of an enemy, who placed the chance of attaining to the seventh Heaven in the inviolability with which he kept his engagements, the exactness wdth which he administered justice, and the mercy he showed to the defenceless. J * Mj old chronicler, so good on ness and lenity. Consult with your the traditional era, differs so widely officers on all pressing occasions, and from the popular date fixed on for encourage them to face the enemy the birth of Mahomet, that I have with bravery and resolution. If you preferred to, follow the Encyclop. Bri- shall happen to be victorious, destroy tannica. The uq^ American Encyclop. neither old people, women, nor child- fixes this event at 550, while Grim- ren. Cut down no palm-trees, nor shaw assigned so late a date as 591. burn any fields of corn. Spare all t Grimshaw, page 161. fruit-trees, and slay no cattle but X " Take care, Yezid Ebn Abu such as you shall take for your own Sofian, to treat your men with tender- use. Adhere always inviolably to CAUSE OF THE SUCCESS OF THE SARACENS. 239 Such was the condition of the Eastern Empire, and the barbaric kingdoms that had estabhshed themselves upon the ruins of its western rival, when the Saracens swept over Asia Minor, Egypt, and northern Africa, as a fire driven by a fierce wind through the dry and withered grass of autumn. Its track has the appearance of devastation over a broad expanse, but it is in appearance only ; for the blackened earth gives forth a richer verdure in consequence on the succeeding spring. Such a path was that of the " commanders of the faithful." The load of effete superstitions and idolatries that had hitherto crushed Christian nations to the earth, were swept away in their fiery purification, while the people sprang into renewed life under the influence of the doctrines they diffused. Among the inhabitants of the Christian states a sense of mutual confidence arose; for the first time in many generations it was taught publicly, and without the fear of punishment, that truth, honesty, and fair dealing in this life, were a more necessary qualification for that to come, than the absolution of a priest, or the holy oil of the last sacrament. To those Christians and Jews, who did not embrace this novel doctrine, toleration was so fully conceded, as to cause others to desire the dominion of the Saracen also, and to sigh for that prosperity, which their co-religionists enjoyed under Moslem rule. your engagements, and put none of [viz., persons in priests' orders], the religious persons you shall meet cleave their skulls, and give them no with in monasteries to the sword, quarter, except they embrace Islaem, Offer no violence to the places they or pay tribute." — Instructions of Ahu serve God in. Beer, tlie first caliph, to Sofian, on his " As for those members of the syna- setting out to invade Si/ria. — Encyclop. gogue of Satan, who shave their crown Brit., page 161. 240 TARIK INVADES SPAIN. ^' The straw that breaks the camel's back," had already fallen upon the shoulders of the suffering people of Spain. If Count Julian was not formally delegated by them, he did not the less represent the national feeling when he invited Mousa, " the leader of the faithful," to rescue them from their spiritual oppressors. The devout Moslem listened to the tale of sufferings brought him by the unbelievers, and his spirit moved within him. " God is great !" is all that is reported to have escaped his lips ; a small army of veterans was his real answer. Tarif or Tarik, for this was the name of " the captain of the Lord's host," stealthily crossed the straits in boats, unobserved by the Gothic cruisers, and landed upon the inhospitable rock of Calpe, which from that time has born the name of " the hill of Tarik"— Geber-al-Tarik, Gibraltar.* There he established his depot, and commenced those military structures, which to this day command the admiration of military engineers, and demonstrate the skill of the Arab soldier in the art of fortification.^ * " Mount Abyla [the Pillar of save in what is requisite for the ap Hercules on the African side] is plication of gunpowder, or what is called by the Moors after Mouza, who superfluous for defence, the Moors planned the expedition ; and Calpe is had rendered Gibraltar what it is to- now named after Tarif, the leader day. who conducted it." — Pillars of Her- " They have even left us struc- cules, vol. I., page 32. tures of the greatest service — as re- f "Half of this bristling tongue sisting the effects of gunpowder, and [the Kock of Gibraltar] was formed such as we are able neither to rival unapproachable [by nature] ; man nor imitate." — Ibid., page 33. has fenced in the other. This sea- " The Moorish fort is, as a whole, wall, from end to end, is the work of a building of great interest. An the Moors. On the north, too, all our architect of the last century, speaks defences are restorations of the Moor- of it as one of the most remarkable ish works ; even in the galleries they on the soil of Europe. It stands a have been our forerunners. In fact, match for man and time, defy"ng at PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE. 241 And now the marshalling of armies for a contest that was to decide the possession of the Peninsula, for the coming seven hundred years, began. The Gothic king, his bishops and his barons, exerted themselves to enrol a force sufficient to crush the audacious invader of so powerful a kingdom. Theirs was declared a holy war, and salvation freely offered to all who bore their part in it, how vile soever their lives had hitherto been. Every effort was used to incite an unwilling people to arms. The approaching enemy was represented in the blackest colors in which demons could be painted. But as it was not the people, but princes, prelates, and barons, who were to suffer in the approaching conflict, notwith- standing every deception practised to prejudice the minds of Spaniards against their coming deliverers, they stood aloof, and refused the proffered indulgences. Cadiz and Tartesse adjoin the district of Medina- Sidonia, where, in the traditional era, Rameses IV., of Madinet-Aboo,* with the Sidonians, defeated the Gerions. It is a spot sacred in the mythology of the ancients. Here, as we have seen, Osiris Denis slew the elder of the Gerions. Here his son, Hercules the Great, won his brightest laurels in contest with the younger Gerions. Here Atlas despoiled his brother of the seigniory of the once the inventions of the one, and * The common notion is, that the ravages of the other. this name is a combination of the " Here is an original design and name of the Arabian town Madina, substance ; a work surpassing those and Sidon. I cannot make a point of the Romans in strength, and equal- out of this resemblance of names ; for ling those of the Egyptians in dura- it is not tenable as a point, but re- bility." — Ibid., page 35. markable as a coincidence. 16 242 MORAL POWER OF TARIK. Turdetanians. Here Oris [Houis], whoj after his deifica- tion, presided over the horary divisions of time, ruled as king.* Here Tefta, from Africa, proclaimed himself King of Spain.* With this spot is associated the name of Neptune, deified by the Libyans,* and received into the category of Grecian divinities. Here, too, the Gre- cian Hercules vanquished the Titans.* Such were the associations surrounding the battle-field of Gaudalete, on w^iich Tarik and his little army performed such prodi- gies of valor as to demonstrate that religious zeal, founded on moral principle, was a more potent element in war than pagan heroism. Philosophers have labored to ac- count for so complete a victory, with such inadequate means, as Tarik there achieved. If the reasons they have assigned are unsatisfactory, it is because they have not fully appreciated the mighty power, the almost super- natural force faith lends, even to the feeble battalions, in times of their greatest extremity.*]" The Goths were still a warlike people. They were not wanting in courage, — courage equal to that of their Afri- can enemies, as was demonstrated by the progress of their arms in Africa itself. Yet, in the midst of Gothic tri- * All these subjects of tradi- fully, to make out, to a certain extent, tional history have been fully treated a common nationality ; -n-hereas there in the former part of this Chapter. was a total dissimilarity. I Urquhart, whom we have pretty Other historians, in their anxiety fully followed as an author present- to be poetical, lose sight of the power ing common sense views of familiar that moves the world — moral prin- subjects, is here entirely at fault, ciple. He philosophizes rather than moral- Urquhart, though entirely unsatis- izes, upon this extraordinary event in factory in his philosophy, yet gives human history. He tries, unsuccess- the true reason in a paragraph. MORAL POWER OF TARIK. 2il umphs, both by land and sea,* a mere handful of invaders assail the citadel of their strength. Tarik was no blind fanatic, but a careful calculator and judge of men. He expected success, not only as the reward of valor, but as the certain result of his established character for justice and good faith, in dealing with nations worn out, and perishing, under a government of craft.-]- These people, who never dreamed for a moment of trusting to the pledges of their own rulers, confided implicitly in the word of an enemy. This was to him a tower of strength. It was a power that disarmed opposition, and assured the most timid of security. His word, it was well known, he valued beyond life, and when he offered protection to all who submitted to his authority, he conquered more by character than by the sword. He fully understood the political condition of Spain, and that the discontented wanted only a nucleus of brave and faithful men around whom to rally, in order to change the national religion and government. To all such he gave the highest pledge of his sincerity, by burning, in the harbor of Gibraltar, the boats that brought him into the country. He was a man of but few words, yet the speech he made to his sol- diers, when the last hope of retreat was gone, partakes * " They [the Goths] were at the ism was propagated by the sword, very time masters, by recent triumphs, It was Islamism that aided the con- of the sea ; and possessors until that quest of the Saracens. Its force lay very year of strong places in Africa, in applying the dictates of religion whence they were carrying on aggres- directly as a restraint upon the con- sive war against the Moors." — Ibid., duct of government, rendering the vol. I., page 95. king, as well as his humblest vassal, t "Here was exposed the imbe- equally subjects of the law." — Pillars, cility of the supposition that Islam- vol. I., page 96. 244 YiEws OF "the faithful." of moral sublimity : " The enemy is before you, the sea is behind — follow me." An idea and a speech afterwards plagiarized by Cortez, as we shall see presently. To understand the battle of Gaudalete we must assume the position, and if possible catch the inspiration that animated the Arabian hero while contemplating the rival 23arties in the fight. His little army of bronzed veterans he regarded as the chosen avengers of God's justice. Life to them was a matter of indifference, when engaged in vindicating God's glory, and the re-establishment of his purely spiritual worship, as they understood the contro- versy. With them the war-cry Alla-acbar, " God is great," or rather " God's is the victory," had a meaning and a significance incomprehensible to other men. It was not they, but Alia, that had a controversy with this faithless people, who had forsaken his true worship, and given themselves over to the abominations of the heathen, and who had set up images in the house where he alone should be adored. We are told that religious fanaticism makes men brave. It is not fanaticism only, for then the greatest fanatics in the world, the cowardly Bramins. would be brave. It is rather that religious zeal, which overpowers, so as to elevate the moral principles above all personal considerations. This it is, not fanaticism, that converts men into heroes. And such was the moral power that sustained the little army of Tarik in the hour of trial, and made them incapable of fear. With his diminutive band the hero surveyed the over- whelming legions of the enemy with the eye of a " true believer." Theirs was, indeed, a brilliant array in all the CHRISTIAN IMITATION OF THE EGYPTIANS. 245 pomp and panoply of war. But he also fully understood the weakness that pervaded its ranks. Neither courage nor discipline were wanting, but confidence in each other. This made them powerless as the Sepoys, without their European officers. They could rely upon the word of their enemy, but distrusted their own leaders. As a counterpoise to this unseen weakness, there was an abundant display of religious ceremonial, such as the priests of Osiris might have celebrated on the same spot three thousand years before. Absolution and a prosper- ous journey through the realms of Osiris, or Purgatory, were again freely offered to the " Ghristimis" who should die in the battle. Where the Egyptian priests would have burned incense, and made offerings to the emblems and representatives of their canonized kings,* offerings were now given to the images and reliques-j- of the Roman saints. Ab Rameses invoked the intercession of his predecessors,^ most likely on this same spot, so also the Roman saints were called upon for miracles in behalf of their votaries, while incense was burning throughout the Spanish host with more than Egyptian or Sidonian profusion. Amu- * " The Tablet of Karnak is a re- live dog is superior to a dead lion :" presentation of Thothmes III., offer- Proverbs. ing gifts to a series of sixty-one % The fact that the above-men- kings, disposed in four lines around tioned list does not agree with that the walls." — Kenrick, vol. II., page of Abydos for the forty-four first 90. names, is a strong argument that they f This use of old bones, is not bor- were not placed there for the same rowed from Phoenicians, or Egyp- purpose ; but that the sixty-one, is tians. It is a purely Christian inven- the number of the kings, or benefac- tion. The Egyptian animal adoration tors of Egypt that had been adjudged was as much superior to this, as " a a royal burial, viz., canonized. 246 FIRST. DAY OF THE BATTLE. lets, too, were distributed as among the Egyptians,* while the emblem of " the Sidonian goddess,"f the Latin cross, was carried through the camp. Tarik feared them not, though they were "even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many."J His soul was fired within him, when he saw such idolatry practised in the name of the " Holy God." And he contemplated as a certain prey provided by Jehovah for his faithful servants — this imposing multitude arrayed against him, whose hearts He had hardened,^ that they should come against him in battle, to the end that he might be avenged of his enemies. The faithful repeated their simple pra^^ers to Alia, and the Ulemas exhorted them to faithfulness ; then, with the war-cry AUa-achar, the bronzed children of the desert rushed upon the unbelievers. They respected not mitres, they heeded not crosses. Incense, and the images of the saints, were an exceeding abomination, and amulets an uncertain protection against a Damascus blade. Priests, in their hands, were weak as women, and they delighted in the slaughter of bishops. Driven and swayed this way and that, by the preponderance of numbers, and b}* Gothic discipline, the little army still remained unbroken. Like iron men, they bore the brunt of the first encounter, * " Thothmes III. His name f See Plate CXLI., toI. V. of Cal- seems to have been held in high vene- met. No. 7. ration by posterity ; and is so found The reader must excuse the use of on a great number of scarabcei and the modern name for this old emblem amulets." — Kenrick, vol. II., page of the idolaters of Palestine. This 193. emblem has been fully discussed in See also previous note on Amulets, the last chapter. X Joshua si. 4, 20. TREASON OF THE ARCHBISHOP OPAS. 247 and without material loss, and in return tliej dealt such blows as proved the spirit that animated them. Enve- loped with foes, they still fought on with undiminished hope, and with a heroism more than human. A whole day of constant trial had not enervated them, and with renewed confidence in the next day's success they rested, while darkness interrupted the conflict. Not to have been beaten on the first day was itself a victory, or at least an assurance that victory was attainable. With the dawn the struggle was renewed, and it con- tinued from day to day with like results, until the power of endurance in the Gothic ranks began to waver ; at least there were symptoms of yielding among the unbelievers. Then it was that that memorable treason occurred to that lineal successor of Judas Iscariot — the Archbishop of Seville, which decided the fate of the contest, the fate of Spain. This Opas was doubtless no worse than the rest of his brethren, though the betrayer of his master. But as his estates lay nearer the scene of action, when the hour of trial came, he was unequal to the sacrifice required. The treasures of the saints were distant, and his chance of obtaining a portion extremely remote, while the dangers of worldly ruin were close at hand. He had, doubtless, been as prolific as other prelates in the offers of indulgence and dispensation, to all who should prove faithful in the trying hour, but when that hour came he was unwilling to trust to his own prescriptions. He offered Paradise to others on terms he himself was disinclined to accept. Thus, under the pressure of strong temptation, he apostatized, and in consequence has been made the 248 RELIGIOUS RESULTS OF THE VICTORY. scapegoat of all the calamities that befell Catholicism in Spain. Had he really been a Christian, we should have looked upon his fall as upon that of Peter, an offence to be treated with charity. But considering him as a man of the world only, who made religion a trade, there is nothing in the change but the substitution of one false system for another. But this act of the archbishoj) was not the cause of the defeat of the Spaniards, it was one of its results. While the chances of battle were doubt- ful, he was faithful, but when the balance declined he passed over to the Saracens. Now began the rout of the armies of Roderick, the last of the Goths. Submission or flight were the alterna- tives, and submission held out the greatest inducements. There was no more resistance, that deserved the name. The little band of Saracens then spread themselves like a fan over the country, not to conquer but to take posses- sion, and to receive the submission of a willing people. It had been a religious contest, so they regarded it. Creed had been pitted against creed. One party had invoked a whole calendar of Saints, longer than that of the Egyptian Pharaohs ; the other the assistance of the Almighty alone. The people had looked on, watching the result as the apostate Israelites did in the times of Elijah. And it was Jehovah alone who answered. The result had so much the appearance of the miraculous, to those, who had been taught to look for a continuous dispensation of miracles, that they accepted this as the verdict of the Almighty. As there is no parallel to the victory on record, so GENIUS OF THE AEABS. 249 neither is there any parallel to its results. As the defeat was totalj and the rout complete, in the contest with carnal weapons, so was it also in the spiritual controversy. The defeated thought they had faithfully tested the value of their saintly intercessors, and found them wanting. There were none able to deliver in the time of trial, and they hasted to embrace the new faith, which, after all, was only a slight modification of their own Arian belief In no other way can this sudden change be accounted for, since perfect toleration was accorded to every creed. But of those who still adhered to the Romish faith, the submission was so perfect, that the army was not long required in Spain. In a few months after this memorable battle, it was concentrated on the north side of the Pyrenees; there its triumphant march was checked, by orders from Damascus,* and the contemplated march by Italy on Constantinople abandoned. Under such circum- stances the Moslem army turned back from its French expedition, and the genius of the Arabs was devoted to the cultivation of the arts of peace, in what, just before, was a turbulent and barbarous kingdom. Let us now contemplate Spain in its new aspect; an independent Caliphate, and a seat of learning and refinement, while the * " Within a few months from Greek Empire in the rear. When the the battle of Gaudulete, the Moorish Saracens did invade, it was after the troops had passed beyond the Pyre- generation of conquerors had passed nees, and were encamped at Carcas- way — when France was recovering sone. There the tide of victory was from the lethargy of her Merovingian arrested, not by the hammer of race, and when a schism had been Charles Martel, but by orders from established between Spain and the Damascus. It was the project of the Caliphate." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. Saracen chief to conquer France, and I., page 97. thence to march to the attack of the 250 CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. rest of Europe was wrapped in the darkness and barbarism of the feudal ages. We can hardly be convinced of the reality of this sudden transformation of the Gothic kingdom. It has so much the air of romance. It is so entirely at war with the Romish ideas it superseded, and to which it afterwards succumbed. It is so exceptional in its character to every- thing that had gone before, since the time of Egyptian and Phoenician paganism. To believe it to have sprung at once into life, to have risen to the zenith of refinement and elegance, and then to have passed away, leaving Spain as it found it, taxes our credulity severely. Before the Arab invasion the peninsula was a prey to priests, the hotbed of superstition, notorious for royal debauch- eries, mingled with ostentatious display of religious zeal. So was it again to become as soon as the Moslem kingdom disappeared,* So is it now.f Yet, singularly enough. * Roderick the Goth was not sin- same paper that announces the tem- gular in his debaucheries. Indeed porary dismission of her paramour, a virtuous king, or even queen, of informs us of her devout piety in fol- Spain would be almost an anomaly, lowing on foot through the streets if we are to believe the recorded of Madrid, a consecrated wafer ! We characters of these monarchs. In no know that the object of Louis Philip, other country than Spain could such and Queen-Dowager Christina, in se- a monstrous excuse be tolerated, as lecting for her as a husband the pre- that given by Isabella for usurping sent king, was that she should not have the crown of Castile — that Joanna, children ! The fathers of this queenly the daughter of her brother's wife, devotee's children are unblushingly Henry IV., was not legitimate, though named in public — Serano, the father acknowledged to be such by the king of the eldest ; and her present para- himself. mour claims the paternity of the f Of the present queen, her mo- second. Yet is she regarded as much ther, and a host of others that pre- of a saint at Rome, as was Isabella ; ceeded them, the least said of their or Jezebel the wife of Ahab, regarded reputation for virtue the better. The as a saint at Tyre. ITS RAPID GROWTH. 251 the period of Arab rule is the only era in the Spanish annals whose written history is above suspicion. Before, all was barbarism, after it came the Inquisition. Abderr- haman, the heir of the Ommyades, escaping the slaughter of his kindred at Damascus, was received, as the true successor of the prophet, and acknowledged as Caliph at Cordova. Thus was the Peninsula severed from the great trunk of Moslem dominion, and an oriental king- dom constituted in the West. The ideas underlying this new order of things were oriental, while the masses who embraced them were Celts.* Though Arabia and Mauritania could have furnished but a small population to migrate, they offered sufficient to impress their peculiar character upon the mingled people of the country. Even Christians lost their Latin vernacular, and celebrated their worship in Mosarabic. But those who embraced the cause of Islam renounced, not simply their former faith; they became Arabians in social organization, as well as in religion. The wise and liberal administration of the first Caliph consolidated the jarring elements of that empire, which the sword of Tarik had won. Agriculture flourished; and new systems of cultivation were introduced under the complete protection of person and property afforded by his rule. In place of the rude labor of the Goth, the Nor is she a whit behind her mo- the greatest of Spanish ministers, ther, or behind the average of the * It is hardly worth repeating the queens of Spain. former arguments on the subject of The nominal father of the greatest the ante-Gothic population of the Pe- of Spanish kings, Charles III., was ninsula. almost an idiot : his probable father, 252 ITS PROSPERITY. most perfect oriental models were followed. Valleys, before abandoned, were now so artistically cultivated,* as to present the appearance of a fairy landscape. Thriving villages immediately arose on every side. For the arbitrary rules of feudalism-]- the oriental system of village proprietary-]- was substituted. Each member of the various communities felt a lively interest in his neighbor's ability to bear his proper proportion of the common burdens. This practical enfranchisement of the serf was the foundation of Arabian prosperity, and that on which arose the voluptuous civilization, which succeeded, and * " The Arabs made immense progress in agriculture. The art of manuring and watering the soil had been carried to its highest perfec- tion. A narrow runnel, by means of trenches skilfully arranged, con- veyed fertility over a vast extent of ground. Aqueducts were constructed, artificial ponds [albuJieras) were dug to serve as reservoirs of water. All the exotic trees, which a climate so varied as that of the Peninsula per- mitted them to cultivate ; and the balmy flowers of the East, which the Arabs prize so highly as perfumes, were introduced by them. Thus Spain owes to the Arabs her rice, cotton, sugar-cane, saffron, and the date-tree — which ripens on all the coast, and especially at Eiche, near Alicant, where an entire forest of them is to be seen. Besides, the number of Arab works on agricul- ture would alone prove to what a high degree the art had been brought in Spain. " Nothing equals the beauty of the spectacle, which must have been pre- sented in that golden age of Spanish agriculture, by the rich hueria of Ya- lentia — one of the most productive and best-watered spots on the earth ; the picturesque vega of Granada — a garden of olive and orange trees thirty leagues in length, watered by five rivers and sheltered by the Sierra Nevada, the highest of all Spain; the fertile basin of the Guadalquivir stretching far out of sight along the verdant swells of the Sierra Morena, with the thousands of villages group- ed around Cordova, the queen of the valley." — History of Spain, by M. Rosseau St. Hilaire, Prof, of the Sor- honne. Paris. Vol. VI., pages 138 to 141. t The Oriental system of holding lands by villages {Pueblos) in com- mon, was retained by the Castilian conquerors ; but the beneficial charac- ter of the system was destroyed by another ; that of granting to feudal lords the right of collecting the reve- nues of these Pueblos, as well as of large cities — which amounted to fill- ing Spain with petty tyrants. ITS PROSPERITY. 253 which could only be permanently sustamed by an enlightened peasantry. The traveller, who now wanders over the dry and arid plains, and through the neglected valleys of Castile, can hardly realize, that these were once the fruitful sources and material wealth of a mighty kingdom. These very wa^stes were then covered by the practical application of science. The alternation of crop, of forest, and of cultivated field, varied, with rich harvests, the vast region over which the flocks of the Mesta* now wander. These plains still yield a scanty herbage, and a slender crop, the natural product, unaided by the thrifty hand of science. The merchant was also prosperous ; for the riches, which the soil produced, flowed in a thousand channels of successful industry, and then * " English sheep were first brought into Spain in the Spanish caracks [called " marinas," not "meri- nas."] It was then that the office of Judge of the Mesta had its rise. A few years after this event relating to the English sheep, our kingdom was desolated by an universal pestilence which, in 1348, ruined Spain and part of Asia ; and in 1350, carried off King Alphonso. The dominions of Spain suffered infinitely on this dismal occasion, insomuch that since the universal Deluge, there is no in- stance of an equal calamity ; for it wasted the country, and swept away two-thirds of the inhabitants. " Spain became depopulated, and husbandry seemed to be lost ; the many rural churches, in the centre of the kingdom, are proofs of this terri- ble havoc that ruined whole villages, of which Eriam periere ruina. Thus four or five villages, of two hundred families, were destroyed ; and the country changed into a swamp, or a heath, open to any invader, and free to the first comer who was will- ing to take possession. It is to this calamitous time we must attribute the origin of the Mesta. The Eng- lish sheep were first brought into the mountains of Segovia, (without the least idea of the Mesta.) or Estrama- dura. . . . When the industrious Moors possessed Estramadura, they turned the whole province into a gar- den. . . . The Mesta not only de- populates Estramadura, but also the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, where the sheep destroy the country in their passage, preventing the farmers from enclosing their lands according to their natural rights." — Dillon's Nat. History of Spain. London, 1782. Page 57, &c. 264 PROGRESS OF LEARNING. reacting supplied that capital, which the many improve- ments necessary to double its productiveness, required. Thus, while surrounding nations were exhausting their resources in perpetual wars, Spain, by cultivating the arts of peace, under the Saracens, became almost entire a garden, sustaining an immense population,* and a bene- ficial commerce with the whole Arab world. j* Learning thrived, for there was industry and wealth with which to reward its professors. There the wild tales and songs | of the desert received the polish of the aca- demy. Philosophy of the Aristotelian school gained the * " The pious indifference of go- vernments, founded on Islamism, never having permitted anything in the shape of a census, it is impossible to estimate, with any degree of cer- tainty, the number of their subjects. We merely know from Conde, that besides the capital, and the six pro- vincial chief towns, Toledo, Merida, Saragossa, Valentia, Seville, and Tadmir, they reckoned eighty second- rate, and three hundred third-rate towns, without mentioning villages, and towers, and strongholds, that were innumerable. Far from being diminished by the fall of the Ommi- ade empire, this mass of inhabitants was further increased by the invasion of the Berbers ; and we shall find the Almoraride Yussouf boasting that in his vast states of the Magreb and Spain, the cJiotbaJi was received for him from nineteen thousand pulpits." — St. Hilaire, vol. VI., pages 148- 149. t I can find no statistics of this commerce, except in general terms ; that it was immense. The reader has already been made acquainted with the success of the Arabs in naviga- tion and commerce. The Phoenicians were called sea-faring Arabs [Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., page 146) ; or a more correct statement would be, that from an early period the Arabs of the Red Sea acted in concert with the Phoenicians of the Mediterranean. The compass, and the skill in this art which they exhibited when Vasco De Gama reached the Indian Ocean, was the continuation of the commerce of a remote antiquity, as is evidenced by the very large Arab population of Ceylon. This ancient commerce was extended as far to the westward as their conquests reached. X "A branch of literature in which the Arabs have preserved an indisputable superiority, is the tale, or novel." — St. Hilaire, page 185. " The art of music acquired among the Arabs a regularity which it never attained among the Greeks." — Ibid. "We shall not attempt to pass in review the poets — a volume would not suffice." — Ihid., page 181. PROGRESS OF LE AR]S"I]SrG. 255 pre-eminence in Mahometan universities.'^ Grecian authors, translated into Arabic/j- were familiar studies. Rhyme was first introduced by them into the highest order of poetry,J and the models on which the first romances were built, were clearly Arabian. While sta- tistics, geography, and history § were carefully studied, treatises upon agriculture |1 and the arts show, too, that the practical, as well as the speculative, also attracted atten- tion. The encyclopsedist Avicenes^ indicates likewise * Under the memorable caliphate of Al-Mamon, Aristotle's philosophy was introduced and established among them ; and from them propagated, with their conquests, through Egypt, Africa, Spain, and other parts. As they chose Aristotle for their master, they chiefly applied themselves to that part of philosophy, called logic. — Britannica, vol. II., page 186. f "He [Al-Mamon] sent for all the best books out of Chaldea, Greece, Egypt, and Persia, relating to physic, astronomy, cosmography, music, chro- nology, &c., and pensioned a number of learned men, skilled in the several languages and sciences, to translate them into Arabic. By this means, divers of the Greek authors lost iu their own country and language, have been preserved iu Arabic. From that time Arabia became the chief seat of learning ; and we find mentioned by Abulpharagius, Pococke, D'Herbelot, and Hettinger, of learned men and books without number." — Ibid., vol. II., page 185. % "The modern Arabian poetry takes its date from the caliphate of Al-Rachid, who lived toward the close of the eighth century. Under him poetry became an art, and laws of prosody were laid down. Their com- parisons, in which they abounded, are taken, with little choice, from tents, camels, hunting, and the an- cient manners of the Arabs." — Ibid., page 186. § " Statistics — a science so recent in Europe — and geography, were also successfully studied by them." — Ibid. page 186. "Among the different branches of human knowledge, one of those that were most zealously cultivated by the Arabs in Andalusia, was history. Their great superiority over the con- temporary Spanish chroniclers, con- sists in their giving us a deeper in- sight into the familiar life of people and kings." — Ibid. II " The number of Arabic works on agriculture, would alone prove to what a high degree of perfection the art had been brought in Spain." — Ibid., vol. VI., pages 138-144. 1[ " Avicenes, after his death, en- joyed so great a reputation that till the twelfth century he was preferred, for the study of philosophy and medi- cine, to all his predecessors." 256 PROGRESS OF LEARNING. how largely we are indebted to the East for the rudi- ments of our knowledge. Under these propitious influ- ences, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and navigation obtained a high degree of development, as is evinced by the use of Arabian authors in the schools of other countries.* From their over-crowded universities and workshops scholars and artisans wandered throughout barbarous Europe,-]- under various flimsy disguises, in search of employment and wealth, while Christians, like Roger Bacon and Calvert, equally thirsting for the know- ledge the Peninsula possessed, repaired to the halls of Cor- dova, as to the highest existing school in which it could be acquired. * " His [Avicenes'] works were the only writings in vogue in schools, even in Europe. The following are the titles : — " 1. Of the Utility and Advantages of Science — 20 hooks. " 2. Of Innocence and Criminality — 2 hooks. "3. Of Health and Remedies — 18 hooks. "4. Means of Preserving Health — 3 books. " 5. Canon of Physic — 14 books. " 6. Astronomical Observations — 1 book. " 7. Mathematical Sciences. "8. On Theorems ; on Mathemati- cal and Theological Demonstrations. " 9. Arabic Language and its Pro- prieties. " 10. On the Last Judgment. "11. Origin of the Soul and the Restoration of Bodies. " 12. The Ends we should propose to ourselves in Harangues and Philo- sophical Argumentations. " 13. Demonstration of the Colla- teral of Spheres. "14. Abridgments of Euclid. " 15. Finity and Infinity. " 16. Physics and Metaphysics. " 17. Animals and Vegetables. " 18. Encyclopgedia — 20 volumes." Ibid., vol. II., page 688. t It is hard to comprehend the depths of barbarism to which the people of Europe were reduced by the feudal system — when the serfs were contented with a filthy sheepskin, and a sty for a dwelling ; while the castles of nobles exhibited such scenes of filth that it was charged, as ex- travance, against the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he actually changed the straw upon his floors daily ! For the use of such barbarians, cathedrals, minsters, and churches were built according to the most per- fect systems of Arab architecture. The idea that the Goths had any knowledge of architecture, is absurd. DISSEMINATION OF LEARNING. 257 Their mathematicians first taught arithmetic, algebra. Al Gehra, and trigonometry.* Their attainments in medi- cine caused their doctors also to be eagerly sought for by the princes and nobles of Christendom. Their chemists were highly esteemed, too, as al chemists, particularly in the application of that science to metals. An acquaint- ance with the stars, in which they surpassed all others, was then considered of the first importance -j: — the study of nativities and the future of children being considered an unquestioned science. Their architects, artisans, and engineers found ready employment, too, wherever a min- ster, a cathedral, or even a fortress,^ was to be built. Yet was their religion held in such abhorrence by all the neighboring states, that, whenever their improvements or inventions came into general use, they were severally accredited to some Christian impostor, for it was not safe to admit the true oris-in of these inventions. * " Physical and mathematical J " Gibraltar, which is utterly sciences may be reckoned among the valueless in the present political true claims to glory of the Arabs, organization of Europe — its harbor Our system of numeration practised being commanded by the Spanish lines by them -was communicated to the of St. Rock, and its own batteries com- West by the learned Gerbert, who manding nothing" — Pillars of Her- had studied at Cordova. Algebra owes cules, I., p. , — " was of the utmost its name to one of their mathemati- importance, as one of the two links cians. Trigonometry, cultivated by that bound Africa to Spain. We the Arabs, is indebted to them for its have already seen that, in its present present form." — St. Hilaire, page form and shape, it is entirely Moorish, 195. or Arab ; the English works being f " Astronomy was especially their merely restoration ; that is, this won- study : the obliquity of the ecliptic, der of the world, the fortress of Gib- the annual motion of the equinoxes, raltar, is the work of the Arabs." and the duration of the tropical year, The next fortress in importance is were all ascertained by them." — the Alhambra, not as celebrated, but Idem., pp. 196, 197. a not less wonderful work. 17 :^oi EFFECTS OF THIS CIVILIZATION. This condition of affairs was at best unnatural, and became continually more so as the number of fugitive new Christians* disguised Saracens, increased ; a result that followed every success of the Castilians, as it contracted the territory occupied by the Arabs or Moors. Thus the moral and intellectual stagnation, which idolatrous and sensuous worship superinduces, was constantly disturbed from without by the introduction of new ideas. If their natural influence was unfelt in Castile, or rather unheeded there, in the midst of Moorish wars, it none the less smouldered for centuries in the more distant parts of Europe, until it burst forth at last, as a new civilization, restoring the spiritual worship of the Almighty.-]* * This name, given to converted Moslems and Jews of Spain, was also an epithet. It was well known that there was usually no sincerity in these conversions. They were most often compulsory, or resorted to, to avoid violence. The richest harvest, in blood and treasure, reaped by the Inquisition, was among thenew Christ- ians. It was not difficult to establish against any new Christian of wealth a charge of secret practice of his for- mer faith, which was a sufficient ground for a confiscation of goods, if not of death by torture. t The connection between an idol- atrous conception of the Deity and mental stagnation — such as charac- terized heathen nations and the Ro- manists, before the Reformation, is not sufficiently weighed. We find almost all the arts, dignified with the title of discoveries and inventions of the fifteenth century, to have been in common use among the Egyptians as early as the building of their rock tem- ples. Some, like the manufacture of glass, and even the chemical combi- nation of colors, seem to have reached a more perfect state then than they have since attained. Others again were but half developed; while still others were only in their crude state, when the lethargy and idolatry super- induced seized upon the intellects of men, and all progress ceased. This law of unchangeableness is equally true of China and of India, from the very establishment of their paganism. The same is true of Greece, even, excepting the arts that spring from idolatry and voluptuousness — painting and sculpture. So was it with modern Europe, until the alleged discoveries of the fifteenth century unsettled men's intellects, and burst the bands of " sublime repose" in which Rome delights, and can only ORIGIN OF IIISTOKIES OF MEXICO. 259 We have thus fully dwelt on the character of the Spanish Arabs, that the reader might see at a glance the mine from whence the fabulous histories of Mexico were drawn. There Fernando de Alva, the quadroon, obtained the material for transforming his mud-built village of Tez- cuco into the fabulous empire of his pretended ancestor, Nezhualcoyotl. The pictures Cortez drew of the Court of Montezuma were but clever parodies on that of Cordova or Granada. Moorish tales, interwoven with extravagant Indian legends, form our Spanish histories of the Aztec empire, as we have already noticed ; and yet these works Anglo-Saxons have heretofore received as authentic. Even the standard historian of America, Robertson, waxes eloquent in reflections on the alleged burning of Cortez' ships, and the pretended self-denial of Charles V. in the convent of St. Just.* Without scanning at all the cha- racter or position of his monkish authorities, without ascertaining whether they wrote under constraint or not, he seizes upon the colors already mixed by their unscru- flourish. The first inquiry, in rela- manca papers, which the Inquisition tion to modern civilization, should be, has so carefully preserved, he exhibits not what Christian invented such and himself more brutish than human, such arts already in common use while nominally withdrawn from among the Moors of Spain, but to state afi'airs for the restoration of his what race belonged, at that date, the health ! The fiendish method of pun- chemists, the schoolmasters, and ar- ishing the detected Lutherans he sug- chitects of Europe ? Were they not, gested, seems so to have endeared him in fact, new Christians ? to the authorized historians, that they * This prince must be considered represent him in the midst of his de- solely as a statesman ; whether he baucheries as a paragon of Christian really had any religion except such virtue, and this Presbyterian minister as policy suggested, is one of the eagerly seizes upon the fiction to turn things that will probably remain for an elegant period." ever undetermined. From the Sa- 260 FAILURE OF MAHOMET ANISM. pulous hands. Brilliant tints are laid on, without measure, whenever the word Christian or Spaniard occurs, until they shine like the decaying carcass of a dolphin. Moor or Islam never fails to excite denunciations of polygamy^ and the false prophet, as if these were worse than the license that pervaded the Greek and Romish nations of that era, or than the habitual practice of imposture which constitutes the staple of Romanism. Seven hundred years of hostility between Moor and Spaniard originated a depth of hatred that totally disqualified the latter for bearing testimony against his former enemy. " The his- torian of America" should have been aware of this ; and that this continent owes nothing to the Spaniard. Its gains have resulted from his blunders or his crimes. But from the Spanish Arab it acquired the cultivation of rice, cotton, sugar, indigo, cochineal, saffron, and dates ; besides a whole pharmacy of medicinal plants,* and the manu- facture, too, of silk, cotton, woollen, morocco-leather,-|- * " It is certain we owe to them f Silk, cotton, and cloth manufac- most of our spices and aromatics, tories had been established in all as nutmegs, cloves, mace, and other parts of the kingdom, and the Arabs matters, the product of India. We were especially renowned for their may add that none of the gentle skill in dyeing leather and stuffs, purgatives were known to the Greeks, " The most industrious nations of and first introduced by the Arabs as modern Europe have not yet succeed- manna, senna, rhubarb, tamarind, ed in imparting to their embroideries cassia. They likewise brou|^ht sugar and their silk, gold, and silver stuffs into use in physic, where before only the solidity, elegance, and perfection honey was used. They also found which we admire, after the lapse of the art of preparing waters and oils two centuries, in the product of the of divers simples, and by distillation ancient manufactures of Spain. Ly- and sublimation." — Britannica, vol. ons, Nimes, and Paris have never II., page 186. possessed manufactures comparable " Many terms, still in use, are to those which formerly existed at purely Arabic, such as syrup, julep, Toledo, at Granada, at Seville, and at &c." — St. Hilaire, vol. VI., page 194. Segovia." — St. Hilaire. INDEBTEDNESS TO MOSLEMS. 261 paper,* with numberless other gifts, the common propert}' of Christendom.-j- In recounting the many benefits we have derived from the European Arab, we have to add one of vital import- ance in the art of war — gunpowder.^ Doubtless it was of that imperfect quality which now is and has been in use among oriental nations for many centuries ; and we may, perhaps, claim the credit of improving its quality to such a degree, as to enable us to dispense with the match- lock and other awkward contrivances. But in military engineering we must ever confess our obligation to the Saracen, so long as the fortifications of Gibraltar and the ruins of those of Algeciras remain ; while the monster balls there found,§ are of the size, modern experience has * " Lastly, the paper manufactured at Mecca, from the year 88 of the Hegira, was introduced into Spain in the twelfth century, and the Span- iards substituted linen for cotton, which the Arabs had used." — St. HiLAiRE, vol. VL, p. 144. f We must not forget to notice the famous Damascus and Toledo blades, which are a standing evidence of the success of the Arabs, in that difficult process in metallurgy — re- fining steel. In their civilization we miss but one branch of the fine arts — the delineations of the human form by either painting or sculpture ; because to this Moslems are conscientiously opposed. It is to Italy, the centre of European idolatry, that we must look for this art. % The battle of Cressy furnishes the earliest instance on record of the use of artillery by European Chris- tians. The history of the Spanish Arabs carries it to a much earlier period. It was employed by the Moorish king of Granada at the siege of Beza, 1312. It is distinctly noticed by an Arabian treatise, as ancient as 1249, and Casiri quotes a passage from a Spanish author at the close of the eleventh century, which describes the use of artillery in a naval engage- ment of that period between the Moors of Tunis and Seville. — Pres- COTT. I Though I had been at Algeciras on several occasions, I now for the first time visited the walls. * * * To the north they are more remark- able. The material of these walls, not the building, is the marvel. One mass twelve feet thick and twenty- five feet high, and thirty long, has fall- en fifty feet without breaking. While 262 THE ARAB IN MEXICAN HISTORY. proved to be best adapted to the defence of fortified positions. Thus all that we can boast of over the Spanish Arab is, that we have perfected some of his inventions. This is our claim to superiority, in sjDite of the Komish traditions incorporated with our primary text-books as facts of history. But light breaks in upon us daily -since Spanish despotism has ceased to withhold the records of the past. So much has already been unveiled as requires the preliminary chapter of every liistory of modern civilization to begin with that of the Arabs of Spain, and to claim its adoption as the starting point of the narrative, despite the prejudices that attach to the much abused name of Moslem. But in our case this voyage to Europe and the east has been unavoidable. We have but followed the hardly concealed footsteps of those monks, who were licensed to turn the expedition of Cortez into a holy war, long after the event. They have compelled us to run through the whole cycle of Spanish civilization during the sixteenth century : that the true origin of their fables might be made transparent. The story of the Cid, as we have seen, is fitted to a new character, in the person of Cortez, without any regard to the inaptness of the dramatica jpersonce, or the unfitness of the drapery. The burning of his boats in the harbor of Gibraltar was half examining these masses I observed hundred pounds. The governor was In the water large globes, and thought kind enough to permit me to have it at first they vrere urns, but on closer carried away- — indeed he offered me inspection they proved to be shot, one still larger from the store of the und I found one twenty inches in artillery ground. — Pillars of Hercules, diameter, and weighing about seven vol. I., page 49. AN APOLOGY. 26< the victory of Tarik. It assured the wavering among the Spanish malcontents., of his determination never to desert them," while it deprived the triumphant Gothic cruisers of a certain prey. In transferring this unparal- leled act of heroism to the new world, it becomes one of foolhardiness, without even a plausible motive. Thus we might run over the whole series of events that have been borrowed from Spanish Arabian history, fable, and song to adorn that of Mexico, where they are as much out of place as they would be in a war with some grand Indian confederacy on our north-western frontier. And still we must linger in Europe. We must trace the rise and progress of the Castilian race until it plants its footsteps in the new world, and then we again cross the ocean, with our materials arranged for the actual history of the war of the conquest. Before closing this chapter, the status of our literature suggests an apology is necessary, for having opened it in conformity with the, now neglected, rules of history — that we should try and snatch something from the wreck of antiquity. In other countries, the standard of history has been steadily rising for centuries ; but with us, it has been so lowered, as to sink every other qualification in the single one of turning faultless periods ; and a gentle- man possessing this, has been adjudged fully capable of purging the annals of Spain and her quondam colonies, from the mass of modern fable and forgery which now disfigure them. Incapable of submitting Cortez' statement -to the test, he assumes it to be true, even in those parts where it is impossible. Unable to detect the counterfeit 264 AN APOLOGY. in Diaz — he pronounces him "the child of nature/' but does not on the testimony of this natural child reject the still more monstrous falsifier, Gomora ; but adopts them both, according to the custom of novelists ; and not the slightest objection is raised. Then descending lower and still lower; disregarding alike the warning of Lord Bacon "a credulous man is a deceiver,"* and of Tacitus fingunt simul creduntque'-^ — he rakes up even a devotee, Boturnini, and makes him also an historic authority, without over- taxing public credulity; though this wretch, as we have seen, out-Munchausens Pietro himself, and as he may have surpassed every other man in Spain in drawing the long bow, was justly selected for historiographer, at a time when death was the penalty for possessing a book not licensed by the Inquisition. Thus are discarded and disgusting impostures brought uj) from the literary cesspools of Spain to form for us the history of events that transpired on this continent hardly more than three hundred years ago ! * De Augmentis. Book I. Cap. I. page 47. f History, book 1, 51. CHAPTER VII. THE ORIGIN OF THE CASTILIAN" RACE ; THEIR PROGRESS TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA ; AND THE EVENTS THAT IMMEDI- ATELY FOLLOWED. Pelagius and Zimines found the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, 265 — Bene- fits resulting from their revolt, 266 — Cause of Moslem decay, 267 — Decline of the Castilian race, 269 — Christopher Columbus, 271 — His character, 271 — Quintanello introduces Columbus, 273 — A vindication of King Ferdinand, 273 — Disappointments benefit Columbus, 275 — The motives that sustained him, 276 — The Atlantic crossed, 277 — The Indian population, when disco- vered, 278 — The enslavement of the Indians, 279 — The efi'ect of slavery on the Indians, 281 — Columbus returns successful, 282 — Traces of civilization first discovered, 283 — The builders of these temples or chapels on truncated pyramids, 285 — Origin of the idea of Indian civilization, 287 — The apology for returning, 288 — The efi'ect of this last discovery, 290 — Discrepancies in narratives, 291— The allegation of Indian idolatry, 292 — The island of Cozu- mel, 292 — Ruins on Cozumel Island, 294 — A temple found in a deserted district, 296 — The extinct race of Yucatan, 297 — Barter for gold and ob- serve picture writing, 299 — Human sacrifice, 301 — The end of Grijalva's expedition, 802 — Sociedad Mexicana, 303 — Don Juan Antonio Llorente, 303. We have now to deal with a third race that, within the historic period in Spain, has risen to eminence, occu- pied a commanding position, and sunk into decay. The modern Spaniard — the Castilian, a scion from the de- cayed trunk of the Spanish Goth — is to be our theme. Pe- lagius, to avenge upon a fellow-Christian the wrongs of his sister,* excited the Basques to insurrection, and with their * Numatius, otherwise called Mag- "For Pelagius, having a fair and nuza, a Christian by profession, but lovely sister in his house, this Mag- serving the Moors, and by them made nuza grew in love with her, and governor of Gigion. fearing he should not obtain her, she (265) 266 LEON, NAYARRE. assistance established the kingdom of Leon. Zimines,* of a noble Gothic house, about the same time founded that of Navarre. The emancipation of these two states from Moorish dominion was followed by those of Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia — kingdoms whose condition was one of perpetual hostility to the Moors. The tolerant and liberal administration of Andaluz, the son of Musa, drew all, whether Christian or Moslem, desirous of peace and good government to him ;f while those who were dis- contented, in debt, or dazzled with the prospect of rich spoil, fell away to the Christian princes. Such were the elements of the feudal population of Spain. The incessant forays of these Christian borderers into Moslem territory, and the dread they inspired, did more to consolidate the heterogeneous elements of the new caliphate, than all that the combined influences of a mild government and religious toleration could effect. For these reasons the Arab dominion in Spain continued long after it had succumbed to Christian rule in Italy, Sardi- nia, and Sicily ; and long after the Tartar Moslem had subverted the Saracen empire in Syria, Egypt, and being wise and -well bred, her brother f " The city of Toledo, among being in the country, he resolved to others, had seven churches granted give him a commission to go to the them for the exercise of their reli- great Admiral Musa, in embassade gion. Moreover, it was granted that to Cordova, during which voyage he they should have judges of their own [Magnuza] forced this gentlewoman." religion and nation, and be governed Grimshaw, page 169 (C). by the laws of the kings of the Goths, * " At that time such as had re- with other privileges. By this means tired, and preserved themselves in the the Moors retained an infinite num- Pyrenees, Navarre, and the high ber of Christian families, which lived county of Arragon, began to stirr ; and multiplied under them, else Spain who chose Garcia Zimines for their had been left desert." — Ibid., page head."— Ibid., page 170. 168 (I.) CAUSE OF MOSLEM DECAY. 267 Libya * The progress of the CastiUans and their con- federates, in population and in arms, Httle more than kept pace with the declining number of the Moslems. In fact their hostility was, to a certain extent, a real advan- tage to the Arabs, by gradually contracting their force within a narrower and narrower space, as their numbers diminished from natural causes. Thus they were kept constantly in a compact body, and compelled to employ every art of civilization to obtain a livelihood within so limited a territory. There could scarcely be found two races more instinct- ively repugnant to each other than the Arab and the Celt-Iberian, who unitedly formed the Moslem and also the Christian^- population of Spain. The Moorish ele- ment afterwards introduced,! added a third discordant stock. Religious enthusiasm was their sole bond of union. It overrode their mutual aversion; and likewise a natural * "About the year 756, at which met's sect, but a good number of time there were great troops of Turks them were Christians. For it is not beginne to disperse themselves over credible that the Africans, who were all Armenia, the which did overrunne made subject unto the Arabians a and spoil the Sarrazin's country." — little before their passage into Spaine, Ihid., page 244 (F.) borne and bread in the Christian reli- The reader will recollect that Sala- gion, and under Christian princes, din, who conquered Jerusalem from should so soon have changed their the Crusaders, was not a Saracen, but religion." — Ibid., page 168. a Turk. % "Besides the formal invasion of In fact, it was the cruelties of these the Miralmumin of Morocco, there barbarous Turks that gave rise to the was a continuous migration from Crusades. As long as the Caliphate Africa into Spain, both of those who had the power, it protected the Chris- wished to aid their brethren in their tians from them. contests with the Christians, and those t " They hold it for certain that all also who were attracted by the supe- the Moors, and other Africans which rior advantages the Peninsula held past into Spaine, were not of Maho- out." — Grimshaw, passim. 268 CAUSE OF MOSLEM DECAY. law, the foundation of that repugnance. The Arab, whose heated blood had run in one uncontaminated stream from the days of the patriarchs, intermarried with the fair-complexioned Iberians, who from those of Japhet had dwelt beneath a colder sky, and inhaled the humid at- mosphere of Europe. The offspring of these unions, like that of the Castilian and North American Indian, was unnatural — ^more liable to disease, shorter lived, and less prolific than the unmixed blood of either race. Like the product of some engrafted trees, which exhausts the germ of both races in producing one brilHant specimen.* The Spanish account of the disappearance of the Peninsula population, both Christian and Moslem, by the pestilence of 1348, is an absurd idea. That plague could not have destroyed forty millions of people, however disastrous^ it may have been. In reality, the disappearance of the Saracens from Europe, Asia, and Africa, is to be explained by their organization ; they were simply a religious sect united under a political organization, and not a nation. With them the state was a composite of fragments of nationalities ; and it of necessity became extinct as soon as the natural laws, violated in its formation, came to enforce their penalty in sterility and premature decay. At the siege of Granada, in their last agonies they are invested with a dreamy grandeur ; but thereafter disappear in * In the present volume, as well as It is a key to the disappearance of in another often referred to, I have divers families of mankind, as. vrell so frequently pointed out the perni- as of races of animals and plants, cious effects of the intermixture of f This subject has been fully dis repugnant races, that it will not be cussed in a note to the last chapter, necessary further to discuss it here. DECLINE OF THE CASTILIAN RACE. 269 forced conversion, exile, and slavery. Theirs was a thou- sand years of life, and an utter extinction. As the Saracen passed away, the Castilian rose in the zenith; shone brilliantly there, and then declined also. Now he, too, is sinking beneath the horizon, on this con- tinent at least. His most luminous hours, were but the reflection of that shining but eccentric race, whose place his rule apparently suj^plied. There was from the begin- ning much of the whited sepulchre in the Castilian. Besides the petty despotism of his barons,* and pseudo- miracle-working priests, security of life and property was also wantingf — with no unbelievers to devour, society would have fallen to pieces, had not the conclusion of the Moorish war been followed by the Inquisition. This institution bound all together in its serpent folds, and filled every pore with its poisonous slime, while thrust- ing its fangs into the national vitals. It thus became the common bond of unity, and the focus of Spanish power ; and when it ceased to exist, the nation on either side of the Atlantic fell into a political chaos. The present race has nearly completed the cycle of a thousand years — who next shall enter into the Peninsula, and take possession ? Who shall succeed the worn-out children of Castile ? Systematically bad in everything, they still performed * We cannot, in the compass of a nearly resulting from the king claim- brief note, enumerate the various ing the right to hear an appeal from immunities of the Spanish nobility, a decision of a baron in relation to or the difference in their privileges in his own serf. the different states of the Peninsula. f There was, of course, the usual It is sufficient to say of those of Ara- insecurity to life and property, which gon, they were nearly absolute mas- characterized all countries subject to ters of their peasants; a rebellion feudalism. 270 Isabella's ambition. important functions in the wise designs of Omnipotence. Their cruelty and bad faith drove multitudes of the neio Christians'^ to seek a shelter among the hitherto barba- rous nations of Northern Europe, and to spread every- where their civilization. The ambition of a usurping princess, Isabella, led her to patronize the great and good Columbus. Her lust for dominion was not to be quenched by gratification. She was Queen of Catalonia, Aragon, and Sicily, by her marriage with Ferdinand; Queen of Castile by a successful usurpation of the rights of her niece Joanna, the daughter of Henry IV. ; and she obtained the crown of Navarre by fomenting insurrection against her husband's sister. It is true, she offered each of the unfortunate queens a compensation for their lost kingdoms, in the person of a husband — her own son, then in his swaddling clothes V\ Her designs on Portugal * Neither party in Spain placed late ambassador at Constantinople, any confidence in Jews and Moslems, the most learned archaeologist of our ■who became Romanists from neces- day, that none of the old Greek race sity. They were everywhere fleeced now remain, and that those who speak and ill-treated, as persons beyond the modern Greek are descendants of the protection of Spanish law. barbarians who broke into the East- When learned men and artificers ern Empire, of this hated race scattered them- f The treatie with Portugal runs selves over Europe, they took good thus : " 2dly. That hee [the King of care, as we have seen, to conceal their Portugal] should sweare not to marrie origin. Hence the futile attempts to Donna Joana, his niece, who called conceal the truth about the revival of herself Queen of Castile and Leon, learning in Europe, after the con- " 3dly. That she being at that time quest of Granada, by alleging it eighteen years of age, should choose was the result of the conquest of one of three things within six months, Constantinople. The barbarians who that is to say, to forsake the relem of constituted that empire spoke only a Portugall without having ayd, means, bastard Greek, while the learned men or any assistance from Don Alphonso, of Spain were far better Greeks than or if she would tarrie there still, then any then in the country of the Pelasgi. to marrie John of Castile, who teas It is the opinion of Mr. Marsh, bur neioly horn, when he should come to CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 271 were unsuccessful, and the child she was so willing to barter for a kingdom died. In her sorrow, she turned to the realms of the unbelievers. Granada was con- quered, and its inhabitants enslaved. Then, as the Peninsula afforded no longer scope for her ambition, after she had set up an Inquisition* and a censorshi|), she readily entered into the schemes of the noble-hearted Genoese — Columbus. It is an agreeable duty to turn from the contemplation of a woman without natural affection, to dwell, even for a little time, upon the noble character of that truly good and great man, Columbus. He was nature's nobleman. His childlike simplicity and sincerity strangely contrast with the duplicity of the courtiers who surrounded him. The few kind words of the Queen made her appear to him age, or else to enter into one of the five orders of Religious of Santa Clara in Portugall. [The system of self- tortures, practised by this order, I have set out in a former volume — Mexico, &c.], and if she should con- sent to marry Prince John, she should live and remain in the mean time in the company of the Duchess of Vi- seo." — Grimsha-^v, p. 875 (F.) Like a sensible woman, the unfor- tunate queen preferred to endure the life of a nun of Santa Clara to mar- rying a suckling. So also with Cathe- rine of Navarre. * A great deal of special pleading has been practised to ascribe the in- stitution of the Inquisition to the mistaken piety of Isabella; the true motive being a criminal desire to pos- sess unlawfully the goods of subjects more righteous than herself; like her namesake, the wife of Ahab, King of Israel — doubtless as much a saint at Tyre as Isabella was at Rome. " And because the Inquisition brought great profit to the king's cofi"ers in Castile, of the goods of the Jews and Moors, which were revolted to their foolish superstitions, it was decreed that like proceedings should be used against them in Aragon, and judges appointed to make definitive sentence. One of the sayd commis- sioners had like to have been slayne by those manner of people on a morning in the church of Saragossa, which gave them occasion to enquire more diligently of those who were faulty, wherein choler, greediness of gain, and desire to fill the king's cofi'ers made them greatly to excell." — Grim- SHAW, p. 927 (C.) 272 HIS APPEARANCE AND EMPLOYMENT. an angel of light. If we look at the character of Isabella, from any other point of view, we are half inclined to adopt the epithet of the Jews and Morescos, " Isabella the accursed," but this one bright trait almost tempts us to assume the language of her licensed panegyrists, and receive her as the " sainted Isabella." We care not what her motive was for doing a good act, we recognise only her timely aid ; it preserved a noble character, and a still more noble enterprise, from sinking into obscurity. Columbus pleaded long and earnestly, it is true ; but he always had one willing listener, and fortunately that one was a Queen of Castile. Of the many eloquent discourses written of this world's benefactor, few have been more aptly said than the simple remark of our quaint chronicler : " Hee [Columbus] was a man firm and constant in what he undertook, strong and able of travaile, severe and chollerick, bigge of limbs and stature, redde-faced and fall of pimples."* The casu- alties of a seafaring life had left him upon an island dis- tant from his native country of Genoa, where he gained a livelihood by making charts of the ocean. This very employment, calculating parallels and meridians for his charts, must have suggested to a thoughtful mathemati- cian the true idea of the earth's form, an idea almost evolved by his necessary equations ; so that the story of the ship of Biscay first bringing information of the New World, was probably one of the pious frauds invented for those who could not comprehend the force of a scientific argument. ^ Grimshaw, page 918 (F). QUINTANELLO INTRODUCES COLUMBUS. 27^ Nor must we forget a just tribute of praise to Alphonso Quintanello,^ who first brought Cokimbus to the notice of the courtiers, and not either until he had taken him home to his own house, and carefully examined his pro- posed plan of adventure. Thus it is always : a scheme resting on scientific deductions — as we must regard that of Columbus — requires a cultivated mind to comprehend as well as to invent it. It was the good fortune of our hero to find the right patron in the right position, one who understood and to whom he could communicate sci- entific discoveries, who was, at the same time, relied on by those who could not comprehend them. The Cardinal of Spain, and divers others of the king's council, on the strength of QuintaneUos introduction, brought the humble adventurer into the royal presence, " where he was sundry times heard discourse, in so much as his speech began to please, and the king promised him ayd and employment for the discoverie of a new world, so soon as the warres of Grenado were ended. In this manner Columbus, full of hope and courage, did constantly persue, for the space of six whole years, the effects of the kings promise, till at last it was performed. "-|- It is the custom to portray Isabella as a warm-hearted saint, and her husband the complete contrast to that cha- racter. These sketches are all copies from one picture, drawn at a time when she had established in Castile both an inquisition and a censorship, with absolute jurisdiction over literature. We must judge princes and statesmen by their acts, and not by floating gossip, without reliable * Grimshaw, page 918 (E). f Grimshaw, page 918. 18 274 VINDICATION OF KING FERDINAND, authority. Adopting this standard, we find Ferdinand possessed some vague notions of morality, and discover that he was influenced by motives unknown to his more unscrupulous and ambitious wife. Their conduct in relar tion to the affairs of Navarre is strikingly in point. The events of his early life seem to have impressed him with the importance of royal integrity. A civil war of ten years had resulted from his mother's poisoning his elder half-brother, the heir to the crown of Aragon. This crime had opened to him the succession to that kingdom, almost desolated by the war it induced. The protracted struggle of the confederate malcontents, which resulted in bringing Isabella to the throne, had placed Castile in a similar condition,* and Xavarre was even in a worse state of demoralization. The Portuguese hostilities were scarcely ended,f when the w^ar of the conquest of Gra- nada began. All had been engendered by a criminal ambition in which he played a secondary part. That he put off Columbus from time to time, though listening to his arguments with pleasure, was perhaps from his belief that the scheme would but open new and distant theatres of trouble, and in the end impose fresh burdens * It cannot be supposed that I dying, they proposed to crown Isa- can give the history of the war of the bella ; but she, more artful, compro- malcontents in the compass of a mised for the succession — the nation single note. The turbulent nobles, being on the side of the king. The who abused the confidence of the treaty with her brother she violated good-natured Henry IV., broke out in marrying Ferdinand, into open rebellion when he had no f The Portuguese war was the more towns and jurisdictions to be- result of an alliance between the de- stow upon them ; and took the king's throned Joanna and the King of Por- brother, Alphonso, and crowned him tugal. king in Henry's lifetime. Alphonso DISAPPOINTMENTS BENEFIT COLUMBUS. 275 upon an exhausted treasury. The Inquisition might reUeve the embarrassments of Isabella, for the new Christ- ia7is and infidels of Andalusia were rich -, but this newly invented instrument for enhancing the revenue could avail him little among the poor Moors * and almost inde- pendent nobility of Aragon.f In continual straits for money to sustain his position, he appears cold and heart- less compared with his ambitious, but less calculating wife. It was Isabella, therefore, to whom Columbus had ultimately to turn for patronage. We must pass over the detail of the many rebuffs ex- perienced hj Columbus during six long and weary years ; trials, perhaps, necessary to discipline him for that great success with which Providence designed to crown his efforts. The Portuguese had failed to effect any dis- covery, even after possessing themselves of all the facts that he had collected. This result did not by any means discourage him; it simply demonstrated that he had * " The emperor commanded the the Jews. They were all rich mer- Inquisitors to subject the Moors of chants, while scarcely one [rich mer- Aragon to the same laws as those of chant] in five thousand was found Valencia, and they were baptized among the Moors. Occupied in the iciiJioui resistance^ in 1526 ! cultivation of the ground and the care "In 1530, the Pope gave the In- of their flocks, they were always poor. quisitor-General the necessary power Sometimes workmen of singular in- to absolve all the Moors of Aragon as telligence, talent, and address were often as they should relapse into here- found among them." — Llorente sy and repent, without inflicting any (abridged), page 41. Philadelphia, public penance or infamous punish- 1847. ment. The motives expressed in the f I have already referred to the bull for this conduct were, that they quasi-independent character of the were much sooner converted by nobility of Aragon. These turbulent gentle means than severity. It is people submitted with a bad grace to natural to inquire, why a different the Inquisition, consequently it was policy was adopted with respect to comparatively mild there. 276 Columbus's voyage. given to India too broad a space upon the globe, and assigned too little width to the Atlantic. Thus the das- tardly attempt to cheat him of his deserved honors, proved really beneficial. Even that experimental voyage failed to convince him of the greatness of the Atlantic. So when at last he proceeded upon his long-contemplated course, the difference of the observed and calculated dis- tance was such as required all his native constancy of character to meet. But the recollection of his six years' buffeting, and the promises he had made to the king and queen, enabled him to strengthen the minds of his com- panions, and to prosecute it to the end. In his circum- stances, to return was total ruin. To continue, was by no means so surely disastrous. With all the Christian virtues Columbus displayed, death itself must have ap- peared less dreadful to him than an unsuccessful issue. Let us fancy this noble Genoese, night after night, pacing his little deck, agitated with all those emotions that would have overwhelmed an ordinary man. Success would bring renown above the praises of kings, and he, perhaps, might be the instrument of conferring the bless- ings of his religion on distant tribes of the human race. Should he turn back, not himself alone, but the "cause of the church" might suffer from his neglect. These were the motives that sustained him, week after week, against the advice of his officers and the mutinous spirit of his men, when they urged him to abandon his enterprise. He had ventured his all upon this single cast; success alone could justify him, and demonstrate to the world THE ATLANTIC CROSSED. 277 that he was not the mad enthusiast his opponents had so often represented, but " a good Christian." The voyage was protracted, as is often, even now, the case in those zones of the ocean, known to seamen as the " horse latitudes." Two months and eight days passed before signs of land appeared. How joyfully welcome these were to the mariners, the author, who has been three long months without such signs, can well appre- ciate, if he cannot adequately describe them. But what must they have been to Columbus ! Well may he have thrown himself upon the earth, and embraced it. We almost wonder that reason had not altogether lost its dominion, at the accomplishment of this object — the greatest success that had ever attended human enter- prise. The sailors even forgot the trials and suffer- ings they had endured for such an unheard-of length in that era ; and these were by no means trifling. The vessels were inadequate, their supplies insufficient and unsuited to so long a run. Besides whatever other evils they suffered, scurvy annoyed the healthy, and aggra- vated every ordinary disease. Some were even courting death as a relief from suffering, and few expected any other termination to their enterprise. To those in the company unfamiliar with a seafaring life, this was one of peculiar trial. In addition to their other sufferings they had to endure the same ennui, that afflicts the traveller of our day in the same latitude. There are, it is true, occasional diversions furnished by the ocean's inhabitants, and the mirage, which a cloudless atmosphere, aided perhaps by a heated imagination, locates in the distant 278 INDIAN POPULATION. horizon. Ejes, wearied with the daily routine of vision, fancy sometimes the appearance of rivulets and water- falls amid green fields and forests, with a background of snow-capped mountains. It is a scene more refreshing to the imagination, than the reality ever can be to the senses. But the relief it furnishes is short-lived indeed : while the wanderer gazes the whole is suddenly rolled together, as the sun disappears. Then his tantalized lips sharply remind him of his allowance of water. If it is thus in our days, and under favorable circumstances, what were the sufferings of the first voyagers across the Atlantic ? We can hardly conceive them. When these privations had reached their utmost limit of endurance, when discontent amounted almost to mutiny, and the days of forbearance were nearly expired, Rodrigo de Triane from the lookout shouted — Tierra! A new world was in sight. The Atlantic had been crossed. All their suf- ferings were turned to joy. The India for which Columbus had crossed an unknown ocean, he never reached. The discovery of America was a miscalculation. A mistake fortunate for the world, and exceedingly fortunate for himself. Of this error he re- mained in ignorance to the last. He died in the belief that he had reached the Orient by his western voyage. Hence the name applied to all Spanish America, main land as well as islands — West India. The inhabitants of the islands of this new India were more degraded even than the northern savages ; they resembled the almost naked islanders of the South Seas, and failed not to excite the disgust of the Spanish adventurers. As the South ENSLAVEMENT OF THE INDIANS. 279 Sea inhabitants, they lived on the almost spontaneous productions of the tropics. They were but a feeble folk, at bestj and sparsely scattered over a large territory. As among other savages, of their offspring barely enough survived parental neglect to supply the original stock, and the constant drain of intestine war. Such a popula- tion may increase in numbers, as we have seen, but only after they have ceased to be savages. Were we to rate the whole population of the West India islands at one hundred thousand souls, at the time of their discovery, those familiar with Indian characteristics would call the estimate extravagant; and so it would be, fifty thousand being nearer the reality — perhaps more than the actual number. Europeans, it will be recollected, came in contact with these islanders nearly one hundred years before either Canada or New England was settled. They found them, too, a feebler race than the aborigines of the adjacent continent. Spanish cruelty is assigned as the cause of their extinction. But that cannot be ; for the Hurons no less rapidly melted away under the excessive kindness of the French. The intense excitement created in Spain, in consequence of the cruelties charged to have been inflicted on a few Indians in these distant islands, is strange to notice ; for at the same time the most shock- ing enormities were daily perpetrated unchallenged upon the wealthy Morescos at home. The extermination of a million or two of educated and refined Moors in Spain was as nothing. in comparison to the enslavement of a 280 ORIGIN OF THE CONTROVERSY. thousand or two savages in the West Indies !* And at this very time besides, kidnapped Africans were suffering equally on the same island, and without exciting either any commiseration ! The real cause of this apparent shock to the moral sense must be sought in the rivalries of the Dominicans and Franciscans, and in the angry passions of those who ranged themselves under their respective banners. The Dominicans,*|' whose duty it was to preach the extermination of all heretics, by fire and sword, then upheld the cause of humanity, but to Indians only. While the Franciscans — holding the popular doc- * '• An amnesty was granted to the Moors, on condition that they came to solicit it ; and many took ad- vantage of the permission. To pre- vent emigration, the king remitted the penalty of confiscation ; but the Inquisitors, by means of the impene- trable secrecy which it always pre- served, rendered the benevolent in- tentions of the sovereign of no avail. They did not publish the briefs of indulgence granted by the Court of Rome, knowing that a great number of the relapsed would take advantage of them. These people, not being aware of their privileges, were condemned and burnt. These examples of cruelty increased the hatred of the Moors for this sanguinary tribunal, and were the cause of many seditions, which, in 1609, led to the entire expulsion of the Moors to the number of one million of souls ; so that, in the space of one hundred and thirty-nine years, the Inquisition depi-ived Spain of three millions of inhabitants — Jews, Mores, and Moors." — Llorente's History of the Inquisition, translated and abridged, page 42. Philadelphia, 1847. f " Dominick, a canon of Osma, relying not much upon disputations and reasons, persuaded all princes and their subjects to arms, as being the most expeditious means [for extir- pating the Aibigenses] ; for the which he was put into the catalogue of saints. It was he which brought in the order of Preaching Friars." — Grimshaw, page 345. " St. Dominic also established an order for laymen. This order has been designated as the Third Order of Penitents ; but most commonly as the Militia of Christ, because those who were members of it fought against heretics and assisted the In- quisitors in the exercise of their func- tions, they were considered as part of the Inquisitorial family, and on that account bore the name of Fami- liars." — Llorente (abridged), page 13. EFFECT OF SLAYERT ON THE INDIANS. 281 trine of the immaculate conception, which the Domini- cans denied — assumed the defence of the colonists. So that " what the long pipes proposed the short pipes op- posed," is the probable solution of the terrible tempest which this controversy excited. And so the Hieronomite gentlemen,* who were appointed to investigate the affair, seemed to consider it. The Dominicans got decidedly the advantage, however, by enlisting on their side the good but blindly-zealous Las Casas. But whatever the motive of this heated controversy, the Indians of the main land, who escaped the first stage of servitude, were the real gainers by it. By the new laws, to which this discussion gave rise, their burdens were materially lightened, yet, fortunately for them, they were still compelled to labor. In their new, they were more prolific than in their savage state ; and their children were better cared for. From that time we are to date an increase of the aboriginal population of Spanish America, an increase that has been steadily progressing to the pre- sent time. It is even supplanting the white and mon- grel races, and now doubtless outnumbering the abori- ginals of the era of Columbus. To be a great reformer, a man must be possessed of but one idea — such a man was Las Casas. As an abolitionist, there are none in our * This is an order of monks, con- conveys a Saxon idea ; and so is sisting almost entirely of gentlemen, cleanliness. But a devotee is almost Their number is, of course, limited ; always filthy in his person, as he is and have the credit, which the un- in his conceptions. To believe half ■washed monks never had, of being their own people say of them, would really what they profess to be — gen- degrade humanity. " Satan's militia" tlemen and Christians. would seem to express the idea of Godliness is a Saxon word, and those they oppressed. 282 COLUMBUS RETURNS SUCCESSFUL. day equal to him in fiery denunciations, or the reckless use of the superlative and hyperbolical. From his forty millions of Indians destroyed by the cruelty of the Span- iards, we must deduct the trifling sum of thirty-nine, at least ! There never probably existed forty millions of savage races at one time on our globe. The acts he himself professes to have witnessed we cannot doubt. But those which he repeats on the authority of others, we may well hesitate to believe, considering how sadly the whole Spanish world is given to the magniloquent So much for this good man. We cannot resist an inclination to return and follow Columbus on his homeward voyage — to the scene of his triumphal entry into the presence of the majesty of Spain. He had left it an adventurer. At his return he was more than the equal of royalty. He brought assured tidings of a new world, whose nations were yet to rise and bless him; and of a continent abounding in precious metals. The cold and calculating Ferdinand received him gra- ciously, the queen in ecstasies, while popular ovations placed him in the rank of heroes. But in the midst of all this demonstration of joy by a proverbially treacherous nation, the noble Genoese bore his laurels with the same dignified gentleness, that had characterized him in times of bitterest disappointment. His was a mind, that not only rose above discomfitures, it could not be conquered by success. Again he sets forth for the new world, loaded with royal favors, the adulation of courtiers, and the shouts of the multitude ; but to return a prisoner, and in irons. Such are the uncertainties of royal favor, when TRACES OF CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED. 283 seconded by the applause of the crowd. Again and again he repeats his voyage, but circumstances were changed. There were no new worlds to discover. From necessity, he sank into the humble surveyor of an unknown coast. If his son Diego was more fortunate, he had married into the royal family, and obtained as dowry, rather than as an inheritance, the government of the island of San Domingo, to which Cuba was made subordinate. Other adventurers followed in the path of the Admiral. Cuba was conquered and settled by Velasques, then a lieu- tenant of Diego. The Spanish main was ravished by par- ties in quest of Indian slaves. Upon the Isthmus an estab- lishment had been formed at Nomhre-de-Dios or Darien. Bilboa had already discovered the South Sea, or Pacific. At this point in the drama of American civilization — 1517 — a second act opens. A new party of adventurers, in three small vessels, sailed out of the Havana, under the command of Cordova. They commit themselves to the guidance of Providence on an unknown sea, and by chance discover land at Cape Catouche, where a Phoe- nician station had, doubtless, been maintained three thousand years before, as was evident from the adjacent chapels now in ruins. The sight of these products of a civilized race caused great astonishment to our voyagers, as it was the first time since the discovery of America, that any such traces had been found on this continent. Though totally unqualified to determine the origin of the structures before them, the first impression of these adventurers has passed for a demonstration among the learned. It has been universally received 284 TRACES OF CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED. from that day as a correct solution of the great problem of American archoBology; as proof that struc- tures exhibiting the highest grade of art were the work of a race htirdly superior to South Sea islanders ! Subse- quent discovery, and whatever other evidence has been reached, has been warped to conform to this foregone conclusion. As these adventurers beheld upon the walls of deserted temples the hloody Tia7id,^ and the further re- presentation of priests in the act of offering infants to the cross and to the mask of Saturn,-]- they at once concluded them to be the emblems of human sacrifices actually offered by the existing race, whose cabins were located near the ruins. Once possessed of this idea, the Spaniards found no difficulty in alleging facts to suit their theory. Such is the origin of those blunders into which American antiquarians have fallen; they have adopted as entire and undisputed facts the hasty conclusions of ignorant men! * " Over the cavity left in the the image of the departed inhabitants mortar by the removal of the stone, hovering about the building." — Ste- were two conspicuous marks, which phens's Yucatan, vol. I., page 177. afterwards stared us in the face in all The reader can see at once, that the ruined buildings of the country, this " bloody hand" is more likely to They were the prints of a red hand, have been stamped upon these an- with the thumb and fingers extended cient ruins by savages than by the — not drawn or painted, but stamped original builders. The same red paint by the living hand, the pressure of which they use upon their own faces, the palm upon the stone. He who in time of war, would be amply suffi- made it had stood before it alive, as cient for the purpose, we did, and pressed his hand, moist- f The allegorical ornaments at- ened by red paint, hard against the tached to the heads and to the nose stone. The seams and creases of the of one of these infants are, of course, palm were clear and distinct in the meaningless to us. It would require impression. There was something a familiarity with the mythology of lifelike about it that waked up ex- this lost race to explain them, citing thoughts, and almost presented BUILDERS OF THE TEMPLES. 285 That the Yucateco Indians were savages is clearly evident from the description of Diaz himself, who says — " These Indians wore a kind of cloak made of cotton and a small sort of apron, which hung from their hips half-way down to the knee, which they termed mattatesj^ We found them more intelligent than the Indians of Cuba, where only the women wore a similar species of apron made of cotton, which hangs down over their thighs." A strange reason for calling them more intelligent ! These are the people to whom is attributed the building of such mag- nificent structures as the temples of Copan, Palenque, Uxmal, &c. ! Besides idols " made of clay," Diaz pro- fesses to have found " wooden boxes, containing other of their gods with hellish faces, several small shells, some ornaments, three crowns, and other trinkets, some in the shape of fish, others in the shape of ducks, all worked out of an inferior sort of gold ! Seeing all this, the gold, and the good architectural style of the temj)les, we felt over- joyed at the discovery of the country."-]* This inferior sort of gold may have been iron pyrites wrought into imaginary resemblances to the forms mentioned above. As for gold in Yucatan, that is entirely out of the question, as it is exclusively a limestone formation. For the idols "made of clay" there is more difficulty in accounting, than even the carved statues. The author has personally examined a very large number. They appear all of one type, to have had an allegorical charac- ter,J and to be very ancient. With much hesitation we * Bernal Diaz, voL I., page 4. % The author first came in con- t Ibid., voL I., page 5. tact with this peculiar species of idola- 286 BUILDERS OF THE TEMPLES. have ventured a theory that they are the produc- tion of a race, intervening between the civihzed builders of the temples, and the savages who now crouch in their shadow. There are among them females with allegorical ornaments, tortoises, crocodiles, and serpents with human heads, and images formed of strange combinations with parts of different animals, seeniing to indicate the work of a people in a transition state. Fourteen days' sail further to the westward brought our voyagers to other "edifices which were strongly built of stone and lime, and had otherwise a good appearance. [Phoenician chapels or small temples on truncated pyramids.] These were temples, the walls of which were covered with figures representing snakes, and all manner of gods. try, at the city of Mexico. His first impression, on seeing them, was to conclude that they were the work of the Aztecs ; and that the religion of those Indians was allegorical. But subsequent investigation leads to the conclusion, that it is the relic of an older race. The specimens to be found at the city of Mexico, were doubtless brought from these ruined chapels of the Phoenicians. The reason why the Inquisitors would order them to be thrown into the gutter, is manifest — the fear that they might recall pagan ideas to thelndians. " My landlord had two boxes of such images, collected when they were cleaning out one of the old city canals. By way of parlor ornaments, we had an Aztec god of baked earth. He was sitting in a chair ; around his navel was coiled a serpent ; his right hand rested upon the head of another serpent. This, according to the laws of interpreting allegories, we should understand to signify that the god had been renowned for his wisdom ; that with the wisdom of the serpent he had executed judgment ; and that his meditations were the profundity of wisdom. And yet this allegorical worship, defective as it may have been, was superseded by the adora- tion of a child's doll — one that had very possibly been worn out and thrown from a nursery, and perhaps picked up by some passing monk — was made the goddess of New Spain, and clothed with three petticoats — one adorned with pearls, one with rubies, and one with diamonds, at an esti- mated cost of 13,000,000. Which was the least objectionable superstition ?" — Mexico and its Religion, page 118. IDEA OF INDIAN" CIVILIZATION. 287 Round a species of altar we perceived fresh spots of blood.* On some of the [representations of] idols were figures like crosses [vide AsMerotli and Tier emhlem,'] with other paintings representing groups of Indians."']' Making a little allowance for the want of intelligence in these discoverers, there is little difficulty in identifying the above description with the cross-scene portrayed on the walls of Palenque. "All this astonished us greatly, as we had neither seen nor heard of such things before."-]* The mistake or misrepresentation of these people was the foundation of that impression which now went abroad, bearing that this peninsula was not only inhabited by civilized Indians, accustomed to human sacrifice, but abounded also in mines of gold — the idea that gold might be produced from ores was not then altogether exploded. With due allowance for SjDanish exaggeration, and the inducements to misrepresent, it may still be safely assumed that at the time of the discovery of Yucatan, ruins of temples abounded in what are now its more settled portions. The supply of water always to be found near these ruins was an attraction, not only for savages to build their cabins near them, but also for those Castilians, who thought it a merit with heaven that they converted heathen temples into materials for perpetuating their own superstition. This is most probably the foundation too of the fabled Mexican civilization, idolatry. * The reader will find n&- diffi- blood," most probably meant nothing oulty in identifying the scenes of Pa- more than the blood-red paint of the lenque in these deserted chapels, scat- Indians, tered along the coast. " Spots of f Lockhart's Diaz, vol. I., page 7. 288 APOLOGY FOR RETURNING. and human sacrifice. Even falsehood must have some- what out of which to manufacture details. The -psiYty continued coasting westwardly as far as Potonchan, or Baliia de mala Pelea* where it was resolved to abandon the further prosecution of the voyage, and return to Cuba. The apology for this step is the allega- tion of a terrible discomfiture they received at the hands of the savages, which is thus described : " As soon as daylight had fully broken forth we perceived more troops of armed natives moving towards the coast with flying colors. They divided themselves into different bodies, surrounded us on all sides, and commenced pouring forth such showers of arrows, lances, and stones, that more than eighty men were wounded at the first onset ! We dealt many a good thrust and blow amongst them, keeping up * "Bahia de la Mala Pelea. — The mouth of this river forms part of the bay, which Hernandez de Cor- dova and his companions called, vrith much propriety, de la Mala Pelea, vrhere they suffered so severe a defeat from the natives in March, 1517, when only one escaped unwounded, the captain himself being a victim of the wounds he there received. . . . It gained European celebrity at an- other time, as well the bay as the adjacent coast, from the forests of tinted wood which formerly abounded on its banks, and the neighboring shore. To-day, owing to the prodigal waste with which we have abused this gift of nature, it is found only in the interior of the country. This wood is solid, more firm, and espe- cially more abundant in tints, than that which we find to the leeward of Campeachy, much more than that of Honduras. It began to be cut at an early period, when the service it was destined to yield to the arts was un- known. [It was thus brought into notice.] An English corsair, from Jamaica, in cruising upon this coast, captured a vessel laden with a cargo of this unappreciated wood. It being unfit for combustion, he took it to London, because he was bound there to arm the vessel for privateering. When discharged, the cargo, to his surprise, sold for a great price. Stimulated with this success, a mul- titude of other corsairs acquired the custom of visiting this river," &c. — Boletin de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, page 248. APOLOGr FOR RETURNING. 289 at the same time an incessant fire with our muskets and cross-bows; for while some loaded, others fired." Per- ceiving how closely they were hemmed in by the enemy, that the whole of them were wounded, many shot through the neck, " and more than fifty of our men killed !" the Spaniards determined to cut their way through the enemies' ranks and make for the boats, which fortunately lay on the coast near at hand. This was successfully accomplished. " At that moment you should have heard the whizzing of their arrows, the horrible yell they set up, and how the Indians provoked each other to combat, at the same time making desperate thrusts with their lances. After we had gained our vessel we found that fifty-seven of our men were missing, and five died of their wounds. The battle lasted little more than half an hour !"* The reader will perceive that we have not in the slightest degree overstated the recklessness of Spanish authors in the use of numerals, when they have a purpose to accomplish. Here it was necessary to fabricate an apology which should justify the abandoning of a voyage of discovery, in the full tide of success. Accordingly Bernal Diaz in his "history" kills fifty-seven men and wounds all the rest of the Spaniards in a fair stand-up fight with savages, who had never before heard the sound of a musket ! Cortez' famous battle at Tobasco with "twelve thousand Indians," according to this same author had none killed, and but fourteen wounded,f though it was a threefold battle, including a landing in the face of the enemy on a muddy shore, and * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 11. f md., page 71. 19 290 EFFECT OF THE LAST DISCOVERIES. the successful carrying of two barricades of felled trees. The Indians themselves had but eighteen killed ! Wounded, disheartened, and without water, yet the party had no difficulty in " fetching" the Gulf-stream, and in four days reaching Florida, where they found both an enemy and a supply of water. Afterwards they sailed to Matanzas, and ultimately reached the Havana. Those of the expedition, who got safely back, found some conso- lation for their sufferings in the privilege awarded them of telling marvellous tales of the riches and civilization of the new land they had discovered ; the importance of each, in his respective circle, depending perhaps on the magnitude of his narrative. " Our account of the houses in the newly discovered country, built of stone and lime, had spread a vast idea of its riches, added to which the Indian Melchorego had given us to understand by signs that it abounded in gold mines."* All this created a great desire among the inhabitants and soldiers through- out the island, w^ho possessed no commendaries of Indians, to go in quest of such a rich country ; consequently, in a. very short time, another body of two hundred and twenty volunteers furnished themselves with an outfit, and soon were ready for the second expedition under Grijalva. It need not be added, the shaping of the report of the discoveries in Yucatan was in the hands of those, who were anxious to entice others to embark in a new adven- ture. Like the volatile riches of a gold-quartz vein, w^hose value expands exactly in proportion to the difficulty experienced in persuading capitalists to interest them- * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 19. DISCREPANCIES IN NARRATORS. 291 selves in the adventure, in the most exaggerated form the news was carried to Europe. Thus the minds of men were prepared for the romance growing out of the expedition of Grijalva, without making any deductions from them, and also for the report of the miraculous adventures of Cortez, which succeeded. "We have already stated why there could not possibly be any gold in Yucatan — from its geological formation. But how much there was, if any, among the people, that had passed from tribe to tribe until it reached this coast, it is hard to determine. There may have been enough in the form of rude trinkets to give some color to the statement of its mineral riches. It was, according to the chaplain of Grijalva,* the 1st day of March, 1518, but according to Bernal Diaz, the 5th day of April, that, all things being ready in the har- bor of Matanzas for the sailing of the expedition, and the hour of departure fixed, the whole party attended mass with fervent devotion, and immediately afterwards weighed anchor. On the 4th of March, according to the priest, the expedition came in sight of a tower upon a promontory, opposite Cozumel. According to Diaz, they were ten days in making Cape San Antonio, and eight more in reaching Cozumel Island ; having been carried a little to the south by the currents, but more probably by some error in the ship's reckoning. According to the * The discrepancy here may be as it was published first at Paris, in owing to the circumstance of the 1848, But after all, it is not greater writer of Bernal Diaz not having had than others we constantly meet with access to the journal of this chaplain, among standard Spanish authors. 292 ALLEGATION OF INDIAN IDOLATRY. cliaplain, they now sailed into the channel between Cozumel* and the main land of Yucatan, and coasted Cozumel Island; where, besides the tower which they first saw on approaching the coast, they discovered four- teen more. A canoe from the shore came to them, in which was a chief, who said he would consider it a great honor to receive a visit from the party at his village. According to Diaz, the people fled at the approach of the Spaniards, nor could any inducement they held out prevail on them to return to their homes, or the chief to visit the Spaniards ; and thus, unsuccessful in their efforts to come to an understanding with the natives, they sailed away, taking with them an Indian woman of Jamaica, who, with ten others, had been wrecked on that island. The chaplain further says, the commandant mounted a tower on this island with the standard-bearer, unfurled the flag, and took possession in the name of the king, planting the standard upon one of the faQades of the tower. The ascent to this tower was by eighteen steps ; the base was very massive, one hundred and eighty feet in circumference. " Within were figures, bones, and idols that they adored [?]. From these marks we sup- posed that they were idolaters" [a poor reason]. Then an old Indian came with a pot or vase of odoriferous per- fumes, which the chaplain supposed him burning before the idols — the incense was, more probably, designed as an honor to the visitors ; for Diaz-j* tell us, the Indians at the river Tobasco, " brought pans filled with red-hot * Stephens's Yucatan, vol. II., f Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 22. page 367. ISLAND OF COZUMEL. 293 embers, on which they strewed incense [copal ?] and per- fumed us all." Our chaplain, continuing his narrative, says, the old Indian, as he burned the incense, sang in a loud voice a song which was always in the same tone : " We supposed that he was invoking his idols." Had he known the language, he would probably have understood what it really was — a complimentary welcome to the pale-faces. On so shallow a foundation as this, rests the allegation of Indian idolatry ! Diaz informs us that the island contained three poor villages,* of which the one whose inhabitants fled at the approach of Grijalva was the largest, the two smaller were situated on a promontory, at a distance of nearly six miles. The chaplain states that, the Indians having left them alone at the temple mentioned, they entered the village, where all the houses were built of stone. " Among others, they saw five very well-made houses commanded by small towers. The hase of these edifices is very large and massive ; the building is very small at the top. They appeared to have been built a long time, but there are also modern ones, "f That village, as he calls it, was paved with concave stones. The streets, elevated at the sides, descend, declining towards the middle, which was paved entirely with large stones. To judge by the edi- fices and houses, he says, these Indians appear to be very ingenious ; and if we had a number of recent edifices we should have thought that these buildings were the works of the Spaniards ! J He states, further, that " we pene- * Lockhart's Bernal Diaz, vol. I., % Were not these the Phoenician page 32. " houses of the high-places V •f STEPHEKs'sFMcatow, vol. II., p. 369. ' 294 RUINS ON COZUMEL ISLAND. trated, to the number of ten men, three or four miles into the interior. There we saw edifices and habitations, separated one from another, and very well constructed." So far as these contradictory witnesses agree, and are sub- stantially confirmed by modern research, we are bound to believe them. Let us see, then, how much we may adopt of their statements. Human sacrifice is not now in discussion, for that idea appears not yet to have occurred to either party. With Diaz it was not good policy to suggest it, lest the ques- tion should naturally arise, why did Cortez pass over these wicked pagans to make war only on the Aztecs ? It is simply inferred that the Indians are idolaters, because they followed their custom of burning copal in honor of their guests, in a chamber of a ruined temple, where there were idols still remaining ! The contradic- tion between them, in relation to villages on the island, we can easily reconcile, by supposing those referred to by Bernal Diaz to be villages of huts constructed by Indians, while that of the chaplain may refer to a collection of antique edifices similar to those at Uxmal. As to the modern buildings among them, a thatch placed over a chamber in these ruins, convenient for a dwelhng, would give to it that appearance. Stephens informs us,* that at the time of his visit the whole island was deserted, and overgrown with trees ; except along the shore, or within the clearing around a solitary hut, it was impossi- ble to move in any direction without cutting a path. He identifies the tower visited by the chaplain. It stands * Yucatan, vol. II., page 372. RUINS ON COZUMEL ISLAND. 295 on a terrace, and has steps on all four of its sides. The building measures sixteen feet square. The exterior is of plain stone, but was once formerly stuccoed and painted, traces of which are still visible. South-south- east of this, near an opposite angle, in the clearing, and five or six hundred feet from the sea, stands another building, raised upon a terrace, consisting of a single apartment, twenty feet by six feet ten inches deep, having two doorways, and a back wall seven feet thick. The height is ten feet, the arch is triangular, and on the walls are the remains of painting. The above structures, and all similar ones along this coast, the reader will have no difficulty in recognising as ruined Phoenician chapels, used also for look-out stations. Near these ruins are the remains of a large Eomish church, two hundred feet in length by sixty in breadth, built probably from materials taken from more ancient ruins, but now itself a ruin, deserted from the time the bucaneers drove the Spaniards from this coast. In conclusion, it may be added, the island is thirty-six miles long by six miles wide. The Indian insurrection has led to its re-occupation. It now contains a population of three hundred and fifty * inhabit- * " The island of Cozumel, distant ciently potable, abounding in honey from this [Ascension] Bay thirty and mountain wax, not wanting iu leagues, is the first point to the north- precious woods, such as ebony, ma- east that fixes the attention on this hogany, and above all the holy wood, silent and unexplored coast, distant or guayacan. It was famous, in hea- five leagues from the main land, then times, for its places of adoration of easy navigation, notwithstanding [adotorios) whose ruins even now ex- the strong currents. It is fifteen ist. . . . The abandonment of this leagues in length by five in breadth, island ought to be attributed to the and good anchorage, free from reefs dispersion which the Maya race has on the south, possessing water suffi- sufiered on the continent, leaving 296 BATTLE OF COMPOTON. ants. This is all that probably ever will be known of the famous island of Cozumel, until its ancient history shall be revealed. Let us now follow Grijalva in his sur- vey of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The next stopping-place of the expedition was Compo- ton, where they suffered severely from an assault from the natives. They found the Indians drawn up in order to attack them, with their faces painted black and white, and well armed, according to their custom. When the Spaniards got near enough, the Indians let fly such a shower of arrows and lances that the half of the men were speedily wounded. As soon, however, as they got on shore, they " gave them an evil return" with, match- locks and sabres. Nothing daunted by this, the Indians selected each a man, whom they particularly aimed at with their arrows, but the Spaniards had taken the pre- caution to put on cotton cuirasses, which partially shielded them. " We stayed four days at this place," says Diaz, " and I shall never forget it, on account of the immense- sized locusts which we saw there. It was a stony spot on which the battle took place, and these creatures, while it lasted, kept continually flying in our faces, and as, at the same moment, we were greeted by a shower of arrows solitary that colony in the sea, that from the sanguinary furor of the it might have been the work of a con- dominant aborigines, a new village queror, which has been forgotten, and of San Martin Cozmell [has sprung only visited by some antiquary, or by up, which] numbers to-day a popula- some humble laborer. Not until our tion of three hundred and fifty inhab- unfortunate days has it recovered any itants, established wdth dwellings and part of its celebrity. By offering, if gardens [sembradios.] — Boletin de la not a commodious at least a secure Sociedad Mexicana de Geog. y Esta- asylum to many of our fugitive race, disiica, torn. III., No. 5, page 243. ANTIQUE TEMPLES. 297 from tlie enemy, we also mistook these locusts for arrows. But as soon as we discovered our mistake, we deceived ourselves in another more direful way, for we mistook arrows for locusts, and discontinued to shield ourselves against them" ! * Clearly, then, if Bernal Diaz is worthy of credit, we have an exact measure of the force of an Indian arrow when striking an enemy, viz., equal to the force of a locust flying in their faces ! They next land upon the shore of Terminus Bay, where they find no inhabitants, but temples built of stone and lime, "full of idols, made of wood and clay, with other figures [statues and paintings on the walls?] sometimes repre- senting women, sometimes serpents, also horns of various kinds of wild animals."-]- In the same author's next paragraph we have the important admission that in the time of Grijalva the district was uninhabited, completely establishing our position that the connection of the Indians with these Phoenician ruins was merely accidental. " We had, however, deceived ourselves in one thing, the dis- trict being quite uninhabited. The temples, most proba- bly, belonged to merchants and hunters who, on their journeys, ran into this harbor, and there made their sacrifices."'^ Before bidding adieu to this remarkable peninsula a second time, we cannot forbear dwelling for a moment on the mystery that now envelops that extinct race of civilized men, who made it the seat of their empire ages before the beginning of our profane history. These ruins * Bernal Diaz, toI. I., page 23 ; f Bernal Diaz, vol. I,, page 24. Ibid., p. 25. 298 EXTINCT RACE OF YUCATAN. have not been preserved so well as those of Egypt, as they have had to contend with a more humid climate, and a ranker vegetation. Their pyramidal structures were not so large as those of Central America, nor so high as those of Egypt ; but ruins of magnificent works are more numerous here than in either of the others. Their reser- voirs and artificial lakes, with other skilful arrangements to insure a supply a water in times of drought, are worthy of comparison with the best enterprises of modern times, in that direction. The size and number of these econo- mic works,* the vastness and magnitude of the temples, convey to us an approximate idea of the density and wealth of that ancient people, who, in ages long since for- * It was in 1836, that Senor Trego, conceiving tlie idea that the aguadas, or ponds, of Yucatan were filled up with artificial lakes or reservoirs of the ancients, he obtained the permis- sion of government and the assist- ance of the Haciendors for leagues around, and commenced his experi- ments at the rancho of Voyaxche ; for a portion of the time he had fif- teen hundred Indians employed. "On cleaning out the mud," says Stephens [Yucatan, vol. II., page 211), "he found an artificial bot- tom of large, flat stones. These were laid upon each other in this form, r^ I and the interstices were filled with clay, of red and brown color, of a dif- ferent character from any in the neighborhood. The stones were many layers deep, and he did not go down to the bottom lest by some accident the foundation should be injured, and the fault be imputed to him. Near the centre, in places which he indi- cated, he discovered four ancient wells. These were five feet in diame- ter, faced with smooth stone, not covered with cement, eight yards deep, and at the time of the discovery were also filled with mud. And be- sides these, he found along the mar- gin four hundred pits, into which the water filtered, and which, with the wells, were intended to furnish a sup- ply when the aguada should be dry." The next year being one of scarcity, more than a thousand horses and mules came to this aguada, with barrels on their backs, and carried away water, some from a distance of eighteen miles. Such were the agua- das of the ancient population of this peninsula, now covered with mud and ruins. CASTILIANS OVERTURN ANTIQUE STATUES. 299 gotten, occupied this peninsula. Their antiquity was not so great as that of Central America, but they must have enjoyed a greater prosperity. They had a more salu- brious climate, and a better position in relation to the Eastern Continent — as they had on one side the trade- wind, and on the other the Gulf-stream, to assist them in their ocean voyages. Providence preserved a goodly memorial of their fallen grandeur, until the ruthless Castilian came and overturned every one of their remain- ing statues, defaced their paintings and carved work; and wrought even the very stones of the ruins into new temples to a new madonna, and queen of their own super- stition. Providence seems to have led the Spaniard to this peninsula, to show him the prototype of his own religion, and that he might witness the devastation it had wrought thousands of years before. But the lesson was unheeded ; he obstinately followed his own way to the same bitter end. Again the Indian element is in the ascendant. The Great Spirit is once more adored, and copal is burned at their festivals; whilst strangely enough, the cross and the image of the Virgin still retain their position, as amulets and talismans. As they formerly built their rude cabins beside deserted Phoenician temples, so now they are erected beside the holy places of the Spaniards. The decree of extermination has gone forth, though it has not yet been fully executed. Our voyagers had now passed beyond the limits of Yucatan, and entered the river Tobasco. There they made preparations for a new engagement with the In- dians ; but so disastrous a contingency was avoided hy 300 GOLD PICTURE WRITINGS. timely negotiation. Soon after they resumed their voy- age ; and coasting the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, pass- ed the mouth of the river Tonola or San Antonio, and the Guatsicualco, where they came in sight of the snow- capped Orizaba. Finally they landed at the mouth of the Bandera, or Banner River, where they bartered glass beads and other trinkets, for fifteen hundred dollars'* worth of gold dust. This trade might have proved ex- ceedingly lucrative, had the Spaniards been satisfied with the profits of such unequal exchanges. But in the very next expedition, having killed the bird that laid the golden egg, we hear no more of Mexican gold washings. Here we have the first notice of information being sent, by means of "painted figures," such as savages would doubtless make on felt or cloth of agave, or maguey. Out of this Indian method of communicating intelligence, has grown the monstrous fabric of Aztec picture writings — a species of records that never had existence, except in the fruitful imaginations of literary gentlemen, and the famous impostor, the Monk Pietro. Here Grijalva was again fumigated with copal. Having remained at this * Here we have another instance portunity for a trade would occur, of the utter recklessness with which there not being any city or large town Spanish authors use numerals. In the in the vicinity. Yet this amount is edition of Diaz, which I am using, afterwards referred to, a few pages the value of the gold dust, obtained further on in the same edition, as at this point, is set down at |1500, $16,000 (page 83), and finally we are which, from my personal knowledge, told that the total yield of the voy- I should say was a large sum to ob- age was $20,000, though it does not tain from savages in only six days' appear that afterwards they had any time, when they had no previous no- opportunity for further exchange, tice or reason to expect that this op- HUMAN SACRIFICE. 301 spot six days, they again pursued their voyage, and soon arrived at the island of Sacrificios. It is at this island we have the first intimation that the Indians were addicted to human sacrifice. This charge is made during the voyage of Grijalva. Neither in the former voyage nor in the present one, along the whole coast of Yucatan and Tobasco, had any such charge been brought. It is idle to say the author of Bernal Diaz is not very scrupulous, and that such a fabrication as this would aid his ulterior purpose. The very name of the island is a sufiicient refutation of such an idea. The true explanation is to be found in the native cruelty of all savages, and in the tortures they often inflict on their prisoners of war. The fact that five mutilated bodies were found near the ruins of two ancient temples, or chapels, was sufiicient to suggest the idea of a religious sacrifice, and, when aided by the representation upon the walls of the deserted temples, with which they had now become familiar, to confirm it. Once possessed of this, so many sinister ends would be served by its promulga- tion, that what at first was simply a mistake, became at last a monstrous libel on all the Indian races of New Spain. Diaz thus describes the circumstance : — " We found two houses, which were strongly built of stone and lime ; both were ascended by a flight of steps, and sur- rounded by a species of altar, on which stood several abominable idols [statues], to whom the preceding even- ing five Indians had been sacrificed. Their dead bodies still lay there, ripped open, with the arms and legs chopped off, while everything near was besmeared with blood. We 302 END OF grijalva's explorations. contemplated this sight with utter astonishment, and gave this island the name of Sacrificios."* From this island they removed to the main land, where they were much annoyed by mosquitoes. Ultimately the voyagers passed over to the island of San Juan de TJloa, now occupied by the famous fortress that defends the city of Yera Cruz. Here, too, it is alleged human sacrifice had just been offered — the victims were two boys. But as the statement is without any confirmation, and the character of this little coral island forbids the idea of its ever having been the seat of a Phoenician temple, or a resort of Indians, for their festivals, we must be allowed to doubt the statement altogether. We regard it as the beginning of that series of invented cruelties, cunningly devised, to justify all the enormities committed by Cortez. Here Alvarado was selected to carry back to Cuba a por- tion of the gold they had acquired, and intelligence of the success of the voyage. The voyage was further ex- tended to the mouth of the Panuca, and from thence to the Rio Grande, in which vicinity it was terminated by the failure of its pilots to double a boisterous cape. On their return they careened one of the vessels beside the Tonola river, where they had further success in barter, so as to make the total amount of gold acquired in this adventure amount to twenty thousand dollars.^ The rest of the homeward run being without any impor- tant incident, we shall now bid adieu to Grijalva, who also * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 31. $1500, without any satisfactory rea- t This amount, the reader will no- son. tice, has grown rather rapidly from LLORENTE. 303 disappears at this time from the scene, and is succeeded by the renowned conqueror of Mexico — Cortez. SOCIEDAD MEJICANA DE GEOGRAFIA Y ESTADISTICA. This is an institution hardly to be expected in so distracted a capital as Mexico. It is, however, a very useful one It publishes monthly bulletins, containing reconnoissances of different portions of the Republic. By direc- tion of Santa Anna, Don Manuel Leodo de Tegido collected me a nearly complete set of its numbers, which I have found very useful in correcting my own reconnoissances, and where I have not been personally, it has served as a guide in determining the value of the observations of others. Its statistics are usually only approximations, and are not altogether reliable, as a Span- iard is not very accurate in guessing. DON JUAN ANTONIO LLORENTE, Late Secretary of Inquisition, Chancellor of the University of Toledo, Knight of the Order of Charles III., <&c., &c. This distinguished personage was ordered, by the government of Spain, to complete a history of the Inquisition, from the official records, after that institution had been suppressed. His treatise, being in the nature of au official work, is necessarily dry and voluminous. His object is, of course, designed to vindicate the action of the Spanish Cortes or Parliament, before the church and the nation. It is therefore thoroughly Romish in its character, and undertakes to establish that its suppression was consistent with piety. A Protestant, with the same material, would have produced a very different book. I have, as usual, copied from the most common edition, that my readers may judge whether the quotations are accurate. CHAPTER VIII. CORTEZ INVADES MEXICO. Hernandc Cortez, 304 — A miracle, 305 — Cortez' life in the "West Indies, 305 — Cortez appointed to command an expedition, 309 — Cortez sails from the Havana, 309— Robertson resuscitates Spanish myths, 310— Bernal Diaz, 313 — Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 314 — Antique statues overturned by Cortez, 317 — A muster of forces, 317 — Adieu to ancient ruins, 318 — The battles at Tobasco, 319 — Second and third battle, 320 — A battle in vrhicli San Jago appears on a white horse, 322 — How Cortez converts twenty Indian females, 323 — Landing at Vera Cruz, 324 — Dona Marina, 326. Nine years before the discovery of America, at the town of MedelUn, in Estramadura, the wife of Captain Martin Cortez was made glad by the birth of a son, to whom his parents gave the honorable name of Hernando, Ferdinand. As he grew in years, he proved to be a lad of quick parts and reckless disposition. At fourteen he was sent to the University, where he gave more attention to light litera- ture than to Latin, and made such poor progress, that, at the end of two years, he left,* an unsuccessful student — a mortification to his friends, and a burden to himself. He had, however, acquired there that taste for romance, which, in after time, gave color and tone to his famous letters to the emperor. He remained with his parents a * " He showed little fondness for the great chagrin of his parents." — books, and after loitering away two Prescott, vol. I., p. 231. years at college, returned home, to (304) A MIRACLE. 305 year, exhibiting those habits of profligacy which, at the close of the civil wars, were so common at the Spanish universities, that morality was an almost obsolete idea. The army is the usual alternative for such spirits, and to the army his friends had gladly sent him, but he chose another field ; one subject to less restraint than the camp — the New World. He had sailed with Ovando, but climb- ing to a woman's chamber, the wall gave way and fell upon him, unfitting him for the sea at that time.* This escapade was considered an unusual affair for a youth of seventeen, even in Spain If Two 3'ears later — 1504 — his bruises, but not his morals, healed ; he took, however, his departure, to the great relief of his friends. With this voyage began a series of apocryphal miracles, that checker his whole future career. A reformation was not the first. At the early age of nineteen he seems to have outstripped the healing power of the sacred images. The mishap in his native city in nowise damped his ardor for disreputable adventures, or, in fashionable * Gomora, — for the worst of men in the fifteenth century. Protestants, have chaplains, — says, " to speak with who do not understand the social or- a lady." ganization of Romish society, are " He was scaling a high wall, one shocked at the official announcements night, which gave him access to a of the illegitimate births in the best- lady with whom he had an intrigue, conditioned Romish countries of Eu- the stones gave way, and he was rope. Such statistics simply indicate thrown down with much violence, the poverty of the mass of the people, and buried under the ruins." — Pres- and their inability to employ a priest COTT, vol. I., p. 232. to solemnize their marriages. Many t The standard of morality in Ro- evils, doubtless, grow out of it, but it mish as well as in Protestant coun- is unavoidable ; people will be married tries has been gradually rising from "behind the church," so long as the the "lowest depths" it had reached priest insists upon extortionate fees. 20 106 COKTEZ' LIFE IN THE WEST INDIES. phrase, for gallantry.* His notoriety in this respect, even in the West Indies, was far from enviable ; and yet upon this scapegrace the Virgin is reputed to have lavished her favors. In Protestant countries, the name of the third person of the Trinity is never pronounced but with pro- found reverence ; among Romanists, however, Santo Espi- ritu is used with the same levity as that of any of the saints of their calendar. In this vein we are told, that the master of the vessel, in which Cortez had taken passage, losing his reckoning, a dove, claimed to per- sonify the Holy Ghost, flew from the island of San Domingo, and lit upon the rigging, thus indicating the direction to be taken. Our hero was highly favored by the governor, who readily assigned him a plantation and stock of Indian slaves — repartimientos,-^ conferring upon him also the honorable office of escribano, or civil law notary. But this responsible judicial position did not in anywise prevent his indulging those vices he had brought from Spain, and many an encounter and wound were the result. This was, however, before Protestant morahty had an existence, and long before it made itself felt in Romish countries. Europe had just been devastated by a pestilence, propa- * " The story of his early life now f What the system of task-labor becomes very confused, as is natu- imposed on the Indians was, prior to rally the case with that of any man the new laws, we do not know. There who rises to great eminence, and who was such irregularity in this respect, was connected with some ambiguous that the safest way is to consider transactions." — Prescott. That is them simply as slaves, which doubt- modest ! equal to Gomora — " climbing less was their true condition, a wall to speak to a lady." CORTEZ LIFE IN THE WEST INDIES. 507 gated by popular vices, as our chronicler informs us f' and Spain, the most demoralized of all its states, was at that time a very lazar-house of corruption .■!• The Inquisi- tion, all powerful against the liberties of the countrj^, was unequal to a contest with licentiousness. It undertook to correct the morals of the clergy of Seville, and called upon the ladies there to denounce the crimes of their con- fessors. But this decree excited such commotion it had to be suppressed.J Vice was more powerful than that " ... Over common, then, in Spain, and elsewhere, which never- theless chastise the world in such sort, but that this sinne is at this day more in use than ever it was, to the dishonor of our God, contempt of his laws, and confusion of all good order. The Spaniards, in recompense for this evil brought from the Indies, carried thither the king's evil, and madness by the biting of dogges." — Grimshaw, page 948 (D.) " These troopes of Spaniards, among other memorable matters, brought the great plague into Italy, wherewith they of the country were soon pos- sessed, and did communicate it to the Frenchmen, who were scattered here and there in the kingdom of Naples, and they afterwards brought it on to this side of the mounts [the Alps], and did distribute it to their neigh- boring nations, so as this disease, being indeed of [the West] Indies," &c.—76td., page 952 (C.) f " Great was the king and queen's toyle, in ordering the peace and quiet of the countrey of Andalusia, for the people thereof were so given over to all manner of villanies, as if they had not used their meekenesse and clemencie, the citties and towns would have been voyd, and empty of people, for it is most certain that this year and the former there went of Sevile and Cor- dova above 8000 men, tainted of no- torious crimes, who left the country for fear of punishment. " It happened, about the same time, that Don Rodrigo de Vergera, Bishop of Leon, caused Pedro Vaca, treasu- rer of his church, to be slain in the same cittie, whose death his friends and kindfolkes did revenge by the death of the bishop, who assayled him in his own house. " In the town of Tontourjuna, the inhabitants did kill with stones D. Hernand Gomes de Guzman, great commander of Calatrava, for outrages and tyrannies he had done to them." — Grimshaw, page 872. X " Several scandalous discoveries having been made by private investi- gation, and the public clamor increas- ing, the Inquisition of Seville came to a resolution of which they had reason to repent, that an edict of de- nunciation should be published in all the churches of the province, requir- ing, under severe penalty, those who had been solicited by priests in the 308 CORTEZ MARRIES A WIFE. terrible tribunal, though backed by the whole power of the state. Thus much should be said of Cortez in mitiga- tion. He was no worse than the average of his day ; and neither his vices nor his employments were allowed to consume his entire time. From continued conflicts with his savage neighbors, he became an expert hunter of Indians, and a finished ranger. Thus, in San Domingo, he acquired that knowledge and those methods by which war is successfully prosecuted against the aborigines of this hemisphere. This he afterwards perfected in Cuba, while acting as a subaltern under Yelasquez. He then became a leader of the Cuban malcontents, and was in consequence imprisoned and placed in irons. Notwith- standing two unsuccessful escapes, at last, in desperation, he forced his way into the very presence of Velasquez, with whom he had the good fortune to effect a reconcilia- tion. When the guards came to their master, to announce this third outbreak of their prisoner, they found Cortez actually in bed with Velasquez, At least it is so stated by his biographer and chaplain, Gomora.* Our hero now married a lady whom he had formerly jilted — an act gratifying to Velasquez — and again devoted himself to a plantation life. After receiving the grant of an estate near Santiago, he became a magistrate, or alcalde, of that confessional to criminal intercourse, riod of denunciation until it extended or who knew of it having been done, to one hundred and twenty days. The to give information to the Holy Office priests were thrown into the greatest within thirty days. In consequence confusion, the peace of families was of this intimation, such numbers broken, and the whole city rang with flocked to the Triana that the Inqui- scandal." — Montanus, 184-188. sitors were forced to prolong the pe- ••■• Gomora, Chron., chap. 4. CORTEZ SAILS FROM THE HAVANA. 309 city. There we must leave him for a season, having run over the prominent points of his biography, to return to Grijalva and the survey of the Gulf coast. The result of the expeditions of Cordova and Grijalva had not damped the spirit of speculation in Velasquez. Before the return of the second, the note of preparation for a third was sounded. Dissatisfied with Grijalva's apparent want of energy, he turned, but not without hesitation, to Cortez, whose daring and restless spirit had so much disturbed his government in Cuba. The present enterprise, though fitted out like others, as a joint com- mercial speculation, it was designed to turn into a military one, if the royal permission could be had. The man Velasquez selected for his captain was a bolder spirit than even he anticipated. One who fully understood, that royal favor waits upon success ; and that kings never reject the sovereignty of rich provinces, however irregularly acquired. The value of present gold to an embarrassed emperor, and promises of further aid, he argued, would blind him to any trespass upon his rights. This well known weakness of princes led him, even without a license, to put to sea. He even sailed from the Havana in contempt of an official prohibition. It was the part of a desperate gambler, and he won; but he probably would not, if the alternative of punishment had not goaded his resolution. Steering his little fleet in the track of Grijalva, it was carried by the accident of currents, or a misreckoning, to the south of Cape Catoche, so that the land was made inside the island of Cozumel, and there begin the adventures of Cortez. 310 ROBERTSON RESUSCITATES MYTHS. "We called the discovery of Yucatan and its ruins the second act in this drama. The third now opens before us^ more unreal in its facts, than the Arabian tales them- selves, yet was it once received as history ; subsequently discarded as a myth, and sinking into contempt,* near the close of the last century it was resuscitated by Robertson, a Presbyterian minister ! Not content with the injury done to the cause of godliness, by aiding that of patronage, he travelled to Spain in search of religious heroes to exhibit still further his proclivities. In his hands, the gluttonous Charles V. dies almost a saint, and a pattern of abstinence.f Next the musty records of a discarded imposture are hunted up and adopted as historical verities, though those "who have resided long in New Spain, and had visited every part of it," assured him, there was not in all its extent, any monu- * Robertson, and other persons, The only evidence we can have on equally ignorant of the operation of this point is and must necessarily be Spanish institutions, have inquired purely negative. The argument run- hovf such statements could possibly ning through Dupaix' notes, combat- pass uncontradicted. ting a disbelief in ancient Aztec civili- There are tveo kinds of contradic- zation, clearly indicates that such tion : one in private circles and in unbelief generally existed. general terms, which is soon forgot- f " His appetite was excessive, ten ; the other in detail, which must rivalling that of Louis XIV., or Fre- be in writing, to have any effect. To derick the Great, or any other royal have done the latter, in regard to a gourmand, whose feats are recorded book that had received the ghostly in history. The pertinacity with which license, would have cost the contra- he gratified it, under all circum- dictor a roasting at a slow fire, an stances, amounts to a trait of charac- uuto defe. ter." — Prescott's Charles V., vol. The intelligent people of Spain and III., p. 367. Mexico fully understood the character of their published books. ROBERTSON AS AN HISTORIAN. Ill mentj or vestige of any building, more ancient than the conquest.* The honorable position of Robertson and the example of so prominent a divine became contagious. It was followed, among historians, by eulogies on the Romish missions, while the more successful efforts of Protestants in the same direction, were entirely ignored. The author, in his wanderings, has seen much of the missions of both professions, and in every instance he has found the same marked distinction between the two creeds, as between Protestant and Romish Europe,f or the prosper- ous villages of New England, and the squalid abodes of Lower Canada.^ Having sacriiEiced the best interests of * Note 154 to Robertson's America. — Robertson wrote before the sur- veys of Phoenician ruins, by Dupaix, ■were known in Europe. He was con- temporary with the Jesuit Clavigero, but had the start of that impostor. f After hearing an account of the wretched condition of our own tribe, the Massasaugus, before their con- version, I had occasion to visit their village. A simple-hearted Methodist preacher had been there before me, laboring for many years. He was a pattern of godliness and industry ; and his labors had not, by any means, been in vain. Instead of vermin and rags, and every other filthy abomina- tion, which I had been led to expect, I found the people clothed, and in their right minds. I have never, be- fore or since, seen so neat and orderly an Indian village. I felt proud of my adopted kindred. Shortly after this I chanced to be amongst those Iroquois, who were converted to Romanism in the time of James II., and led away by the Je- suits to Lower Canada, and planted at St. Regis and Cochanawagali. I remonstrated with the agent at his allowing them to remain in such bar- barism and degradation. His reply was. It was not his fault ; he had often established schools among them, but the priest had uniformly broken them up. The contrast between the Stockbridge Indians of Wisconsin and the Pottawatomies of Kansas, I found equally striking. I speak of the Indians of the full-blood. And I call every experienced traveller to witness if I have over-stated the case the scruple of a hair. X The whitewash on the huts of the French peasants give them a fine appearance at a distance, but within all is a blank, except in a few villages of Protestant converts, where all is cleanliness and thrift. 312 PtOBERTSOJN" AS AN HISTORIAN. his own church, Dr. Robertson devoted — is it possible ! — seven years of his life* in weaving an apocryphal history * What could the man have been about all that time ? An agent would procure all those books and MSS. in three months ! The point we make against Robertson is, that he discard- ed the testimony of living witnesses, whose character he himself endorses, and adopts in their stead, as historic authorities, the cast-off literary fabrica- tions, concocted under the supervision of Inquisitors ! Mr. Prescott having obtained copies of the most important Simanca papers, of Ximenes' collec- tion, supposes them a new discovery, of great value. Doubtless they are ; his agents did not fail to represent them to him in the most exalted terms, to enhance the value of their services according to the Spanish custom. The misfortune of Mr. Prescott, first and last, is his inability to make a personal research, so that we can derive no benefit from his integrity and excellent personal character. Here is the difficulty we encounter in all his literary labors. He has to take things on trust. Cardinal Ximenes [Jimines] was not only Regent of Spain before the arrival of Charles V., but was also Inquisitor-general of the kingdom, and one of the most blood-thirsty of that whole race of monsters. " During the eleven years of his ministry (which ended with his death, 1517), Cisneros (Ximenes) permitted the condemnation of 52,855 individu- als, 3564 were burnt in person, 1232 in ef&gy, and 4832 suffered different punishments. Although the number of executions is immense, yet it must be acknowledged that Cisneros had taken measures to relax the activity of the Inquisition." The motive of this is explained on the same page, and by the same author. " Ximenes de Cisneros began to exercise his new employment [Inquisitor-general], on the 1st October, 1506, when the con- spiracy against the Holy Office had become almost general, on account of the events at Cordova, of which the Council of Castile took cognisance. All its members who had been of the party of Philip I., signalized them- selves by their hatred against the In- quisition. This aversion made Xime- nes de Cisneros feel the necessity of conducting himself with extreme cau- tion, that he might not give occasion for a general convocation of the Cortez, which would have deprived him of the high office of governor of the kingdom, which he then possess- ed." — Llorente (abridged), page 35. This is the monster who had him- self written down a great statesman, and a patron of literature ! And so he appears in the pages of Prescott. This wretch became so immensely rich, by his Inquisitorial plundering, that to reinstate his p^opularity he fitted out a powerful ai^nada against the Moors of Africa at his own ex- pense. This is the founder of the Samanca collection of papers. Any one who will carefully examine them will see that hardly a single paper has been put into this collection that does not, in some way, reflect glory on the BERNAL DIAZ. 313 from a collection of monkish tales, whose alleged facts a careful examination would have shown to be physical contradictions. The manuscripts and printed books necessary to the task, required an expenditure rather of money than of time. But he seems wholly to have neglected to investigate the influence of Spanish despotism upon its literature ; otherwise, we should have to charge the reverend compiler, with concealing the circumstances under which those narratives upon which he relies were written — whose authors were little more than the aman- uenses of Superiors, Qualificators, Inquisitors,* and Royal Councillors. We pointed out these difiBculties when treating of the annals which purport to be written by Bernal Diaz, in which there are striking marks of the counterfeit instead of the common soldier. Though exceedingly minute in church, or show the royal approval of this nation According to of the Inquisition. the bulls which created the holy office, The monk, Strada, must have con- the bishops are joint judges in the suited them in the composition of his affairs which depend on that tribunal, history of the Low Country Wars. See Why then have these natural judges pages 3 and 6 (Stapleton's Transla- of all discussions which may arise on iiora, London, 1650), though he does matters of faith and the morals of the not call the papers by that name, faithful, no part or influence in the The Glanville papers are not alone prohibition of books and the choice his authorities. of qualifiers?" — Report of King's Robertson's convent life of Charles (Charles IIL) Procurators to the V. is almost literally taken from Council of Castile. Strada. He hoped it was true, as it "In the year 1558, the terrible law exactly answered his purpose, ena- of Philip II. was published, which bling him to wind up his history with decreed the punishment of death and a pious flourish ! confiscation for all those who should * "The abuse of the prohibitions sell, buy, keep, or read, the books pro- of books, commanded by the Inqui- hibited by the holy office." — Llorente sition, is one cause of the ignorance (abridgment), Secretary to the Iiiqui- which prevails over the greatest part sition, page 44. 314 BEENAL DIAZ. detail, its statements are often irreconcilable with each other, with those of the chaplain of Grijalva, as lately published, and the unsuppressed portion of Cortez' letters.* The work would fain seem to have been Avritten designedly, to snatch from the last some of the glory he had assumed, which justly belonged to his companions.f But the real effect is, in truth, to sustain in its more credible parts the narrative it assails, which was then manifestly falling into contempt.J Thus he says '-for everything in which he [Cortez] concerned himself went well, particularly in regard to making peace with the tribes, or inhabitants of these countries. This the reader will find fully confirmed in the course of my history."§ But we may safely follow Diaz in unimportant particulars, as the work appears to be a digest of former publications and manuscripts to which that author seems to have had access, and presents a fair picture of the Romish superstition, as personified in its champion. Let us now consider Cortez as a religious reformer ! But * The reader must bear in mind sent Marquis del Valle, the son of that the published letters — or des- Cortez, and not to His Majesty the patches of Cortez, as they are called king." — Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 42. — ^begin with the second of the series ; % He is equally bad whenever he the first being wholly suppressed, writes about the magnitude of the So, too, Las Cases' account ends with towns, and number of the inhabi- the landing of Cortez at Vera Cruz. tants ; in which, whenever it suits f " With him [Gomara] every him, he does not, for instance, hesi- circumstance is made to turn to the tate a moment to put eight thousand, glory and honor of Cortez, while no for eight. In the same way he men- mention is made of the other brave tions the extensive buildings we were ofDcers and soldiers : but, the par- stated to have commenced. — Ibid., tiality of this author is sufficiently page 39. seen from the circumstance of his § Ibid., vol. I., page 57. having dedicated his work to the pre- CORTEZ REFORMING THE INDIAN" RELIGION. 315 such only among Indians. He begins his career of apostle- ship to the Virgin, according to Diaz, at Cozumel, among the ruined Phoenician chapels — on truncated pyramids.* By means of a Jamaica Indian woman, who had wandered thither, and one Malchorego from Cape Catouche, he induced the Indians to return to their homes, and soon a loving intimacy sprang up- between the two races. One * Mount Sinai is a naturally truncated pyramid in the chain of Horeb. Whether the worship on "high places" existed before the ad- vent of Israel, or whether it arose from an idolatrous desire to imitate the scenes of Sinai by Israelites themselves, as the Mass does that of the New Dispensation, must be left to conjecture. Certain it is, that the worship of Canaanites, Phoeni- cians, and of idolatrous Israelites, had this common characteristic — that it was offered on high places. In the time of David and Solomon, Jehovah was irregularly worshipped upon these " high places ;" and the fair construction of 1 Kings iii. 4, and 1 Chron. i. 3, is that the taber- nacle of Moses was pitched upon "the great high place" at Gibeon, as it could have been pitched upon that of Cholula, or Copan. To draw the people from this wor- ship on high places, seems to have been one of the motives for building the temple at Jerusalem. But it seems to have resulted in their being turned to the idolatrous uses to which the Canaanites applied them. These high places may have been of three kinds. 1. Natural hills, shaved off and truncated, like Cho- lula ; 2. Artificial truncated mounds of earth; and lastly, artificial mounds of stone. On the top of each there may have been a chapel ; and within the wall that enclosed this sacred structure, were doubtless the houses of the priests and the religious — "the houses of the high places." The sacred groves, too, may have been planted within this enclosure ; and the name sacred grove may have been applied to the whole establishment, including pyramidal buildings, as well as trees ; for nothing but stone can be reduced to powder by burning and stamping, as in 2 Kings xxiii. 6, 15. All this can be clearly made out from the present appearance, and the early Spanish accounts of the sacred pyramids, chapels, and buildings about them in Yucatan. There was nothing of this sort at the city of Mexico, when the Spaniards arrived ; and the fact of their locating one there, clearly proves that they must have had an original out of which to fabricate so exact a copy. It is these pyramidal chapels, and their surroundings, which more than all else we identify as strictly Phoeni- cian. 316 CORTEZ REFORMING THE INDIAN RELIGION. morning the Spaniards discovered the place where the abominable idols — the antique statues ? — stood was covered with Indians and their wives. They were burning a species of resin — copal ? — " which very much resembled our incense, after which an old Indian mounted to the top of the temple and preached a sermon to the Indians" — this was probably some annual festival. Cortez, through his interpreters, learned the substance of the discourse, "and that all lie had heen saying tended to ungodliness •" whereupon he ordered the chiefs and principal men into his presence. After informing them they must give up sacrificing to these idols ! " which were no gods but evil beings by which they were led into error, and their souls sent to Hell, he presented them with an image of the Virgin and the cross, which he desired them to put up instead. These, he said, would prove a blessing to them at all times, make their seeds grow, and preserve their souls from eternal perdition. This and many other things respecting our holy religion, Cortez explained to them in a very neat and excellent manner."* This is the first recorded instance of a pirate teaching the faith — teaching idolatry to worshippers of the Great Spirit! Then Cortez " commanded the idols" — the antique statues ? — " to be pulled down, and to be broken to pieces, which was accordingly done without any further ceremony;" then " a very pretty altar was constructed, on which we placed the image of the holy Virgin," at the same time two of the carpenters make a cross of wood. Then Juan Diaz said mass. Thus was a new superstition inaugu- Diaz, vol. I., page 61. ANTIQUE STATUES OYERTURNED. 317 rated. How much superior was it to that of the Phoe- nicians? We are at no loss to ascertain what those " idols" were, thus thrown down by Cortez, in his newly-awakened zeal. Stephens, in describing a ruined pyramidal chapel yisited by him on this island, says : " In the doorway are two columns, making three entrances, with square recesses above them, all of which once contained orna- ments ; and in the centre one, fragments of a statue still remaining, viz., built into the wall, like the overturned Palenque statue." That is, Cortez destroyed the memo- rial of the ancient Madonna and her cross ; and set up the statue of the Spanish Madonna and her emblem ! Stephens says further: " These buildings" — ruins — "were identically the same with those on the mainland ; if we had seen hundreds, we could not have been more firmly convinced that they were all erected and occupied by the same people."* The reader will see that against the Indians there is no allegation, as yet, of human sacrifice. It is simply charged that they held a meeting in one of the chambers of a deserted temple, and there burned copal; and that afterwards, an old man — according to custom — addressed them from an elevated position ! All in keeping with their practice. There may have been another object in this suppression — Cortez may have reserved this fearful charge, to justify his cruelties to the Aztecs. After this exhibition, a muster of the forces took place. There were present five hundred and eight men, not * Stephens's Yucatan, vol. II., page 375. 318 MUSTER OF FORCES PRISONER RESCUED. including pilots and mariners ; one hundred and nine sailors ; sixteen horses, trained equally for war or the tournament. A squadron of eleven vessels also, including a small brigantine. Of the land forces, thirty-three were cross-bowmen, and thirteen musketeers; besides the above, the array possessed four small cannon, called falconets,* with a good supply of gunpowder and ball. To give a color of religion to their expedition, the party carried with them a banner bearing an effigy of the cross.f Diaz says it bore an image of the Virgin ; J and accordingly a bright damask satin one has been fabricated and placed in the Museum at Mexico, duly certified to have been this original standard of Cortez ! One vessel leaking, the whole fleet returned. The disabled craft, however, was soon discharged, refitted, and ready for sea. While so engaged, Aguilar, a Spaniard who had been long detained a prisoner on the neighboring coast, came over to them, and proved most useful as an interpreter. The first ser- vice he rendered, was to advise the Indians of the island " to honor the image of the holy Virgin and cross we had set up, as they would prove a Messing to them."^ So, after an interval of some thousand years, the adoration of the Queen of Heaven and her emblem was reintroduced at Cozumel. Things being in readiness, they weighed anchor, and sailed a second time. At first, with a favorable wind ; but in the night they experienced a heavy blow by which the Velasquez de Leon was separated from the rest of the fleet, and ran under the shelter of the Women's Promontory — * Diaz, vol. I., page 51. % Diaz, vol. I., page 51. t Folsom's Cortez, page 54. § Ihid., page 65. ADIEU TO ANCIENT RUINS. 319 La Punta de las Mugeres* — so called from the numerous statues found there, in four large temples, mostly of women, viz., the Queen of Heaven ? Resuming their voyage, they soon reached Terminus Bay, where a dog was recovered that had been left by Grijalva's expedition. The little squadron then continued its course to the mouth of the Tobasco river without delay ; where we must linger, to bid adieu to those vestiges of an extinct empire, of which we shall hear no more, save as we touch, it may be, an occasional outpost in our subsequent adventures. The course followed by those ancient navigators across the Atlantic, to the Bay of Honduras, appears to have been that of the trade-winds. Near to that bay, lie the ruins of Copan. From thence they would naturally hug the coast, and double Cape Catouche, making sufficient west- ing to " fetch" the Gulf-stream. With that current, they swept past the points of Florida; and having reached the latitude of the variable winds, recrossed the ocean some- where in the neighborhood of thirty degrees. Such a navigation, coasts the region which contains the greater portion of those remains we have so often referred to, and so often described. The Indians of Tobasco, it is said, being reproached for their want of courage by the Yucatecos, in allowing Gri- jalva to land upon their shores, and for holding friendly intercourse with the pale-faces, to wipe away the stigma, made that hostile demonstration which Cortez met. All efforts to obtain their consent to a peaceful landing having failed, dispositions were made to assault the village. * Bulletin de Sociedad Mejicana de Geografia, &c. 320 BATTLES AT TOBASCO. Some difficulty was experienced at first in obtaining a foothold on the shore, during which many were wounded by arrows and darts. Cortez himself, Diaz gravely in- forms us,* lost one of his slioes! At length the cannon and other fire-arms drove the enemy behind their barricades. When the first of these was carried they retreated behind a second, and there still made a brave resistance, but were at length entirely driven out. In this bloody affair the natives had eighteen killed, and the Spaniards fourteen wounded. f We have taken the liberty of deducting a cipher from the twelve thousand who Bernal Diaz says w^ere engaged.^ Such a body of undisciplined Indians could hardly be three times routed, in a stoutly contested action, by an enemy employing cannon and musketry, with the loss of only eighteen ! Two parties, of one hundred each, were immediately despatched to the interior, one commanded by Alvarado, who afterwards played a distinguished part in the war, the other by Francisco de Lugo. The first had fifteen, and the other twelve crossbowmen and musketeers in their respective commands. After advancing four miles, De Lugo was met by an overwhelming force, and compelled to retreat until Alvarado came to his relief. Their united forces then drove the assailants back, and in the end, when the whole strength led by Cortez himself arrived, put them to the route. In this second skirmish the In- dians had fifteen killed, while but two fell, and eight only were wounded, on the side of the Spaniards.§ These figures """ Diaz, vol. I., page 70. % Ibid., page 68. t Ibid., vol. I., page 71. § Ibid., page 76. SUCCESSFUL BUSH FIGHTING. 321 indicate a small number of combatants on either side, and that the contests were rather trivial encounters than bat- tles. It was manifestly but bush-fighting, and in this Cortez and his companions, from the wars of Cuba and San Domingo, had become adepts. If the reader should, in fact, reduce the number of Indians from twelve thou- sand to five hundred, he would probably be near the true amount ; and this is a very large force, too, for savages suddenly to collect. We have here no other authority than that of Diaz, and he does not describe these engage- ments as one would who was personally familiar with their scenes. We now approach the first of that long series of apo- cryphal miracles which adorn this expedition. The six- teen horses landed, caparisoned and ornamented with trappings and bells, the little army was again led forth. The Indians this time received them in certain open fields planted with beans. In these bean plantations the enemy was so numerous, says Diaz, that each one of us would have three hundred to contend with,* a large number to stand within the limits of " certain bean fields :" viz., three hundred times five hundred, or one hundred and fifty thousand in one body ! This battle, it is said, was long and sharply contested, until the arrival of the ten horses. Then the enemy, who had never before beheld such animals, gave way,-|" leaving over eight hundred of their number dead upon the field ! As it is claimed that the chief execution was done by the sword, and that the battle lasted about an hour, the number slain is not extra- * Diaz, vol. I., page 75. f Ibid., page 76. 21 322 A BATTLE IN WHICH ST. JAGO APPEARS. ordinaril}' large. But passing over the improbability of Indians standing up to a hand-to-hand fight with expert swordsmen, we find, on close inspection of the difierent accounts, it was only a skirmish in an open wood " planted with beans." The event of the day was the interposition of supernatural agency; in this, however, the narrators are at variance, as usual. The letter of Cortez covering this portion of the war, having been suppressed, we have to decide between the claims of San Jago, as advocated by Gomora, and those of the Virgin, by Bernal Diaz. We have thus far been enabled to adjust the discrepancies of the Spanish chroniclers in mere sublunary matters ; but con- tests over the merits of patron saints, in determining the events of a battle, we may as well acknowledge at once, transcend our ability. Whether the volatile San Diego* * As the reader may be a little anxious to know something of this St. James, who has so long presided over the destinies of Spaniards, I here give him the whole story. " To this is added the finding out of the sepulchre of the Apostle St. James, neere unto Iria, by the bishop of that place, called Theodemir, at the relation of two men — which the Historie of Compostella, in Latin, calls Personaios, that is to say, masked — who said they had scene angels and torches about the place where his bodie was found, in a coffin of marvle, in a wood, in the year 797, whereat the Spaniards themselves do much wonder, seeing they find no mention in their Histories of St. James' Sepul- chre in Spaine, in all the time which passed since his death unto the reign of this Alphonso It was re- vealed at that time by such appari- tions to Theodemir, who believed it to be the verie bodie of St. James [doubtful] ; and so persuaded the King Don Alphonso, who was won- derfull joyfull thereof, and built a temple, endowing it with great reve- nues, taking this manifestation for a singular favor of God. The Span- iards have since made him their Pa- tron and Protector of their country — calling on him in all their necessities, especially in the war. Neighboring princes were amazed at this relic ; for we read that Charlemagne (in whose time Don Alphonso began to reign), being advertised of this invention [finding], posted thither, and after- wards obtained from Pope Leo IV., sitting at Rome, that the Episcopal Sea of Iria should be removed to Com- postella." — Grimshaw, page 179 (E). CORTEZ CONVERTS INDIAN WOMEN. 323 did actually appear riding on a gray horse, or whether it was " the ever present Virgin" who routed the Tobasco warriors, must go down to posterity an open question. Having rested themselves under some trees which stood upon the field, our warriors then praised God and the Virgin, and thanked them with uplifted hands for the complete victory they had granted us.* After this exhi- bition of polytheism among the Spaniards, we are little surprised that they discovered the pre-existence of their own religion in Yucatan. It was to them a constant source of wonder, and to it they continually recurred. Presuming their own superstition to be Christianity, they fancied they saw in its unmistakable prototype the evi- dence that an apostle had been here. An hypothesis so absurd has not failed to tickle the fancy of at least one Protestant author, who boasts of the patronage of the king of Prussia, and dedicates to the archbishop of Can- terbury. Here Cortez again exhibited his religious zeal, but in entire accordance with his previous life. Twenty women were delivered to these invaders, as part of a peace offer- ing from the people of Tobasco. Before allowing them, however, to be appropriated by his soldiery, he had them duly baptized. The new-made Christians were then dis- tributed among his officers, as trophies of the Virgins victory ! Among these women was Malinche, afterwards known as Marina, who fell to the lot of Puerto Carrero. This man abandoning her on his return to Europe, she was taken by Cortez to himself By him she bore a son, * Diaz, vol. I., page 76. IMAGE INTEUSTED TO INDIANS. Don Martin Cortez. Afterwards Cortez married her to Juan Javamillo of Orozaha. This unfortunate woman enjoyed the distinguished lionor of being the first convert from the Aztec race. She proved faithful to the Spaniards in the war against her own people, and extremely useful as an interpreter. A great amount of romance, and some poetry, has been associated with this child of misfortune — such we must ever regard Malinche — which we shall refer to hereafter. Woman's life in a savage state, is a hard one, even in time of prosperity; but, when war comes, in the hands of a merciless enemy, her fate is too often more deplorable than death itself. Marina was not exempt from the common lot, whether we regard her as a person of low birth or of noble rank. We have still another exhibition of devotion to the Virgin, in impressing the importance of her adoration upon the Indians of Tobasco ; related, of course, by Diaz. " We prayed before the cross, and kissed it," says he, " the caciques and Indians all the while looking on. We now took our leave, and Cortez repeatedly recommended them to take care of the image of the Holy Virgin and the cross ; and to hold the chapel in reverence, in order that salvation and blessings might come to them."* So might a Phoenician rover have addressed their ancestors three thousand j^ears before, after setting up the Phoeni- cian Madonna and cross in one of the ancient chapels there ; and with about the same amount of Christianity. But we must here add, in vindication of Cortez, our con- viction that he never uttered one word of all this piety * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 38. LANDING AT VERA CRUZ. 325 and religion ascribed to him by monks and zealots, who wrote history but to illustrate the doctrines of their faith, and to show the Indias were the peculiar dominion of the Virgin. As Cortez coasted along, in the track of Grijalva, he passed the mouths of the San Antonio and Coatzacoalco, coming, as before, in sight of the snow-capped Orizaba, and the smaller San Martin. Afterwards the split rock, called the Chair from its peculiar form, excited attention. Then came the river Alvarado, and further on the Bandera — where the fifteen hundred dollars' worth of gold dust had been obtained, afterwards stated at sixteen thousand dol- lars j then passing the islands Blanca, Verde, and Sacrificios, the voyage terminated at San Juan de Uloa. It was while passing the mouth of the Alvarado, Puerto Cajrero exclaimed : " Cata Francia, Montesinos ! Cata Paris, la ciudad Cata las aguas de Buero, Do van a dar en la mar !" * To which Cortez, as familiar with the tales of chivalry as the author of Don Quixote, responded : "If God will grant us that good fortune in arms which he gave Rolan, the Paladin, then with your assistance, and that of the other gentlemen cavaliers, we shall succeed in everything else."f The disembarkation on the main was effected on a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart for the adoration of the cross ; the landing-place thence * A liberal translator thus ren- See how the Duro's sportive motion, ^ ,, T Carries Its waters to the ocean !" ders these lines : „,,,.., t Diaz, vol. I., page 83. " Montesinos cast a glance ' -^•■^i^, r^ > r fc> On your lands, the soil of France ; 326 DONA MARINA. took the name of Vei^a Cruz, which it bears to this day. And now we have arrived at the beginning of that war, which ended in the conquest of Mexico. We shall conclude with the apocryphal history of Dona Marina. As a Scripture turn makes a fable appear plau- sible, Marina is represented as a female Joseph, sold by her own kindred into slavery. She made the campaign of Mexico, however, in company with Cortez, in the two- fold capacity of interpreter and mistress ; also as a spy, her thorough knowledge of Indian character especially adapts ing her to the last office. As her services rose in impor- tance, so did her pedigree. It was finally discovered to be noble ; and though once disposed of as a slave at Jica- lango, and resold at Tobasco, she became, providentially, the property of the Spaniards, who discovered her exalted rank. The war over, Cortez took her with him in his long land journey through the south-eastern provinces of New Spain. Arriving at Coatzacualco, he summoned the surrounding chiefs to council. On this occasion, the step- mother and half-brother of Marina appeared, to demand confirmation in the inheritance which had been the means of her enslavement. Greatly, however, were they troubled when they beheld their victim in the person of the conqueror's mistress. But she played her part so well as to merit almost the title of saint.* " Dona Ma- * Malinche. — Since I -was last rible state of excitement, but the wo- here [Puebla], a bronze equestrian man is not alarmed in the least; for statue has been set up in the Grand she seems to be well aware that it is Plaza. It is a bronze woman, sit- only make-believe passion, badly exe- ting quietly and easily upon a furious outed in bronze. Who could this bronze horse. The horse is in a ter- woman be but Malinche, or Marina, DONA MARINA. 327 rina," says Diaz, " however, desired them to dry away their tears ;* and comforted them by saying, they were unconscious of what they were doing when they sent her away to the inhabitants of Jicolango, and that she freely forgave the past." the Indian mistress of Cortez — a fit patroness of the women of Puebla? She was the first convert that Cortez ever made to Christianity ; and her sort of Christianity is not unusual in Mexico. That beautiful cone that rises so majestically out of the plain between Puebla and Tlascala, bears the name of Malinche ; but as this name was applied to her paramour as well as to herself, an additional testi- monial, in the form of a bronze statue, was deemed requisite ; for she is con- sidered here as almost a saint, and would be altogether such if she had not been the mother of children, and ended her career by getting married. That act of getting married — not her former life — rendered her unfit for a saint ; for how could an honest house- wife be a saint? She might have been the best of mothers and the best of wives, and have performed scru- pulously the duties that God had as- signed to her upon earth ; but she was lacking in romance, in those aerial materials from which saints are made. Saints are made in damp, cold prison-cells, where, in the midst of self-inflicted misery, they see vi- sions, dream dreams, and perform cures upon crowds as deluded as themselves. * Indians do not weep in antici- pation of suffering. This idea of begging them to dry their tears, is a Spanish imported idea — not belong- ing to the aborigines. CHAPTER IX. CORTEZ SETTLES AFFAIRS AT VERA CRUZ, AND MARCHES TO TLASCALA. The character of Montezuma, 328 — His administration and policy, 329 — Tra- dition of the coming pale-faces, 330 — The Indian presents and their quality, 331 — The religion propagated by the Spaniards, 333 — Indian idolatry and cannibalism explained, 334 — The real and apocryphal Indian presents, 336 — The picture writings and the soldier's casque, 337 — How Cortez was appointed Captain-General, 338 — Cortez moves to Sempoalla, and his mis- sionary zeal, 339 — The fleet moved to oldest Vera Cruz, 341 — Expedition to Tzinpantzinco, 342 — Cortez acts the diplomatist, 342 — Cortez and others obtain each a squaw, 342 — Cortez exhibits his zeal for religion, 344 — Cor- tez sends agents and presents to Charles V., 346 — The council of the Indias on Cortez, 347 — The emperor favors Cortez, 348 — An attempted piracy, 349 — Did Cortez or a tornado strand his vessels, 349 — The march to the interior, 351 — The scenery peculiarly American, 352 — Its extraordi- nary beauty, 353 — The rapidity of Cortez' marches, 354 — The real merit of Cortez, 355 — Cortez crossing the high mountain, 355 — March across the barren land, 358 — The country through which Cortez marches, 359. The material for buccaneering or piracy has never been wanting in the West Indies. It came with Columbus, and continued to flow thither as long as gold or plunder were in prospect. The expedition of Cortez, we have seen, was in nowise in a moral view superior to those which pre- ceded, nor to the thousands that have followed it. Its importance was the result of accident. The Indian con- federacy of the Mexican valley was then in the zenith of its power. At its head was one endowed with those great quahties which ever confer on their possessor despotic (328) Montezuma's administration and policy. 329 sway. In him they were well expressed by the combmed office of prophet, sachem, and chief.* No people vene- rate hereditary honor more than the lords of the forest. But when to rank are added the highest achievements of war and eloquence, he who unites them in his person may well be styled an emperor. No other word adequately expresses the power he then exercises over his people ; and such was at once the eloquent prophet and successful war chief of the Tezcucans and Tacubans, the sachem of the Aztecs — Montezuma. All the Spanish narratives bear unwitting testimony to his adeptness in the unintelligible mysteries of the magic art ; and in war he had been the leader of the confederated braves. He had conducted his soldiers to the sack of sur- prised villages, and to the slaughter of unwatchful ene- mies. And he had not only driven back the Tlascalans from the salt Laguna,-\ and from the rich southern val- leys, but enclosed them within a line of posts extending to the Gulf. These varied operations had called for con- stant appeals to the Council House, and there, with burn- ing words, like those of BrandtJ and Red Jacket, he had imparted that foreign and domestic policy which looked * The sachem is an hereditary have any personal knowledge of this ruler, in the female line, as already distinguished native orator. The au- noticed in the first chapter. Civil thor's father, hovrever, vras in the chief, as vrell as the war chief, is an habit of attending councils in which office conferred for merit. Brandt was orator. t The tequisquita of this laguna, When discussing the policy the we have already said, is used is a confederacy ought to adopt, he is re- substitute for salt in the food of the presented as remarkably eloquent, inhabitants of that region now, as and sometimes very leugthy ; his formerly. speeches oftentimes extending to a % The a,uthor is too young to period of two hours. 330 TRADITION OF THE COMING PALE-FACES. to the universal dominion of the confederacy. The pre- ponderance conceded to Mexico was, by acclamation, be- stowed upon him, her hereditary sachem and chosen war chief* Superior to all his enemies on land, still the pro- gress of the pale-faces towards his peculiar home was anxiously watched, and daily communications, by swift- footed runners, were established with the coast. Tradition had handed down to the Aztecs, through un- told generations, at least from a remote antiquity, a memorable story. It told that pale faces had once before occupied the hot country ;f coming from beyond the " great water." Perhaps with this were coupled also tales of suffering and wrongs ; perhaps how cruelly they, the natives, had been forced, by these hard task-masters, to labor upon the truncated pyramids and their crowning chapels. With unrequited Indian toil, these men had builded cities and public works which still preserved their memory, though they themselves had long since perished, having fulfilled their allotted centuries. But with their decaying monuments they left a fearful prophecy, and thus it ran : that " floating houses" would again return to the eastern coast, wafted by like winds, and filled with the same race, to teach the same religion,! and * The most distinguished brave accounts, which we do not care to is ordinarily chosen the war chief. disturb without evidence. As a prophet professes inspiration % I have here given a little dif- from the Great Spirit, it is an irregu- ferent shading to the famous tradition lar office, dependent on pretended of the expected arrival of the pale- supernatural influences. It is some- faces. There has been too much times exercised by the medicine-man, stress, altogether, laid on this historic and sometimes by a chief. prophecy by the curious — as tradi- t Such, translated into Indian tions are not very reliable, phraseology, would be the popular INDIAN PRESENTS. OO^ to practise the same cruelties, until they again finished their cycle, and gave place to others, such as the laws of climate and population might determine. Warned by these ominous forebodings, the first appearance of the ex- pected oppressors found Montezuma on the alert to crush at once, if possible, the strangers whom ancient prophecy had designated as the fated destroyers of his race. If the Mayas of Yucatan* had escaped this foreordained cala- mity, by an apparently successful resistance to their land- ing, he, too, might do the same. If even unsuccessful, rather than allow a foothold to them, he was prepared to sacrifice all that might yet remain. Such were the de- signs of the prophet-emperor, even before the battle of Tobasco ;f the result of which left him but the last alter- native — the sacrifice of his capital. This is the key of our future narrative, which will embody those traditions in which all concur, — omit but the fabled visit of the Apostle Thomas ; and we shall endeavor also to account for the striking resemblance of the emblems and religious ceremonies portrayed upon the Central American ruins, and those used and practised by the Spaniards. We designated the discovery of an antique civilization in Yucatan as the second great event in the history of America. We now reach the third, the beginning of the war, which ended in the conquest of Mexico. There was, of course, no sincerity on either side, in the negotiations * The successful resistance of unexpectedly favorable result for the the Indians of Yucatan to the land- Spanish arms. It was this success ing of Cordova and Grijalva, seemed that made Montezuma unwilling to to be well known to Montezuma. encounter them in open battle. f The battle of Tobasco had an INDIAN PRESENTS. sle of San Juan de Uloa of Sacrificios COETEZ S VOYAGE TO VEBA CRTJZ. that preceded the march to Mexico. The exchange of presents, usual on such occasions, fatally displayed the abundance of grain-gold in the country. The strange, even fantastic forms of some of the larger specimens of metal, appeared to the imaginative Spaniards to bear, as sometimes do the clouds, a remote resemblance to living things. On this slight foundation rests the reputed skill of the Indian workmen ; allowing somethmg for savage ingenuity in changing forms without fusion. The round gold plate having the size of a wagon-wheel, and the value THE RELIGION PROPAGATED BY SPANIARDS. 333 of twenty thousand dollars^* never existed but in the fertile fancy of Cortez, while the beautiful feather-work, so glowingly described by Spanish authors, was that skilful arrangement of natural colors, in which savage surpasses civilized man — the very wildness of his combinations being in fact the ground of his superiority. The Indian, though always an adept in dissimulation, was overmatched when pitted against the Spaniard. After the exhibition that had been made of the mineral wealth of the country, no means but force could induce the adventurers to leave the coast. Still they had no objec- tion to spend awhile whole days in skilful efforts to mis- lead their savage hosts ; afterwards even boasting of their skill in falsehood. These labors were usually followed by an attempt to swerve the Indian from his simple worship. Gold was really the only god the Spaniards knew", though the adoration of the Virgin and cross was his religion.-^ Whether the day's chief performance was tragedy or comedy, the Indian wondered at the sameness of the after- piece. If we credit Diaz,J Montezuma's ambassadors inquired why they humbled themselves before that pole, * Diaz, vol. I., page 90. stitute religion. But that the con- f It has become very common science of no good person may bo among Protestants to use the word . wounded by the apparent levity with religion, as synonymous with Godli- which we use these words, we shall ness. Nothing could be more inap- italicize them in all cases. We use propriate. We are compelled to use them with no greater levity than the it, as well as the word piety, in their people of the countries where these proper sense, viz., as relating exclu- words properly belong. Among Pro- sively to externals, having nothing to testants there are no things sacred, do with " heart-faith." only sacred ideas ; yet the author has We are considering a system into been inconsiderately charged with which faith does not enter ; one in levity, in speaking of tilings sacred, which outward ceremonials alone con- % Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 88. 334 INDIAN IDOLATRY AND CANNIBALISM. meaning the cross, whereupon Father Olmedo was directed to describe the substance of the Spanish creed. " He then proved their idols were useless things, evil spirits, which fled away from the presence of the cross."* The priest having concluded, Cortez, according to the same authority, made also an exhibition of his skill in this work of proselytism. We have already referred to the numerous histories of the conquest, and shown them all, as simply changes rung upon one narrative. Our duty, however, is to sift them for what truth they may contain, and not to reject only because it is doubtful, but for the most sub- stantial reasons. The fabulous picture writings, and alledged idolatrous sacrifices, are early introduced by the Conquistador into his narrative ; but cannibalism is not charged until after the night retreat, and when at Tepeacaf or Securidad-de-Frontere he first introduced his system of extermination or slavery. The new ordinances, for the protection of the Indians, were already in force, and the Hieronomite brothers at San Domingo, to see they were not violated, while Las Casas was recognised as the public prosecutor, under the title of " Protector of the Indians."! ^^ justify an open violation of the law, Cortez accused the Indians of rebellion and cannibalism. Diaz, * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 94. order to strike terror into the Chu- f Folsom's Cortez, p. 172. lulans." — Ibid. "Besides having murdered the J This proved in the end to be Spaniards, and rebelled against your but a naked title. He was allowed Majesty, these people eat human flesh the utmost latitude of denunciation; — a fact so notorious that I have not and that was about all. Little prac- taken the trouble to send your Ma- tical good at the time appeared ; but jesty any proof of it. I "^as also led it ended in a settled Indian policy, to make slaves of these people, in which has proved superior to our own. INDIAN IDOLATRY AND CANNIBALISM. who invented the pietif^ and morality of the expedition in the most approved style for the Spanish market, exhibits him, as we have seen, as much the missionary as the adventurer, and introduces the three charges, idolatry,^ human sacrifice, and cannibalism, in their most revolting forms, at an earlier date than his alleged master. The reason is transparent ; Cortez had sent his first despatches before resolving upon his future course, while Diaz and the historians, with the whole case before them, introduced their libels in the proper place. Thus Diaz accounts for the resolution of Montezuma, in treating with Cortez, while at the sea-shore, by alleging the commands of his two favorite idols, the god of hell and the god of war, " to whom he [Montezuma] daily sacrificed some young child- ren, that they might disclose what he should do with us. His intention was to take us prisoners, if we would not re-embark, and employ some to educate children, while the others were to be sacrificed. For his idol gods, as we afterwards discovered, advised him not to listen to Cortez, and ,to take no notice of what we had sent him word con- cerning the cross and the figure of the blessed Virgin. "{ * We here repeat, that we use The only real difficulties are the the word piety as relating solely to small allegorical clay idols, lately external duties ; nor can it be used found at Mexico. These may have as synonymous with godliness, with- been brought from the places of out an abuse of language and confu- sepulture in Yucatan as curiosities, sion of ideas. ' and thrown into the ditch by order t We have hesitated to take this of an Inquisitor ; or they may have broad ground, of denying altogether been Spanish manufactured antiqui- the idolatry of the Aztecs. But there ties, thrown away for want of a are so many difSculties in the way, market. At all events, they do not if we make them an exception to the form a sufficient basis for a charge of whole body of the aborigines, that we Indian idolatry. are driven to this position, after re- % Diaz, vol. I., page 95. examining all the evidence. 336 REAL AND APOCRYPHAL PRESENTS. So childish was the fiction invented to account for the rupture with Montezuma's agents at the place of debarka- tion. Yet this gross fabrication acquu-ed credence under the Spanish system of literary despotism, and was dis- seminated among other European nations, ignorant of Indian character. But we must go back to the stately embassy of Montezuma's great Lord Teuchille; — and who more stately than the inhabitants of the forest ? The reported magnitude of his apocryphal present was in perfect keeping with his fictitious rank and retinue. Besides the golden plate, resembling a wagon-wheel, valued at twenty thousand dollars, another larger in size, and of massive silver, is described, representing the moon, with rays and other figures. That a soldier's casque or helmet, lent to the Indians, should be returned, filled with grain- gold, of the value of three thousand dollars, is not an improbable event, and one at that time of the greatest importance, as it demonstrated the existence of rich washings in the country. "Among other thmgs," says Diaz, "there were also thirty golden ducks, exactly resembling the living bird, and of splendid workmanship ; further, figures resembling lions, dogs, and apes ; likewise ten chains with lockets, all of gold, and of the most costly workmanship ; a bow with the string and twelve arrows ; and two staffs, five palms in length, like those used by the justices, all cast of the purest gold [!] further- more they brought small cases containing the most beautiful green feathers, blended with gold and silver, and fans similarly worked ; every species of game cast in PICTURE WRITINGS. gold. There were alone about thirty packages of cotton [maguey] stuffs, variously manufactured and interworked with variegated feathers. When the great caciques Quintalbor and Teuchille [the last an Indian runner,*] handed over these presents to Cortez, they begged him to accept them, in the same friendly disposition with which their monarch sent them." This is a description of that famous present of Montezuma, which for centuries was represented as little short of a wonder of the world. The American reader, stripping it of all exaggeration, will find it represents a very rich gift of crude gold, and thirty packages of native stuffsf wrought with quills and feathers. Want of familiarity with Indian characteristics, and a general proneness to the wonderful, has misled us hitherto. This present was preceded hy those pictorial scenes, which elicited equal astonishment in Europe, and with still less reason. When Cortez landed Montezuma sent runners J — called great lords by the same author — to * Diaz, vol. I., page 87. sun to dry ; the sap which has been f Indians Manufacturing Cloth, so thoroughly pressed out from among — " The end of the piece of bark was the fibres by the beating, soon be- laid over the end of a smoothly barked conies dissipated by the sun, and the log ; and they commenced beating it cloth is left with quite a woolly feel, with mallets, beginning at the corner and is painted in figures to suit the and striking diagonally the piece to fancy of the wearer. By his own the middle, where the mallet was peculiar process it is cut out to form turned to the same angle at the other a very simple garment, and the In- comer. They beat the bark regu- dian is dressed in a fancy-colored larly along. The fibres spread out, shirt, which reaches below his knees." and the piece two feet wide was — Valley of the Amazon, \o\.ll.,^s.ge beaten out one foot more, to the thick- 211, Report of Lieut. Gibbon to Navy ness of stout pilot-cloth. After all Department. is beaten out, it is rolled up. The % " After this personage had taken cloth is afterwards spread out in the his departure, we learnt that he was 22 CORTEZ APPOINTED CAPTAIN-GENERAL. ascertain the object of his visit; these it would seem undertook to aid the memory, in reporting such unusual appearances, by rude sketches on bits of maguey. This little incident, aided by the magnifying powers of Cortez, grew into picture writing, which, as already shown, in an after generation led to the famous forgeries of the monk Pietro, and they to much speculation among the learned. The most important incident is the simple one of the soldier's casque. It is thus stated in the narrative of Diaz.* " One of our men had a casque, which was partly gilt. Teuchille, who was much more enlightened than many of his companions [being chief runner,] remarked, when his eyes fell upon it, that it bore a great resemblance to a helmet which belonged to their most ancient forefathers, &c., and now adorned the head of their war-god." Was it to some Phoenician casque, portrayed on a ruined temple wall, that he alluded ? If so the runner, who often bore messages to the hot country, would naturally notice the likeness, and associate in his mind the strangers just arrived with the traditions relating to the past. It is but a trifle in itself; but, as one of a long series, well worthy of preserving. And now a great political farce was enacted amid the drifting sand-hills, where stands the present city of Vera Cruz. It was done to give a color of legality to an expedition, otherwise purely piratical, and which could not only a distinguished statesman, presents." — Bei'nal Diaz, \o\. I., page but also the most nimble pedestrian 89. at Montezuma's court. He did in- Think of a great ambassador, run- deed use the utmost expedition to ning at full speed, to report the result bring his monarch information, and of his mission ! hand over to him the paintings and * Diaz, vol. I., page 89. CORTEZ MOVES TO SEMPOALLA. 331 have no hope of rojal pardon, but in complete success. Velasquez himself^ a subordinate to the government of San Domingo, had no authority to fit out expeditions, except for purposes of traffic. To form a colony on the Spanish main required a royal charter, to which the present party made no pretensions. But, to blind them- selves to the criminal steps they were taking, these armed brigands resolved them into a municipality according to the forms of the Spanish law, and immediately after, nominated their leader, Cortez, to an office not municipal, but of exclusively royal appointment — Captain-General ; by them understood to include also the powers of an Adelantado, as ample as those possessed by Columbus himself. Thus furnished with the shadow of authority, Cortez, after the customary affectation of reluctance,* assumed command, and immediately began his prepara- tions for a war of conquest. Charles Y., though he pardoned the irregularity of the enterprise, and accepted the sovereignty it had added to his dominions, took good care to suppress the letter w^hich contained a recital of the farce with which it commenced, and the means by which Cortez acquired his title and his office. The Aztecs were now to suffer the bitter consequences of their own ambition, an evil to which all conquering powers are liable, — an alliance of the enemy without to the other enemy within. One subjugated tribe, the Quiahuitzlan,-|- no sooner discovered the existence of a breach between the Spaniards and their masters, than they invited the former to their village, and entered into "" Diaz, vol. I,, page 99, f Ibid., page 95. 340 MISSIONARY ZEAL. alliance with them. An important foothold thus acquired, the encampment in the nominal town of Vera Cruz was at once abandoned, and the whole municipality moved northward in military array. It halted at the inter- vening village of Sempoalla, Cempoal of Cortez, who ultimately made it the expeditionary head-quarters, while the permanent encampment was on the little river, through whose gorge, Cerro Gordo, lies the ascent to the table-land. The perambulating town of Vera Cruz, how- ever, was located on the downs, two miles from Quiahuitz- lan.* From this new location, which we must designate as the oldest Vera Grwz, it was shortly after moved to the mouth of the Antigua river, and remained there for ninety years, the Gulf seaport of Mexico. The marquis of Monterey then restored it to the original place of debarkation, the present city of Vera Cruz.f The first fortress there, must not be confounded with that on the island of JJloa. The inhabitants of Sempoalla regarded the new comers as their deliverers from a cruel despotism. And here we learn a little more of those tales of human sacrifice, which so much excited the peculiar elements of Spanish 'pjety. The Spaniards were as rampant too, according to Diaz, in denouncing oppression, as the valorous Don Quixote, declaring "we were the vassals of the great emperor Charles, who had dominion over many kingdoms and countries, and who had sent us out to jedress wrongs wherever we came, punish the bad, and make known his commands, that human sacrifice * Diaz, vol. I., page 111. Cluclad de Vera Cruz. M. M. Lerdo t Apuenies Ristoricos de la Heroica de Tejado. Mexico, 1851. FLEET MOVED TO OLDEST VERA CRUZ. 341 should no longer be continued. To all this was added a good deal about our holy religion."* oQji'abTiitzlan Oil ! OTlest or 1st town of Vera Cr^i Cruz (Antiqua) or 2nd location of lliat town CORTEZ S MARCH TO OLDEST VERA CRUZ. In the mean time, the shipping, having abandoned its anchorage under San Juan de Uloa, coasted northward to the little harbor, which after all w^as only a bight in a lee- shore, four miles below Quiahuitzlan, where the stranding of the vessels took place. The little island of Uloa, how- ever, always remained a shipping station, on account of the protection it afforded against the north wind. The Diaz, vol. I., page 105. 342 EXPEDITION TO TZINPAN TZINCO. fortress upon the island is of modern date, and was not built until after the sack of Vera Cruz by the bucaneers.* After a rude fortress had been constructed for the colony, Cortez made pretence to send away the partisans of Velasquez, but when they were about to sail he suffered himself to be constrained by his most devoted adherents to forbid their departure. A march to Tzinpantzinco, probably Cerro Gordo, with the Sempoallans, as auxili- aries, was made at the suggestion of their Indian allies. Their pretence was the presence of an Aztec garrison at that place. On his arrival at the town, situated in a most rugged defile, Cortez found he had been deceived by the Sempoallans, and that their real object in soliciting him to make this expedition was a local quarrel then existing between them. Before returning, however, he was for- tunate enough to effect a reconciliation between the belligerents, and add Tzinpantzinco to his alliance. On this occasion was exhibited a touch of rigid discipline. A soldier named Mora took some fowls from an Indian hut, which coming to the knowledge of Cortez, a rope was put around the fellow's neck, who would have been hung, when Alvarado interceded, and he escaped. f The effect of this act is thus described by Diaz : " Although Indians, they readily perceived what a good and holy thing is justice, and that the declaration of our having come into these countries to put an end to all oppression, perfectly agreed with his conduct on our entry into Tzinpantzinco ; they therefore became more united to us."-}- By this politic course the whole hot country, between the table land and the sea, was brought into subjugation * Apuentes Hisioricos de Vera Cruz. f Diaz, vol. I., page 118. CORTEZ AND OTHERS OBTAIN WOMEN. 343 without the use of force; and an enduring friendship established among the Indian villages and the Spaniards. The real cause of success with the new confederacy was the common hatred the tribes of this region bore to the Aztecs, and their dread of Montezuma. By his adroit- ness Cortez succeeded in widening the breach already existing. He first persuaded his allies to arrest Monte- zuma's tax-gatherers, and deliver them to him. In this he had a further object ; for, no sooner had his suggestion been carried out by the Sempoallans, than he represented to the prisoners, that their rescue from certain death was due to him ; after which he sent them secretly to Monte- zuma, with many fine speeches. The new confederacy being wholly dependent on Cortez for protection against the ofiended Aztecs, proposed to cement their new friendship by a matrimonial alliance. For this purpose they presented the Spaniards with eight young girls. Puerto Carrero, who, it appears, had formerly eloped from Medellin with another man's wife,* and who had received Dona Marina as his share of the women dis- tributed at Tobasco, obtained the most attractive in the new apportionment. Indeed, there seems to have been a community of wives between this favored soldier and his commander; for the latter was avowedly the father of Dona Marinas children. Cortez, as his nominal share, received the daughter of the village cacique ; only remark- able for her ugliness. He accepted her, however, with every appearance of delight."]" The six remaining were distributed among the other soldiers. Before any were * Diaz, vol. I., page 130. f l^^d., page 123. 344 CORTEZ' ZEAL FOR RELIGION. delivered, however, to their new masters, they were con- verted, nominally, to the Romish faith, by a perversion of the ordinance of baptism, and the addition of much ceremony. The strangest feature in this is, that, although the revolt from Montezuma was predicated on the in- humanity of his agents, in appropriating to themselves the wives and daughters of these people, if they were handsome, without ceremony, here appears to be the very counterpart of that wrong they were in arms to repel. Cortez consoled them, as well as he could, by means of the interpreters. He promised and assured them he would put an end to such oppression and ill-usage.* These affairs concluded, Cortez assumed the character of a missionary, and undertook to reform the religion of the Sempoallans, that is, according to Diaz. The horrid j)ictures of human sacrifice are here further intensified by him, and the charge of cannibalism added. The selling of human flesh in the market -|* by a people who had no shambles or circulating medium as a common article of food, is here introduced to magnify, it w^ould seem, the services of Cortez, in that he set up the image of the Virgin and cross, in places heretofore occupied with, not only an apocryphal idol-worship, but with such barbarous practices. As to what this dissemination of Spanish piety amounted, we learn, in the following paragraphs translated by Lockhart. It needed but a Cervantes to place in its proper light, this expedition, undertaken, according to Diaz, for the spread of religion and the redress of griev- ances. Cortez is represented as saying to the Indians, the * Diaz, vol. I., page 107. f Ibid., page 120, CORTEZ' ZEAL FOR RELIGION. 345 reason that induced his emperor to send them there was, that they should abandon their accursed idols, abolish human sacrifice, and abstain from kidnapping ! " He therefore must beg of them to erect crosses, like this, in their towns, and in their temples, and also the figure of the holy Yirgin, with her most excellent son, then God would bestow blessings on them."* Cortez now lost all patience and answered " He had already told them several times they should not sacrifice to these monsters, who were nothing but deceivers and liars."-|* " They had scarcely done speaking, when more than fifty of us began to mount the steps of the temple. We tore down the idols from their pediment, broke them to pieces, and flung them piecemeal down the steps. "J " When the idols were burnt, Cortez said everything that was edifying to the Indians, by means of our interpreters. Instead of their idols he would give them our own blessed Virgin and saints, the mother of Jesus Christ, in whom we believed, and to whom we prayed. "§ "A regulation was also made, that the copal of the country should be used instead of our usual incense. The principal caciques of the district and village attended mass."|| Then followed the baptism of the eight w^omen, before alluded to, after an edifying discourse had preceded the ceremony. The missionary department of Cortez' labors, beyond the erection of a few rude chapels for his soldiers, having doubtless been invented in the generation succeeding the conquest, serves * Diaz, vol. I., page 94. § Ihid., page 122. t Ibid., page 120. || Ibid., page 123. X Ibid., page 121. 346 PRESENT TO CHARLES V. to show what were the duties of a champion of the cross, in the estimation of the church dignitaries who supervised the writing of history ; and how little they differed from (Phoenician) pagan rites, the reader can judge. Before advancing to the table-land, we must look at the affairs of the little municipality of Vera Cruz. At a meeting of our adventurers, it was resolved to send a present and a letter to Charles V., and set forth a history of the operations thus far ; concluding with a prayer that his majesty would be pleased to recognise the enterprise, and confer the command on Cortez, " This prayer was accompanied by such highflown praise of Cortez — how faithfully he had served his majesty — that we elevated him to the very skies."* "After the letter was quite finished Cortez desired to read it, and when he found how faithfully the account was drawn up, and himself so highly praised, he was vastly pleased."* It was on the 26th July, 1519, that the vessel sailed from San Juan de Uloa, having on board Puerto Garrero and Montejo as mes- sengers, with some specimens of the kind of sacrifices the Indians offered to their gods, in the persons of several cap- tives alleged to have been taken from a cage, in which they were fattening for this use ! The vessel having a favorable wind, escaped that sent by Velasquez to inter- cept her, and arrived in Spain, whither we must follow. We must, however, bespeak attention to a statement in the commencement of this history, wherein it is shown that one reason why these despatches passed uncontra- dicted was, that, the whole expedition being involved in * Diaz, vol. I., page 126. COUNCIL OF THE INDIAS ON CORTEZ. 347 the crime of its leader, the misrepresentations contained in their overwrought missives enured equally to the bene- fit of all. Cortez had so artfully played his part as to appear from the beginning to have acted almost under constraint. The letters had also this other advantage : the events they described occurred before the art of print- ing had become common in Spain. Indeed it is claimed by one annotator — a no less personage than the cardinal- archbishop Lorenzano, that the despatches of Cortez were the first works printed in Seville, and perchance in all Spain. Bishop Fonseca, who then presided in the Council of the Indias, was seemingly a strict constructionist, and, with little love to the wild adventurers who were swarm- ing to the West Indies, was as little loved by them. His relations to Las Casas were equally ungracious. A rigid disciplinarian in such a post was perilously situated ; and the wonder is not that he fell at last, but that he main- tained his post so long. His treatment of Columbus re- mains a blot upon his character, but how much of guilt there was in the other charges brought against him we have now no means of judging. Merit has, generally, little to do with the eminence of a man in Spain, and demerit as little with his fall. There is no lack there, as elsewhere, of complaints, whenever it is whispered that a functionary is growing in disfavor with his master. If he is dismissed, that of itself, by the world, is considered a sufficient proof of every allegation. In the present case the action of Fonseca was clearly correct. When he charged Cortez and his party with high treason, he sim- 348 THE EMPEROR FAVORS CORTEZ. ply asserted a principle of Spanish law* But there was another difficulty : the slight irregularity, of which Puerto Carrero had been guilty in eloping with another man's wife, when he left Spain, was known to the bishop ; and for that offence he was now to answer. Dangers environ even ambassadors when too much addicted to gallantries. The proprietor of Dona Marina, " the most distinguished female in all the Indias," the equally lucky possessor of the dusky belle of Sempoalla, and the representative of New Spain at the court of Charles Y., was thus thrown into prison for an escapade he had perhaps forgotten. The party of Cortez had, however, better success with the young emperor, in Flanders, to whom copies of their swaggering letters were sent, with a list also of the curi- ous presents seized by the bishop. Up to the time the letters — for there were others besides the joint one — were written, it will be recollected nothing beyond the three skirmishes at Tobasco had occurred, except the alliance with one Indian village of the coast, and the conversion of some twenty-six native females — squaivs. Whatever grain-gold had been obtained was sent on to give empha- sis to the letters. Yet Diaz tells us, " His majesty was so highly pleased with what we had done, that the dukes, marquises, earls, and other cavaliers, for days together, spoke but of Cortez, our courageous behavior, and our * The King of Spain claimed as a Elizabeth resisted this claim ; but royal domain all of America, not by within the jurisdiction of Spain this virtue of discovery, but in virtue of a title could not be contested, grant from Alexander VII., the Bor- The levying vs-ar, under such cir- gia. In construction of law, Cortez cumstances, without royal license, and his company were trespassers on was clearly treasonable, royal demesne. It is true, that Queen ATTEMPTED PIRACY. 349 conquests ! and of the riches we had sent over."* The emperor at length mformed the agents that he would him- self shortly visit Spain, to investigate the matter more closely, and would then reward them fitly. This was the beginning of the end of Fonseca. We return to New Spain, where, at this time, we find Cortez and his associates attempting a most unquestion- able act of piracy, in the seizure of a vessel belonging to Francisco de Qaray, which, pursuing a lawful voyage, had unsuspectingly anchored near their retreat. Luckily they were not successful in their intent, but the very un- dertaking throws light upon the motives of the adven- turers. Clearly they would not have incurred the risk attending such a crime, but from a desperate necessity to renew their communications with the civilized world. No other incentive could have been sufficient. A little before this essay the destruction of the vessels which brought the expedition to New Spain, occurred. Both Cortez f and Diaz agree they were stranded on a lee-shore. But both claim it was voluntary. Cortez avers it was his own act ; Diaz, that it was suggested by his companions. The event has been the subject of eloquent eulogies for centuries. Among these Robertson J is, of course, pre-eminent. The motives assigned for the act were, firstly, the suppression of a mutinous spirit among the men, and, secondly, the severe necessity which called for the use of the naval armament on land. Are these * Diaz, vol. I., page 131. % Pillars of Hercules, page 95. See t Folsom's Cortez, page 41. Diaz, also Robertson's Am. vol. I., page 134. 150 DESTRUCTIOISr OF THE VESSELS. objects sucn as would justify so rash an act, one that cut the invaders off not only from retreat, but from the pos- sibility of succor ? After its capture, Gortez did not de- stroy the fleet of Narvaez, though the danger of mutiny was then doubly imminent ! Even the loss of all his materiel, in the disastrous night retreat, when he had not only to refit his land expedition, but to create a flotilla on the laguna, did not tempt him to such a step. We have witnessed not only hereabout, but elsewhere, upon this tideless shore, wrecks by the grounding of vessels at anchor, as stated in a former chapter. A coral bottom is such poor holding-ground, that any empty craft, as were those of Cortez, are liable to this disaster, even during the light gales of summer. A far larger fleet than his has many times been thus ruined in the very roadstead of Yera Cruz. The story of Tarik burning his boats at Gibraltar was familiar to all Spaniards, and, admitting an " act of God" had destroyed their shipping, it would be natural in them to turn that very misfortune into a cause of self-laudation. This is so perfectly Spanish, that with- out proof either way, the probabilities are against its having been voluntary. It must not either be forgotten that the vessels were not only exposed to the prevailing winds, and the dangers of a lee-shore, but also navigated by inexperienced seamen. If, then, they once grounded, they became fixtures, until the sea-worms and the winds accomplished their destruction. As the Spaniards had no barometer, to indicate an approaching change, before they dreamed of danger, it might have been upon them, and the hulls of their vessels upon the beach. MARCH TO THE INTERIOR. 351 Up to this time the companions of Cortez had been quartered at Sempoalla, and at the rude fortification still further at the north, which we have designated as " The oldest Yera Cruz." The sea-board secure, and the fortress at their new location fast approaching completion, a march to the table-land was resolved on, and the whole force, saving a small garrison, was soon climbing the rugged de- file of Cerro Gordo, to the plateau of Jalapa. The march is now both difficult and toilsome, though art has created a carriage-road along the face of the precipitous cliif.* But * The National Road of Mexico company of merchants known as the ^A•as conceived and executed by a Consulado de Vera Cruz. It is about SCENERY PECULIAR TO AMERICA. what must it have been in the time of Cortez ? As an Indian trail constituted the only path for a distance of more than forty miles up the pass, the fatigue may be easily conceived. Besides, they were in the midst of the rainy season, the month of x^ugust, when the mountain rivulets were swollen, and the sides of the precipices wet and slippery. To have penetrated these defiles under such circumstances, embarrassed with horses, cannon, arms, and materiel, was really a great achievement. The author of " Bernal Diaz" says the march to Jalapa was accomplished in one day.* A proof that he never saw the country, and that his work is only a compilation, most likely from Gomora, corrected in part by Las Casas. His railing at both seems a cunning device, to cover the imposture. Cortez makes the ascent the work of three days, and says he did not reach Sienchimaten-f until the fourth day, the shortest time in which such a march could possibly be made. In Cortez there are many mole-hills magnified into mountains ; but on the other hand, there are mountains that have been passed over as mere mole-hills, because the original narrative was written by a true soldier, but for a European market. Those who afterwards obtained permission to write were either ignorant of the country, or restricted to the original. But whatever the reason, ninety miles in length, and cost celebrated gorge to Jalapa, and there $3,000,000. From Vera Cruz it runs it attains, at a distance of sixty miles northward, often within sight of the from Vera Cruz, an elevation of 4264 Gulf, until it nearly reache-i tie feet above the sea. — Wilson's Mexico. Cerro Gordo, where it turns inland, * Diaz, vol. I., page 139. and then passes upward through that f Cortez' Despatches, page 45. ITS EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY. no efforts were made to present the simple facts of the case. The first object was to make an impression in Spain, and that none of the subsequent historians seems to have understood. We have never ceased to admire the fortitude displayed by the Spaniards in surmounting the mountain ridges they crossed, in their toilsome march to the capital. What we have said of the route to Jalapa is equally true of all the subsequent ascents ; for Jalapa is but half-way up the barrier of the table-land. In the summer season these mountains are clothed with their most beautiful attire. But as this is a kind of beauty hardly to be appreciated in Europe, it is passed in silence. It is so in all Spanish books on America. They are the reflections of European ideas. That which is American, is either distorted to conform to foreign patterns, or passed without a word. Neither Cortez nor Diaz notices the unrivalled beauty of the country through which the road lay, though it was, as we have said, the very time when Nature wore her richest costume. We will not imitate their want of taste, but here delay amid the gorgeous beauties, which the route from the sea- shore to the first plateau presents. The shore is a hill of shifting sand, driven in by the winds. A tropical marsh succeeds, presenting a striking contrast to the arid waste just traversed. The sands give place to the richest of vegetation. There is that strange combination, so often witnessed in these latitudes, in which natural branches, creepers, vines, and parasites mingle into one wild con- glomerate — a mass of foliage of many distinct kinds matted and mixed together. It is all untamed — yet the 23 354 RAPIDITY OF THE MARCH. graceful festoons of the creepers, swinging from branch to branch, and the shady arbors they form, have the regu- larity of a garden.* Almost as it was when Cortez wrote, it still exists. Through this realm of beauty the Span- iards held their toilsome march, day after day, yet is it all unnoticed and unsung by their authors, while they have exhausted their vocabulary of superlatives in de- scribing the fabulous court and harem of Montezuma, a pattern for which existed in the tales of the Arabians. The romances of chivalry, perhaps, afforded another rea- son — neither Rolando, the Paladin, nor Amadis de Gaul, the favorites of Diaz, as of Don Quixote, had ever pene- trated into the region of the tropics, therefore their beauty remained unsung. Through these scenes they ascended to the first plateau, a spot more beautiful, even, than the road to it. But Cortez did not linger. Though kindly received by the natives, it was not advisable to tarry. Behind was the pes- tilential atmosphere of the hot country. Before, the moun- tain, the desert, and an enemy, who intervened between him and that island capital, to which he was directing his steps. Hesitation or dilatory movement has disastrous effects in Indian war, while a bold front and promptness tend materially to success. An Indian military expedi- tion is rather a run than a march ; so was it ever with Cortez, excepting in retreat. Celerity of movement was his most striking characteristic. The distance from Sem- poalla to the table-land he traversed in but little more time than that required by an Indian war-party. His * Wilson's Mexico. REAL MERIT OF CORTEZ. 355 great superiority was in this ; his intimate knowledge of Indian character and modes of attack. His Spanish eulogists, in ignorance, overlooked 'this merit, the one that made him invulnerable among his wild assailants, and almost always insured him victory. The writer of Bernal Diaz, as usual, shows such total igno- rance of the character and tactics of the enemy as com- pels us to follow Cortez in every movement of the cam- paign. Cortez writes as an actor, the other as a compiler. Cortez never appears surprised, never off his guard for a moment. Always prepared for action, he is always victorious. To a watchful leader, the superiority of his weapons insured this result, though in no instance did Cortez exhibit remarkable personal courage, according to the European standard. Equal to his antagonists in strat- egy, he continually boasts of overreaching them in duplicity. Yet he is the authority we must follow in marches and countermarches. There he has no inducement to exagge- rate, and speaking from personal knowledge of the ground, he does not appear to have done so. It is when he comes to descant on the number of his enemies, and the magni- tude of his victories, that he assumes the Munchausen.* Burthened, as we have seen, he crossed the first plateau, and commenced the arduous task of climbing the barrier- mountain of Perote, through a pass which, Spaniard-like, he blasphemously named " The Pass of God,"f not by * Itwas the popular belief in Spain, f "This will sound to Protestant atthis time, that the West Indies, viz., readers something like horrible bias- Spanish America, was as densely popu- phemy ; but it must be borne in mind lated as the East Indies. Hence there that the God of the Romanist is an was no difficulty in finding credence for entirely different idea from the spirit- extravagant numbers of the enemy, ual God whom we worship. The 356 CORTEZ CROSSING THE HIGH MOUNTAIN. the stone road, which the skill of modern engineers has constructed, but by intricate Indian pathways, over its rugged heights, through a country destitute of inhabit- ants, and indeed scarcely habitable, from the sterility of devout Protestant who recognises but one Being worthy of adoration, vene- ration, and worship, never ventures to mention any of the names by which He is known but with the profound- est reverence. The Romanist, on the other hand, has a host of objects which he deems worthy of adoration, and seems to have cheapened the ar- ticle by multiplying it. His senses are all esercised in his religion^ and, as a natural consequence, he con- cludes the Almighty enjoys those exhibitions that give him the great- est pleasure. " Romanists worship him by per- forming a pantomime of the life and suffering of Christ, which is called the mass, and seek to propitiate him by offering the body of his Son in sacri- fice. They bestow upon God gifts of jewels of gold and of the fruits of the earth ; and as He passes through their streets in the form of a wafer, as they believe, the soldiers present arms, beat the drum, and discharge cannon, as to an earthly prince. Though our Sa- viour (Santo Christo) heads the calen- dar of intercessors between God and man, He is seldom invoked, though they often honor him by giving their children his name. As they have conferred upon a multitude of their saints the supernatural powers of God, they have necessarily brought God himself down to earth. If I might be pardoned the expression, I should say, they treat him and his well- beloved Son with a loving intimacy. Their worship is substantially mate- rialism, more or less gross, according to its distance from or its proximity to a Protestant population. There is no blasphemy, according to their system, in naming their shops after the Holy Ghost, a horse-stable after " the Precious Blood," &c., though I could never hear them mentioned or see them without having my Protest- ant notions shocked, while I equally shocked their feelings by refusing to kneel to the Host, and slipping out of the way to avoid it. Nor could I exhibit the least reverence to their religious emblems without committing what in me would be an act of idol- atry, the two systems being so diame- trically opposite that one cannot go a step toward the other without break- ing over a fundamental doctrine of his own belief. God is an invisible Spirit, says the Protestant. God is a Spirit, answers the Romanist, but he daily assumes the form of a wafer, and traverses our streets, and in that form we most commonly worship him. Such is the antagonism that will ever be found in the world while man re- mains what he now is, ever divided between mentalism and materialism. Forms and names often differ, but these are the two ideas into which all the systems of devotion in the world resolve themselves, although abortive attempts are often made to combine them." — Mexico and its Beligion. CORTEZ CROSSING THE HIGH MOUNTAIN. its soil, its want of water, and the coldness of its climate. " God knows," says Cortez, " how much our people suf- fered there from hunger and thirst, especially during a violent storm of hail and rain we encountered, when I thought many would have perished with cold."* This picture of hardships and sufferings, endured in that lofty range, cannot have been a whit exaggerated. Upon the same heights we have encountered similar storms, during which the very animals seemed likely to perish. It is a polar region within the tropics. Through all these obsta- cles, however, the Spaniards toiled on until a defile, more difficult, indeed, but less formidable in appearance than the previous passage, was reached. Then they crossed an intervening valley, inhabited by tribes subjected to Montezuma, to enter upon a second more difficult than any in Spain. To this day those gorges might be closed by a handful of resolute men against an army. A Spaniard, who was with us while surveying one of them, could not repress his indignation at the Mexicans, for leaving them unguarded at the time of the American invasion. Here he remarked, with a sneer, the Ame- rican soldiers passed with their hands in their pockets. The summit reached, the Spaniards descended to the interior valleys fertilized by melting snows. Diaz minutely describes this fearful mountain transit, from Sochina on the plateau, to Texutla on the table- land, thus : " As they advanced the population ceased, and at the very first night they had excessive cold, with hail ; they were at the same time without food, and as * Cortez, page 45. Ibid., page 46. 358 DiAz' ACCOUNT. the wind blew across the snow mountains, they shook again with the frost."* Indeed, he justly remarks, no one can wonder at this ; they had come so suddenly from the hot climate of Vera Cruz, and the neighboring coasts, into a cold country. At last they entered the territories of locotlan, and were as much pleased with this interior vale as with many a Spanish town, " on account of the many beautiful whitewashed houses, and other struc- tures." And so they appear to-day. The brush is now, as then, industriously applied to the outside, and though the buildings are still chiefly of that frail material, dried mud, they present a very neat and tidy appearance, and give a pretty correct idea of what an Indian town may have been in the time of Cortez. Here, too, Diaz intro- duces matter for the Spanish market, and Cortez is once more represented as preaching against human sacrifice, and the eating of human flesh ; f concluding his harangue with the solemn announcement, " We can do nothing further I think, than erect a cross. "J A curious conclu- sion to an exhortation, that contains the first suggestion of a God yet delivered to the Indians. Not a word this time, however, about the blessed Virgin, or the efficacy of her intercession. They were now nigh the desert of the table-land ; * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 139. in his translation, though as inappro- f Ihid., page 141. priate as it would be to anglicize X We omit the word " gentlemen," the following from a French edition at the commencement of this speech of Shakspeare : — of Cortez, as it is a Spanish idiomati- " Monsieur Macbeth, Monsieur Mac- cism, and not usual in an English beth, prenez garde, Monsieur Mac- commander's address to his soldiers, duff." It is, however, retained by Lockhart, MARCH ACROSS THE BAD LAND. 359 and four days of rest were allowed the wearied soldiers to refresh them in the fertile valleys around, before the march was resumed, across that dry and saline waste where water, to slake their thirst even, could not be found ; only tufts of stunted grass are scattered over this dreary expanse, which to this day is known by the expressive name of the bad land, mal pais. Here wolves and vultures thrive, and robbers levy contributions on passing travellers. It is a land of drought, and storms of sand, for the clouds that cross it discharge their moist- ure upon the adjacent mountains. Parties, however, who have passed through the hardships of the defiles, easily submit to the inconvenience of this change, as it is hardly a day's march to the Eye-of -Water, Ojo de Agua, a bubbling fountain, on its western border. And now, as we tread upon the frontiers of Tlascala, we must begin again our discourse of war. CHAPTER X. OPERATIONS IN TLASCALA. The Tlascala of Cortez, 360 — TIascala according to Diaz, 361 — Tlascala ac- cording to the historians, 362 —The impossibilities in Cortez' statements, 362 — An unfortunate remark of Diaz, 364 — The facts in relation to Tlascala, 365 — The real advantage of the Tlascalan alliance, 366 — Religious tolera- tion at Tlascala, 367 — The Tlascalans and their government, 368 — The campaign of Tlascala, 368 — First battle with the Tlascalans, 369 — Another great battle, 370 — The success of the Tlascalan war, 370 — The consumma- tion of the Tlascalan alliance, 371 — Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 372— Cholula, 376— Was Quetzalcoatl the Apostle Thomas ? 378— The city of Cholula, 379 — Its political state and government, 380 — The simple truth about Cholula, 380 — The Cholula massacre, 382 — An ascent of the volcano, 384 — Preparations for a march to Mexico, 386 — Cortez enters the valley of Mexico, 386— Cholula, 388. So far we have formed an indifferently correct narration of the achievements of the invaders, the ascent to the table- land, and march to Tlascala. In this we have followed Bernal Diaz, while he kept within the line of physical possibilities; when he overleaped them, we turned to Cortez. Aided by our own frequent journeys through that region, we have filled the gaps that remained with tolerable certainty. This natural method will be of no avail, however, in treating of Tlascala; there our two wit- nesses are at irreconcilable variance. The turning point in the history of the conquest is in this state, as it was the basis in all operations of the war. Cortez tells us* * Folsom's Cortez, page 61. (360) TLASCALA ACCORDING TO DIAZ. 361 that Tlascala was a great and powerful republic, with a capital larger and more prosperous than Granada, at the time of its conquest, and much stronger, and much better supplied with the products of the earth, such as corn, and various kinds of vegetables, with fowls, game, fish, and other excellent articles of food ; and where, too, there was "a market in which more than thirty thousand people were engaged in buying and selling, besides many other merchants scattered about the city; containing also a great variety of articles, both of food and clothing, and all kinds of shoes for the feet, jewels of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and ornaments of feathers; all as well arranged as they possibly can be found in any pub- lic square in the world." If this statement is correct, then he has not overrated the magnificence of Monte- zuma, as that was confessedly the superior of Tlascala. It is by this vast scale Cortez measures the resources of the great states of the table-land — while Gomora, his chaplain, more extravagant, as usual, in his numerals, out- Herods even his master.* According to Diaz, the Tlascalans were so poor that the present they offered as a testimony of friendship to * Baron Munchausen. — Miss ries. His patron, the baron of those Brewster (daughter of Sir David), in days, wrote a book out-Heroding He- her " Letters from Cannes and Nice," rod, being a collection of still more says : — " Baron Munchausen is at marvellous adventures, for the pur- Nice. My father met him at a pic- pose of shaming the priest ; for which nic the other day, and heard from laudable design he was punished, by him the history of his celebrated having his own name held up to namesake. One of his ancestors had posterity as tlie story-teller par excel- a chaplain who was famous for lence!" This shows that it is dan- ' drawing the long bow' — told, in fact, gerous to lie, even in jest. The Mun- the most false and extravagant sto- chausens are a Hanoverian family. 362 IMPOSSIBILITIES IN CORTEZ' STATEMENTS. Cortez, had not the value of twenty dollars, and they ac- companied the gift with a speech, wherein they declared that Montezuma had stripped them of everything, and reduced them to the utmost poverty. Now, if we believe this, as Montezuma did not possess sufficient power wholly to subjugate Tlascala, notwithstanding its poverty-stricken condition, the real strength of that distinguished monarch was not very extraordinary. But the rule with our annalists has been to take the most extravagant statement, when there was a variance, and, suggesting some slight abatement, parade that one as evidence. To take the opposite course would be equally objectionable. The only correct rule is to sub- mit every narrative to the ordeal of proof; then, that which can be verified is to be adopted without hesitation, and that which cannot must be rejected, without regard- ing the number or rank of those it has misled. For this task not one of our predecessors had, before writing, qualified himself by an actual survey of the country. The lack of a qualification so indispensable is but poorly supplied by the polish of elegant periods. We have sought among all the previous chroniclers for some light upon this difficult question of Tlascala, but found only silvery sentences, or elegant selections from writers, igno- rant as themselves, on the subject-matter of their essays. For our purpose, then, the standard histories of the con- quest might as well be blank paper. The statements by Cortez of the population, wealth, civilization, and military power of Tlascala, are as utterly IMPOSSIBILITIES IN CORTEZ' STATEMENTS. 363 fabulous as would be the history of some New England village fabricated from Moorish romances. He reports " a dry stone wall, nine feet high and twenty feet thick, enclosed Tlascala from mountain to mountain, a distance of six miles, through which he entered, between overlap- ping stone walls ;"* and he then inserts a representation of the alleged wall in a page of his despatches, of which the following is a^c simile: — Of this wall we were unable to find a vestige, for this simple reason — ^it never existed. We go further, we deny that Cortez was attacked by four or five thousand Indians on passing it,* as Tlascala, by the laws of population, could never have maintained as many hundreds, shut in, as he states it, by impassable metes and bounds of known limits. Of course the hundred thousand f that subse- quently assailed him are " but men in buckram," and the grand Tlascalan army of one hundred and forty-nine thou- sandj has equally an imaginary existence. As for the city of twenty thousand houses,§ which he captured be- fore reaching the capital, that, like the armies he encoun- tered, was manufactured from a very small amount of material. The capital itself, he asserts, was larger than Granada, and much stronger, and contained as many fine * Folsom's Cortez, page 51. % Ibid., page 53. t Ibid., page 51. ^ Ibid., page 57. 364 AN UNFORTUNATE REMARK OF DIAZ. houses, and a much larger population than that city did, at the time of its capture.* A statement that overdoes both Munchausen and the chaplain altogether. The Arar bian tales have nothing more untrue. The Conquistador himself furnishes the material for his own conviction. He sets down the population from which these armies were drawn at five hundred thousand,f a number ten times larger than the contracted limits he assigns to the whole state could support, and too small still for its- apocryphal force. The author of Bernal Diaz deducts immensely from this picture, the effects doubtless of Las Casas' criticisms, yet even his story is incredible. Accord- ing to him, the Spaniards were assailed in the first battle, not by four or five, but by three thousand, J in the second great battle, not by one hundred thousand, but by six ; finally the main body is stated at fifty thousand only,§ The hundred and forty-nine thousand Tlascalans of Cortez|l are but forty thousand in the pages of Diaz.^ In Gomora the discrepancies are still more extraordinary. Another curious difierence of fact may be found in com- paring Diaz and Cortez. It lies but in a word, but that word goes far to establish our suspicion that the writer of Bernal Diaz never saw New, Spain, or at least not until long after its conquest. Cortez says, the Tlascalans com- plained to him of being so completely shut in, that they were deprived of the use of salt.** To salt, Diaz adds cotton.^ " We cannot get beyond to get salt for our * Folsom's Cortez, page 61. || Cortez, page 53. t Ihid., page 63. \ Diaz, vol. I., page 147. X Diaz, vol. I., page 145. ** Cortez, page 49. I Ihid., page 165. ff Diaz, vol. I., page 157. THE FACTS IN" RELATION TO TLASCALA. 365 victuals, nor cotton for our clothing. " If this writer had really been acquainted with the tribes of the table-land, he must have known that the fibres of the maguey were, among them, substitutes for that article ; and are even now used at the city of Mexico in the manufacture of some fine fabrics. In trifles like this we detect the counterfeit and impostor, not in important items. In these last the party guards against discovery by a resort to vague gene- ralities. TLASCALA OF THE GEOGRAPHERS. Modern Tlascala is an Indian reservation of nearly oval shape, sixty-nine miles long by forty-two wide. The climate is comparatively cold, and its soil far from excel- lent. From the time of Cortez it has been independently governed, by its own chiefs, subject to a royal commis- 366 ADVANTAGE OF THE TLASCALAN ALLIANCE. sioner. Its means of subsistence have increased, and extensive manufactures have been estabhshed, also, since that time. The only enumeration ever made of its inha- bitants was in 1793, when it was found to contain fifty- one thousand one hundred and seventeen souls.* Even in the extravagant official estimate for the conscription of 1853, its population is only set down at eighty thou- sand one hundred and seventy-one.f Cortez says Tlas- cala contained half a million, according to a report made by his order. The three narratives exactly fix its bounds between certain mountains and stone walls. Besides its narrow compass, a perfect non-intercourse existed with the rest of the world ; all means of supply were cut off; their subsistence depended upon their own rude cultiva- tion. It would, therefore, seem extravagant to claim for the whole state of Tlascala, a population then, of over ten thousand, for which five hundred warriors would be a large allowance. The real importance of Tlascala, in the war of the conquest, was its position. The military discernment of Cortez discovered its strategic value, as a great natural fortress, affording centre and base to his future opera- tions against the other tribes. The Tlascalan hatred of Mexico assured him an adequate and reliable garrison in every emergency, and also any number he might desire of Indian auxiliaries; hence the Tlascalans were espe- cially favored. They shared in the perils and in the plunder of his enterprise ; for with them rested the ques- ^Essai PoUtiqiie of Humboldt, vol. f Coleccion de Leges, page 184. I., page 144. RELIGIOUS TOLERATION AT TLASCALA. 367 tion of success — whether he was to be hailed hereafter as the hero of a holy war, or to be branded as a buccaneer. The good faith with which both parties adhered to the conditions of their alliance, when once it was consum- mated, is almost without a parallel. Through good and through evil they mutually shared the benefits, even down to the time of the revolution. When, amid the convulsions that have lately agitated that country, the pariah caste* again arose, curses both loud and deep were muttered not only against the memory of Cortez, but the Tlascalans, the hereditary enemies of the Aztecs. The Moorish history of Spain had shown the import- ance of observing exact faith with those who sided with the invaders, and it is also apparent, from the exhorta- tions to Cortez — put for effect into the mouth of " Father Olmedo" by Diaz — to moderate his pious zeal, to be more tolerant to the Indians, that he imitated the Moors, so far as to allow his allies perfect freedom in their traditional worship of the "Great Spirit;" contenting himself with the erection of a cross, and sometimes a chapel, in their villages ; — a line of policy from which the Spanish gov- ernment appear never to have swerved : for the subsequent adoption, by the allies, of the Romish superstition, was entirely voluntary. Such an acknowledgment of the ad- vantages of political integrity by those " who feared not God, neither regarded man," cannot be too highly appre- ciated. Though policy alone dictated this course, that policy was the result of profound study. * Pariah, the reader will recollect, is a general term for low-caste people in India. 368 CAMPAIGN OF TLASCALA. The remainder of the story is soon told. The food of the people was the maize they cultivated upon the plain, and the game they killed upon the mountains. Their clothing was wrought from the fibres of the maguey, or made from the skins of animals, most likely, in part, of both. Their government was one of sacliems and coun- cils, the ordinary one in existence among Indians. Glory- ing in their wild independence, they submitted to the merest shadow of authority. They had not yet attained that point of the social organization when the loose gov- ernment of the nomad gives way to despotism, the next stage in man's advancement. The difference between the Tlascalans and the Aztecs was, perhaps, that which a North American tribe bears to those of Central Africa, who dwell in mud-built cities, and slavishly obey a half- naked emperor. From his ox-hide within a hovel, the latter exercises the powers of life and death over thou- sands of trembling slaves. But wandering tribes can only act in councils, and these are, therefore, their governing power, and the orator has as much influence as the suc- cessful warrior; when power passes into a single hand, the orator is silent, the war-chief is the government. . During the months that succeeded the battle of Tobasco up to the first of September, 1520, no warlike encounter with the Indians occurred. Then, unexpectedly, Cortez was compelled to risk several sharply-contested affairs. All attempts at negotiation being fruitless, everything was brought to the arbitration of the sword. Without, there- fore, wasting useful time, an advance was at once ordered. Here Diaz slips into the mouth of Cortez a phrase usually FIRST BATTLE. 369 attributed to Constantine : '' Let us follow our standard. It bears the figure of the holy cross, and in that sign we shall conquer" — ecce signum.'^ Without this moonshine we confess to the genius of Cortez. No leader, educated in frontier warfare, could have conducted a campaign better than this of Tlascala. Having sent forward his cavalry, who were drawn into an ambuscade, a general engagement was determined upon, rather than encourage the enemy by retreat. For a short time the battle was well sustained; at last the Tlascalans wavered, then gave way. They left seventeen dead upon the field. On the Spanish side four were wounded, one of whom died.f Crossing a mountain ridge, the Spaniards fell in with another body, with which a new but unsuccessful attempt was again made to nego- tiate; failing in this, Cortez gave the war-cry of Spain, " Forward, San Diego is Avith us !" This party was greatly more numerous than their own, Diaz reckons the enemy's numbers, absurdly enough, at six thousand, and at forty thousand ! One, familiar with Indian affairs, readily translates this fabulous nonsense into an impor- tant achievement by Cortez — the extrication of his cav- alry from an ambuscade without loss, and the complete dislodgment of the enemy from his cover. These occur- rences took place on the two first days of September, 1520. * hi lioc signo, &c. a campaign, yet is it represented as There is suspended in the Museum, the banner borne by Cortez in the at the city of Mexico, a damask war of the conquest ! an evidence to silk banner, in a gilt frame, with a the faithful of the superintending picture of the Virgin portrayed upon work of the blessed Virgin ! it. This comparatively fresh and t Diaz, vol. I., page 146. bright ensign apparently never saw 24 370 ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE. The next was a night battle ; so natural, so Indian- like are its details that we must credit them, though we have to reduce the hundred and forty-nine thousand of Cortez* to less than one thousand. This is a more liberal estimate than that Diaz suggests, when Gomora uses the same. He tells us to write down one thousand, when Gomora speaks of eighty thousand.-]* But, alas ! we are compelled to apply the pruning-knife to the numerals of Diaz ; even the ten thousand select men of that veracious individual must be counted but as so many hundreds, at most. Up to this time the Spaniards had lost fifty-five men only, by disease and battle. The night adventure was a triumphant success ; and, the engagement over, the invaders made a mountain march of six miles, during which they suffered severely from cold in that elevated region. "Our horses," says Diaz, "felt the frost quite severely. Two of them, indeed, got the gripes, and trembled like aspen-leaves, at which we were greatly concerned, for we thought they would have died of the cold."t The war of Tlascala was now substantially terminated ; what subsequently took place was the mere surprise of a few villages. One of these Cortez pretends to have ascer- tained to number twenty thousand houses ! ! § This would give two hundred and fifty, according to the liberal rule of Diaz — more, perhaps, than the real number. But through this mass of exaggeration we still discover the elements of a real Indian war. There is first, the ambus- * Folsom's Cortez, page 53. J Ibid., page 159. f Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 365. I Cortez, page 57. SUCCESS OF THE TLASCALAN WAR. 371 r cade, the usual opening of a defensive campaign, by the natives. Next, the battle scene, "in a place of deep cavities, [ravines,]* where the cavalry was completely use- less." It was evidently a surprise. The success of Cortez consisted in pushing back the Indians to the level ground. In the final struggle, in accordance with Indian tactics, we have a night attack, with all their forces. Thus, the three engagements brought into exercise the whole routine of aboriginal strategy. On each occasion the natives fought desperately, as is their wont when they have their enemy at an advantage. That Cortez at any time escaped a total rout, was owing not to his superior numbers, nor to his experience in the European system of war, nor to the superiority of his weapons, but to his thorough know- ledge of his enemy. For an ambuscade, a surprise, or a night attack, he was at all times fully prepared ; calcu- lating upon them, he came off victorious from each en- counter. The total defeat of De Nouville by a small body of Iroquois, [Senecas,] arose from neglecting such precautions. In that army of twenty-six hundred, nine hundred were veterans from the wars of the Rhine ; yet three hundred of them, in full armor, were lost in an ambuscade.f But De Nouville, though a brave and expe- rienced soldier, was, like Braddock, ignorant of Indian tactics. Spaniard and Tlascalan, victor and vanquished, were now thoroughly exhausted by their efforts.^ The blows * Barrancas. of Avon, New York, entitled Yonon- f This is the foundation of a very dia. pretty poem, by Mr. W. H. C. Hosmer, J Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 169. 372 THE TLASCALAN ALLIANCE. given on either side were about equal, and the induce- ments to a cessation of hostilities mutual. Under these circumstances, there was not much difficulty in settling the terms of a peace, hereafter to be turned into an offen- sive and defensive alliance against Mexico. This was not effected, however, without an exhibition on the part of Cortez of about as much double-dealing as was ever dis- played by an Indian diplomatist. As both the ambassa- dors of the Mexicans and the Tlascalans were at the same time in his camp, he pretended to hesitate with which he should form an alliance. The result of this duplicity was as he anticipated. Day by day, while he affected to vacillate, each party continued to raise their bids for his friendship ; at last there arrived from Mexico presents to the value of three thousand dollars, in gold, and cotton stuffs, interwoven with feather-work. Having, then, all he could expect from that quarter, his decision was at once taken ; he set out for the chief village of the Tlas- calans, under the escort of a solemn embassy from that tribe ) not forgetting, however, to take with him, and to keep near his person, the Mexican envoys. A better cer- tificate of his own importance he could not have had. Thus circumstanced, he marched to the council-village, or capital of the Tlascalan Confederation, and was there received with every demonstration of joy and mutual friendship; and an alliance was at last consummated, which remained undisturbed during the three hundred years of Spanish domination. The mihtary and diplomatic features of this war termi- nated, we approach with doubtful reverence the piety CORTEZ AS A REFORMER. 373 thrown in^ as a make-weight. It is, as before suggested, piety without faith — the offspring of a religion without godliness. After treating us to the usual fables of human sacrifice, Diaz makes Cortez so zealous for the sacraments as to write to Escalante, at Vera Cruz, to send two bottles of wine and some holy wafers, as he had none left.* The same author adds, " During these days we erected a ma- jestic cross in our quarters, and Cortez had one of the temples in our neighborhood cleansed and fresh plas- tered."* In another place, referring to the same transac- tion, he adds, " and the image of the blessed Virgin [he caused] to be placed [portrayed] on it."-|* On being pre- sented with five young girls, the Conquistador is repre- sented as delivering one of those peculiar sermons which characterize the narrative of Diaz. " He told them many other things concerning our holy faith which Dona Marina and Aguilar explained right toell to them ! Cortez, at the same time, showed them the image of the holy Virgin, holding her inestimable Son in her arms. . . . She was our mediator with her Heavenly Son, our God."^ Can it be wondered, after such an exhibition of oriental venera- tion for the cross, and the Madonna and Infant,§ that the * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 173. of morals was preceded by a total f Ibid., page 182. depravity in doctrine ; and the incor- X Ibid., page 181. poration into the Christian system of § The general notion among us is, the peculiar Phoenician form of idol- that the Oriental divisions of the atry that pervaded all Western Asia Catholic church (using the Catholic — the adoration of the Madonna and in a party sense) are less corrupt in the cross. doctrine than the Eomish. Nothing All the change these emblems re- could be more opposite the truth. Not ceived vs^as in adding the tradition of only are all these churches utterly de- Mary and her Son. As in olden time, praved in morals, but this depravity Malcarth, the Phoenican Hercules, 374 CORTEZ AS A REFORMER. simple natives should connect them with that race which in ages past had portrayed the same scenes on the ruined took on the story of Samson, so the Madonna and Child of the Syro-Phoe- nician coins was no longer Ashteroth, and the child of sacrifice, but Mary and Christ, the Infant. The Romanists, in constant contact with Protestants for centuries, do not exhibit the paganism of their sys- tem so prominently as the Orientals. " I think it may be useful for me to state here some of the grosser errors of the Armenian church system, as they are contained in the church books still in daily and constant use. " In the first place, these books teach that the ' holy pictures,' as they are called, after the ceremony of anointing by the priest, are endued with power ' quickly to help and save all those that trust in the Lord ;' to ' defend travellers ;' to ' aid those who are in the midst of tempests at sea ;' to ' heal the sick ;' to be * an atone- ment for sinners;' to 'cast out devils;' to ' intercede for men ;' to ' impart health to body and soul,' &c., &c. And after the consecration takes place, the ecclesiastics are directed to ' burn in- cense before the pictures ;' to kiss them ; and to see that ' suitable hymns and prayers' are used before them. " In the second place, the anointed wooden and metallic crosses have like powers. After the form of prayer, accompanying the anointing of a cross, is given, comes the following direction to the priests : ' Afterwards let them offer adoration, and, all of them in order, kiss, and unitedly worship, saying three times, "We worship thy cross, Christ, and we magnify thy burial, and we glorify thy resurrection.'" After this, in the same service, we find a prayer from which I make the following re- markable extracts : ' Bestow the grace of thy Holy Spirit upon this signal (the cross) which we have erected in thy name. Make this the keeper of our souls and bodies. Hear, pardon, and save all who believe in thy cru- cified Son, and worship this cross.' . . . ' And when thou sendest death upon men, and they come and entreat thee before this signal (the cross), do thou hear, and pardon, and save them.' . . . 'Remember also the maker of this (cross), and have mercy upon him.' In parts of this prayer, which I have omitted, particular mention is made of almost every evil that can befall man, and for every one the petition is offered, that God would remove the evil from all who worship before the cross. " In addition to this, we find every- where, in the church books, prayers to the Virgin Mary, and other saints, and their intercession implored. These books are full of expressions like the following: 'We beseech thee, holy mother of God, intercede with Christ to save his people whom he hath pur- chased with his blood.' 'We have thee, unwedded Virgin, as our in- tercessor ; . . . thee, who art the gate of heaven, the way to paradise, the remover of curses,' &c., ' do not cease to intercede for us.' " ' Rejoice, mother of God, who art the boast of virginity, the mo- ther of human stability,' &r, CORTEZ AS A REFORMER. 375 temples of Yucatan and the hot country ? Our historian further adds : " Upon this, it was explained to the caciques [chiefs] why we always erected two crosses whenever we formed a camp, and passed the night, assuring them, among other things, that their gods feared them!"* Under such teaching the children of the forest became baptized heathen ! Yet it is about a fair average of the teaching of Romish missionaries,*]- to the adorers of the Great Spirit. ' holy Virgin, the dissolver of curses, and the atoner of sins.' And while such expressions, addressed to the Virgin Mary and many other saints, and also to the angels, everywhere abound, I have searched in vain for a single mention of the mediation of Christ, the only mediator between God and man ! " Furthermore, we find that in the Armenian system, there is no recog- nition of the individual and personal relation of the sinner to God. His relations are with the priests and the sacraments, and through them he hopes for the pardon of sin, and an entrance into paradise. The books of the church teach that original sin is entirely cleansed away by baptism, and that actual sins are atoned for by the ' sacrifice of the mass ;' and the sinner fully released by the pardon- ing power of the priest ! " All these things I have stated at large in my papers, with full extracts from their own books ; and all the reply I have yet heard is that of many individuals, who say, ' Who believes in these things now V And it is partly true, and a most encouraging truth it is, that great numbers of the Arme- nians, who still remain connected with the old church, have, through the preaching of the missionaries and our native brethren, and the perusal of our books, become entirely satis- fied of the errors of their church. Still the church, as such, has not essentially changed, and, as I have already intimated, all these things are still read in their daily and weekly services. It is evident that things cannot long remain as they are at present. Either the church books and services must be reformed, or there will be a greater exodus than ever before, going forth from the cor- rupted mass. May the Lord hasten, it in his time \" — Letters from Mk. DwiGHT, Constantinople. Thus we see the church that Christ established in the world, falling into the apostasy with the church planted by Moses, and corrupting itself in the adoration of the "Queen of Hea- ven," and of her emblem. * Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 182. t Thomas Gage, who spent eighteen years as Dominican friar, in New Spain, thus speaks of the character of the missionary monks of his day, two hundred years ago. ..." That of 376 CHOLULA. MARCH TO CHOLULA. The scene now shifts to an adjoining tribe, one bearing the famihar name of Cholula, in common with a mud- the thirty or forty, which on such oc- casions are [annually] transported to India, three parts of them are friars of bad lives." London, 1677. Page 17. Then follows an amusing account of the manner he was led to embrace the life of a friar-missionary. " This Malendoz greatly rejoiced when he had found me ; and being well stocked with Indian patacones [money] the first night of his coming, invited me to his chamber to a stately supper. The good Xeres sack, which was not spared, set my friend in such a heart of zeal of converting Japo- vians, that all his talk was of those parts never yet seen, and at least sis thousand leagues distant. Bacchus metamorphosed him from a divine into an orator, and made him a Cicero in parts of rhetoi-ical eloquence. No- thing was omitted that might exhort me to join with him in the function [enterprise] which he thought was apostolical — nemo propheta in patria [no one is a prophet in his own coun- try], was a great argument with him ; CHOLULA. 377 built village, and an immense earthen mound, which dis- tinguished it, then, as now, among all the villages of the sometimes he propounded martyrdom for the gospel's sake, and the glory after it to have his life and death printed, and of poor Friar Antony, a cloister son of Segovia, to he styled St. Antony by the Pope, and made col- lateral with the Apostles in heaven ; thus did Bacchus make him ambi- tious of honor upon the earth and preferment in heaven. But when he thought his rhetoric had not pre- vailed, then would he act at Midas and Croesus, fancying the Indies paved with tiles of gold and silver; the stones to be pearls, rubies, and diamonds ; the trees to be hung with clusters of nutmegs bigger than the clusters of grapes of Canaan ; the fields to be planted with sugar-cane, which should so sweeten the chocolate that it should exceed the milk and honey of the Land of Promise ; the silks of China he conceited so common, that the sails of the ships were nothing else: finally he dreamed of Midas's happiness, that whatsoever he touched should be turned to gold. Thus did Xeres nectar make my friend and mortified [self-denying] friar, a co- vetous worldling. And yet, from a rich covetous merchant, did it shape him to a courtier in pleasure ; fancy- ing the Philippines to be Eden, where was all joy without tears, mirth with- out sadness, laughing without sorrow, comfort without grief, plenty without want^ — no, not of Eves for Adams, ex- cepted only that in it should be no forbidden fruit, but all lawful for the taste-sweetening of the palate ; and as Adam would have been as God, so conceited Melendoz himself a god in that Eden, whom travelling Indian waits and trumpets should accom- pany; and to whom, entering into any town, nosegays should be presented. Flowers and boughs should be strew- ed in the way ; arches should be erected to ride under. Bells for joy should be rung ; and Indian knees for duty and homage, as to a god, should be bowed to the very ground. From this inducing argument, and representation of a paradise, he fell into a strong rhetorical point of curio- sity, finding out a tree of knowledge . . . there should the pepper be known in its season, the nutmeg and clove, the cinnamon as a rine or bark on a tree, the fashioning of the sugar from a green growing cane into a loaf; the strange shaping of the cochineal from a worm to so rich a scarlet die ; the changing of tints which is but grass with stalk and leaves into an indigo black die, should be taught and learned. . . . Finally, though Xeres's liquor had put his be- witching eloquence into my Antony's brain, yet he doubted not to prefer be- fore it his wine of Philippines, grow- ing on tall and high trees of cocoa, wherein he longed to drink a Spanish Brindis [toast] in my company, to all his friends remaining behind in Spain. Who would not be persuaded by these his arguments to follow him and his Calvo, or bald-pated supe- rior ? Thus supper being ended, my Melendoz desired to know how my heart [!] stood affected to his journey; and breaking out into a voto a Dios, with his converting zeal he swore he should have no quiet night's rest 378 "WAS QUETZALCOATL THE APOSTLE THOMAS? table-land. For once we shall follow the standard histo- rians, and afterwards add our own observations. That famous cut^stone pyramid of Cholula, a print of which used to adorn every school geography of our country, had never other than an imaginary existence. The reality is an earthen mound, differing from the common sort only in its enormous size. We are indebted to fiction for all else that it possesses. The Spanish inventors of Indian traditions made Cho- lula the Mecca of the Anahuac, where of old an annual fair was held, the resort of merchants and pilgrims from all parts of the table-land ; there, say they, sacrifices were offered and vows performed, while exchange and barter engrossed a busy multitude in its bazaars, and at the foot of the great pyramid. Cholula, by these apocryphal tra- ditions, was in the time of Indian paganism ! sacred to Quetzalcoatl, ^' the god of the air,"* who, during his abode on earth, had taught mankind the use of metals, the prac- tice of agriculture, and the arts of government. Other until he were fully satisfied of my feits ; for in this country, even the resolution to accompany him," — most sacred records are open to such Thomas Gage, page 25. suspicion. Popular tradition and the The above is a more perfect picture most approved authors will have it, of the character of a jolly friar, than I that some stray white found his have anywhere else seen — true to the way among the Mexicans, taught life. them empirically the calculations and * At Cholula, I was so fortunate as divisions of time, with a very few to procure one of the images of Quet- of those arts of civilized life unknown zalcoatl, cut in stone, with curled hair to our Indians, for which they vene- and Caucasian features. This I after- rated him as a god. But the proba- wards compared with the great image bilities are that the whole story is a found at Mexico, not without strong myth ; and for once the Inquisition suspicions that both were counter- was right in suppressing speculation. THE CITY OF CHOLULA. 379 Spanish authors, presuming these traditions true, saw in them the mission of the Apostle Thomas to the Anahuac, and hence styled him the reformer of that people ; and thus accounted for the cross, the Madonna, and the in- cense-burning pictured on the temple-ruins of the hot country. Thus have hypotheses been piled upon each other, to account for the striking similarity that seems to have existed between antique paganism and Eomish idolatry. The account which Cortez gives of Cholula is even more extravagant than his description of Tlascala. Ac- cording to him, the village of Cholula was a rich and opulent city of forty thousand houses.* He says he counted "from a mosque,-]' or temple, four hundred mosques,-]- and four hundred towers of other mosques." He says, too, " the exterior of this city is more beautiful than any in Spain." Diaz, more moderate in the use of numerals, reduces the eight hundred to one hundred very high towers, the whole of which were cues, or temples, on which the human sacrifices were offered, and their idols stood. The principal cu, here, was even higher than that of Mexico, though the latter, he says, was magnificent, and very high. " I well remember when we first entered this town, and looking up to the elevated white temples, how the whole place put us completely in mind of Yalladolid." J Other historians go yet further, and represent Cholula not only as the Mecca and commercial centre, but also * Folsom's Cortez, page 71. idea that he was conducting a holy f This word mosques Cortez con- war. stantly makes use of, apparently to J Dias, vol. I., page 206. keep before the people of Spain the 180 THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT CHOLULA. the seat of learning for the whole Anahuac. Here, say they, the Indian philosophers met upon a common foot- ing with Indian merchants. Its government,* like that of Tlascala, was republican ; so that upon these plains, according to Spanish authors, more than three hundred years ago there flourished two powerful republics, Tlascala and Cholula, the first the Lacedgemon, the second the Athens of the Indian world. When united, they had successfully resisted the arms of Montezuma; but Aztec intrigue was too powerful for the American Athens, and the polished city of Cholula was subdued by those arts with which Philip of Macedon won the sovereignty of Greece — a combination of intrigue and" arms. Tlascala was left alone to resist the whole force of the Aztec empire, now aided by the faithless Cholu- lans. Yet Tlascala, undismayed by the new combina- tion, did not readily listen even to the proposals of Cor- tez ; and only after the terrible experience she received of his strength, did she admit the value of his alliance. Let us contemplate the simple truth. The ordinary representations of the city and republic of Cholula are all in a style of magnificence commensu- rate with the foregoing outline. Such statements only had the author seen, when he undertook its survey. He had not then heard or read of the suggestion of Torqua- mada,f though copied into one of the notes J of Eobert- son. " The large mount of earth at Cholula, which the Spaniards dignified with the name of temple, still remains, * Mexico and its Religion. J Note to Kobertson, No. 154. t ToRQUAMADA, Liber III., c. 19. THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT CHOLULA. 381 4'' ■i;-4e, THE GREAT MOtrND, OR PYRAMID OF CHOLULA — SOUTH TIETV."' without any steps by which to ascend, or any facing of stone. It appears now like a mound, covered with grass and shrubs, and possibly it was never anything more." The striking resemblance of this to the mounds scattered through the country of our northern tribes, satisfied us of their common origin, and that this, like the others, was but an Indian burying-place, formed by the deposi- tion of earth upon the top of a sharp conical hill, as often as fresh bodies were interred, and this is probably the fact. Its greater size is doubtless attributable to its situa- tion in the midst of a most fertile plain, [yegd] where from generation to generation a dense population must have dwelt, who used this as the common receptacle of * The difference between this graver. Like too many ideas con- sketch and the copy in Mexico and tained in that volume, it went to its Religion, is owing to a misconcep- press without opportunity for cor- tion of it on the part of the wood-en- rection. 382 THE CHOLULA MASSACRE. their dead. The appearance of that structure, which Humboldt and other Europeans have considered a monu- ment of antique art, is readily explained by opposing facts familiar only to Americans, to the scientific speculations of foreigners ! But to this one there is now no question : an excavation having been made into the side of the mound, it revealed that truth which we only surmised.* The only ruins at Cholula are those of several Spanish convents, abandoned by the Teligious-\ for others in the more congenial, because more polluted atmosjohere of Paebla,X six miles distant. The village is a collection of adohe^ huts, such as it doubtless was in the time of Cortez, and all the appearance of art about " the pyramid" is the modern church upon its crest. An important event transpired at Cholula, and gave it a sad celebrity. It was a massacre that called forth the furious denunciation of Las Casas. Diaz, after railing at "the protector of the Indians,"] | gives us his own version of the bloody work, which is hardly less revolting than that he denounces. Two thousand Indians,T[ ^^J^ ^^^^ narrator, were collected by the orders of Cortez in the * The living witnesses of the result to the evidence collected by Madame of this excavation are still at Cholula, Calderon de la Barca, of the Sodom- and the fact is mentioned in several like character of this city of monks American works ; my inference from and naughty women. Puehla of the the fact is the only novelty in the Angels, is its full name. But they matter. are such angels as the bottomless pit f This is a term, in Romish coun- may be supposed to produce, tries, applied to all persons belonging § Adobe is a large brick, formed to monastic orders, viz : persons un- from common mud dried in the sun. der vows. || The title of Las Casas. % We have already called attention Tj Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 207. THE CHOLULA MASSACRE. 38^ great square ; the pretence was, their employment as auxiharies in the contemplated Mexican campaign. At a given signal the Spaniards fell upon them, and slaugh- tered the whole, while the Tlascalans sacked the village. The numbers are doubtless exaggerated, but the narrowest reality must have still been terrible. The apology for the act was the anticipation of an Indian outbreak, and the alleged proof of it — that the Indian women and chil- dren had disappeared — a certain premonition of hostili- ties. But this apology may have been only an after- thought. A probable solution is, that Cortez felt but doubtful of their fidelity, and feared to leave his rear to a people who might ruin his enterprise, and he little scrupled to adopt whatever policy might dictate to rid himself of a difficulty. Diaz places his vindication on the judgment of certain Franciscan* fathers, charged with the investigation of the afiair. But Franciscans were not proper judges where Las Casas, a hated Dominican, was the accuser, and their patron, Cortez, the accused. After this sacrifice had been consummated, Diaz gives the stereo- typed exhibition of his chief's piety, and his great zeal for the abolition of those human sacrifices that never existed, and concludes with the intolerable nonsense of charging the Cholulans with fattening men and women for food, in pens, as animals are fatted. Strange enough, this is repeated even by our own historians. Indeed, though all the books on the conquest are but mere paraphrases, or changes rung upon the despatches, their authors give these slanders a greater prominence * Diaz, Yol. I., page 157. 384 AN ASCENT OF THE VOLCANO. than Cortez dared to, before the battery of Las Casas was spiked, and the emperor had yielded to sinister motives against his own convictions. But the imperial will once signified, the libel became history, and truth was sup- pressed. Fernando de Alva satisfactorily vindicates the Tezcucans from the charge of human sacrifice, but from motives of policy he leaves it in full force against the Mexicans. At this time Ordaz made the ascent of Popocatapetl. That now extinct volcano was then in activity. The narrative of this memorable exploit is slightly mingled with the fabulous, yet there are so many marks of truth about the relation as to enforce belief in most of its de- tails. It is an instance in which little abatement from the received account is necessary. Ordas set out with two companions on his perilous exj^edition, and was ac- companied by a party of Indians, about half-way up. Deserted by them, he still pressed on, while the mountain trembled to its very foundation ; at length he was met by a shower of ashes and half-burned stones, accompanied with huge columns of fire. After waiting an hour for the fiery tempest to abate, he resumed his journey, undis- mayed by this terrific, and to him novel scene, and ulti- mately reached the edge of the crater, over ten thousand feet above the plain, and seventeen from the sea level. A scene was then presented that richly rewarded his fatigue and danger — one that European eyes had never before beheld. A lake of fire, three miles in diameter, lay before him, boiling and simmering, dim with sulphur- ous vapors, and darkly flecked with ashes, scoria, and AN ASCENT OF THE VOLCANO. 385 pumice; without, the panorama presented to his vision was not less strange and unusual. The plain of the Ana- huac lay spread at his feet, with all the inferior moun- tains of the table-land, while a faint halo in the distance appeared like the reflection of the two oceans. The val- ley of Mexico, its lagunas, and its islands teeming with hamlets, and a busy throng of life, was one section of the prospect before him, and the most important, as that to which all the hopes and designs of the Spaniards tended. The purity of the medium through which he gazed pre- sented distant objects unwontedly near, but strangely diminished. It was a microcosm in which men, women, and villages appeared distinctly, but dwarfed to the ap- pearance of puppets. Ordaz was the first European who had looked upon the valley of Mexico, and this gratifica- tion he enjoyed in return for his courage and perseverance. Cortez mentions, in his despatches, sending and obtaining sulphur for the manufacture of powder* from the interior * In Cortez' letters to the emperor, made the attempt, I caused several we read as follows : — " As for sul- Spaniards to undertake it, and exa- phur, I have already made mention mine the character of the summit, to yourMajesty of a mountain in this At the time they went up, so much province from which smoke issues; smoke proceeded from it, accompa- out of it sulphur has been taken by a nied by noises, that they were either Spaniard, who descended seventy or unable or afraid to reach its mouth, eighty fathoms by means of a rope Afterwards I sent up some other Spa- attached to his body below his arms ; niards, who made two attempts, and from which source we have been en- finally reached the aperture of the abled to obtain sufficient supplies, mountain whence the smoke issued, although it is attended with danger, which was two bow-shots wide, and It is hoped that it will not be neces- about three-fourths of a league in cir- sary for us to resort [again] to this cumference, where they discovered means of procuring it." . ..." As some sulphur which the smoke de- the Indians told us that it was danger- posited," ous to ascend, and fatal to those who 25 386 CORTEZ ENTERS THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. of the crater by men let down by ropes. Was that a fact ? Would they not have been suffocated ? The note of preparation for the invasion of Mexico was now heard on every side. " Peace had been con- cluded between them [the Cholulans] and their neigh- bors, the Tlascalans, a cross erected, and much of our holy faith explained to the inhabitants," says Diaz.* Attempts were made also to conceal from Montezuma the real ob- ject of the march upon his capital. Whether the deceit succeeded with so wily a diplomatist is extremely doubt- ful. Most likely Cortez shared the common fate; pre- suming he had overreached his adversary, he deceived himself. Montezuma, failing to induce the invader to forego his march, after the slaughter of the Cholulans, changed his tactics, and urged him to visit Mexico, delibe- rately devoting it to destruction, that he might for ever be rid of a race whose repeated cruelties to the natives of the islands were about to be re-enacted in his own pro- vinces. The Sempoallans declining to accompany Cortez further, he dismissed them with presents to their homes. The Tlascalans furnished, according to Cortez,t four thou- sand auxiliaries, according to Diaz, one thousand,! ^^ com- plete the expedition. All things being then in order, the little army commenced its march. Four leagues brought the Spaniards to the village of the Guajotzincos, allies of the Tlascalans. It was there learned that the Mexicans had prepared ambuscades in the different mountain-roads leading into their valley, by * Diaz, vol, I., page 207. % Diaz, vol. I., page 211. t Cortez, page 78. CORTEZ ENTERS THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 387 MARCH TO THE MEXICAN VALLEY. which the army might easily be surprised. But from such casualties it was sufficiently guarded by their leader's vigi- lance, and that of their allies, who, constantly watching from their eminences, noted every movement that occurred on the opposite side of the barrier. Carefully avoiding the snares laid for him, Cortez again moved forward, sur- mounting in one day, and in the midst of a driving storm, the pass antigua between the two volcanoes, and arrived at Chalco city, where he was immediately surrounded by the disaffected people of the valley, those of Chalco, Amaqueraca, &c. These then received their first les- sons in religion'^ from the invaders, in their demand for * Diaz, vol. I., page 214. 388 CHOLULA. a new supply of women. The aborigines complained bit- terly of the manner in which Montezuma's tax-gatherers seized the best-looking of their females. Did they gain anything by accepting the new domination ? CHOLULA. " It was a delightful afternoon when I mounted my horse for a ride to Cholula. The wind of the day before had driven away every vapor from this exceedingly transparent atmosphere, excepting only the cloud that was resting upon Popocatapetl, a little below its snow-covered summit. It was such weather as we have at " harvest home," and it was truly a " harvest home" throughout the whole Vega. Men were working in gangs in the dif- ferent fields, gathering stalks, or husking corn, or cutting grain, or ploughing with a dozen ploughs in company, or harrowing, or putting in seed. It was harvest-time and seed-time together. The full green blade and the ripened grain stood in adjoining fields, in this region of perpetual sunshine. As I rode along between carefully cultivated estates, I did not fail to catch the enthusiasm, which groups of cheerful field-laborers always inspire, in one whose happiest recollections run back to the labors of the farm. Such are the varieties this country afibrds : three days ago I was enjoying the most delicate tropical fruits, which I plucked fresh from the trees ; yesterday I was traversing a salt desert covered with clouds of drifting sand ; and I was now among grain-farms of a cold climate. " Right before me, as I rode along, was a mass of trees, of ever-green foliage, presenting indistinctly the outline of a pyramid, which ran up to the height of about two hundred feet, and was crowned by an old stone church, and surmounted by a tall steeple. It was the most attractive object in the plain ; it had such a look of uncultivated nature, in the midst of grain-fields. It would have lost half its attractiveness had it been the stiff and clumsy thing which the pictures represent it to be. I had admired it in pictures from my childhood, for what it was not ; but I now admired it for what it really was — the finest Indian mound on this continent ; where the Indians buried the bravest of their braves, with bows and arrows, and a drinking cup, that they might not be unprovided for when they should arrive at the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit. A little digging, a few years ago, has furnished the evidence on which I base this assertion. This digging has destroyed the CHOLULA. 389 monkish fiction to reinstate the truly Indian idea of the dead, and of the necessity of mounds for their burial, " By going round to the north side, I obtained a fine view of the modern improvements constructed upon this Indian pile. I rode up a paved carriage- way into the church-yard, that now occupies the top, and giving my horse to a squalid Indian imp, who came out of the vestry, I went in and took a sur- vey of the tawdry images, through which God is now worshipped by the baptized descendants of the builders of this pyramid. My curiosity was 60on gratified, and I returned to my place in the saddle. " I followed the wall around the church-yard, stopping from point to point, to look upon the vast map spread around on every side. Orizaba, which I first saw when one hundred and fifty miles out at sea as a mammoth sugar- loaf, resting upon a cloud, had at Jalapa, and at the ' Eye-of-Waters,' dif- ferent forms, while here it appeared to be joined with the Perote, forming the limit of the horizon toward the east. On the west were Popocatapetl, Iztac- cihuatl, and Malinche ; while smaller mountains and hills seemed to com- plete the line of circumvallation, which gave to the elevated plain of Puebla the aspect of the bed of an exhausted lake, and to the isolated hills, rising here and there upon its surface, the appearance of having been islands when the waters covered the face of the land. " The cloud was still resting upon Popocatapetl ; but its crest far above it, was in that region, where, in the tropics, ice and snow lie undisturbed for- ever. The marks which it bore of having once been the smoke-pipe of one of Nature's furnaces, furnished us with the translation of its name — * The mountain with a smolcing mouth.' But that lake of fire has long ceased to burn ; and when the mountain last emitted smoke was unknown to the oldest inhabitant. And that other mountain, Iztaccihuatl, or the 'White Woman,' lying so quietly and snug, in her covering of perpetual snow, at the side of the volcano, called up in the minds of the Indians the strange conceit of man and wife. There were forests on the mountain sides, and trees along the rivers covered with green ; but all else looked dry and parched. Seldom, indeed, has the eye of man ever rested on a finer farm- ing country than the great plain of Puebla, and seldom are lands seen better cultivated. •^Talmanalco MAP OP THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. CHAPTER XL COETEZ ENTERS MEXICO, SEIZES MONTEZUMA, AND OCCUPIES THAT CITY TILL DRIVEN OUT BY AN INSURRECTION. Advantage of having the person of Montezuma, 391 — A pi-obable plot and counterplot, 392 — The Spaniards and Indians both doubtless designing treachery, 394 — Fabulous narratives of the entr4 and appearance of Mexico, 395 — The effect of historic fables on the modern city, 397 — Mexico as an Indian capital, 397 — Interviews with Montezuma before his arrest, 398 — The capture of Montezuma, 400 — Advantage gained by this treacherous act, 401 — Cortez prepares to go against Narvaez, 403 — The battle vrith Nar- vaez, 404 — Commencement of hostilities in the capital, 405 — The contest around the Spanish quarters, 406 — Capture of the great pyramid, 408 — Other events before the night retreat, 408 — Unsatisfactory cause assigned for retreat, 409 — Cortez' night retreat from Mexico, 410 — Recapitulation of the night retreat, 413 — The fugitives at the " Hill oi Bemedios," 414 — Re- treat continued, 415 — The second night of the retreat, 415 — The retreat to Otumba, 417— The great battle of Otumba, 418— The battle concluded, 419 — Cortez reaches Tlascala, 420 — The author visits Tacuba, 420. The next important event was the entrance of the Spaniards into the island-home of the Aztecs, and the memorable act of treachery which followed it. Cortez, in his first despatch, declares his intentions were to march on Mexico, and seize the person of Montezuma* in a cer- tain contingency, designing to use for his own advantage the profound reverence which Indians pay their rulers. If the benefits of this proceeding were after a few months lost, the disturbance of the charm must be attributed to * Cortez, page 37. (391) 392 A PROBABLE PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. the invasion of Narvaez, and the excessive cruelty and rapacity of the Spaniards, in the absence of their leader. While the spell remained unbroken, Cortez was in effect the absolute ruler of the coalesced tribes 5 and the indus- try with which they gathered and brought him gold, shows that he had not miscalculated the power which the possession of the person of Montezuma conferred. This well-formed design Cortez had followed steadily, from the time of his landing. The war of Tlascala was an unexpected episode, as well as that of the slaughter of the Cholulans. But these inspired such terror among the Aztecs as led them to abandon all hope of resisting the invader by open hostilities. Presents had not con- ciliated, they had rather whetted the appetite for more ; and now, successfully avoiding their ambuscades, they beheld their terrible enemy in full force within their mountain barrier. But one alternative remained — to devote their capital to destruction, and with it to rid themselves for ever of this hated race. The narrow causeways across their marshes were therefore left un- guarded, and the light bridges that spanned the water- channels permitted to remain. The little canals, excavated on either side, were covered with canoes, full of people, prepared to receive their enemies, in the gaudy attire of savage merry-making. The entre into the imperial capi- tal was arranged with the pomp of Indian stateliness. The display of feather-work was of the richest kind. On every side the plumage of native birds, intermixed with stuffs, stained in fancy colors, and wrought in the borders with ]porcu;pines quills, gave a fairy elegance to things CORTEZ' ENTRY INTO THE CITY OF MEXICO. 394 MUTUAL INSINCERITY. the most unreal. The display of welcome was magnifi- cent, and the more ostentatious, as neither party was sincere. The Indians had learned to abhor the pale-faces, per- haps from some lingering traditions of Phoenician domi- nation, or that the trade-winds were constantly wafting to their shores, from the West Indies, strange tales of blood, which reached even this interior locality. Fugi- tives from Spanish cruelty for more than a quarter of a century, also, had kept the tribes of the main land in fearful expectation of a visit from that dreaded race, who came and went in " canoes" capable of carrying off the population of an entire village in a single vessel. While the Spaniards threaded the intricacies of the Indian causeways, across the marsh, the subtile natives secretly rejoiced that so large a party of the barbarous enslavers of their race were thus within their power. In their imagination they had but to remove their light bridges, and these invaders within their island-fastness were safe ; an escape seemed hopeless, closed, as it was, to all the outer world, with an impenetrable belt of mud. Bark- canoes* the pale-faces could not navigate, and no mate- rial for the formation of others within that marshy barrier existed. But the Spaniards advanced unhesitatingly, * It is quite difficult for an inexpe- bottom. The author has some paiu- rienced person even to get into a bark- ful recollections of this kind of travel- canoe. The first attempt generally ling, vrhen the sea -was rough. To go ends in the boat slipping away, and dancing over the waves, in an egg- the novice landing in deep water, shell-like vessel, is not an agreeable When in the boat, none but the most situation at any time. But such is experienced can do more than main- canoe-travelling, tain his equilibrium, seated on the FABULOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF MEXICO. 395 relying not upon the faith of their Indian hosts, but on their own superior valor, and the ability of their leader for success. They were not, as Bernal Diaz foolishly represents, to carry out a fiction, an army led by a de- bating society. Like all other successful expeditions, despotic power in the hands of a chief was the govern- ment, and his capacity to exercise it the secret of its triumph. In the beginning of the dry season, November 8, 1519, Cortez made his formal entry into the city, and lodged in one spacious enclosure the whole of his little army. Here both Cortez and Diaz turn aside to paint wild figments of the magnificence of the capital of Montezuma. Oriental story, in its richest flights, has hardly ever reached the extravagance of their tales. Were either narrating a public reception of the Caliph of Cordova, in the zenith of his glory, or the triumphal entry of those of Bagdad, they could not have pictured scenes comparable to these described, as actually transpiring in their presence in this Indian metropolis.* The enormity of the fiction is not, * " This noble city contains many Along one of the causeways [the fine and magnificent houses, which Chapultepec] that lead into the city may be accounted for from the fact are laid two [water] pipes, constructed that all the nobility of the country, of masonry, [doubtful] each of which who are the vassals of Montezuma, is two paces in width, and about five have houses in the city, in which they feet in height. . . . The inhabitants reside a certain part of the year ; of this city pay greater regard to the and, besides, there are numerous style of their mode of living, and are wealthy citizens who also possess fine more attentive to elegance of dress and houses. All these persons, in addi- politeness of manners than those of tion to the large and spacious apart- other provinces and cities, since, as ments for ordinary purposes, have the cacique Montezuma has his resi- others, both upper and lower, that dence in the capital, and all the no- contain conservatories of flowers, bility, his vassals, are in the constant 396 FABULOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF MEXICO. after all, its most striking feature. It lies rather in the credulity — not of the Spaniards, whose belief was regu- lated by authority — but in that of the whole civilized world, which credited these remarkable narrators without habit of meeting there, a general courtesy of demeanor necessarily pre- vails For, as I have already stated, what can be more wonderful than that a barbarous monarch, as he is, should have every object found in his dominions imitated in gold, silver, precious stones, and feathers, the gold and silver being wrought so naturally as not to be surpassed by any smith in the world, the stone- work executed with such perfection that it is difficult to conceive what instruments could have been used, and the feather-work superior to the finest production in wax and embroi- dery He possessed out of the city as well as within numerous villas, each of which had its peculiar sources of amusement, and all were con- structed in the best possible manner for the use of a great prince or lord. Within the city, his palaces were so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent. I can only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them. There was one palace somewhat inferior to the rest, attached to which was a beauti- ful garden, with balconies extending over it, supported by marble columns, and having a floor formed of jasper elegantly inlaid. There were apart- ments in this palace sufficient to lodge two princes of the highest rank with their retinues. . . . The emperor has another beautiful palace, with a lai'ge court-yard, paved with handsome flags, in the style of a chess-board. " Every day, as soon as it was light, six hundred nobles and men of rank were in attendance at the palace, who either sat or walked about the halls and galleries, and passed their time in conversation, but without entering the apartments where his person was Daily his larder and wine-cellar were open to all who wished to eat and drink. The meals were served by three hun- dred youths, who brought on an infi- nite variety of dishes ; indeed, when- ever he dined or supped, the table was loaded with every kind of flesh, fish, and vegetables that the country produced. The meals were served in a large hall, in which Montezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was cov- ered with mats, and kept very clean. He sat on a small cushion curiously wrought of leather. He is also dressed four times every day in four different suits, entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of the caciques who enter his palace have their feet covered, and when those for whom he sends enter his presence, they incline their heads and look down, bending their bodies ; and when they address him, they do not look him in the face ; this arises from excessive modesty and reverence. . . . . No sultan, or other infidel lord, of whom any knowledge now exists, ever had so much ceremonial in bis court." — Folsom's Cortez. MEXICO AS AN INDIAN CAPITAL. 397 either scrutiny or evidence. The violation of natural laws, which their statements involved, may not have been readily detected when philosophy hardly existed as a science. But how shall we account for that blinking of the gross discrepancies between them ? Is a love of the marvellous so inveterate in man that critics, even, shut their eyes to the most palpable contradictions ? Could Mexico have then been seen as it now appears — a modern city, built on an antique pattern — our authors might well have painted it in oriental colors, and almost fancied, too, some lingering resemblance to the great cities of the Moorish caliphate within its time-marked palaces. As the occupants of some chamber upon a house-top,* in the day season, they might dream themselves, perhaps, in such a capital as they have fabricated for Montezuma. Domes, and minarets [steeples], and elevated battlements cast strange shadows in the rarified atmosphere, by moon- light, and make a picture so unreal that the visiter of to-day might almost fancy the actual existence of such a world as Cortez only figured. Untrue in fact — untrue even in fancy — his wild assertions have grown almost reali- ties by passing so long unquestioned. Generation after generation allowed their taste and their architectural plans to be influenced by an imagined resemblance to something that had graced the spot before, and uncontra- dicted fabrications thus became almost truths. This valley at the sea-level would have been for ever jungle, a dwelling-place for wild beasts, for the * Such was the author's lodging the first -winter he visited Mexico. 398 MEXICO AS AN INDIAN CAPITAL. screech-owl and the bittern to enjoy unmolested; and that such a spot^ perpetually on the verge of inundation, — ^where the difference between the land and water can be measured by inches, — should be occupied by a large city, demonstrates both the purity of the atmosphere and the uniformity of evaporation, which for centuries has maintained this slight elevation. But the proximity of the two surfaces produces disagreeable results — stagnation and decomposition — the festering evils of an undrained valley, though neutralized in its lower levels by salt and sterility. Sewerage is necessarily upon the surface — the drains of the city cess-pools are its street ditches, or canals. All poetic illusion vanishes, when from moonlight on the housetop we descend to the sober reality of day. Since the time of Cortez the resources of engineering have been exhausted in attempts to establish any mate- rial change, without tunnelling the mountain, so as to drain Tezcuco laguna. These very defects fulfilled the Indian idea of a stronghold, as they at all times insured them that security which a circumvallation of mud and water could furnish. Beyond this, we will not affirm the famous capital of the Aztecs differed materially from an ordinary Indian village of the first class. Before entering at large upon this " city of the geni," both Cortez and Diaz describe the visits of ceremony ex- changed with Montezuma and one of the narrators. The alleged speeches on either side are given by both authors. As narrated by Cortez, his were straightforward and to the purpose ; he had to lull the suspicions of his victim, that he might not escape the snare. But, according to INTERYIEW WITH MONTEZUMA. 399 Diaz, Cortez opened the conversation with an exceedingly inappropriate attempt at religious proseljtism. He paves the way for this discourse thus : " Our monarch had re- ceived intelligence of him [Montezuma] and of his great power, and had expressly sent us to his country to beg of him and his subjects to become converts to the Christ- ian faith, for the salvation of their souls, and that we only adored one true God, as he had previously, in some degree, explained on the downs [sea-shore] to his ambas- sadors."* Still more inappropriately, when Cortez visits Montezuma in his palace, and is received with the great- est ceremony, he is represented as commencing : " We were Christians, believing in one true God only, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for our salvation. We prayed to the cross, as an emblem of that cross on which our Lord and Saviour was crucified." We here see the difference between the Phoenician and Spaniard is not in the act of praying to the emblem, but the tradition by which they explain their idolatry. " These figures," Diaz continues, " on the contrary, which he [Montezuma] con- sidered as gods were no gods, but devils, which were evil spirits. It was very evident how powerless, and what miserable things they were, since, in all those places where he [Cortez] had planted the cross, those gods durst no longer make their appearance. "f These addresses, though doubtless never uttered, serve to show the unmixed paganism of the Spaniards in the generation succeeding the conquest, and the kind of reli- « * Diaz, vol. I., page 224. f lUd., page 225. 400 SEIZURE OF MONTEZUMA. gion which supplanted the worship of the Great Spirit at Mexico. The farce played out, both parties prepared to execute their well-laid stratagem. It is idle to say no proof of sinister design on the part of Montezuma exists. Why, then, did he suffer the Spaniards to enter his capital unre- sisted ? Suspicious by nature, and addicted to stratagem, an Indian would hardly allow this secure retreat to be invaded by a handful of armed men, but to effect their destruction. Cortez only anticipated his enemy, and simply took advantage of the Indian's deceit to carry out a long-meditated counterplot. Men of different races, repug- nant to each other in taste, in habits, and religion, were in arms within the limits of a small island. Between these collision was inevitable. It was only a question of time, and the Spanish commander availed himself of his posi- tion, to extend what at best was but an armistice, by the surprise and capture of Montezuma. The pretext was the falling off in supplies, and in attentions on the part of the Indians to their Spanish guests. It was, however, only a pretext; for the stock of corn, in an Indian village, would be soon exhausted, by a large addition to the number of its consumers, and the idle curiosity of savages as quickly gratified. Cortez seems to have waited to the last moment at which he could hope successfully to put in execution his original project of seizing the person of the Indian emperor ; for already the Spanish occupancy began to weigh as a burden. The Conquistador was not a man to waste words in discussion when the time had come to act; and the scene, at the arrest, since invented for dramatic effect, we shall pass unnoticed. The words ex- ADVANTAGE OF MONTEZUMA's CAPTURE. 401 changed on the occasion must have been brief, and to the purpose, much as Cortez represents them, and not as dramatized by the historians. A band of resolute soldiers, ready to do his bidding, were more potent than words, words that had to be twice translated to be com- prehended by the party addressed. It was a complete surprise, and as resistance was vain, Montezuma, yielding himself with Indian stoicism to the will of his captors, was led an unresisting prisoner to their quarters. So well had the plot been laid, so adroitly had it been executed, that the possession of this valuable hostage was gained without even a street tumult. Much jpious indignation has been expressed at so gross a breach of faith as this act is repre- sented to have been. But these ideas are out of place in savage war. The faith of treaties, the rights of hospitali- ty, the respect due to the exalted station of the victim, are but figures of speech which neither would regard for a moment, if they traversed well-matured plans. The crime chargeable to Cortez is not then an abuse of hospi- tality, it is the original design that made it necessary. The Conquistador did not misjudge the advantage which a possession of the person of the emperor con ferred. In his name Cortez became the ruler of the tribes, or, to use his own language, " He [Montezuma] immedi- ately requested that I would designate the Spaniards whom I wished to send on this business, and he distri- buted them, five by five, among many provinces and cities ; . . . and with them he sent some of his own 23eo- ple, and directed them to go to the governors of provinces and cities, and say that I commanded each one of them 26 402 ADVANTAGE OF MONTEZUMA'S CAPTURE. to give a certain proportion of gold, wliicli he prescribed. Accordingly, all those caciques to whom he sent, contri- buted freely what he demanded of themj . . . we fomid that the fifth part belonging to your majesty amounted to thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars."* He further writes, " In these concerns, and others of no less advantage to your royal highness, I was employed from the 8th November, 1519, to May, 1520."* Thus, Montezuma was but a tool, a name by which the Indians were held in subjection, and kept to washing gold, until the disturbance created by the arrival of Narvaez over- threw this policy. When that hostile expedition w^as turned into a reinforcement, it w^as hardly politic to con- tinue the same state of things. For the lawful accomplish- TO.ent of his plans, he had the Aztecs in the right position. They had become the vassals of the Spanish sovereign, and if hostilities ensued, their enslavement would be the just punishment of rebellion, even in the opinion of the Hieronomite brothers.f Active war, too, was as necessary now as peace had been before. A host of new adven- turers were yet to be provided for, and to be employed. In the ignoble duties of the garrison, their leader could hardly hope to hold them in subordination. It is idle, then, to speculate on the immediate cause of the out- break. It may have been the unprovoked slaughter of five hundred Indians by Alvarado, in the absence of Cortez, as is asserted, or it may have been due to Cortez himself, in sending Ordaz to bring back by force the * Folsom's Cortez, page 126. to, to protect the Indians from cru- t The commission already referred elty. EXPEDITION AGAINST NARVAEZ. 403 women of his harem.* Either act may have hastened it, but the result was inevitable, after the name of Mon- tezuma ceased to charm. Though the hostile spirit, which occasionally manifested itself before the march against Narvaez, burst forth in the absence of Cortez, it apparently ceased on his return with an overwhelming force. But when their women were seized by violence, fury, rather than courage, seemed to possess them. The regular order of the Avar was here broken by this episode of Narvaez. We have followed Diaz and Cortez thus far throughout, reducing their hyperboles to realities, and rejecting their fabrications. They dijBfer not only in the style, but in the character of their inventions. Cortez confines himself to the transforming of Indian villages into metropolitan cities, and their war parties into imperial armies, to be swept away by the torrent of Span- ish invasion. Victory over the infidels is the result of every movement. Diaz, on the other hand, while moderat- ing his numerals to such a degree as makes the narratives irreconcilable, devotes himself to supplying a religious phase to the war, and to exhibit the pious conduct of his armed missionary, whose zeal he represents as so over- whelming that the last injunction put into his mouth is one to Montezuma, " to see that the image of the holy Virgin and the cross were constantly decorated with green boughs ; that the church [chapel] was kept clean, and wax lights burning night and day on the altar, and not to allow his papas [medicine-men, or conjurers, called also priests by the Spaniards] to sacrifice any human beings."^ * Diaz, vol. I., page 334. f Ibid., page 303. 404 BATTLE WITH NARVAEZ. After this 2)ious exhibition, our missionari/ sends his con- cubines to Tacuba, for safe-keeping, and then starts on his expedition against Narvaez. In the affair of Narvaez there is again a disagreement, but the order of variance is reversed. It was safe for Cortez to magnify the number of Indians who opposed him, but not to exaggerate the Spaniards in the expedi- tion of Narvaez, for the actual number of these last was registered. Thus he states those sent against him as only eight hundred.* But Diaz, under no constraint, raises the roll to fifteen hundred,f and kills off the extra num- ber in the night retreat, triste noche. According to Cortez, Narvaez had ten or twelve pieces of ordnance : Diaz has forty, and says he was present at the capture of a battery of eighteen.^ Once they agree — in the number of horses — in both they are eighty. The battle which ensued, between Cortez and Narvaez, was fought during a rainy night. It was hardly a battle, but rather a farce, to im- pose upon the discomfited partisan, whose officers had been bribed, and men seduced, before the affair began. It was a precedent to the victories " by purchase," which in the present day form so striking a feature of the military annals of Mexico ; victories in which no lives are sacri- ficed, but those of such as are insensible to reason ! We may dispose, therefore, of this return to the coast in a single paragraph. The hostile meeting and total defeat of Narvaez, and the incorporation of his force with that of the traitor Velasquez had sent him to capture, and return prisoner to Cuba, scarcely needs a comment. That the * Folsom's Cortez, page 128. f Diaz, vol. I., page 322. HOSTILITIES IN THE CAPITAL. 405 battle terminated so auspiciously was the effect of gold, and the value of promises, not the want of courage in Narvaez or the display of prowess in Cortez. On the return of the conquistador from the rout of Narvaez, the hostilities which had broken out during his absence were suspended. The Indians, acting on their original plan, or overawed by his greatly augmented force, made no opposition to his re-entering their capital. EETUEN TO THE CITY AFTER DEFEAT OF NARVAEZ. This time he came by the route of Otumba, and the causeway of Tepeac, or Gaudalupe, on the north side, having marched around the mountains by the plains of Apam, instead of crossing directly from Tlascala. He brought with him the whole force of the united armies, 406 CONTEST AROUND THE SPANISH QUARTERS. stated by Diaz at thirteen hundred, with ninety-six horses, in one place ;* in another, " nearly sixteen hundred, with seventy-nine horses,f and two thousand auxiliaries." But the whole, including Indians, could not have exceeded a thousand men. Again, fairly settled in his old quarters, he sent for his women, as before mentioned ; whereupon hostilities were resumed with fury. This was June 24th, 1520.J Both parties were now prepared for a final struggle. To the ordinary repugnance men have to an- other race, a sense of outrage even to Indian ideas of morality, gave these latter an energy that for a time compensated their inferiority in warlike means. They fought like demons, rather than men, and many a Sjpan- iard paid dearly for his crimes. Rarely do we find, in military annals, a more thrilling account of encounters, assaults, sorties, and hand to hand combats, constant alarms by night, and hair-breadth escapes by day, than that Cortez furnishes of the memo- rable siege, sustained in his quarters, in the midst of "the greatest and noblest city in the whole new world."§ Now buildings within the enclosure are set on fire, and are torn down to check the progress of the flames. Again, the enemy who have scaled the walls are to be driven back, and then a well-projected sortie is to be repulsed. So hard pressed were they at last on every side, that the imperial shadow, Montezuma, was brought out by the Spaniards to appease the fury of the besiegers. At the sight of their venerated chief, the weapons of the assailants were low- » Diaz, vol. I., page 334. + Ibid., page 356. t Ihid., page 336. I Folsom's Cortez, page 145. DEATH OF MONTEZUMA. 407 ered, and a profound silence succeeded to the shouts of battle/ A short exhortation to peace was all the mad- dened warriors could hear,* before a missile, sent by chance or design, struck the sachem to the earth while addressing them. Such a public indignity was a mortal wound that he could not survive. He refused surgical aid, and was soon a corpse. Again the battle raged with renewed violence; movable towers were constructed, to be used as batteries for cannon, but they were soon broken and dismantled. Houses were captured, one by one, and burned or pulled down, so as daily to enlarge the open space around the Spanish quarters, while constant sorties were made in the direction of the short causeway of Tacuba, with the view of opening a passage to the main * This is not an extraordinary re- sult, after the -war-spirit had become rampant. The only remarkable fea- ture in the narrative is, that violence should have been done to the person of the sachem. His deposition was the natural result of a change of policy. In this respect the statesman of the forest is in no safer position than the civilized politician. Brandt, in the zenith of his popularity, presumed to exhort his confederates to peace, vrhen determined on joining in the memor- able war of the north-western frontier. Instantly his influence was gone, and from that moment he was regarded only as a relic of the past. The case is thus stated by his once secretary to the author: — The Iroquois confederacy, after continuing to act in harmony for about two hundred years, had been severed at our revolutionary war. One party had sided with the revo- lutionists, and remained at their old homes in the " States ;" another party, with Brandt at their head, had retired to Canada, preferring to live under the king's dominion. In a new confederacy, formed among the North-Western Indians, the Iroquois of Brandt's party held a conspicuous part. In a general council of this new confederacy, held after the peace of Paris, the question of renewing the war with the United States was dis- cussed. Brandt, as the head of the peace party, deprecated further hos- tilities with his usual eloquence, but Captain Tom McGee, a young chief, advocated war, and carried the coun- cil against Brandt. Immediately Brandt withdrew with his little band from the confederacy, and died in comparative disfavor. 40S CAPTURE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. land. At night the defenders dressed their wounds, and repaired the breaches in their works. Thus were they occupied night and da}^, without cessation. Constantly annoyed by missiles thrown from the top of the great mound, Cortez finally resolved to rid himself of that difficulty. He summoned a select party of his men, and made a sortie for that purpose. Without loss they forced an entrance into the alleged enclosure that sur- rounded it, and boldly charged up the sides of the pyra- mid. Step by step the Indians defended their position ; and step by step, and breast to breast, the Spaniards ascended the slippery height. At last the summit was gained, and its defenders hurled headlong down, to be slaughtered by the guards below. In these fearful hand to hand struggles, the assailant is ordinarily successful — the very inequality of the contest inciting him to put forth apparently superhuman efibrt. That for the pos- session of this height w^as fairly fought, and bravely won, we have no doubt; and we have to regret the foolish attempts to exalt its importance, by exaggerating the num- ber of those engaged in its defence — nearly five hundred, according to Cortez.* Not an unreasonable number; but one which Diaz increases to three or four thousand.^ The siege continued still, however, without decisive results, from the 24th of June until the 1st of July, the sorrowful night of Cortez ; but which Diaz fixes as the 10th. J The true reason of that night retreat of the Spaniards, we cannot now determine. The cause assigned by Cortez, as is too often the case, is undoubtedly untrue. * FoLsoii's Cortez, page 153. f Diaz, vol. I., page 342. % Ibid., page 256. CAUSE FOR THE RETREAT. 409 " The Indians," he says, " boasted they were so numerous as to enable them to sacrifice twenty-five thousand of their number, to destroy one Spaniard."* Diaz adds, " All our attempts to fire the houses, or pull them down, were fruitless, as they stood in the midst of the ivater ! and were connected to each other by drawbridges only."-|- A flat contradiction to a statement of Cortez, who declares he fired three hundred in the street of Tacuba alone, at a single sortie, before the Indians could rally ; and even when they did, he turned and destroyed the buildings of another street. J In the midst of such clouds, we have to feel our way slowly. The most perilous step in Indian war is a retreat. Better is it to risk the alternative of death firmly, than to present the least symptom of faltering or hesitation. The savage, like the wild animal of the forest, is often cowed by a bold front, but lashes himself into fury at the yielding of his adversary. This night retreat was the great mistake of the campaign, for any reason that has yet appeared, and almost proved fatal to the whole Spanish force. Water must have been abundant, for the siege occurred in the midst of the rainy season ; and if pro- visions were wanting, the houses of the natives could have furnished a supply of corn, to be eaten with the flesh of their horses. The invested quarters might have been turned into a fortress begirt with a wet ditch, while with the cannon an open space could gradually have been cleared, in which no Indian might safely venture. But * Cortez, page 155. f Diaz, vol. I., page 341. % Folsom's Cortez, page 155, 410 NIGHT RETREAT FROM MEXICO. all the advantages of a central position were lost from this movement, which appears to have been the result of one of those unaccountable panics, which afterwards astonish the very actors themselves. In our own history we have had several instances of disastrous retreats before an Indian enemy. But all combined were unequal to the sufferings of Cortez and his band in the triste noche. The exact date of this event, which has attracted so much discussion, is entirely immaterial. Whether it was the first day of July, or the tenth, matters little; the main features of the affair are unquestionable. The reader may easily fancy the scene presented by a body of several hundred footmen, horsemen, cannon-bearers, women, and prisoners, huddled together in thick darkness, with their baggage, materiel, and armor, upon a narrow causeway, having a wide opening, to be crossed only by wading and climbing the opposite bank. On either side were ditches, and a bog, both covered with infuriated savages, howling and yelling, and with every Indian device to create confusion among the crowded fugatives. Those who maintained a hold upon the muddy roadway were in danger of being trampled under foot by their terror-stricken companions ; those who slipped from it met a certain death in the muddy bath into which they fell. Cortez, who led the van, was the first to reach the main land ; he says by swimming,* more likely by leaping his horse over the smaller openings, after he had crossed the main one by his movable bridge. His alleged return to * FoLsoJi's Cortez, page 160. NIGHT RETKEAT FROM MEXICO. 411 NIGHT RETREAT TO TACUBA. the rear, througli the disordered multitude, is a little apocryphal ; but in no other part could his services have been more necessary. Affright and confusion caused greater destruction than the weapons of the enemy. The struggle was of that kind in which the soul of an Indian delights ; when his frail weapons acquire a tenfold strength from the disorder of his foe. Leon and Alvarado covered the column from the furious onslaught of the enemy, with a force of two hundred and fifty foot and twenty cavalry. Ultimately Alvarado was unhorsed, and on the point of falling into the hands of those who had doomed him to 412 NIGHT RETREAT. — (^TRISTE NOCHE.) the torture, for his unprovoked massacre, when he leaped the Salta de Alvarado and escaped alone. The cannon- bearers sank with their burdens into the all-absorbing mud, or met their death from the spears of the assailants. The distinguished prisoners perished either at the hands of their guards, or from being trampled upon by the fugitives, but not by the weapons of their countrymen. Twenty- four of the horses were also lost,* most likely in unsuccess- ful attempts to leap the ditches,f and one hundred and fifty Spaniards.! This is the estimate of Cortez, and most likely correct. But Diaz — who had an extra amount to dispose of from overstating the Narvaez men — puts the loss at eight hundred and fifty, including a few killed in the subsequent retreat. § Considering all the difficulties to be surmounted in this "night of sorrow," the loss of life is remarkably small ; the greatest sacrifice was the neces- sary abandonment of the entire materiel. The first decla- ration of both is, that the loss of treasure was almost total ; but Diaz, afterwards, in accounting for the purchase of a new outfit, confesses, " that of the gold stowed away by the Narvaez men, and our own troops, particularly by the horse, a great quantity was certainly saved. Besides that, many of the eighty Tlascalans, who were loaded with the gold, and retreated from Mexico in the van- guard, got safely over the bridges."|| That is, nothing was really lost 1but the imaginary treasure, now grown inconveniently large, and which had to be accounted for * Folsom's Cortez, page 161. ^ Diaz, vol. I., page 356. t Ihid., page 158. j| Ibid., page 382. % Ibid., page 161. INCIDENTS OF THE RETREAT. 413 to the emperor.* The Conquistador was too good a soldier to hazard his gold ; it was therefore in the advance, and came safely off. In so important an event it is as well to recapitulate. There was probably no gold lost, as mentioned above. Cortez could not otherwise have made the extensive pur- chases he did in San Domingo, Jamaica, and Vera Cruz, for his third expedition. And a correct statement of the numbers brought by Narvaez added to the general muster of forces at Tlascala, would hardly leave a margin for more than one hundred and fifty, as the total loss in men. Aiming to conciliate the Aztecs, it would have been grossly impolitic to introduce a large body of undisciplined Tlascalans into the city. The loss of the Indian allies must, therefore, have been small. As for the millions of assailants, they were huckram men; panic, alone, peopled the air with them. The place of battle was not accessi- ble to large bodies. The causeway ditches, through the marsh, were broad and shallow ; there a small number, in canoes suddenly collected, might find places to assail the Spaniards on their flanks. Necessarily, the most de- termined contest was with the rear. This had been judi- ciously made up partly of veterans, and partly of the Narvaez men, supported by twenty horse.f As this force suffered severely, and sustained nearly all the loss, it is probable the Indians succeeded in making a lodgment in their rear, and prevented the restoration of the temporary ^ "Abandoning the garrison together with much wealth, belonging to your highness." — Folsom's Cortez, page 159. f Diaz, vol. I., p. 351. 414 FUGITIVES ON THE HILL OF REMEDIOS. bridge, after it had once fallen.* Besides mere ditches, there seems to have been but one broad opening in the causeway ; the others were only open drains, to pass the local accumulations of water to the lower levels of the laguna. Most of those who crossed by the bridge doubt- less reached the main land, but the larger part of the rear-guard, not having done so before it fell, perished. This, perhaps, is the correct version of the conflicting accounts of the night retreat, which has been seized upon by the various narrators as a convenient occasion of restoring the equilibrium between their own exaggera- tions and the subsequent muster-rolls. One of the dead, too, in this convenient slaughter, was named as royal treasurer in the despatches ; so that all discrepancies were safely balanced in this " night of sorrows." The barren hill of Bemedios-f presented a sad and sick- ening spectacle when morning dawned. The escaped of the late garrison, weary, wounded, cold, and hungry, their clothing saturated with alkaline water, tequisqidta, — themselves stiff, from its effects on their too common infirmity, hurried through the village of Tacuba, and huddled together on that elevated position. But there no food could be procured, and they had but miserable rags with which to dress their wounds.J Yet, even in their changed circumstances, the Spaniards thought them- selves fortunate in such a refuge ; they could, at least, abide in security until darkness again enabled them to resume their flight. How great a change a few days had * Diaz, vol. I., page 349. f See supplemental note, " Our Lady of Remedies." X Diaz, vol. I., page 353. EETREAT CONTINUED. 415 effected ! But a little time before their leader had en- tered the island capital of the Aztecs, with the prestige of an unparalleled victory, and in possession of a well- appointed army. He had since succumbed to the pas- sionate assaults of half-armed Indians, and now, reduced to a disorganized band of fugitives, that army was resting for darkness to cover its escape from an hitherto des- pised force ! The blessed Virgin's interposition here in staunching the wounds of the survivors made it a place of pilgrimage for centuries. But since the revolution of castes the memory of Cortez and his companions has fallen into disfavor, so, too, has the Virgin of the Reme- dies — Los Remedios.^ She was identified with the con- quering race, and in the resurrection of the children of the soil her image had to seek another asylum. Its nose is broken, it has lost an eye, but it is a virgin still, though certainly an antique one. At length the hour arrived to resume the retreat. It was midnight. With fires lighted and the usual devices to conceal a movement, the Spaniards stole from their quarters and threaded their way among the hills, bogs, and pools, which then, as now, characterize the route from Tacuba to the neighborhood of the laguna of Joltoca or San Ghristobal. They were not, however, undis- covered by their watchful enemies, who continued to annoy them with arrows, stones, and revilings-f through the march. In one of the passes among the hills, a wounded man died ; and a horse was killed, over which ^ See supplemental note, " Our Lady of Eemedies." t Diaz, vol. I,, page 354. 416 RETREAT CONTINUED. RETREAT TO OTUMBA. last they deeply grieved. To a military mistake of their enemies, they alone owed their escape. Possessing an interior line of communication, it was in their power to select the most desirable point and moment for attacking the Spaniards. In accordance with the custom of Indian warfare, some intricate defile or pass should have been chosen for the grand assault, where cavalry could not be made available. Instead of following this prudent sug- gestion, however, the open plain of Otumba was selected. KETEEAT TO OTUMBA. 417 The Aztec fell into the common error of victors — despising the flying enemy, he took the fatal resolve of intercept- ing him in a pitched field. The result was such as might have been anticipated. While preparations for the great battle were making, the fugitives, comparatively undis- turbed, had time to recover their spirits, and hope re- vived before the not difficult alternative was presented by the lines of an undisciplined enemy. The first night after leaving Remedios, the Spaniards fortified themselves upon a hill, near a tower, having made three leagues* (about ten miles), according to Cortez ;-\ — a good day's march under the circumstances ; but according to Diaz, the march to Otumba was made on the second or third day, which is impossible. On the second day, in the account of Cortez,^ they marched around several lakes — the laguna of Joltoca doubtless, and perhaps also the still more northern one of Zum- pango — and reached a deserted village, where, an abun- dance of corn being found, they remained two days to refresh themselves, On the fifth night, of Cortez, J they took up their quarters in some straggling huts, with little food. The sixth day, which is the first of Diaz,§ a horse killed by the enemy, was eaten by the hungry soldiers, even to the skin. The plan adopted that night, of leaving the wounded to themselves, Cortez blasphemously claims as an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, |1 as on the next day, the seventh of the retreat, the great battle of Otumba was * The Spanish league is two and § Lockhakt's Diaz, vol. I., page three quarters of a mile. 354. t Folsom's Cortez, page 162. || This blasphemy is shocking. ;|: Ibid., page 163. 27 418 GREAT BATTLE OF OTUMBA. fought. To ,this suggestion of Cortez, the cardinal, Arch- bishop Lorenzano, responds : " This is right, as God alone could have performed such miracles ; and this ought to cover with confusion those who detract from the merits of the Conquest. Cortez was another Moses, when he said : ^ The Lord will fight for us :' Exodus xiv." * A queer kind of Moses ! The Moses of the king's historian ! The leader rather of " Satan's chosen people" in the valley of Mexico ! The battle of Otumba surpassed in magnitude any other ever fought with Indians. The braves of the whole con- federacy were assembled to intercept the fugitives, and the Aztec host fought bravely ; bravely as was their wont with a retreating enemy. But the result was inevitable. History rarely furnishes an instance in which a retreating force has been successfully intercepted. Even the supple Alvarado was brave, w^hen flight was impossible, while Cortez performed prodigies of valor. Fear itself added to the courage of the Spaniards. The Paladin, Rolando, Amadis de Gaul — heroes as familiar to Diaz as to Don Quixote — could hardly have exceeded the achievements of the Conquistador and his companions ; for though now but a feeble folk, yet the combined force of the whole Aztec empire was scattered before them. On this occasion, as in the days of Homer, the demigods were unwilling to trust entirely to fate, or the prowess of mortals. St. James of Compostella brought a lance to the assistance of his favorite S]3ain ; for Diaz informs us, that " one of Guatamozin's chief officers, who was present at the * Folsom's Cortez, page 165. THE BATTLE CONCLUDED. 419 battle, beheld him with his own eyes as he afterwards affirmed."* On this, an Indian's testimony, it has become the established belief, that this wonderful victory was solely owing to the visible interposition of San Diego and his venerable white horse ! As in the battles under the walls of Troy, the favorite of the gods wins the day, so heroes are but pawns in the hands of a patron saint. Though the little phalanx remained unbroken, in the charge it was enveloped with enemies, and its progress through the living mass apparently impossible. The showers of missiles upon it, even more than the pressure of superior numbers, was fast exhausting its strength, not- withstanding the valorous blows of the saint — dealing death to the infidels, and victory to the beloved of the Virgin — when an event occurred which created a panic among the undisciplined assailants. It is thus described by Cortez : " We were engaged during a greater part of the day, until it pleased God that one should fall who must have been a leading personage amongst them ; at his death the battle ceased."-|- The event thus elegantly expressed, throws into the shade all the gaudy descrip- tions of the Spanish historians, with their saints and supernatural machinery. Diaz is silent as to the number slain, as is Cortez. But it is not likely many Spaniards fell, since their closed ranks were never broken during that eventful day. Hungry and without suitable means of dressing their wounds, they then passed the night at a solitary house near by, and on the morrow, resuming their march, * Lockhart's Diaz, page 354. f Ibid., page 165. 420 THE AUTHOR VISITS TACUBA. reached the friendly territories of the Tlascalans. On the second day following, they entered its territory from the north, having come by the plains of Apam around the mountains. Thus ended the retreat from Mexico. THE AUTHOR VISITS TACUBA. As I rode along the street to the gate, and passed out upon the causeway of Tacuba — the causeway of the "Night of Sorrow" {triste noche), I natu- rally fell into reflections upon the righteous retribution that there overtook a portion of the Spaniards ; and on the mysterious ways of Providence in allowing Cortez and a remnant to escape, after the lives they had led in the city. The Indians had made a feeble resistance when Alvarado murdered their chiefs, and had cringed into submission when Cortez returned. But now their wrongs had reached that point where even Aztecs could endure no more. Their cup of iniquity seemed full, when Cortez, who had left a wife in Cuba, sent to the little village of Tacuba, called by Diaz Tlacupa, to fetch thence some "women of his ^OMse^oM," among whom was the daughter of Montezuma [he had already one daughter of Montezuma in his power], whom he had given in charge of the King of Tlacupa, her relative, when he marched against Narvaez. The women being rescued, Cortez afterward sent Ordaz, with four hundred men,* which brought on hostilities that ended in this night retreat. It is a prominent trait of Indian character to guard with the utmost jea- lousy the virtue of their wives. Even among the debased Indians of Cali- fornia, female infidelity is punished with death ; and I have seen the whole population of an Indian village, on the Upper Sacramento, thrown into the utmost confusion — the women howling, and the men brandishing their weapons — because a base Indian had sold his wife to a still baser white man. " Such a thing was never," they said, " done in the tribe before." And here we have Cortez, in contempt of even Indian notions of virtue, sending to bring to his harem, by violence, a second daughter of Montezuma. When the Aztecs were thus roused to action by the lust of Cortez, they assailed him with frenzy rather than with courage, until his quarters in the city became untenable, and then this night retreat was undertaken, in which the treasures ! and two sons and one daughter of Montezuma, were lost in the * Lockhart's Diaz, vol. I., p. 338. THE AUTHOR VISITS TACUBA. 421 confused rush of a multitude over this footpath. The Indian story is, that Cortez slew the children of Montezuma when he found himself unable to carry them off. Perhaps he did ; but the probability is, that they perished by chance, or rather it seems to have been by chance that Cortez or any of his party escaped. The objects of interest by the road-side, after I had passed the city gate, were, first, the French Academy, which is well worthy of a visit for its pretty grounds, if nothing more. Before the author got to Tacuba, the land rose above the water-level of the swamp. Here a branch-road and an aqueduct turned off to Chapultepec, and in the angle thus formed by the two roads is the English burying-ground or cemetery. This resting-place of the dead can be and is irrigated from the aqueduct, while the art of man has been busy in improving the advantages that Nature has so lavishly bestowed upon it. Just before my first arrival in Mexico, public attention had been particu- larly directed to this quiet spot, from its having been chosen as the place for depositing the ashes of the last President of Mexico, at whose burial no holy water had been used, and no consecrated candles had been burned, and for the repose of whose soul no masses had ever been said, or other superstitious rites performed, and yet he slept as quietly as those who had gone to their burial with the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral. No priest had shrived his soul, his lips had not been touched with the anointing oil, nor was incense burned at his funeral ; yet he died in peace, declaring in his last hours that he had made his confession to God, and trusted in him for the pardon of his sins, and refused all the proffered aid of priests in facilitating his journey to Heaven. Thus died, and here was privately buried, the first and last Pro- testant President of Mexico, the only really good man that ever occupied that exalted station, and probably the only native Mexican who ever had the moral courage to denounce the religion of his fathers upon his dying bed. Adjoining the English cemetery, on the south side, is the American bury- ing-ground, which has been established since the war, where have been col- lected the remains of seven hundred and fifty Americans, that died or were killed at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An appropriation of five hundred dollars a year would make this more attractive than the English one, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress since that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There is a pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign countries, draw close together these branches of the Saxon family. A common language and a common religion overmaster political differences, and the English and Ame- 422 OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. rican dead are laid side by side to rest until the judgment. At the south of the American cemetery is a vacant lot, which the King of Prussia should purchase, so that the Germans may no longer be dependent on Americans for a burying-place, and that the three great Protestant powers of the world — Saxons and Anglo-Saxons — may here, as they everywhere should, be drawn close together. After passing this necropolis, and crossing a little water- course, we have but a few furlongs of high land to pass, in order to reach the quiet Indian village of Tacuba. — Mexico and its Religion. TACUBA. Tacuba is a very small village, and is not in anywise noted except for an immense cypress-tree, that must have been a wonder even in the time of Cortez. It has the historical notoriety of being the place where hostilities first broke out between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, and the spot to which the night retreat of the latter was directed. Here the land is high and quite fertile, and a little way from the village are several water-mills, where the grain raised in this part of the valley is ground into flour. THE HILL OF REMEDIOS.^ A little way beyond Tacuba is the hill and temple of the " Virgin of Reme- dies." Upon this hill, within the enclosure of an Indian mound, the retreating party of Cortez made their first bivouac, and built fires, and dressed their wounds. Hence they gave to the hill the name of Los Eemedios. and the church afterward erected was dedicated to our Lady of Remedies. Diaz tells us that it became very celebrated in his time. The story of Cortez finding a broken-nosed image in the knapsack of one of his soldiers is mentioned neither by himself nor Bernal Diaz, and must have been an afterthought, to give plausibility to a subsequent imposition. OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. The story is, that while the fugitives were resting here, a soldier took from his knapsack an image with a nose broken and an eye wanting, which Cortez held up to adoration, and made the patron saint of the expedition ; this little incident so encouraged his men that they started ofi" with renewed vigor upon their disheartening retreat. The whole story of the Virgin is probably a very silly modern invention, as the bulk of Cortez' forces most likely was composed of that class of reprobates, who to this day are found about almost every West India seaport, ready for any enterprise, however hazardous. OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. 423 They have no religion ; they are not even superstitious, but yield a nominal acquiescence to the forms of the Catholic Church. Cortez sometimes speaks of his efforts to convert the Indians; hut it is in such a business way as to appear to have been done to make an impression at home — a matter about which he cared little. This famous image, according to the current story, disappeared soon after the Conquest ; but was found about one hundred and fifty years afterwards, in a maguey plant, and was as much dilapidated as if it had been exposed to the weather for the whole of that century and a half. Such, in substance, is the tradition of the Virgin of Remedies, who for a century divided with the Virgin of Guadalupe the adoration of the people in the most amicable manner. The first monopolizing the adoration of the aristocracy ; the other was the favorite of the peasantry. But when the in- surrection of 1810 broke out, these two virgins parted company. " Viva the Virgin of Guadalupe !" became the war-cry of the unsuccessful rebels; while " Viva the Lady of Remedies \" was shouted back by the conquering forces of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary designs ; while all honors were lavished upon the Lady of Remedies by those wishing to make protestations of their loyalty. Pearls, money, and jewels, were bestowed upon her by the nobility and the Spanish merchants ; and as one insurrectionary leader after another was totally defeated, the conquering generals returned to lay their trophies at the feet of the Lady of Remedies, to whose interposition the victory was ascribed. They carried her in triumphal procession through the streets of Mexico, singing a laudamus. Then it was that the Lady of Remedies was at the zenith of her glory. Her person was refulgent with a blaze of jewels ; and her temple was like that of Diana of Ephesus, and all about the hill on which it stood bore marks of prosperity. Her healing powers were then as unquestioned, as unrivalled ; and the list of cures which she is claimed to have effected, surpasses that of all the patent medicines of our day. She was an infallible healer, alike of the diseases of the mind and of the body. A glimpse at her broken nose and battered face, instantaneously cured men of democracy and unbelief. Heretics stood con- founded in her presence — while the halt, the lame, and the leprous hung up their crutches, their bandages, and their filthy rags, as trophies of her heal- ing power, among the flags and other evidences of her victories over the rebels. Nothing was beyond her skill — from mending a leaky boat, to securing a prize in the lottery ; giving eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, restoring a paralyzed limb, or healing a broken heart, to putting the baby to sleep. Her votaries esteemed her omnipotent, and carried her in procession 424 OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. in times of drought, as the goddess of rain ; and when pestilence raged in the city, she was borne through the infected streets. Such was she in the times of her glory. Now all is changed. She is still a goddess, but her glory is eclipsed. She, like many a virgin in social life, neglected to make her market while all knees were bowing to her ; and now, in the sear and yellow leaf, she is a virgin still. Her temple is dilapidated, her garlands are faded, her gilding is tarnished, the buildings about her court are falling to decay — while the bleak hill which her temple crowns, looks tenfold more uninviting than if it never had been occupied. When I entered this neglected temple of a neglected image, a superannuated priest was saying mass, and three or four old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed the revolution of Iguala. Not only was her hated rival of Guadalupe elevated from her long obscurity to be the national saint, but the animosity against this dilapidated image of Remedies was carried to that extreme of cruelty, that, when the Spaniards were expelled from Mexico, the passports of the " Lady of Remedies" were made out, and she was ordered to leave the country. Poor thing ! The porter's eye glistened at the now unwonted sight of a silver dollar, and he soon had me through the most secret recesses of the sanctuary. The only things I saw worthy of admiration were some pictures, made, as I was told, from down, or the feathers of the humming-bird, by which a richness of color was imparted to the pictures that could not be obtained from paints. At last we came to the back of the great altar — the curtain of damask silk being drawn up by a little string — we saw, sitting in a metallic maguey plant, a bright new Paris doll, dressed in the gaudy odds and ends of silk that make such a thing an attractive Christmas present for the nursery. Paste supplied the place of jewels, and a constellation of false pearls were at the back of her shoulders. The man kept his gravity, and did reverence to the poor doll; while I burned with indignation at being imposed upon by a counterfeit "universal remedy for all diseases." I had often read in the apothecaries' advertisements cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection ; and I always noticed that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the worthlessness of the genuine article — and that medicine, which was utterly valueless itself, suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was with the Lady of Remedies ; after she had fallen below the dignity of a hum- bug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited away to the Cathedral of the city of Mexico, in order to save her three jewelled petticoats from being stolen ; and a child's doll, covered with paste THE RETREAT TO OTUMBA. 425 jewels, now personified the great patron saint of the vice-kingdom of New Spain. I again mounted my horse, angry at being cheated ; and though the day was a most lovely one, I rode home in a fit humor to contrast the system' of paganism which Cortez introduced with the more poetical system which pre- ceded it, and to compare these cast-off child's dolls with the alleged allegori- cal images of the Aztecs — but, most likely, relics of a much more ancient race. My landlord had two boxes of such images, collected when they were cleaning out one of the old city canals. By way of parlor ornaments, we had a god of baked earth. He was sitting in a chair; around his navel was coiled a serpent ; his right hand rested upon the head of another serpent. This, according to the laws of interpreting allegories, I suppose we should under- stand to signify, Ihat the god had been renowned for his wisdom ; that with the wisdom of the serpent he had executed judgment ; and that his medita- tions were the profundity of wisdom. And yet this allegorical worship, defective as it may have been, was better certainly, than the adoration of a child's doll — one that had very possibly been worn out and thrown from a nursery, and picked up by some passing monk, to be made the goddess of New Spain, and clothed with three petticoats, one adorned with pearls, one with rubies, and one with diamonds, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. Which was the least objectionable superstition ? THE RETREAT TO OTUMBA. " From this point Cortez and his party, without their women, trudged along the north side of the hills of Tepeac, or Guadalupe, and around the lakes to the plains of Otumba." — Mexico mid its Religion. The author has diligently examined the region of hills and bogs that make up the distance from this point to the lagunas of Zumpango, a,yi^ Joltoca or San Christobal, and from thence to Otumba, and has ventured to mark down what he believes to be the very track of the fugitive Spaniards. Both these lagunas, it may be proper here to add, are much higher than Tezcuco ; but their bulk is not sufficient to burst through their barrier. The highest of all, Zumpango, has become nearly fresh since it has been drained out of the valley by the cut, desagua, of Hushuaioca. It should be stated too, that one of the evidences of the imposture of Diaz, is his making Cortez travel modern roads instead of the earlier ones. Thus, he has made him pass to the north of the Perote in ascending to the table- land, enter the valley by the Rio Frio, and retreat to Otumba by Guadalupe. CHAPTER XII. BUILDING OF THE BRIGANTINES, CAMPAIGN OP TEPEACA, AND RETURN TO THE MEXICAN VALLEY. Cortez begins a war of extermination, 426 — He determines to "build a flotilla, 427 — Cortez enslaves the Indians of Tepeaca, 429 — SuLj ligation of Tepeaca and founding a colony, 430 — The branding of Indian women with a hot iron, 430 — The Spaniards disgust the Indians with Christianity, 431 — Gomora's fables on this campaign, 432 — Cortez secures the passes to Mexico, 433— The policy of Cortez, 433 — The lagimas, and size of the brigantines, 434 — The difficulties encountered in building this flotilla, 435 — A wonderful success, but marred by fables, 436 — How Cortez obtained supplies and friends, 436 — How he circumvented Las Casas, 437 — How Cortez justified his enslavement of Indians, 438 — The manner of transport- ing the flotilla, 439 — The fabulous number of Indians engaged, 439 — Why Tezcuco was selected as the flotilla station, 440 — A muster of forces, 442 — The passage of the mountain, 444 — Cortez' entry into Tezcuco, 445 — Cortez fortifies his quarters, 445 — Cortez entrapped at Iztapalapa — his night retreat, 446 — An explanation of the Iztapalapa affair, 447 — Death of the Emperor Cuetravacin, 449 — How the statement of Cortez becomes possible, 450 — Cortez' account of it, 450 — Don Fernando, Lord of Tezcuco, 451 — A topographical survey of the Mexican valley, 452 — The Mexican causeways, 452 — The maps used in this chapter, 452 — Survey of Lieut. H. L. Smith, U. S. A., 460. A RESPITE of twenty days was now allowed the weary and wounded soldiers, to recruit their exhausted energies, prior to the resumption of active hostilities. Henceforth the war was to be one of extermination. The outbreaks occurring on every side were styled rebelhon and apostasy. While the Spaniards were in the full tide of success, all the tribes through which they passed had acknowledged the sovereignty of Charles V., and had allowed crosses to b^ (426) FLOTILLA TO BE BUILT. 427 erected in their villages. But when the grand army dwindled to a company of fugitives, its prestige was gone. The crosses were no longer regarded as '• good rain m.akers" in time of drought. The notary and his parch- mentj the priest and his surplice, were alike forgotten in the prospective return of Mexican tax-gatherers, or re- membered only as unavailing conjurers, inferior to the native medicine-men. The surest way to turn aside the wrath of the Aztecs was to kill all the Spaniards upon whom they could lay their hands. Under these changed circumstances ten unfortunate men, passing through the country, were suddenly set upon and slain, and the valu- ables they possessed fell into the hands of the murderers. Near a year had necessarily to elapse before the plan of attack devised by Cortez could be successfully put into execution against the city of Mexico. Trees were to be felled upon the Tlascalan mountains, and by the slow labor of the axe reduced to planks. Oakum, small cord- age, and iron, were to be brought from the seaboard. Pitch could be procured in the mountain forests. But all required time. The small flotilla to be constructed, though light enough to be carried over the lofty summit, must yet be capable of navigating the lagunas and canals of the Mexican valley, at least in the rainy season ; and, as the present one was too far advanced to be made avail- able, the next must be awaited. During this delay, all, both Spaniards and auxiliaries not required in the service of the shipwrights, were kept in active service, not only to preserve discipline, but for the more thorough subjugation of the country between Tlascala and the sea coast. 428 CHARGE OF CANNIBALISM. MARCH TO TEPEACA. That large extent of open land between the first moun- tain-barrier and the Mexican chain, south and east of Cholula and Tlascala, Cortez includes under the general name of Tepeaca. The scattered tribes occupying this mostly deserted region, were the first to feel his vengeance. The murder of his ten men, in crossing these plains, served as a pretext for hostilities. His despatch represents these unfortunate sufferers as loaded with treasure and other valuables. Their fate would be the same to-day, if unarmed; yet none would deem it a sufficient cause of war against the unoffending inhabitants. Nor did Cortez consider it quite a justification for that extermina- SUBJUGATION OF TEPEACA. 429 tion and enslavement he meditated, in violation of the ^^ new ordinances!' Hence the necessity of producing a charge so monstrous as to justify his disregard of the newly-established policy of the court. He had been in the country nearly a year, but we hear nothing about cannibalism from him until now. One motive, he avows, for his meditated cruelty, was to strike terror into the Mexicans. His justification to the emperor is a charge of cannibalism. The words of the despatch are, " besides having murdered the Spaniards, and rebelled against your majesty, these people eat human flesh."* This is his apology for disobeying the law. It is the fabrication of a libel to justify a crime. Thus was inaugurated a cam- paign of terrors, according to his own admission, to the very author of the ordinances, at a time when Las Casas and the Hieronomite brothers were in the West Indies, charged with the correction of the very abuses he had resolved to perpetrate. Our armed missionary, Cortez, the Moses of Cardinal- archbishop Lorenza7io, is so brief and indefinite, however, on the subject, we have to turn to Diaz, for the details of the enterprise, who must have gathered them from " Las Casas on Qomorar The main object of the campaign was to re-open communication, by the southern route, with Vera Cruz ; a secondary result was to gather what- ever might be plundered from so poor a people. The ex- pedition consisted of four hundred and twenty Spaniards, besides Tlascalan auxiliaries. f The first encounter was in * Folsom's Cortez, page 172. f Diaz, toI, I., page 366. 430 BRANDING OF INDIAN WOMEN. some open fields of maize and maguey, with the same result as at Tobasco. The cavalry havmg a good opportu- nity to manoeuvre, scattered the savages with considerable slaughter. This victory was followed by their submis- sion and the entry of the victors into Tepeaca, and the founding there a colony, which Cortez named " Security- of-the-frontier," Securidad de la Frontera. Without detailing the different villages assailed and subjugated in succession, we may sum up, in the words of Diaz: ''In this way we visited Tecalco, Las Guavas, and others, whose names I have forgotten."* Then he concludes with the following remarkable statement: — "After peace had been restored to the whole province, and its inhabitants had submitted to his majesty, Cortez, finding there was nothing further to be done at present, determined, with the crown officers, to mark all the slaves with the iron. Notice was therefore given that every person was to come with his slaves to a certain house appointed for the purpose, that they might be marked with the red-hot iron. . . On the night preceding, the finest of the Indian females had been secretly set apart, so that when it came to a division among the soldiers, we found none left but old and ugly women. . . Another soldier asked Cortez if the division of the gold in Mexico was not a sufficient imposition ! and now he was going to deprive the poor soldier who had undergone so many hardships, and suffered from innumerable wounds, of this small remuneration, and not even allow him a pretty Indian female for a companion."-]- Thus were depravity * Diaz, vol. I., page 368. f Ibid., page 379. INDIANS DISGUSTED WITH CHRISTIANITY. 431 and religious form united in the Spaniards, who combined the erection of crosses, the violation of women, branding and baptizing, with the establishment of the long-forgotten worship of the " Queen of Heaven." Fit successors of the Phoenicians, were the Conquista- dors. The heathen could hardly have equalled them in moral obtuseness. This Diaz, the imaginary companion of Cortez — whose character has been drawn under the eye of the church dignitaries — resembles a Sepoy in his negation of the common feelings of humanity, rather than a European existence ; embodying at once the cruelty and fanaticism of a Brahmin. To call the men of whom he is a type Christians, is a libel on Christianity. To call their religion Christianity, is a libel on Christ. From their licentious queen* — who now follows on foot a con- * " When the pains of labor -wore approaching, the pangs of remorse rushed in upon the queen, and re- proached her with her dissolute ca- reer. She sent for Archbishop Claret, a prelate who well deserves the glo- rious name he bears. The queen begged his counsel, and as he is no courtier, he told her Majesty that her conduct made her the subject of ribald jests ; and as she was about to be exposed to the perils attendant upon childbirth, he exhorted her to banish her paramour, Puig Moro, from the palace, and country. The increasing pangs of the crisis added force to the archiepiscopal persuasions, and a pro- mise was made ; but the archbishop, not content with the royal word, ex- torted a written promise to that effect. He followed up his success by an exhortation to his royal auditor to be reconciled to her husband ; and even if she felt unable to love him, he urged her to have more respect for the pro- prieties of life, and to appear con- stantly with him before her subjects. Having obtained a promise to that effect, he repaired to the king's apart- ments and gave him like counsel. The king's promise was, however, con- ditional only ; he would consent to be reconciled to his wife only on con- dition that she paid his debts, and that the banishment of the queen's paramour should be instantaneous. The archbishop returned with a check for the payment of the king's debts, and the other promise ; but a com- promise has been effected, to avoid the public scandal which instantaneous exile may occasion — and Colonel Puig Moro struts about amongst his fel- low-citizens, who have yet enough of 432 gomora's fables. secrated wafer — to the lowest devotee in her reahn, we have the same Oriental exhibition of moral and religious obliquity. And thus it was that the lewd cham2Dions of the ever-blessed Virgin brought the very name of Chris- tianity to stink in the nostrils of their savage foes. This year, almost a blank in the despatches and in the narrative of Diaz, is completely filled with battles and sieges of the first magnitude in the history of the mag- niloquent Gomora, to the exceeding glory of his master. Immense cities and fertile provinces he finds scattered through this region of the had land. So intensely fabu- lous are his relations, they arouse even the denunciations of Diaz. " We are," says he, " to write one, when Go- mora says eighty." But with this abatement, the stories are a hundredfold too extravagant. The campaign of Tepeaca, reduced to reality, is, as we have presented it, famous only for the cruelties practised upon a sparse population, gathered here and there upon the few fertile portions it contains. We therefore pass to things of more importance — to the pacification of the tribes be- tween Tlascala and Mexico ; and to the opening of a direct route across the mountains to the great valley. The inhabitants of Guacahula, whose village was situated in a mountain pass leading to Mexico, applied to the leaven of loyalty in them to look men of Spanish court scandal, from with feelings of something akin to time immemorial. The present deference and respect on one who queen, as we have said, is hardly a sustained such intimate relations whit behind her predecessors in mo- with their queen." — Madrid Corre- rals, excepting her great namesake ; spondence. though the watchword of a success' The foregoing is a pretty fair speci- ful rebellion was morality. CORTEZ SECURES THE PASSES. 433 Cortez to free them from tlieir oppressive Aztec garrison. This was a most fortunate request ; and was immediately complied with, as it would secure him a foothold, if suc- cessful, where most needed, in the prosecution of his ulterior designs. Accordingly a force of thirteen horse, two hundred foot, and three hundred — not thirty thousand — Indian allies, were sent to relieve that village. This party, on the march, taking counsel from its fears, was seized with a panic, and returned to Cholula without encountering any but imaginary enemies. Cortez, well understanding the unfavorable effect of such a retrograde movement upon the mind of the enemy, at once abandoned all other operations, and, hurrying to Cholula, assumed in person the command. This is one of the many occasions in which he displayed his superior capacity. On his appearance, the soldiers were at once reassured. The luadertaking on the point of failure, proved entirely suc- cessful without further difficulty ; and an important position was permanently assured. In this instance, Cortez has disfigured a really great achievement, by asserting that the auxiliary Indians amounted to one hundred thousand.* Thus, step by step, was the Conquistador advancing his influence, and securing, not only his communications, but an allied force for the contemplated operations in the great valley itself. Outside that the Aztecs had now no certain support, while the Spaniards, before entering upon their war of subjugation, possessed themselves of a sure native alliance. In these particulars, in this far reaching policy, and in the good faith with which he at all timcF * Folsom's Cortez, pasje 179. 28 434 SIZE or the brigantines. treated his Indian allies^ we have constantly to remark the greatness of Cortez. We owe it to his memory to say this, as we have not scrupled to expose his criminal acts, and his cruelty, in which he resembled the savage quite as much as in his system of war. We now return to those small, flat boats, which, in the bombastic language of the relators, were called brigantines. They were built in sections in Tlascala, more readily to be carried over the mountain, put together, and launched in the laguna of Tezcuco. In another place we have pointed out those physical peculiarities of the valley, which created a marsh instead of a lake, as the enclosure of the city ; a body of water so widely diffused in volume, as to be held at various levels by such slight barriers as grass, rushes, and Indian dikes presented ; permitting only a sluggish flow, scarcely a current, from the southern por- tion,* above the city, to that below its level, the Tezcuco, the north-eastern lagmia. It is impossible, therefore, it could ever have been navigated by that class of vessels known as brigantines.f Vessels such as Cortez undoubt- edly built, are still there, and still navigate the lagunas and canals outside the city ; and they could now, as then, be built also in- the mountains of Tlascala, and be thence * The waters of the two lagunas of f In order to sail in another man- the north are also higher than the ner, these flat boats required some Tezcuco — in fact the laguna of Zum- substitute for a keel. This substitute ,pango is the highest waters of the was probably either a slip keel in valley. But neither the Zumpango, the centre of the scow, or a board, let nor the San Christobel, has any ordi- down on the lee-side when required nary outlet, and, of course, both are — a very common appendage to vessels salt, like Tezcuco. designed to navigate shallow water. DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED. 435 transported, put together, and launched at Tezcuco. But it would be a wonderful achievement. How much more was it so in his day ? The time occupied in building, equipping, and trans- porting to^ their destination thirteen of these little vessels, was not unreasonably long, considering the disadvantages under which the workmen labored. Boards were to be made with the tools of a ship carpenter; forges to be built for the smiths, without baked bricks, tanned leather, or seasoned lumber. The preparation of oakum was not difficult, but the process of collecting pitch from the trees could not be hastened, while its manufacture was by boil- ing after the Indian fashion in bark kettles.* The pre- paration of sails and cordage, too, for each little craft, most vitally important, was a work of time ;-f- yet was it indispensable to confer upon them powers of locomotion superior to the Indian bark canoe, J that they might choose their own point of attack, and possess also the means of escape when assailed by a superior force. These labors must have sorely tried the patience of Cortez; and their successful termination is the most remarkable event in the early history of our continent. * The process by which the boiling ignorant when they tell us, that ket- of water is effected among the In- ties were brought from the sea in dians, is by placing it in water-tight which to boil the pitch, kettles of birch bark ; into which f The material was the fibre of the heated stones continue to be dropped maguey, known among us as manilla until the process is effected. To boil hemp. pitch, it would be necessary to place % Diaz sometimes mentions pi- a kettle of pitch inside one of water, rogues, as well as canoes. By the and the heated water would cause the former, I understand the ordinary pitch to boil. This is a process of vessel of birch-bark ; by the latter, which the historians were evidently one dug out of a large log. 436 CORTEZ OBTAINS SUPPLIES. This achievement of civiHzed art in an enemies' country, and amidst a savage population, is almost miraculous, so great, indeed, that had Diaz here introduced his " blessed Virgin," industriously plying the handsaw or the adze, we might almost admit the necessity of that supernatural intervention. How strange is it that this most wonderful success should be obscured by such absurd fables ! But stranger still that the story of those impossible brigantines has not destroyed all credence in the rest of the history. The popular passion for the marvellous has made these very additions, which a well poised mind at once rejects, to constitute in truth the great attraction in all our histories of the Mexican Conquest. Before again setting his face towards the valley of Mexico, several incidents occurred to our hero, which in the narrative of the conquest deserve especial notice, from their influence on its final result. The first of these was the arrival of two more vessels from the unfortunate ex- pedition oi Francisco de Qaray to the Panuco river. Every assistance was rendered them in their distress, and none the less willingly as their misfortune was a great advantage to the Conquistador, who was thus enabled to supply many of his most urgent necessities. A large Spanish craft from the Canaries likewise entered the port of Vera Cruz with a cargo of military stores,* all of which were greedily purchased. This vessel furnished also thirteen additional soldiers and three horses to the little army. A more deli- cate afiair was at the same time consummated. Agents were sent to San Domingo to obtain, if possible, an * Diaz, vol. I., page 385. LAS CASAS CIRCUMVENTED. 437 approval from the Hieronomite brothers of the conduct of the Spaniards, both in the affair with Narvaez and in the violation of the new ordinances. This was done more especially to shield Cortez from the invectives Las Casas was pouring forth against him, with his usual vehemence. In fact, that well-meaning enthusiast had already de- nounced him for many wrongs and cruelties perpetrated before leaving the Islands. A more secret mission was intrusted to the same agent, which was to contract an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the mortal enemies of that distinguished monk — the Franciscans. A league, that proved, when consummated, as serviceable to the interests of Cortez in Spain, as that of Tlascala had been to him in Mexico. The Conquistador thoroughly understood the relations of the respective parties. He knew that while the Pro- tector of the Indians was honored with that high-sounding- title, he really possessed no power whatever to redress their grievances. The emperor, though fully appreciating the motives of the man, prudently intrusted that impor- tant function to a board chosen from those religious gen- tlemen, the Hieronomites, of whose honorable character we have already spoken. Both court and people confided in the prudence and the sincerity of purpose which ap- peared to govern them. None dared trust Las Casas, whose zeal too constantly outran his judgment. Hence, to these worthy men, and not to him, were delegated the necessary powers over those abuses which, in the admin- istration of Spanish "West Indian affairs, had become mon- strous. Their prudence and moderation could not be 438 ENSLAVING THE INDIANS. appreciated by zealots, but the excellence of the reforms they inaugurated has vindicated them to posterity. To these visitadores Cortez now appealed for his justification, backed by the influence of the powerful order of San Francisco. The council of reform, junta de visitadores, would cer- tainly have condemned him, notwithstanding that sup- port, had he not, in anticipation of such an event, pro- vided a still more effectual shield in that charge of rebel- lion and apostasy which he brought against the unfortu- nate Indians. To disregard this might have endangered the standing of the tribunal itself with the emperor. This subterfuge, as old as the times of Pontius Pilate, has ever proved efficacious under a jealous despotism. " If thou let this man go, thou art not Csesar's friend," retorted the Jews, when they had no other charge to allege against the Saviour. A similar accusation was equally success- ful in the courts of the German Caesar.* Apparently to lay a foundation for this charge, Cortez, at every village he visited, had required from the Indians an acknowledgment of vassalage to the King of Spain. Proceedings that must have appeared to the people but as a sort of merry-making. In the end, however, they found them to possess a tragic reality. But to return to the expedition, and the cam- paign against the Aztecs. All the country between the sea and the Mexican val- ley had now been subjugated. Of its people, those tribes whose alliance afforded no advantage to the invaders, were * Csesar was the title of the German emperors, so long as that office existed. FABULOUS NUMBER OF INDIANS. 439 declared apostates from, the Romish superstition, to be eaters of human flesh, and were consigned to the most abject slavery. The useless men were given over to the Tlascalans ; the women, after branding and haptizing, were distributed among the soldiers, as appears from the state- ment of Diaz.* The mountain barrier of the valley being now in the possession of Cortez or his allies, on the third day after Christmas, 1520 — with the flotilla about half completed — he commenced his return march. With this the greatest act in the drama of the conquest begins, and every step we advance increases its interest. The suc- cessful passage of lofty mountains by Indian trails, blocked up and beset by an active enemy, would always be esteemed a great achievement; but if to this we add the carriage of a flotilla over these same wild paths, though disjointedly, and piece by piece, we chronicle a success about equal to that of their construction. This, however, within the reach of the possible, is yet so difficult of accomplishment, a modern general would hardly undertake it, even with the certainty thereby of completely turning the natural defences of the city, and laying its population at his mercy. As to the fifteen thousand Tlascalans, who Diazf says were employed to bring these brigantines to the lagunas, and the eight other thousand he assigns to the same duty in another page,J and still another eight thousand who accompanied them, and the two thousand that conveyed provisions, though all ridiculously fabulous, they are still moderate when compared with the greater exaggerations of Cortez and * Diaz, vol. I., page 367. f Diaz, vol. II., page 18. J Ibid., page 16. 440 TEZCUCO THE POINT d'APPUI. Gomora. Eight thousand Tezcucans are said also to have been employed to clean out and enlarge one of the canals. From personal inspection, we declare that half as many hundreds would have been too numerous to work in so contracted a space. We are, besides, to consider the seri- ous burden these vast crowds must have proved to the limited commissariat of the army. Before the march a council was called to settle the point d'appui, or base of operations in the valley. Chalco had great advantages. It was not only the nearest point, but the most accessible from Tlascala ; and was besides the highest land in the southern valley. The water of the adjoining laguna, too, was fresh, and above the level of the city several feet. The Chalcans, likewise, were a conquered people, and at heart on the side of the invaders. To Tezcuco there were objections of a serious character. The peojDle of that village were of kin to the Mexicans, and could not but sympathize with them in their ex- tremity. But all these advantages and disadvantages were more than counterbalanced by the strategic benefits the last town afforded. Being on the salt, or lower ex- tremity of the marsh, there was a much greater space of open water and a wider field of action for the flotilla, when once launched. From thence, too, in the rainy season, the city could be reached by several avenues. By the way of the flats of San Lazarus, on the north they could attain the sadly memorable causeway of Tacuba, by passing through that of Guadulupe or Tepeac. Pur- suing a southerly direction, through ditches and shallow waters, the brigantines might reach the important dike ^iTalmanalco SAILINa AROUND MEXICO. 442 MUSTER OF FORCES. which joined the city to Mexicalzingo and Iztapalapa, and effectually succor troops advancing against those villages, in case the enemy should, as they afterwards did, cut through in their rear the connection with the eastern shore. If they took a westerly course, before reaching the first of those villages, and crossed the southern path- way near Ghuruhusco, they could approach almost to the rock of Chapultepec; thence turning to the right, they could advance northerly to the south side of the fatal route of the triste noclie, and continuing on through the opening in this causeway, they would sail again over the flats of San Lazarus, in returning to their quarters ; or they could, if desired, complete the circuit of the city. In a very wet season this could now be done, and certainly when the volume of water was greater than at present, without difficulty. For the many objects designed to be effected by the flotilla, Tezcuco, therefore, was clearly the most desirable point for the concentration of the forces, and was accordingly chosen. On the second day after Christmas, 1520, preparatory to the march, a muster was had of the forces. As Cortez had no motive to misstate its strength, the enumeration is probably correct. It is, also, consistent with itself and with former statements, and therefore are we bound to give it full credence. The numbers were forty horse and five hundred foot, eighty of whom were cross-bowmen and musketeers. There were also eight or nine field- pieces and a small quantity of powder, and, in addition, a body of Indian auxiliaries, not so numerous as to burden the commissariat, nor to impede the steadiness of the dis- MTJSTEE OF FORCES. 443 ciplined soldiers, yet sufficient to supply a valuable body for any duty in which irregulars could be advantageously employed. This must comprise all that were ever in the service. It is unnecessary, therefore, to discuss the impro- babilities which the daily encumbrance of the march by fabulous thousands of friendly Indians suggests. We have here then the exact effective force of the little band which so boldly ventured to re-enter the valley of Mexico, after all that had been previously suffered, or witnessed there of the sufferings of others, in the expedition of the previous year. It is not only a marked instance of daring, but the beginning of a series of adventures that are almost without a parallel. MARCH TO TEZCUCO. 444 PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAIN. The next day, that of the Holy Innocents, the march actually began, and was continued for six leagues, to Gua- Jocingo* a town in the Tlascalan alhance.f The following morning, the 29th day of December, 1520, they left their friendly quarters and commenced the ascent of the moun- tain. Cortez, with ten horsemen and sixty foot, all lightly armedj and experienced in this kind of warfare, led the van.§ Four leagues up the weary ascent had been made, when they encamped for the night, upon the very crest of the ridge, ten thousand feet above the sea, the eastern boundary of Aztec territory. It was amid a tempest of driving snow, so fierce as to hide them from the ever watchful Mexican scouts, while they suffered intensely from the cold. The next morning, after enduring this memorable exposure, they made the descent unopposed and undiscovered, until the greatest difficulties of the route were passed. The path was broken up throughout its entire course. But all obstacles were readily sur- mounted, as no enemy was present to dispute the passage. At last watchfires blazed on every side. The braves were summoned to arms, and hostilities commenced ; too * Huaxocingo. but Indian war, in which iron plate f Folsom's Cortez, page 203. armor would not only be of no advan- J Ibid., page 204. tage, but would render the wearer § We have already referred to a set almost unserviceable in that peculiar of plate armor suspended in the Mu- kind of hostility, known as Indian seum at Mexico. Like all the relics of war. Then, again, the heat of the the Conquest, it is at least apocryphal, climate would make such armor in- Iron defensive armor is only requi- supportable, site to defend the body from iron Like the copy of his picture, which weapons. has no original, and his banner, made Cortez was but nineteen years of since his death, this armor was pro- age when he came to the West Indies, bably purchased for effect. He had no knowledge of any war ENTRY INTO TEZCUCO. 445 late, however, to effect any important result. At night, the last of the year 1520, the invaders encamped at a dis- tance of only three leagues from Tezcuco. The next day's march was delayed by a solemn embassy from that town, " bearing a golden mace j"* it solicited for the people and their chief the pardon and friendship of Spain. The real object, however, was to gain the time necessary for a general flight. But the prayer of the petitioners being instantly granted, and the march re- sumed, the invaders forthwith entered and took up their quarters there. Cortez was for awhile at a loss to define the object of the Tezcucans in extending so friendly a reception. But a party of soldiers ascending an elevated mound to reconnoitre, he learned that those who had failed to make good their retreat to the island-capital, were now flying with their valuables in every direction. Diaz unfortunately adds, " Many took shelter in the reeds growing in the [salt !] lake !"-}• But the designed evacua- tion of the town and entire shore of the mainland was frustrated by the rapid movements of the invaders. On the first day of the year 1521, Cortez entered Tezcuco, and on that very night its sachem, with his principal men, fled to Mexico. The bulk of the popula- tion, unable to cross the laguna, took refuge in the mountains. Eor the three first days of its occupation, the place presented the appearance of a deserted town ; and so little prospect was there of any hearty alliance with its people, that eight more were industriously employed in putting it in a state of defence. During this while the * Folsom's Cortez, page 207. f Lockhart's Diaz, vol. II., page 5 446 IZTAPALAPA. inhabitants of the adjacent hamlets sent delegates to offer their submission, and many of the townspeople were like- wise induced to accept protection. Foraging parties were at the same time diligently engaged in collecting what- ever supplies might be found on the narrow margin of fertile land, between the mountains and the laguna, con- stituting the territory of that town.* The next movement of importance, after thoroughly establishing the army at Tezcuco, was against Iztapalaj>a, a small isolated grain-producing district, within the ever- glade barrier of the city. The expedition was led by Cortez in person, and it fully demonstrated the strength of the natural defences of the valley ; while the assail- ants, inferior upon the water, had to make head against defenders who possessed means of traversing both it and the neighboring marshes at their will. The affair ended in a disastrous night retreat; less serious indeed than the triste noche, but sufficiently so to prove the necessity of the jSotilla, to insure success. Iztapalapa, according to the American topographical survey, is over four feet higher than the Grand Plaza, the highest part of the city of Mexico ; which city is again six and a half feet above the laguna of Tezcuco.f * " Cortez speaks of the fine fields and barrenness of the plain on the of corn on the east side of this laguna. opposite side, which is so slightly ele- They could not have been finer in his vated above the level of the salt water day than they are at present, though that a few inches of rise in the laguna they furnished him with the supplies spreads out an immense sheet." — that supported his army. This splen- Mexico and its Religion. did farming-land, though but a nar- f See Report of the Reconnoissance row margin extending from the shore of the Valley of Mexico, by Lieut. M. to the foot of the mountain, was strik- L. Smith, TJ, S. A. ingly in contrast with the flatness Talmanalco BtARCH OF CORTEZ FR05r TEZCTJCO TO IZTAPALAPA. 448 IZTAPALAPA. In order, therefore, to elevate that salt lake to the level of Iztapalapa, as alleged by the writer of " Bernal Diaz," and all subsequent historians, it would be necessary to submerge not only the quarters of Cortez, at Tezcuco, to the depth of more than eleven feet ; but to flood the city of Mexico itself also with at least four ! Diaz, entirely unacquainted with the facts, confounds dikes with cause- ways ; because Cortez sometimes uses the word dike for causeway, and sometimes treats them as synonymous,* as in the present instance. They are, however, entirely distinct ; the dike is to impede a current, while the causeway is so constructed as not to interfere with the natural channel. The inhabitants of Iztapalapa fled at the approach of the Spaniards, and took refuge in some neighboring vil- lages — in the fresh-water laguna, probably Xocldmilco, as they had timely notice of their approach. Nor is it im- possible that the " waters of the salt lake began to flow with great impetuosity towards the fresh lake,"-|- through the opening made in the causeway "two-thirds of a league" in his rear; that is, from a lower to a higher level — an apparent impossibility, which, however, fre- quently occurs even in our day, when a strong north wind drives the water before it. The absurdities into which the historians of the Conquest have fallen, by misconceiving this statement, probably originated with Gomora, and were pointed out doubtless by Las Casas, or some other author, now suppressed. Diaz undertakes to turn the edge of the criticism by pretending, that in his * Folsom's Cortez, page 213. f Ibid., page 213. DEATH OF CUETRAVAC. 449 time, the physique of the country had entirely changed ;* modestly insinuating, as its cause, an earthquake that never occurred. Cortez probably discovered, while his men were busily engaged plundering the village, that the enemy were equally so in destroying the causeway in his rear, and that they were aided in their work by a power- ful north wind. Whereupon he hastily fled, and by '■''lialf running and half flying " escaped to the main- land by anothei night retreat. As for the ten thousand families, or fifty thousand inhabitants of Iztapalapa, the necessary rule of discount furnished by Diaz applied here, will afford the probable number. " Write one, where he says eighty." The Cuetravacinf of Cortez, the CuitlahuatzinJ of Diaz, a brother of Montezuma, was that sachem of Iztapalapa whose duty it had been to w^elcome the Spaniards on their first arrival. On the death of that unfortunate emperor, he became the leader of the confederates, and whether besieging the Spaniards in Mexico, or following them in their sorrowful retreat, he had shown himself worthy to fill the place of his illustrious predecessor. But the small-pox soon made him its victim in the midst of his career. He had been called to the administration in * " Iztapalapa was at that time a scarcely believe that waves had ever town of considerable magnitude, built rolled over the spot where now fertile half in the water and half on dry land, corn-plantations extend themselves The spot where it stood is at present to all sides, so wonderfully have all all dry land ; and where vessels once things changed here in a short space sailed up and down, seeds are sown of time." — Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page and harvests gathered. In fact, the 220. whole face of the country is so com- f Folsom's Cortez, page 186. pletely changed, that he who had not J Lockhakt's Dias, vol. I., page seen these parts previously would 344. 29 450 CORTEZ' STATEMENT POSSIBLE. a time of great calamity, his vigorous measures, before his untimely death, had apparently restored affairs to their former prestige. A powerful enemy who was in his very capital when he assumed the government, had not only been driven out with immense loss, but had been forced to fly beyond the limits of his hereditary states. If that enemy again returned, it was not until after Cuetravacin's death. That Cortez returned at all, was doubtless because he dared not go back to his own country unsuccessful. An ignominious punishment, or a conquest, were the alterna- tives that seemed to have forced uj)on him the necessity of renewing the war. That Divine ruler, too, who sent the hornet before the children of Israel, for wise purposes of his own, permitted the small-pox to pave the way for the Spaniards to re-enter. The future, however, was unknown to the dying Cuetravacin. He beheld only the magnitude of his victory over the fated enemy of his race ; and stoically wrapping himself in his feathered mantle, as his eyes closed in death, he rejoiced at his expected welcome to the celestial hunting-grounds, and felt that he was worthy a name among the immortal braves. Thus he died. There is no difficulty in reconciling with truth that portion of the narrative of Cortez which declares the enemy opened the dike or causeway two miles in his rear, and that the water flowed with impetuosity from the salt into the fresh laguna, as we have already sug- gested ; for the water, close to the eastern shore, is both deep and salt, and we have witnessed the same pheno- mena there, at the same season of the year, when the north wind blew furiously. If the waters ceased their flow DON FERNANDO. 451 the next morning, it was not the result of an equilibrium, as Cortez supposes, but because the wind had moderated. The flood, too, on the day of the attack, may have filled the causeway ditches to overflowing even as far as Iztapa- lapa ; and hence, with the usual exaggeration, it became, in the despatches, a town in the water. The number of Indian auxiliaries in this expedition, too, were as usual counted by thousands, instead of hundreds; with these qualifications we admit the correctness of the narrative. Returning to Tezcuco, after the night retreat from Iztapalapa, the submission of Otumba and other villages and hamlets in that vicinity, was received. About the same time, also, Sandoval and an expeditionary party were sent to open a communication with Tlascala. There was a second object to be gained by this, Cortez proposing to provide the people of Tezcuco with a sachem on whom he might rely. While in Tlascala, a scion of the reigning family of Tezcuco had lived with him, who was now about eighteen years old, and had been carefully educated in the Komish superstition, and baptized under the name of Don Fernando. This youth, on his arrival at Tezcuco, was installed as its cacique. This is the famous Don Fernando who played so conspicuous a part afterwards in the siege of Mexico, and was the founder of that noble family which, for many generations, furnished the rulers of Tez- cuco, and who, under a royal commissioner, were its here- ditary lords. It is pleasant to notice kindly traits in the Conquistador. They were few, but they did exist. Of them the brightest instance is his ardent friendship for this Indian chief, which terminated only at his death. 452 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. According to a provision in his last testament, the remains of Cortez, as ah^eady noticed, were brought from Spain, and deposited by the side of those of his bronze-visaged friend. A little chapel and a rough-stone wall mark the spot where the two once lay side by side. We have ne\ er hesitated to condemn the wrongs that were committed by Cortez in his lifetime. Yet, looking upon these memo- rials of his friendship for one of another race, we can hardly resist the conclusion that, had he been brought up under other circumstances, he might have been not only the great man he was, but a good man also, which is a thousand-fold more desirable. A TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW OP THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. A great deal of poetry and very little prose has been written about the valley of Mexico. From the heights of Rio Frio ; from the summit above the Cross of the Marquis ; and from the highest peak of the Tepeac behind Guada- lupe, I saw a tropical morning sun disengage itself from the snowy mountains. From these three favored spots I have looked upon the valley, where dry land and pools of water seemed equally to compose the magnificent pano- rama. Immense mirrors, of every conceivable shape and form, were reflect- ing back the rays of the sun ; while the green shores, in which the fresh- water ones were set, enhanced the effect. The white walls, and domes, and spires of the distant city heightened still more a picture that can only be fully appreciated by those who have looked downward through its pure atmosphere from such a position ; but when I descended to the common level, the charm was broken. Instead of lakelets and crystal springs, I found only pools of surface-water, which the rains had left ; and the canals were but the ditches from which, on either side, the dirt had been taken to build the causeway through the marsh, and were now covered with a coat of green. The valley has no outlet ; and as evaporation only takes up pure water, all the animal, vegetable, and mineral matter that is carried in, is left to stag- nate and putrefy in the ponds and ditches. A practical "man of the times," with more sense than poetry in his com- TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 453 position, must grieve as he looks at the great advantages here possessed for irrigation which are unimproved. There is not a spot in the whole valley that is not capable of the most perfect drainage,* while basins have been formed by nature in the highest points, from which water could be supplied to the whole valley ; but decay and neglect — fitting types of the social con- dition of the people — everywhere exhibit themselves. Water stands in all the narrow sewers, or ditches, that occupy the middle of the streets, for the want of a suitable one to draw it down to the level of the Tezcuco. Once a year the flags are taken from the covered ditches, and the mud dipped out ; and a bundle of hay, tied to the tail of a dirt-cart, is daily dragged through the open ones. I have spoken only of the lower division of the valley — that in which the city stands. If we consider the two partly separated as one, the whole con- stitutes an oval basin seventy-five miles long from north to south, with an average width from east to west of twenty. Two-thirds of the southern, how- ever, is a marsh; and might well be called the "Montezuma," it so strikingly resembles the one of that name in the state of New York, though the whole body of pond and morass contains much less water than its northern name- same. The stage-road from Vera Cruz crosses this marsh for fourteen miles, and has a great number of small stone bridges, beneath which the water runs with considerable current towards the north, on account of the difference of level between the southern fresh-water ponds and the lower salt-water ponds, as in the days of Cortez. There are occasional dry spots, and now and then there is open water ; but the greater portion is filled with marsh grass, and furnishes good feeding for the droves of cattle that daily frequent it for that purpose. The ancient village of Mexicalzingo, or " Little Mexico" — the traditional home of the Aztecs before they built Mexico — is situated on one of the dry portions, slightly elevated above the level of the fresh water, and a short distance from it Iztapalapa, and on another, six miles distant, stands the famous city of Mexico itself, resting on piles driven into a foundation of soft earth. The canal of Chalco commences at the northerly extremity of the Xochimilco, and, passing by Mexicalzingo and the "floating gardens," viz., artificial islands, continues along the eastern front, and empties itself into the salt [teqiiisquita] pond of Tezcuco, having received as a tributary the canal of Tacubaya, which passes along the southern boundary of the city, and the main trunk sewer. The highest water of the southern portion of the valley, is the pond of * Re-port o/"M. L. Smith, Lieutenarit of Topographical Engineers, U. S. A. 454 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. Chalco in the extreme south-east, being 4-8 feet above the level of the Grand Plaza of the city, and twenty miles distant therefrom, and lly2_ feet above Tezcuco ;* but its volume being small, for the last four hundred years, the slight impediments of long grass and a few Indian dikes have prevented any injury to the city by a too rapid flow to the northward. Xochimilco is the pond, or open space in the marsh, that extends from the Chalco to near Mexicalzingo on the same level. Tezcuco is the lowest water in the valley, being 6J feet below the Grand Plaza of the city.f It receives the surplus of the waters that have not already been evaporated in the other ponds. At this great elevation, 7500 feet, evaporation does its work rapidly all over the valley; but it is in Tezcuco that the residuum of the waters is deposited. And as this water evaporates 8 per cent, faster than fresh, the greatest portion of the evaporation here takes place. It may be well to repeat that, strictly speaking, there are two valleys — the upper or northern, and the valley of the city of Mexico; the first extends in an oval form beyond the hills of Tepeac, some sixty miles to Pachuca, and communicates with the plains of Otumba and Apam on the east. In this valley are the ponds or lagunas of Zumpango (the highest waters of Mexico), and Joltoca or San Cristobal ; and in it is also the town and half of the laguna Tezcuco, which is the lowest laguna of the valley. North of these lagunas is a country of fine farming lands, which was probably inhabited long before the time of the arrival of the Aztecs. The valley of the city of Mexico lies to the south of these hills, and is also oval in shape ; but not more than twenty miles in extent. The surface-water with which it is saturated, is in part fresh, and in other parts tequisquiia — that is, where the waters have a current, they are fresh ; but where they remain from year to year, discharging their volume only by evaporation, there they become infused with saline properties, and all about them is marked with barrenness. If the process of evaporation was less intense than it is, all vegetation would die from the extreme humidity of the soil — as the gardener's phrase is, it would rot. Even in the city itself, a couple of feet of digging brings you to the water-level even in the dry season ; and seventy or eighty yards of boring does not carry you beyond the perceptible influence of tequisquita.X This law of evaporation puzzled the Aztecs, who, ignorant of all philosophical principles, could only account for the disappearance of the * Lieut. Smith's Report. process of boring, at that depth, gave t Ibid. clear indications of the presence of te- % Near the author's lodgings in the quisquita. city of Mexico, an artesian well, in TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 455 immense mass of water that fell in the valley, upon the hypothesis, that the Tezcuco had a leaky bottom, or that there was a liole in the lake — an idea that thousands in Mexico credit even at the present day. This was the origin of that absurd story which Cortez repeats in his despatches, that this lake communicated with the sea, and had its daily tides, because, perhaps, he saw the water driven by the north wind at the time he wrote. The volume of water in this valley in the time of Cortez, could not have been much greater than at present, if the accumulations of each year were to be carried off by evaporation alone. As this is the turning-point in the history or fable of the Conquest, I must adduce the proofs and arguments that are at hand to establish this statement. That the level could not have been higher, is clear from the fact that neither Mexico, Mexicalzingo, nor Izta- palapa could in that case have been inhabited ; and much less Tezcuco, which is 6^ feet lower than Mexico. Cortez' account of deep waters has often been made plausible by adding the hypothesis that the accumulating mud of centuries has filled up the lakes that then existed, and which have thus become ponds. But this by no means removes the difficulty ; for then, as now, the waters of the southern laguna flowed into Tezcuco, conveying with them the infinitesimal infusion of tequisquita that had instilled itself into the Chalco. Had the volume of Chalco and Xochimilco been increased several feet, then the slight Indian barriers and the long grass would no longer have been able to retard the progress of the water till evaporation had diminished its quantity, but, pre- cipitating itself in a mass into the Tezcuco, it would have overwhelmed the town of Tezcuco, the city of Mexico, and all their shores, and established an equilibrium of surface in the two. All the lagunas, canals, and ditches that have been described, are navi- gated by small scows that draw but a few inches of water — the medium of an extensive internal commerce. Through the lagunas and canal of Chalco come from Cuatla the supplies of the products of the hot country for the city and surrounding region. This commerce exceeds the whole foreign trade of the republic* The style of boats now used was probably introduced by Cortez, and in this convenient form his thirteen brigantines were doubtless made ; for, had his brigantines been of a larger draught of water, they could not have navigated canals intended only for Indian canoes. One of these vessels, when supplied with a sail, a cannon, and a movable keel or side- board, would be a formidable auxiliary in an assault upon the city at the * Com6rcio de Mexico, 1852. 456 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. present day. And if one such scow was placed in the ditch on each side of the southern causeway, as Cortez alleges he did, it would enable an assailing enemy to present just so much more front as the additional width of two boats would give him, and also to rake both the ditch and causeway. Authors have expressed their surprise at the existence of two navigable canals to each causeway, one on either side, as an immense expenditure of unnecessary labor. The explanation of this is found in the fact, that in the construction of a pathway (for Cortez says that it was but two spears' length in width) through wet and marshy ground, a broad ditch is ordinarily made on either side to obtain earth for the embankment, and to keep the water- level permanently below the top of the pathway. So it is, and so it must always have been at Mexico, in order to keep these footpaths in travelling con- dition. In the dry season, which is the winter, these broad ditches are covered with floating islands of green " scum ;" but in the rainy season, which is the summer, they may be navigated by the shallow Mexican scows. A path- way of earth thirty feet (perhaps only twelve) in width could not endure the winds and waves of a navigable lake, or the wear and " swash" of a canal twelve feet deep on either side ; and the fact that Cortez navigated the ditches in the rainy season, establishes the insignificant size of his famous brigantines. As the level of the surface of the land and the surface of the water at Mexicalzingo, at Mexico, and at Tezcuco, does not materially vary now from what it was in the time of Cortez, if we can take for data the foundations of the churches built by the Conquistador at these several places, we shall have to look to another quarter for a supply of water for the city canals, which were sufficiently capacious for canoe navigation. This supply we readily obtain by allowing the waters of the canals of Tacubaya and Chalco to pass through the streets of the city in ditches sufficiently large for canoes, instead of passing along the south and east fronts outside. By this hypothesis we obtain a current, a prerequisite to the very idea of a canal, particularly in the streets of a city. The savans of Europe have shown their profound ignorance of the first principles of navigation, in taking it for granted that the canals of Mexico were filled with stagnant water, that had "set back" from the stagnant pond of Tezcuco ; and that the level of the pond must at all times have been so high as to fill the canals — thus keeping the city in constant danger from any sudden rise in the laguna. But, aside from the rules of canal con- struction, there is an important sanitary question involved. The present ditches in the middle of the streets, though they have a perceptible current, TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 457 and a slight infusion of tequisquita, are an intolerable nuisance, and have a deleterious effect upon the public health. How much more so must they have been vrhen, from the uncleanly habits of the Indians, they vi^ere the common receptacle of all kinds of filth, and were constantly stirred up to their very bottoms by the setting-poles of the navigators ? The system of canalling is a system of slack- water navigation, but abhors stagnation. We come next to the question of the dimensions of these street canals. We know that they were intended only for the navigation of Indian canoes ; that such of them as intersected the causeway of the night retreat, Cortez crossed with his army all but one, either by leaping or climbing down into them, wading across, and then climbing up on the other side while loaded with their armor, while fighting against a superior force of the Aztecs ; and that Alvarado actually leaped across the main one of the openings, shows conclu- sively that the canals could not have had any great breadth. On the hypo- thesis that Cortez used scows that drew no more water than the scows of the present day, his story becomes credible, so far, at least, as the possibility of making the circuit of the city in his boats in a season of rains. The waters of the valley are now distributed in the best possible manner to favor evaporation ; and yet so completely is this power taxed, that when, in 1629, a water-spout, bursting over the small river Guautitlan, had forced the waters of Zumpango over its barriers into the Joltoca or San Cristobal, and that again into the Tezcuco, the city was inundated to the depth of about three feet. Evaporation was unable to remove or materially lessen this new volume of water in a period of five years. This fully demonstrates that the average annual fall of water is equal to the full capacity of evaporation. The valley of Mexico is a very small one over which to dispose of the mass of water that the mountain-torrents and the tropical rains pour into it, and with the small margin of six and a half feet for rising and falling, the city must have been in constant jeopardy. Still the floods have not been frequent, fully demonstrating the great uniformity in the fall of water in the rainy season. When a water-spout occurred in the Chalco in 1446, in the time of the Aztec kings, there was a flood, which probably ran off into the Tezcuco. Under the Spaniards the following floods are enumerated : the first in 1553 ; the second in 1580 ; . the third in 1604 ; the fourth in 1607 ; the fifth in 1629. After the flood of 1607, the tunnel of Huehuetoca was undertaken, and constructed in eleven months, for the purpose of letting out of the valley the waters of the river Guautitlan, so as to prevent it from falling into Tezcuco, or flooding the city. For those times it was a great work ; but we should say now that it was poorly engineered and badly managed, and not worthy 458 TOPOGRAPHICAL YIEW. the notice it has received in books on Mexico. Since that time, the great inundation of 1629 occurred while the mouth of the tunnel was closed. After that time, the Spaniards, instead of building inside of the tunnel an elliptical tube, actually, by a hundred years of misapplied labor, turned the tunnel into an open cut. Cortez furnished a map to illustrate his description. This map has the same defect as his narrative ; that is, it was incorrect at the time he made it. The dimensions of the lagunas are exaggerated to an impossible size. Now, if we carry the village of Tezcuco and the shore of the lake with it to its correct position, we shall have the laguna of Tezcuco in its nresent form and size. In this survey of the ponds of Mexico, I have drawn upon the information on the subject acquired at the extensive salt manufactories of Syracuse and the surrounding villages in Western New York ; and also from the experience of our engineers upon the Erie Canal, and the engineers upon the dikes or levees at Sacramento, where the nature of the soil resembles that of Mexico. And I may now conclude this long survey of the canals and lagunas of Mexico, by saying that it is a wise provision of Providence that all bodies of water that have no outlet are found to contain a considerable infusion of salt, otherwise their accumulations of decaying matter would be such that mankind could not live in their vicinity. This valley is an illus- tration of that truth. The Tezcuco, surrounded by barrenness, is not dele- terious to life ; while the fresh-water lagunas, though continually changing their volume, render Mexico unhealthy in summer by the gases which they exhale from decaying vegetation. I have pretty thoroughly described this small valley ; and have also stated how large a portion of it is flooded with surface-water, and how large a portion of this water is infused with salt. In the vicinity of Tacubaya it is remarkably fertile, and there is good tillable land as the mountains are approached, especially about Chalco on the south-east ; but under Indian cultivation, the whole of this area could have produced sustenance for only an extremely limited population, if the product of the "foaiing gardens" and the birds upon the pond should be added. It is totally inadequate to feed the population of Mexico under the vice-kings, 400,000, or its present population of say 300,000 ; nor could the valley itself be made to sustain one-third of this. The valley, it must be recollected, is enclosed on all sides by mountains that exceed 10,000 feet above the sea level ; while the com- missariat capacity of barbaric tribes is not such as to procure extensive supplies from a distance. Under such circumstances, we should look for an TOPOGRAPniCAL VIEW. 459 extremely limited population. Yet the most surprising part of the story of the Conquest, is the enormous numbers assigned to the many large cities which it is alleged the valley contained. Diaz says, " A series of large towns stretched themselves along the banks of the lake, out of which [the lake] still larger ones rose magnificently above the water." Cortez says that Iztapalapa contained " 10,000 families," which would give the town 50,000 inhabitants ; " Amaqueruca, 20,000 inhabitants ;" " Mexicalzingo, 3000 families," or 15,000 inhabitants ; " Ayciaca, more than 6000 families ;" " Huchilohuchico, 5000 or 6000." The population of Chalco he does not give, nor the population of very many villages whose names he men- tions. At the present day, there are a few mud-huts in nearly every locality named; but not enough in any one instance to merit the name of vil- lage. And this, I am inclined to believe, was the real condition of things in the time of Cortez. The city of Mexico alone would have exhausted the limited resources of the valley. Old Thomas Gage was as much puzzled two hundred years ago to account for this astonishing disappearance of the numerous Indian cities of this valley, as we are ; and also for the supposed fill- ing up of the lakes — never appearing to suspect that the story was a fiction. THE CAUSEWAYS. Now as we are on the new causeway, broad and spacious like all the others, it may be well to conclude the discussion of the physical condition of this valley by determining the size of the old Aztec ones. An island, embosomed in a marsh, has always formed a favorite retreat for an Indian tribe — whether among the everglades of Florida, or the wild- rice swamps of Northwestern Canada. Such a retreat is still more desirable when, in addition to the security it afibrds from an enemy, it is likewise a resort for wild-ducks, as was and is the case with the lagunas of the Mexican valley. Hence, probably, the Aztecs selected this place as the site of their village ; and to reach it, it was necessary to make one or more footpaths across the marsh. As the Aztecs had no beasts of burden, this must have been a task of no little magnitude. To have made it thirty feet wide would not only have been a work of immense diflBculty, but would have destroyed the defensive character of their position. Still, we can, upon this occasion, afford to be a little liberal with the statements of Cortez, as we have had to cut his hundreds of thousands of warriors down to a few thousand of misera- bly-armed Indians, and reduce his magnificent cities to Indian villages. In order to make the island of Mexico at all inhabitable, we have had to re- 460 LIEUTENANT SMITH. duce his lakes from navigable basins of twelve feet or more in depth, to mere evaporating ponds. His floating islands have been transformed into garden- beds, built upon the mud ; and his canals have sunk to mere ditches. Now let us deal liberally with the old Conquistador in the matter of his cause- ways, and admit that they might have been twelve feet in width — as broad as the tow-path of the Erie Canal. — Wilson's Mexico and its Religion. THE VOLUME OF WATER THE SAME NOW AS IN THE TIME OF CORTEZ. Some persons, ignorant of nature's methods of sustaining equilibriums, have hastily adopted the hypothesis; that the volume of water in the valley of Mexico has so diminished since the time of Cortez, as to convert his alleged lakes into the ponds or lagunas of the present time. Where the discharge depends upon drainage, the enlargement or contraction of the drain must diminish or increase the volume of the reservoir. But when we come to those unchangeable laws, that hold evaporation and precipitation in equilibrium, we know that bodies of water dependent on these powers for their supply and discharge have not increased or diminished their volume since the last chain of mountains to their windward acquired their present form and shape, (See Lieut. Maury's Physical Geography, § 377) — that is, the volume of water in the valley of Mexico is to-day precisely what it was in the times of Cortez, and perhaps a thousand years before — the Zumpango alone, except in time of flood, evaporating all the water that now escapes by the canal of Huehuetoca — the little river Guautitlan. LIEUT. H. L. SMITH, U. S. A. The author knows nothing more in relation to the survey made by this officer, than is contained in a pamphlet defence of Francesco Suarez Iriarte published at the city of Mexico, by R. Rafael, 1853, in which a Spanish translation of this important report is introduced as one of the Appendices. He obtained it at the palace, of M. M. Lerdo, then first official in the department of public work [Fomento) now mixed up in revolutionary move- ments, and the author of the law Lerdo, in relation to church property. CHAPTEE XIII. THE SIEGE OF MEXICO. The youthful Emperor Guataraozin, 461 — Effect of the appearance of the " brigantines," 462 — Guatamozin's line of defence — his heroism, 463 — Transporting the " brigantines" to Tezcuco, 464 — Cortez makes a recon- noissance in force, 465 — Incidents of the march, 466 — More topographical blunders of Diaz, 467 — Sandoval's expedition to Chalco, 468 — More woman- branding — arrival of a Papal bull, 469 — Their sins pardoned by virtue of the bull, 469 — Cortez' expedition south of the lagunas, 470 — Cortez en- gages the mountain tribes, 472 — The beauty of the gardens of Guastipeque, 472 — The capture of Cuernavaca, 473 — Capture of Xochimilco, 474 — The second day at Xochimilco, 475 — The second reconnoissance to Tacuba, 476 — The character of this reconnoissance, 476 — The canal built by Cortez, 477 — A fabulous depth given to his canal, 478 — Adventurers attracted by the first despatch, 478 — A muster and division offerees for the siege, 479 — The land forces placed in position, 480 — By means of his brigantines Cortez captures the Pinon, 480 — The first battle on the water, 482 — The first week of the siege, 483 — A complete investment effected, 484 — Its results, 485 — The Chinampas, improperly called Floating Gardens, 485. GuATAMOZiN was the successor of Cuetravacin, the second from Montezuma, and last emperor of Mexico. His name is inseparably linked with the destruction of the Aztec empire and the ruin of its people. Called to the supreme command of a nation already doomed, his fate has thrown around its misfortunes the halo of his own self-devotion. The long-sustained supremacy of his peo- ple rested upon the impregnable position of their mud- girt islands, and the ample supply of food which their fast-anchored gardens furnished — the floating gardens of (461) 462 EFFECT OF THE BRIGANTINES. the Spanish romancers, and our own historians — and the corn fields of Iztapalapa. Heretofore it had been optional, either to engage in aggressive war, or to practise at home the arts of peace. None had been able to disturb them in their secure retreat. Even the last assault of the Spaniards but proved its security. But that enemy now appeared with two auxiliaries, as strange to the Indians as were the pale faces ; one, the small-pox, left behind in their retreat, was already in the field; the other, the flotilla, preparing in the mountains of Tlascala, was yet to come. Under these circumstances, Guatamozin, a youth of eighteen,* came to the leadership of the confederacy. He had at best but inadequate means of defence against the returning enemy and his fearful allies. If the youthful emperor had relied confidently upon his command of the water-approaches to his capital, when he saw the strange " canoes" launched upon the Tezcucan laguna, that hope must have passed away. So light were they in draught, they could follow even his bark-built vessels in the shal- lowest water, yet so large they still contained twenty men and a cannon,-]- Stranger yet, driven by the wind, they moved with a speed that made them a terror to his most expert oarsmen. J When this new auxiliary entered the contest, the chief comprehended at once the fate that awaited both him and his people. No longer was he master of the time, and point of attack or retreat, that powder was now transferred to the enemy. His ditches were * Folsom's Cortez, page 315. f Ibid., page 267. X The bark-canoe is propelled by one or more paddles — not oars. guatamozin's plan of defence. 463 no more a pathway to the flanks of his assailants, they were the road to his own. These " strange canoes" com- manded all his defences, and equally covered the advance or retreat of his enemy. The advantage of the cause- ways belonging to the master of the water, the peculiarity of his position no longer aided him in his defence. Day by day he saw the Spaniards approaching by these hitherto unassailable paths, until they deployed in his capital. They came and they went, morning and evening, under the protection of their boats, with the regularity of daily laborers. The very gardens upon the water, those artifi- cial islands which until now had ever been a certain source of supply to his city, were in the power of its enemy, and furnished his commissariat abundantly; and while his own people were perishing from hunger, the fields of Iztapalapa supplied their foes with forage. Such were the circumstances under which Guatamozin was to make his final stand. There was no hope of ultimate success. The utmost the youthful emperor could expect was to protract the siege, and make the victory as dear as possible to the be- siegers. To this end the whole system of Indian tactics was abandoned. Either his people must yield unresist- ingly at once, or daily struggle, hand to hand, uncovered, against an enemy armed with iron weapons. Either they must succumb now, or expose their bodies to the bullets of the arquebus and the fire of the artillery, with the additional risk of being trampled into the earth by those to them strange beasts, the horses. Yet this last was the choice our youthful hero adopted, and successfully con- 464 GUATAMOZIN MISREPRESENTED. tinued, as long as there was a city to defend, and warriors to maintain the contest. When no firm land remained to him, his canoe became his palace, and there, in the midst of the shallow waters adjoining his capital, beyond the reach of the horses, surrounded by a few famishing survi- vors, with Indian stoicism he awaited the stroke of some lucky missile to terminate his misery. This was the defence resolved upon in the councils of Guatamozin — the most remarkable ever adopted by undisciplined warriors — a resolve we must characterize as fortitude rather than courage. The Aztecs could easilv have aban- doned their capital, when they discovered it was no longer defensible, and sought safety by dispersing themselves among their allies in the adjoining mountains and distant forests towards Otumba. But they chose rather to die among the houses and by the graves of their ancestors, that they might be counted worthy of their lineage, when they should meet hereafter the immortal braves who had gone before them. Thus it was a part of the original purpose of his tribe to die where they were, if necessary, rather than fly before the pale-faces. And we have here a clue to the whole series of contests that, from the appearance of the brigantines to the extermination of its defenders, occurred about the capital of the Aztecs. On the one side we are to herald exploits of brave Span- iards thirsting for victory ; on the other doomed warric.rs who had ceased to value their lives, and seeking only to sell them at the dearest rate to their implacable foes. The successful transportation across the mountains of the planks and "cross-timbers" that were to constitute THE FIESTA OF THE BEIGANTINES. 465 the thirteen " brigantines," was the occasion of a great re- joicing, a grand fiesta at Tezcuco, in which all concurred. By the circuitous mountain-path traversed, the distance was eighteen Spanish leagues,* over such broken ground as we have described. The vessels had to be carried, board by board, timber by timber ; this so extended the line of march, that, from the head to the rear of the column was a distance of two Spanish leagues — five miles. In the van were a hundred foot and eight horse, as a guard, with "ten thousand Tlascalans" — one hun- dred and twenty-five, according to the rule of discount which Diaz supplies — and a like number of Spaniards and Tlascalans in the rear. Besides these, there were also two thousand porters with provisions. Four days were required for the march, and when the procession entered the town, it was received with the beating of Indian drums, and other rejoicings. Three days to recruit were then allowed the Tlascalans, after which they were sum- moned to a warlike expedition. Secretly resolving to make the northern circuit of the lagunas, as far as Tacuba — the rendezvous after the night retreat — to study his ground on every side, Cortez started with an expeditionary force of three hundred foot and twenty-five horse, fifty archers and musketeers, six cannon and " thirty thousand," viz., three hundred and eighty Tlascalans. The movement was a reconnois- sance in force, intended also to remove whatever obsta- cles existed to the complete investment of the city on that side, by driving in every hostile garrison. The * Folsom's Cortez, page 227. 30 466 A RECONNOISSANCE. CORTEZ RECONNOITRES THE CITY ON THE NORTH. reason assigned in his despatches — that he might appear driven by Indian obstinacy to the adoption of a cruel policy — waS; that he went to Tacuba to parley with the Mexicans ; to bring about, if possible, a peace* — an idea entirely at war with his intentions. The first conflict took place at Joltoca, situated on a small island in the salt laguna of that name. The enemy * Tolsom's Cortez, page 229. TOPOGRAPHICAL BLUNDER, 467 being routed and driven out, the march was resumed and the column proceeded to the " large and heautiful city,'' that is, the small Indian village of Guatitan, and this was found deserted by its inhabitants. There Cortez lodged the second night after leaving Tezcuco. Leaving this he advanced to Tenianca. Meeting no opposition, he continued to Acapuzalco.* Hurrjdng on from this point, he reached Tacuba the same evening. After his allies had plundered and partly burned this village, he advanced to the head of the causeway, and held a parley with the Mexicans without effect. Diaz says he here attempted to re-enter the city, and was allowed to advance so far on the causeway as to fall into a well laid plot, which subjected him to a serious loss : viz., five Spaniards killed and many wounded.-]- This is a mere invention. Cortez was too good a soldier to be twice entrapped in the same snare. On the return a night was again spent at Guatitan. The second was passed at the friendly village of Aculman, on an island in a little fresh-water lake of the same name. There friends met and escorted him back to Tezcuco. The only noteworthy feature of this expedition is the laughable mistake into which Diaz and the historians of the conquest have fallen, from their ignorance of the country. Diaz again mistakes the causeway for a dike. The causeway which connected Joltoca with the main land, was cut through ; to this Diaz unfortunately adds, " and thereby flooded the country."^ The country on this, the north side, is higher than the water, and the * Folsom's Cortez, page 230. t Lockhart's Diaz, vol. II., page 22. % Ibid., page 20. 468 Sandoval's expedition. natural discharge of the Joltoca in the opposite direc- tion, is only restrained by a slight barrier from flowing into the Tezcuco ; so that, the only flood these elevated lagunas could create would be first felt in the Spanish quarters at Tezcuco ! Gales cannot change the result here, for the gentle south wind disturbs not the equili- brium of these waters. Thus we add another instance to the many, in which, the blind leading the blind, all have fallen into the ditch. Diaz charges as " shocking blunders of Gomora"* the declarations of Cortez, that he concealed from the Tezcucans his design of marching to Tacuba, and also that he went there for the purpose of a parley. Who is the real blunderer? The next event was the march of Sandoval with his division to the relief of the Chalcans. On his arrival there he was joined by the Indians of that town and their allies in fabulous numbers, of course. The united force immediately moved against Guastapeque — peque meaning hill. At this place there was a double battle, but ulti- mately the enemy was driven out, and pursued to Aca- pictla, a strongly fortified position, which Sandoval carried by assault, and with so great a slaughter, that, Cortez in- forms us,f for a whole hour the little stream that sur- rounded the town ran red with blood, so that the thirsty soldiers could not drink it ! Diaz is so scandalized at the impossibility of this, that he alleges it to be one of the ^'shocking blunders" J of Gomora. Other matters con- nected with this expedition were more congenial to the * LocKHART'sZ)iaz,vol.II.. page25. J Lockhart's Diaz, vol. II., page t Folsom's Cortez, page 235. 30. MORE WOMAN-BRANDING. 469 Sepoy piety of Diaz, as that, " our troops satisfied them- selves by capturing some few pretty females, and other objects of value.'' After this engagement, Sandoval returned to Tezcuco, bringing with him great numbers of prisoners, among whom were many beautiful Indian females. The Emperor Guatamozin was greatly excited at the result of Sandoval's expedition. Immediately upon its return to Tezcuco, a fleet of "two thousand canoes"!* was despatched with an expedition consisting of twenty thousand, viz., two hundred and fifty warriors.-j* Passing through the narrow laguna of Xochimilco, it made a descent upon the territories of Chalco, with but indifferent success. This expedition of the Aztecs repulsed, nothing of importance claimed attention. In the interval the captives taken by Sandoval were distributed. These, Diaz tells us, Cortez resolved should be marked with a red hot iron."-|" This brutal process was followed by an exhi- bition of Spanish piety, unlike aught we have yet had, and more degrading in its nature than anything the Brah- minical system presents — a sale of those rewards reserved for the righteous, to the vilest of mortals for money. "A Dominican friar, Pedro Malgarejo de Urea, from Seville, brought with him a Papal bull, by which," says Diaz, ''we obtained absolution for all the sins we may have been guilty of during these wars. By means of this bull Urea amassed a large fortune in the space of a few months, with which he returned to Spain" !{ Such was * Lockhakt's Diaz, vol. II,, page 30. f Ibid., page 31. J Ibid., page 32 470 ANOTHER RECONNOISSANCE. the religion ! imported into Mexico four years before the breaking out of the Protestant reformation in Europe. The ship which bore this vagrant monk, had also a supply of military stores for sale. These were so opportune that Cortez declares them to be '^a succor that God miracu- lously sent us at a time when greatly needed."* To the pretended gift of God, the divine pardon, he does not even refer as one of the evidences of heavenly favor ! Had this pardon been genuine, it would indeed have been a miracle greater than any ever wrought by monk or priest, with or without a bull, or other agency of Satan. As a companion piece to this, Diaz tells us, the main inducement go large a party as twenty thousand and over of the allies had to join the expedition was, not the hope of plunder alone, " but the expectation of a plentiful repast of human flesh, which never failed after an engagement" ! The reconnoissance on the northern side completed, on the 5th day of April, 1521, Cortez marched along the eastern shore of the laguna of Tezcuco for a similar pur- pose. His force then consisted of twenty horse and three hundred foot, fully equipped, besides " twenty thousand," viz., two hundred and fifty Tezcucans, the Tlascalans having been sent to their homes. The first night they lodged at the hamlet of Talmavalco, within the jurisdic- tion of Chalco. On the next day they arrived at that village, and there received a new accession of "forty thousand,"-]- viz., five hundred, making, with the Tezcucans, a body of seven hundred and fifty, a number extravagantly * Folsom's Cortez, page 236. f lUd., page 239. MARCH INTO THE HOT COUNTRY. 471 large for such a district to furnish, and inconveniently so for the purposes contemplated by the expedition. At dawn on the third day the march was resumed, and they entered upon a rugged mountain district, which forms the southern rim of the valley. The inhabitants, allies of the Aztecs, assembled upon the principal hills, and bade defiance to their invader. An assault was made upon a party perched on one of these rocky fastnesses, and repulsed with serious loss. A second attack upon another was more fortunate. Having made a lodgment upon an equal elevation near by, the crossbowmen and musketeers opened a damaging fire upon the garrison of the neighboring mount, whereupon the latter threw down their arms and proposed a surrender, which was accepted. So easy were the terms, the victorious party on the first hill were induced to accept the same capitulation also. And here we have to turn aside from our narrative to notice the oft recurring instances of the extraordinary qualities exhibited by so young a man as Cortez. In statesmanship he seems to be the counterpart of Ca3sar in dealing with the Gothic tribes. When the alliance of any tribe was of advantage to him, he was most scru- pulous in observing his treaties, while he exterminated without scruple all whom he could not rely upon. Peace thus settled, Cortez remained with his new-made friends two days, and then proceeded to Guastepeque, the scene of the exploits of Sandoval. Here he describes a garden, belonging to its chief, as being two leagues in cir- cuit. In it his army took up their quarters. This description is altogether a conte d'Espagne. There is 472 GARDEN OF GUASTEPEQUE. COETEZ MAKES A COMPLETE CIRCIJIT OF THE CITY. nothing, indeed, in nature more beautiful than the scenes presented to the eye, in some of those valleys which open to the south ; and it would require little artistic labor to make them what Cortez describes them then to be — " the most beautiful and refreshing I ever beheld."* In these spots all the beauty and loveliness of the hot country is found without its deleterious malaria. Cottages em- Folsom's Cortez, page 242. CAPTURE OF CUERNAVACA. 473 bowered in trees are covered with wild flowers and creepers; while the mountain rills that water their natural gardens add materially to the general effect by their sparkle and their murmur. Having now passed the mountains, they proceeded by a circuitous route to Yantepeque, the inhabitants of which fled at their approach, and were pursued to Gihutepeque, " where some women and young persons were taken pri- soners ;"* from thence the march was continued to Cuerna- vaca. The beauty of this place seems to have so charmed Cortez, that he resolved upon it as his future residence, and it really afterwards became the home of the Marquis of the valley ; this title and this village being bestowed upon him by the emperor about the same time. Great difficulty was found at first in effecting a lodgment on the side of the ravine, opposite the one by which they approached. Succeeding at last, the village was carried by assault. Here they remained but a single night. Turning northward, Cortez recrossed the dividing ridge where it rises to an elevation of ten thousand feet above the sea. He complains of the sufferings his men and horses endured there from thirst. They did not, perhaps, undergo more than did the author and horse on the same route 5 yet the Conquistador adds, some of his Indians perished from that cause on the march ! Such a calamity the cold made impossible in so short a period. The night Avas spent on the mountain seven leagues from Cuernavaca.-\ * Folsom's Cortez, page 243. It stands close under the shadow of t " Cuernavaca is to this day cele- the huge mountains that shield it brated as one of finest spots on earth, from the northern blast ; and it ia 474 CAPTURE OF XOCHIMILCO. Early on the second day the column re-entered the great valley, and arrived at Sochimilco, by the side of the fresh-water lagw^a of that name, the Xochimilco of the maps. Cortez calls it a great city.* It was, most probably, then as now, a mere hamlet. This place, though fortified by bog and ditches, he finally carried and held in force, as a point from which to conduct his reconnoissance of the southern front, protecting his position by the very works the enemy had constructed to oppose him. The inhabitants had vainly supposed themselves secure from the Spaniards by the intervention of their ditches j and not until they were shot down at a distance by fire-arms, crossbows, &c., and found no cover from such, to them unusual weapons, did they fly from their efiect. Even then they rallied, returned, and renewed the attack with a boldness which Cortez says "astonished him;" even rushing upon the quarter he occupied. Yet it was only to be subjected to an encounter with another, to them still strange element of war ; to be trampled on by the cavalry. "Then they again," says he, "fled from the fear of the horses."f " Though some of them," he con- tinues, " discovered so much courage as to wait their ad- vance. On this occasion Cortez escaped death only by at the same time protected from the of a fine day in a voluptuous climate, extreme heat of the tropics by its ele- the beautiful scenery, and the happy ration of 3000 feet. The immense faces of the people celebrating New church edifices here proclaim the mu- Year's day in the shade of the orange- nificence of Cortez ; vrhile the garden trees, made an impression upon a of Laborde, open to the world, shows traveller not easily forgotten." — Mexi- with what elegant taste he squan- co and its Religion. dered his three several fortunes accu- * Folsom's Cortez, page 246. mulated in mining. The combination f Ibid., page 247. SECOND DAY AT XOCHIMILCO. 475 the timely aid of a Tlascalan, who rushed to his assistance when his horse stumbled in the midst of a crowd of enemies. A Spaniard, also, who, Diaz says, was Ghris- tobal de Olea* came up at the critical moment, and aided him to remount. When the Aztecs were finally routed after a hard day's fight, the openings where the bridges had been were ordered to be filled up ; then " after using much precaution, and setting many guards, we retired for the night." Thus terminated the first day at Xocliimilco. On the next there came from Mexico, by the canal and the narrow laguna of Xocliimilco, an army of "twelve thousand warriors," viz. one hundred and fifty, "in a great fleet of canoes exceeding two thousand in number ; at the same time the country was covered by the multi- tude that poured in by land."f A remarkable incident this day was the appearance of Aztecs armed with Spanish swords, taken the night of the sorrowful retreat. On the second contest the infantry was left to defend the town, while Cortez sallied forth with the Tlascalans. These he subsequently divided into squads, which scoured the plain, and put the whole undisciplined multitude to flight. He then assailed a party that had taken refuge on one of the precipitous hills scattered through the valley. By the aid of his Tlascalans, these were driven upon a party placed to intercept their retreat, by which more than five hundred were slain."J It was " ten o'clock in the day" when the horse returned from the pursuit to their friends in Xochimilco, who all this while were engaged with those * Lockhakt's Diaz, vol. II., page f Folsom's Cortez, page 248. 44. % Ibid., page 249. 476 RECONNOISSANCE TO TACUBA. of the enemy who had disembarked from the canoes. Here, hkewise, being again victorious, they obtained as trophies two of the swords the Indians had used. But the Aztecs, dissatisfied with the sudden repulse of the morning, once more on the same day assailed the Span- iards from a causeway, but with the usual result. After setting the town on fire, they left the place the next day pursued by the enemy, who construed their movement into a flight. Continuing the reconnoissance, however, without heeding these attacks, Cortez now ad- vanced to Cuyocan, which place he contemplated making his head-quarters during the siege. He states with great brevity his reason for selecting this point; that it was situated about equidistant from Mexico, Coluacan, Gliu- Tubusco, Iztapdlapa, Cuitaguaca, and Mezqueque. After reconnoitering the causeway, which there leads directly to the city, Cortez on his return set those houses on fire, that were not occupied by his party. Accomplishing the object of his visit, he proceeded to ChaiJultepec, where the spring which supplies the city with fresh water is situated ; from thence he advanced to Tacuba, the scene of his for- mer visit, and the rendezvous of the night retreat. Hav- ing remained at that place several hours, the march w*is resumed by the route of the northern exploration. Two days afterwards he was once more welcomed to hospita- ble quarters at the friendly village of Aculman. Thus was completed one of the most extraordinary ex- peditions recorded of so small a force. Exposed at all times to attack from an enemy in full force, both in front and rear, on the plain and in the mountain passes, it yet CANAL FORMED BY CORTEZ. 477 fully succeeded. From time to time, while advancing, the enemy was beaten in the field ; besides which, the hostile garrisons placed upon the route were driven in, and Gua- tamozin left without a single post outside the contemplated lines of circumvallation. The enemy having command of the water, and resting on Mexico as a pivot, could assail the expedition step by stej) as it advanced. Ever}^ day, therefore, required new victories, not only to accom- plish the direct purpose of the march, but to disentangle the troops from daily ambuscades and surprises. There is in the narrative of this expedition, as usual, an accu- racy of detail, and a straightforwardness in the Conquis- tador, strikingly in contrast mth the blind halting of Diaz. The latter adds nothing to the account of his pre- decessor, excex3t a few apparently invented incidents, and a stereotyped phrase which he inserts from place to place — "we here captured a number of beautiful females and other valuable plunder." Wherever topography is in- volved Diaz ceases to be of any assistance, as we have often before remarked. We use him for other purposes. The next event, and one that is unsurpassed by any in the war, Avas the completion and launching of the flotilla, the " brigantine.i" of the historians. The shallowing of the water towards the shore, made this a work of extra- ordinary difficulty. To remedy it, hurdles or bundles of sticks were laid in the soft mud, in two parallel lines, fastened with stakes, and loaded with stones, so as to con- fine a little rill there to a straight channel, until it reached deep water. Both a harbor and canal were thus formed in the muddy shore of the lagu7ia, and the constant flow 478 ADVENTURERS ATTRACTED. of water prevented filling them again. The meanderings of the little watercourse through the solid earth had also to be straightened and deepened into a canal, which made the whole a work of great labor and much ingenuity. This is evidently designed to be described by Cortez when he says, " it was protected by a coating and a fence."* The coating must necessarily have been hurdles, and the fence, the stakes that secured the work. Modern engi- neering could have added nothing, except, perhaps, to sink a couple of pier-heads at the outer extremity, if it was to remain a permanent structure. Between the first of January and the middle of April, in the midst of hostilities, and under the eyes of a watchful enemy, this extraordinary labor was effected. It is well characterized by Cortez as " a grand work, and certainly worthy of admiration."-]- It is to be regretted, however, after stating all other things correctly, as the present land- marks clearly indicate, he should have given to it an im- possible depth in his descriptions — twelve feet instead of twelve inches. The first letter, or despatch, after the organization of the town council, ayuntamiento, in the camp at Vera Cruz, was now producing its natural fruits in Spain. Court and emperor, no less than the common people, Avere filled with wonder at the El Dorado discovered, and which its dis- coverer was then engaged in subjugating. Imperial favor inclining to the side of the bold adventurer, the statements of the Conquistador were at once accredited as truth, in spite of the denunciations of the bishop of Borges, and * Folsom's Cortez, page 257. f Ibid., page 256. MUSTER OF THE FORCES. 479 even of the good Las Casas. Adventurers began to flock to Vera Cruz. Ships laden with warUke stores came there seeking a market ; and lastly, as we have seen, one of those traffickers in the souls of men, a retailer of the pretended gifts of God, a monk Avith a Papal bull, scented the gold of this far-off region. In this way all the losses of the disastrous retreat, and of the previous campaign, were made good, as appeared from a new muster of the forces. On the 28th day of April, 1521, the " brigantines" being completed and launched, Cortez reviewed his whole force. It consisted of eighty-six horse, one hundred and eighteen archers and musketeers, and seven hundred and odd foot, armed with swords and bucklers. With these were three heavy iron cannon, [probably six-pounders] fifteen small copper field-pieces, and ten hundred weight of powder.* Messengers were then sent to all the tribes in alliance, demanding the promised auxiliaries. On Whitsunday the Tlascalans arrived at Tezcuco ; " accord- ing to a return made to us by the captains, there were fifty thousand. "-^ After the fiesta caused by this arrival was over, on the second day of Whitsun week there was a parade, for the purpose of distributing the force into three divisions. Tacuba was assigned to Alvarado as his point of attack, with thirty horse, eighteen archers and musketeers, and one hundred and fifty infantry, armed with swords and bucklers, besides twenty-five thou- sand, viz. three hundred and twelve, warriors of Tlascala. An equal force, under Christoval Olid, was to march with * Folsom's Cortez, page 257. f Ihid., page 258. 480 MUSTER OF THE FORCES. Alvarado to Tacuba. From that place they were to pro- ceed together to Chapultepec, and there cut the water- pipes ; niore likely cut off the pathway, by which the Indian water-carriers, aguadores, brought fresh water to the city. This accomplished, Alvarado was to return to Tacuba and make that his permanent position, while Olid was to continue his march to Cuyocan. At that last point, it may be remembered, Cortez designed to establish his head-quarters. Sandoval was to occupy temporarily Iztapalapa with twenty-four horse, four musketeers, thirteen bowmen, one hundred and fifty infantry, fifty of whom were picked men, and thirty-five to forty thousand, viz., four hun- dred and fifty to five hundred Tlascalans, though the real number of this last force did not exceed two hun- dred. This party was to destroy that town, and then continue its march until it reached the interior causeways. It was to pass them under the protection of the brigan- tines, and join Cortez at his proposed camp. Four days were consumed in constructing a permanent road between the camp of Alvarado, on the causeway of Ta- cuba, and the position of Olid, at Cuyocan. After each division was settled in its respective quarters, hostilities by the several causeways they commanded, were to com- mence. We now return to the thirteen " brigantines," the flotilla of Cortez. A picked body of three hundred men was assigned to the flotilla, giving a crew to each of twenty-five, including captains and commissioners. Six on each of the vessels ROUTE or THE BRIGANTINES. 482 FIRST BATTLE ON THE WATER. were musketeers and archers.* Each also had a small brass cannon. The plan arranged, Cortez went on board of one, and by the united force of sail and oars, proceeded to the southward. Landing near the Pinon, he carried that important military position f by assault, and put its entire garrison to the sword. Immediately on the con- clusion of this affair, the enemy came down with his whole force of canoes, the " brigantines" lying in shore. Desirous to make an impression in his first encounter on the water, for the reason, as he justly states, that "the brigantines were the key of the whole war, as both the enemy and ourselves would suffer most by water, it pleased our Lord that while we were looking at each other a wind arose from the land, favorable for an attack upon them,"J whereupon orders were given to the commanders to break through the fleet before them, and to pursue them until they took refuge in the city of Mexico. Cortez thus describes the engagement : — " As the wind was fair, we bore down upon the midst of them, and although they fled as fast as possible, we broke an im- mense number of them, and destroyed many of the enemy in a style worthy of admiration. "J Thus the flotilla effected the same results among the light canoes, upon the water, that the horse achieved upon the land, crushing * Folsom's Cortez, page 259. the batteries of Santa Anna erected f When General Scott entered the on this PiiSon ; and it was not until valley of Mexico, he proposed to ad- after the position was found inipreg- vance to the city by the modern cause- nable, that the march around the way, built for the Vera Cruz road, southern limit of the valley was re- The van-guard had actually proceeded solved upon, several miles along this route, when % Folsoji's Cortez, page 264. its further progress was stopped by FIRST WEEK OF THE SIEGE. 483 at once an enemy unacquainted with such an extraordi- nary agent in war. Both parties on shore watched with intense anxiety the result of this encounter. The effect of the S|)anish success depressed the spirits of Guatamozin, while it elated those of the jpale-faces to the same extent. That no time might be lost in supporting his land forces, the flotilla immedi- ately sailed around to the southern causeway, and made a lodgment there upon an isolated spot, within half a league of the city. Being joined by a party from Cuyo- can, a battery was erected, and one of the three heavy iron cannon so planted as to rake the whole causeway. It made great havoc among the Indians, who covered the road as far as the city. Cortez, now, instead of Cuyocan, chose this point as his permanent head-quarters. He then directed the division of Sandoval to join him by the cause- way from Iztapalapa. When that captain, after pass- ing Mexicalzingo, came to any place which had been demolished by the Mexicans, the " brigantines" were used as bridges,* fully demonstrating the character of those vessels and their exceeding light draft. Sandoval first led his division to Cuyocan, where for the time it was lodged ; then, taking with him ten horse- men, he returned to the causeway, and following it repaired to the camp of Cortez. Hostilities continued there for the six subsequent days, without any important * "When I learned that the In- them in passing, of which they formed dians had made a considerable breach a bridge for the infantry to cross over in the causeway, so that the people the breach." — Folsom's Cortez, page could no longer pass over it with 269. ease, I sent two brigantines to assist 484 COMPLETE INVESTMENT. result. The Mexicans persevered in their attack from the causeway and their canoes, notwithstanding the raking fire of the heavy ordnance and the small brass swivel each brigantine carried."^ During this timCj the remainder of the flotilla made the circuit of the southern and west- ern fronts of the city, as far as the causeway of Tacuba ; it also entered by the canals into its suburbs. Thus ended the first week of the siege. The remark of Cortez, that "the brigantines" passed around the city, must be understood only as extending this circuit to the flats of San Lazarus on the north. To have continued it around the east front, would not only have been difficult, but unnecessary. The result so far cut off" the Mexicans from their ordi- nary supplies of food and fresh water. The Spanish lines were now drawn close around the city on the south and west ; while the road connecting the two posts at Tacubaf and Cuyocan with the camp of Cortez, upon the southern causeway, was protected on the side of the city by the flotilla. The less important causeway, the northern, extending to Guadalupe or Tepeac, was left unguarded. Cortez pretends, for effect, in his despatch, that he was ignorant of its existence, until informed of it by Alva- radojj which was impossible. The truth was, it could not be occupied, though nearest to Tezcuco, until by the contraction of his lines one of the divisions could be spared for that purpose ; and not even then, unless the * Folsom's Cortez, page 267. the roads. To the author's best re- f The causeway of Tacuba does not collection, it does not exceed a milo extend all the way from Mexico to in length. that suburb, but only to the fork of % Folsom's Cortes, page 269. RESULTS. 485 brigantines could be made to supply food and water to the garrison of that barren spot.* All the plans so far were completely successful. They were the triumph of civilized art over the highest efforts of savage courage ever witnessed. A mutitude of In- dians — ^men, women, and children — were now crowded together within this fortress, as Cortez properly calls the city, to die of hunger and thirst, or by the destructive weapons of Europeans. From this date, the length of the siege was to be determined by the limits of human endurance. When the powers of nature were exhausted, then the city was to fall into the hands of the Spaniards. There was to be no surrender, but to Death. CHINAMPAS IMPROPERLY CALLED FLOATING GARDENS. A difficulty the traveller everywhere encounters in Mexico, is that he can believe nothing he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful examination and weighing of testimony. As he cannot examine everything himself, he is constantly liable to be imposed upon by taking for granted that which is everywhere aflSrmed. Humboldt for once, with all his caution, seems to have fallen into the common trap, and credited, without examina- tion, the story of the floating gardens. The chinampas are formed on the fresh-water mud on each side of the canal of Chalco, from the south-east corner of the city to a point near the ancient village of Mexicalzingo, and for a part of the way they are on both sides of that beautiful but now neglected pasSo, Las Vegas ; there are also a small number near the causeway of Tacubaya, and in other parts of the marsh ; their number might be extended without limit if it was not regulated by the demands of the vegetable market of Mexico. Chinampas are formed by laying upon the soft mud a very thick coating of reeds, or rushes, in the form and about the size of one of our largest canal scows. Between two chinampas a space of about half the width of one is left, and from this open * It must be understood that the Vera Cruz road, marked on the map as a causeway, did not then exist. 486 CHINAMPAS. CHINAMPAS. space the mud is dipped up and poured upon the bed of dry rushes, where it dries, and forms a rich " muck" soil, which constitutes the garden. As the specific gravity of this garden is much greater than that of the water, or of the substratum of mud and water combined, it gradually sinks down into its muddy foundation ; and in a few years it has to be rebuilt by laying upon the top of the garden a new coating of rushes and another covering of mud. Thus they have been going on for centuries, one garden being placed upon the top of another, and a third placed over all, so soon as the second gives signs of being swallowed up in the all-devouring mud. This is the whole story of the chinampas, the most fertile and beautiful little gardens upon the face of the earth. A correct picture of them would be poetry enough, without the addition of falsehood ; for whether it is the rainy season or the dry season, it is always the same to them. They know no exclusive seed-time, and have no especial season for harvest ; but blossoms and ripe fruits grow side by side, and flowers flourish at all seasons. As market gardens they are unrivalled, and to them Mexico is indebted for its abundant supplies. The evidence that Humboldt* produces in favor of floating gardens, viz., that he saw floating islands of some thirty feet in length in the midst of the * Essai Politique, vol. II., page 61. GHINAMPAS. 487 current of rivers, amounts to little in this case ; for every one that has travelled extensively in tropical lovrlands has seen vegetation spring up upon floating masses of brush-vrood. Where earth torn from the river bank is so bound together by living roots as to form a raft, it will always float for a little while upon the current, provided that its specific gravity does not mate- rially exceed that of the water ; and those grasses that flourish best in water will spring up and grow upon these islands. Peat, too, in bogs, will float and form islands, for the simple reason that it is of less specific gravity than water ; and a scanty vegetation will also spring up on these peat islands. But all this furnishes no evidence that the invariable law of nature, which carries to the bottom the heaviest body, has been suspended at Mexico. Had the floating gardens been built in large boats, made water-tight and covered over, they might have floated. But, unfortunately, the Indians had not the means for constructing such boats. Even timber-rafts would have become saturated in time, and sunk, as rafts of logs waiting to be sawed into lumber do if kept too long in the "mill-pond. There is another law of nature, which must not be lost sight of, which is at war with the idea of a garden floating on a bed of rushes ; and that is, capillary attraction, which would raise particles of water, one by one, among the fibres of the rushes until the frail raft on which the earth rested was saturated — and still pressing upward, the busy drops would penetrate the superincumbent earth, moistening and adding to the specific gravity of the garden by filling the porous earth until it became too heavy to float, if it ever had floated. — Wilson's Mexico and its Religion. CHAPTER XIV. CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF MEXICO. Commencement of the siege, 488 — The fabulous numbers of allies reduced, 489 — Cortez retreats and abandons a cannon, 490 — The advantage Cortez derived from his cavalry, 490 — The result of two days of fighting, 491 — Cortez divides his flotilla, 491 — Cortez makes another attack, 493 — Cortez burns the fabulous palaces of Mexico, 493 — Hunger, thirst, and the small- pox hasten the event, 494 — New fables and further reductions by Diaz, 494 — Submission of the neighboring hamlets — defeat of Alvarado, 495 — Re- markable fortitude of the Mexicans, 496 — The Mexican trenches — how made, 496 — Cortez suffers a serious repulse, 497 — Cortez rescued from the enemy, 498 — A fearful retribution, 498 — Indian peculiarities in war, 499 — Secondary expeditions during the interval, 500 — Cortez resolves to demolish the city, 500 — Cortez plans a successful ambuscade, 500 — Cortez providing cannibals with their food, 501 — Cortez in possession of seven-eighths of the city, 502 — The famine in the city, 502 — The miserable condition of the citi- zens, 503 — Guatamozin prefers death to a surrender, 503 — The capture of Guatamozin, 504 — The torturing of the prisoners, 505 — The motive not understood in Spain, 507 — Result of Cortez' policy, 508 — Cortez governed by policy, 508 — Exaggerations reduced to reality, 509 — Cortez one of the great men of his age, 510 — Cortez eclipsed by Pizarro, 511 — The youthful hero Guatamozin, 512. The work of slaughter was now fairly systematized. For two days, from the newly established camjD, the attack continued. The forces at head-quarters — after the departure of Sandoval — consisted of the crews of the "brigantines," amounting to two hundred and fifty men, and two hundred Spanish infantry, and among them twenty-five archers and musketeers. The remainder of the force at Cuyocan was added to this, excepting ten horse left at the entrance of the causeway to keep the (488) FABULOUS NUMBERS REDUCED. 489 inhabitants of that village from falling upon the rear. Thus supported, the assault began. The " brigantines," placed on either side of the road, raked both causeway and ditches, while the infantry, covered by their fire, moved towards the city. At the same time Sandoval and Alvarado made strong diversions on the north and west. Cortez had advanced but a little before he found his progress interrupted by a ditch and breastwork, thrown up by the Mexicans. He describes this transverse work as being a spear's length in width, and foolishly adds, " the same in depth."* Having carried this, no further obstruction was met with until they came to the entrance of the city. There a similar intrenchment was also won by the aid of the boats. This, says Cortez, they could not have done, unless aided by the " brigantines." By means of these the land forces passed the water together with " eighty thousand' ''■\ Indian allies ! These, it must be recollected, were in addition to the " twenty-five thousand" with Al- varado at Tacuba,J and the unmentioned thousands fol- lowing Sandoval at the barren rock of Tepeac or Guada- lupe. But as a narrow causeway, built for foot-passengers alone,§ was the only means of access to the city, a thou- sand Indians must have seriously incommoded the move- ments of the disciplined force, and jeopardized the success * Folsom's Cortez, page 279. file," and " Indian file," are used as t Ibid., page 272. synonymous. X Ibid., page 259. The causeways were built with re- g The custom of Indians in war, as ference to the movement, of such on a journey, is uniformly to move in bodies, with only width enough to " single file." It is so to this day give the embankment consistency, throughout Spanish America. " Single 490 CORTEZ RETREATS. of the siege. Let us drop then the thousands, and assume eighty as the actual number of aUies engaged in this causeway expedition. We must do so often. When they had advanced so far as actually to enter the city, a barricade more formidable than the others was encountered. It required two hours of steady fight- ing, to dislodge the enemy from it ; nor was it effected even then, until the Spaniards, leaping into the water and assailing their flanks, compelled the Mexicans to give way. Following this advantage, they came to yet another opening, the bridge over which had not been moved. Passing on, they entered one of the squares of the city, and planted there one of their cannon, which did serious injury to the enemy. Pressing forward, they now compelled the Mexicans to take refuge within the enclosure of the great pyramid. There, discovering the Spaniards had no horses with them, the Aztecs rallied and drove them from the Plaza. The rout was so com- plete, that the cannon was left behind. The appearance of three horses was, however, suffi- cient, not only to relieve the Spaniards now hard pressed ; but to enable them to resume the offensive, recover the Plaza, and again obtain jDossession also of the enclosure and its pyramid. At evening, returning to their camp, the assailants were so closely pressed, " that, had it not been for the cavalry, the Spaniards would have suffered great loss,"* says Cortez. " Notwithstanding," he adds, " the enemy saw that they were suffering by this means, the dogs rushed on in such a rapid manner that we could * FoLSOii's Cortez, page 274. RESULTS OF TWO DAYS' FIGHTING. 491 not stop them; nor would tliej desist from following us."* This is plainly confessing to the rout of the in- fantry, cavalry, and artillery ; and that, too, by savages armed only with flint-pointed wooden spears, and bows and arrows. The Mexicans in these encounters inflicted repeated wounds, but did not kill a single Spaniard in this whole day of alternate success. Such fortitude on their part, is unprecedented. The only explanation is, that they preferred death to Spanish slavery, or to the Tlascalan torture. While this assault was in progress, the Mexicans were also attacked by Alvarado and Sandoval; so that this self-devoted people not only resisted with success the main column, but discomfited likewise those two others in their rear. At this time, it must be borne in mind that the Indians assembled at Cuyocan, in the rear of Cortez, were in open rebellion, but eflectually prevented from making any movement against his camp by the ten horse stationed at the land-entrance of the causeway ,j- This rebellion, however, was neutralized by the arrival of a brother of Don Fernando, with " tliirty-five thousand (say three hundred or so) TezcucansTX These were in addition to the other " twenty thousand"! sent to other points. Thus passed the two first days of the siege. Cortez now ventured on a new measure of the greatest importance. It was the separation of his flotilla into two squadrons. Seven were still to remain and act with him as heretofore. The remaining six were to pass around to the north side of the city, and patrol the flats of San * FoLSOii's Cortez, 275. f Ibid., page 271. t Ibid., 276. POSITION OF THE CAMPS OF CORTEZ, ALVARADO, AND SANDOVAL. CORTEZ MAKES ANOTHER ATTACK. 493 Lazarus between the camps of Alvarado and Sandoval. Night and day was this duty to be performed, to prevent introduction of fresh water and provisions from that quarter by native canoes. The commanders of the vessels were also to aid those captains in their assaults. A respite of two days was now allowed, after which Cortez led twenty horse and three hundred Spanish infantry, accompanied by a host of Indian allies, to a new assault. No longer are these latter counted by thousands ; Cortez declares their number to be infinite !* That is, there may, perhaps, have been one or two hundreds more added ! All the defences on the causeway during the interval of quiet had been restored, and were again to be carried as on the former occasion. But again the assailants entered the Plaza, or public square. While his men were fighting from street to street and house to house, their leader with- drew, and taking with him " ten thousand," perhaps fifty men, proceeded to fill the openings in the road by which they had advanced ; this required the steady labor of all until vespers. Then the streets were scoured by his cavalry, and the people compelled to take refuge in the water. This day is memorable as that on which those air castles fell, which Cortez had built up on his first visit. As they had no real existence, the conflagration, though great, did little damage. On the contrary, it was a useful fire, as it enabled our hero to descend to reality. As the night retreat of the previous year permitted him to dis- pose of his fabulous treasure, while the real was carefull3' * Folsom's Cortez, page 279. 494 NEW FABLES. preserved, so this left him nothing further to demolish than the adobe city, and nothing to exterminate but the Indians, who were resolute to die in its defence. Having rid himself of these old creations, a new but necessary one was had to account for the support of " an infinite multitude" of allies, without any adequate means. The Tlascalans are represented as holding up parts of the bodies of the slain, and " exclaiming, at the same time, that they would have them for supper that night, and for breakfast next day, as was in fact the case."* Using thus literally the figurative language of the Indians, •]■ for effect at home. The efforts made in Spain to save the character of this as a holy war, after the criticism of Las Casas, may be seen in the reduction by Diaz of the thirty-five, or rather fifty-five thousand J Tezcucans to two ! Two hun- dred would doubtless have been nearer the truth ! The desperate essays of Diaz " to communicate ideas whereof he himself was not possessed," are equally suspicious. While those facts which discussion at home had made familiar — so long as discussion was allowed — are adroitly handled. There is such sameness in the daily contests about a beleaguered city, that the mind grows weary with their repetition. This the Spanish historian avoids by retail- ing fictitious incidents. We enjoy no such privilege, and are compelled to omit all that is unconnected with the * Folsom's Cortez, page 271. ally their allegorical tales of human \ Wilkinson, vol. I., page 398, note, sacrifice, in commenting on Herod. II., sec. 45, This was exactly the error of Euro- says, Herodotus justly blames the peans, in reference to the Indians. Greeks for their ignorance of the % Folsom's Cortez, page 276. Egyptian character, in taking liter- ROUT OF ALVARADO. 495 main features of the siege. The impediments found at first on entering the city were again and again restored, and again and again were they overcome by the Span- iards, but each time with less facihty, while the nightly retreat to the camp was attended with increasing labor. Thus the siege bade fair to be indefinitely prolonged, and had been so but for those powerful auxiliaries we have already named, Avhich were rapidly depopulating the city. The surrounding tribes, anticipating the result, has- tened to propitiate in time the Spanish invader. Dele- gates from every hamlet, on the fresh-water lagunas, came to the camp to render their formal submission. They testified their sincerity by large gifts of provisions. This was particularly the case with Iztapalapa, and the dwell- ers about the artificial island-gardens. They showed it also by furnishing building materials, when commanded to do so, and by the erection of huts for the soldiery. As they were now in the midst of the rainy season, a roof was necessary to the comfort of the men. While these things were going on at the camp, Alvarado was daily engaged in combats on the Tacuba causeway. At length, having passed an opening of some sixty paces in width, with a party of foot only, he proceeded to fill it up, that his cavalry might follow, when the Mexicans, perceiving the lodgment, and that it consisted of foot only, rushed upon and drove them into the water. Four of the num- ber were captured, and " sacrificed to the Mexican idols,"* most likely tortured, according to Indian custom. But it * Folsom's Cortez, page 288. 496 FORTITUDE OF THE MEXICANS. was necessary, as already suggested, to press the charges of idolatry and human sacrifice upon the Indians con- tinually, for effect in Spain. Twenty days had now passed, and, instead of becoming intimidated by the daily slaughter, the Mexicans were actually growing bolder. Familiarity with the new sys- tem of war had so far led them to despise its terrors, that it had now become a serious affair for the attacking force to penetrate to its accustomed position in the public square. Cortez explains the delay, "first, that the enemy might have an opportunity to recede from their obstinate and implacable policy; and, secondly, because our en- trance would be attended with great peril, as they were firmly united, and resolved on death."* This is a true picture of Indian fortitude, when death has become a desirable alternative. The Spartans have doubtless dis- plaj-ed greater active courage, but they never equalled them in that passive kind which we are accustomed to designate as fortitude. Before noticing a transient gleam of hope which fell upon the despairing prospects of the besieged, it is as well to explain the manner in which their barriers were so readily constructed. Guatamozin seems to have been aware that a general assault was impending, and to have made his dispositions accordingly. His Indians, in the midst of hunger and thirst, continued to labor by night in the restoration of the city's defences, after the exhausting contests of the day. They had not the necessary imple- ments for digging many inches below the surface of the * Folsom's Cortez, page 290. CORTEZ SUFFERS A REPULSE. 497 water, but they could remove the hurdles on which their causeways rested, and then they found little difficulty in reducing the mud below to a common level with the canals on either side. All further excavation was as imaginary as it would have been useless. The reality was a sufficient annoyance. Preparations were now comjDleted for a general assault, which Cortez fondly hoped was to result in the capture of the city. The necessary orders being given, an advance from all the three camps, by the three causeways, was simul- taneous. Cortez tarried in the rear of his own column to secure its communication with the camp. His infantry, unchecked by his presence, heated in the pursuit, and stimulated by the near approach of Alvarado, passed a broad opening without first adequately restoring the cause- way. Guatamozin, advised of this, rallied his followers, and made a vigorous charge on the entrapped mass. The allies at once fled, and rushed in disorder to the opening in the road. Here, while floundering through mud and water, in their efforts to gain the opposite side, they were joined by the Spanish foot. Soon both were mingled with the pursuing enemy, whose superior skill in aquatic gymnastics gave them a decided advantage. Upon the opposite bank a fearful struggle then ensued, which cost the life of many a valiant Castilian. Cortez, anticipating this, had placed himself at the head of the causeway, and endeavored to restore some order to the flying multitude, while rescuing the stragglers from the water. But the dripping clothes of the fugitives had rendered the road so wet and slippery, no effective •32 498 CORTEZ RESCUED FROM THE ENEMY. resistance could be offered, while with their canoes the besieged threw so overwhelming a force upon his position that even he was at last overpowered. A youthful hero saved the life of his commander, and sacrificed his own. Another assisted him to a horse. One Guzman was slain, and his charger likewise. The eight horsemen, stationed on a little island by the side of the causeway to cover the retreat, could do nothing on account of the mire. The enemy had also skilfully dammed the canal so as to raise the water to the level of the road,* and yet had at the same time impeded the passage of the "brigantines," and the " three thousand [probably less than a hundred] canoes of the allies." Cortez barely escaped with his life, com- pletely foiled in his grand design of penetrating quite through the city to Tacuba. He had erred in encumber- ing this movement with so many of his undisciplined auxiliaries, and in not calculating upon the possible neces- sity of a retreat. He most certainly knew that in such an event his Indian hordes would surely crowd to the rear, and block up the only avenue of escape. The Spaniards were now to suffer as well as to inflict suffering. The party stationed in the public plaza were first notified of this disaster by the heads of their slaughtered companions being thrown into their ranks."!* And this monition was followed by an onslaught more desperate than any the Conquistadors had yet sustained ; " and that, too," says Cortez in his chagrin, " in places * Folsom's Cortez, page 294. of those slain in the capture of the first f A similar event was witnessed fort were thrown into the other, as a at the famous capture of Wyoming, in proof of what had happened. the American revolution. The heads INDIAN PECULIARITIES IN WAR. 499 where the enemy would have fled before three horses and ten men."* In this defeat a loss of thirty to forty Span- iards, and a large number of allies was reported. But the most heart-rending sight was that witnessed hy the divisions of Alvarado and Sandoval. The Mexicans, to strike terror into these divisions, carried the bodies of all the Spaniards in their power, whether living or dead, to the top of a mound, and there, in plain sight of them,f cut out their hearts, and afterwards tumbled their bodies to the ground. To this most probable act of an Indian enemy, is foolishly added — it was done in sacrifice to their idols, though the very existence of Indian idols is still problematical. Then followed a truly Indian method of rejoicing, mingled with the celebration of a religious festival. " They burned perfumes, and fumigated the air with cer- tain gums peculiar to their country."-|- That day and the next this scene was continued with an uproar of horns and kettle drums ; the Mexicans appeared to be over- whelmed with joy at the magnitude of their success. In the meanwhile the defences of the city were renewed, and the time required to re-fit and re-arm the Spaniards profit- ably employed by Guatamozin in strengthening his means of every kind. Ten more days passed with only skir- mishes, and a Tlascalan assault, from the side of Tacuba, conducted with no small adroitness, to the great surprise of all parties.^ The late success of the Mexicans aroused the adjacent * Folsom's Cortez, page 297. f Ibid., page 298. $ Ibid., page 300. 500 THE CITY TO BE DEMOLISHED. tribes to attack those in alliance with the Spaniards. The people of Cuernavaca complained to Cortez that their territories were invaded, and solicited him to repel the enemy. Tapia was accordingly despatched on a ten days tour, with ten horse and eighty infantry, to relieve them. This expedition proving entirely successful, Sandoval, two days subsequent to his return, was sent on a similar errand, to relieve the Otumos,* a barbarous people, dwelling to the westward of Mexico. In this way several days more were consumed. Finally Guatamozin, having completed his defensive measures, even to filling the streets and squares with large stones, to impede the passage of cavalry, became wearied with the cessation of active hostilities, and assumed the offensive himself Alvarado, during the absence of Sandoval, was the object of his attack. But nothing important resulted from the movement. Forty-five days had now passed without any percep- tible impression on the city. " In fighting, and in all their stratagems for defence, we found them displaying more spirit than ever,"-j- says Cortez. He, therefore, resolved to level the houses, and to fill up the canals, as he advanced. This, to some extent, was of easy accom- plishment, considering the fragile material of the Indian huts. But the filling up required the construction of new channels without the city, for the discharge of accu- mulating water ; a work of considerable labor. The war now became one of extermination; not of Indians only, but of houses and ditches also. The modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand auxiliaries, Cortez * Folsom's Cortez, page 304. f Ihid., page 308. A SUCCESSFUL AMBUSCADE. 501 professes to have employed on this work of destruction. Five or six days they labored, without any important incident occurring. After this, collecting from all the divisions a chosen body of forty horse, Cortez sent ten in advance, as on former occasions. These, with the in- fantry, drove the Mexicans by a rapid movement, far beyond the cleared space, and confined them there ; while Cortez, with the remaining thirty, concealed himself in some houses along the line of the accustomed evening retreat, after which the advanced party gave way. While the Mexicans were rushing in disorderly pursuit of the retiring Spaniards, he suddenly burst out upon them, and made a terrific slaughter. This well-devised stratagem cost the defenders dearly. The number of the slain is set down, in the exaggerated language of Cortez, at twelve thousand* of the bravest. Without doubt, it was a most serious loss to Guatamozin. And from this time his prestige seems to have departed. ''That night," says Cortez, "our allies were well sup- plied for supper ; as they took the bodies of the slain, and cut them up for food"* — a horrible declaration, though utterly untrue, that, leagued with cannibals, his commis- sariat was relieved from their maintenance, according to his success in slaughter ! This atrocious libel is, however, hardly equal to one against his Spanish force, where he says, '' And so we returned to the camp with much spoil, and food for our allies f'-\ To these straits he was driven to make his narrative consistent, as it started out with the assertion of fabulous thousands in his train. * Folsom's Cartez, page 313. f Ibid., page 315, 502 FAMINE IN THE CITY. The military knowledge of the emperor would have de- tected the commissariat impossibility, had his general not confessed himself an accessary to cannibalism ! Living with such allies on terms of equality, and cohabiting even with those addicted to this crime. In his eyes it may have been mitigated by their faith j for his were at least baptized cannibals. We approach the end. The divisions of Cortez and Alvarado at last perfected their communication, while the city itself w^as fast ceasing to exist. The famishing de- fenders were daily more closely straitened in their quar- ters, which were now reduced to the swampy portions of the town most difficult of access. The palace of Guata- mozin, and at least three-fourths of the city, were destroyed by the 25th day of July, 1521. The Mexicans could no longer restore their defences, and the Spaniards made rapid progress. The street leading to Guadalupe was gained, and the market-place nearly so by Cortez on the one side, and Alvarado on the other. On the 27th their divisions met in the city market, where Cortez ascended a mound, and surveyed the scene of desolation. Seven-eighths of the city was in the hands of the Spaniards ; that is, it was levelled with the earth. What remained was a small and muddy angle, where land and water disputed the possession. Here the wounded and the starving were huddled toge- ther v/ithout defence, beseeching Cortez to slay them, that they might escape their misery, "in loud cries vociferating that death was all they wished.'** The scene of famine * Folsom's Cortez, page 323. CONDITION OF THE BESIEGED. 503 is thus described : — " We found the streets through which we passed filled with women and children, and other wretched objects, dying of hunger, and wandering about with distressed and haggard looks."* Such was the con- dition to which they were reduced while refusing to accept of peace ! But the slaughter did not cease, though the enemy could no longer oppose their destroyers, as Cortez tells us, " twelve thousand"-|- were this day slain ! " Our allies practising such cruelties toward the enemy that they spared the lives of none,"J &c. ; and in a grand assault afterwards on this wretched multitude, he declares "forty thousand perished, or were taken prisoners. "§ In this way the fabulous statements of the population of the city were cancelled. Still they kept pressing the enemy more closely, that " they might have no space left to move, except over dead bodies, and on the terraces left to them." 1 1 If these people were cannibals, how could they have wanted food? Why should they take to "roots and the bark of trees,"][ with such an abundant supply of the daintiest morsels of their peculiar appetite cum- bering the very ground ? They may have preferred to eat the bodies of their enemies, but thus pinched, who can believe they would hesitate to sacrifice at least their slaves? In these statements Cortez convicts himself and those who have followed him of the grossest inconsistency. The demon of war had yet to pour out his last vial * Folsom's Cortez, page 320. ^ Ibid., page 326. t Ihid., page 321. || Ibid. X Ibid. i Ibid., Tpage 319. 504 CAPTURE OF GUATAMOZIN. upon this poor remnant. " A hundred and fifty thousand allies!'''^ (perhaps five hundred) were now brought to devour whatever of unresisting warriors, women and children — whose flesh must have become exceedingly tender by starvation ! — remained ; and not less effective were the movements of the Spanish troops. The land force and " brigantines" were so gathered as to enclose the small space yet remaining to the helpless multitude, and then the heavy guns were turned upon it. But before commencing the massacre, which was designed to termi- nate at once the siege, the war, and the tribe against which it was waged, he demanded the surrender of Gua- tamozin. The answer returned was, "he preferred to die."t And now the consummation was reached. They who remained alive had been crushed into so narrow a space, that at the time of the conference " many of the inhabit- ants were crowded together on piles of dead. Some were upon the water, and others were seen swimming about or drowning in that part of the lake where canoes were lying." J The number that perished, either from drinking salt (alkaline) water, from famine or pestilence, amounted, says Cortez, to fifty thousand ! Yet there was no thought of yielding, and there had ceased to be a city to surren- der. But there was a prize which the experience of Cortez had taught him to value, as the bee-hunter the possession of the queen of the swarm. That prize was the person of Guatamozin. He had failed to induce him to succumb by the infliction of cruelties upon his people. * Folsom's Cortez, page 327. f Ibid., page 328. % Ibid., page 329. CAPTURE OF GUATAMOZIN. 505 Now, and as a last resort, at once to close the war, the entire force was so arranged as to secure his person beyond a doubt ; the net was closely drawn around him, and he, though still resolved to die in arms, found that starvation had made him powerless. Then it was that Garci Hol- gin, dashing among the canoes, freighted with their now famishing warriors, came behind the emperor, and made him a prisoner. Thus, scorning to flee, and refusing to surrender, after he had become incapable of further resistance, and more dead than alive, Guatamozin became a captive. Our historians, as usual, have misconceived the statement of Cortez, and construed the retreat of Guar tamozin to his canoe as an attempt at flight. They con- found an act of heroic resistance, carried to the extreme of human endurance, with a desire to escape the death he coveted. Had our youthful hero meditated flight, he might have effected it long before under the cover of darkness. But he had chosen to die with his people, and when driven to the water, sat, as is the Indian's wont, silently awaiting the pleasure of his enemy. Suicide, among them, is considered an act of cowardice. It should be so every- where, but the pale faces do not always possess an Indian's power of endurance. Thus this Indian youth reminds us of the heroes of Grecian fable, in his proud choice of death, by a slow and torturing process, rather than sub- mission to a foreign master. Guatamozin did not misjudge his enemy. He knew the tortures in reserve, and though his captor spoke kindly to him, he begged as a favor to be despatched forthwith by the dagger. " He laid his hand on a poniard that I wore. 506 TORTURING OF THE PRISONERS. telling me to strike him to the heart,"* says Cortez. This occurred on the 13th day of August, 1521 ; just seventy- five days from the commencement of the siege on the 30th day of May. The next step in this barbaric war was the treatment of the prisoners. Cruelty is not pecu- liar to Indians ; it has prevailed among all nations whose hearts the Gospel has not softened. We find scenes of this sort upon the walls of the palace of Sennacherib, the great King of Assyria ;-j- and the Indian allies of Cortez would hardly have submitted to the omission of this ancient custom. From the commencement of the cam- paign of Tepiaca, the war had been carried on strictly according to the Indian system. Many tribes had been exterminated, against whom it was waged, but the Aztecs had suffered most of all, since their famous city was now effectually blotted out, with all the attendant cruelties of such a conclusion. Now to omit the torture of those who * Folsom's Cortez, page 331. tray the results of a religious war, t We can judge what were the against those fanatical enemies of punishments inflicted upon cities, in idolatry, afterwards known as the early times, that held out to the last Persians. But the tortures inflicted extremity, from the tortures inflicted after a protracted siege, could not on the inhabitants of Rabbah (Chron. have been much less cruel. XX. 3), David being doubtless more We have Alexander crucifying two merciful than the heathen that were thousand of the principal inhabitants around about him. of Tyre. In the representation of the cap- The torture of prisoners of war, is ture of cities portrayed on the walls no peculiar Indian cruelty. It is only of the palace of Sennacherib, there is part and parcel of that devilish spirit always introduced the king, seated out of which war originates, in state, passing judgment on the in- Where the gospel has penetrated, habitants. this fiendish peculiarity of war is mi- The representation of tearing out tigated ; but everywhere else it is in the tongues, flaying alive, and im- full force. paling, is evidently intended to por- MOTIVE NOT UNDERSTOOD IN SPAIN. 507 had held out to the last, would not have been tolerated j of the chiefs especially. Policy, too, required it in order to strike such terror that all would henceforth submit without resistance.* Besides the boy emperor, doubtless his council passed the same ordeal. The humbler class most likely were despatched by bull-dogs, as represented in a very coarse painting in the Mexican Museum.-j- The writer of Bernal Diaz, in his ignorance, takes it for granted that torture was applied to Guatamozin, not as a punishment, but to extort confession. An absurdity * " Seeing the many and constant expenses of your Majesty up to this time, and that we ought to increase the rents [revenues] by every means before we add to them ; and seeing also the great length of time that we have been engaged in these wars, and the wants and necessities to which we have all been exposed, and the delay that must arise before the commands of your Majesty are known ; and above all, considering the great importunity of your Majesty's oflB- cials and all the Spaniards, and the impossibility of excusing myself to them, I was almost compelled to place the caciques [chiefs and sachems] and natives of the country in the hands of the Spaniards on account of the services they have rendered your Majesty here — and in the mean time some other arrangement may be hereafter made, or this confirmed, that the said caciques and natives may serve and yield to every Span- iard, to whose hands they are com- mitted, what is necessary for his support." — Folsom's Cortez, page 354. Thus were the benevolent schemes of Las Casas thwarted ; and all the tribes of New Spain (excepting the allies) reduced to slavery, in contempt of the emancipation ordinances. This is the most wholesale enslavement of Indians that ever took place. The cruelties perpetrated at Mexico, were a necessary preliminary to its con- summation. t " The two figures in the left-hand corner are Cortez and Dona Marina, as the mottoes above indicate. Marina holds a rosary in her hand, while the Marquis appears to be in the act of speaking and perhaps giving order for the execution represented beneath, where a Spaniard is seen in the act of loosening a blood-hound, who springs at the throat of an Indian. In the original copy all the colors are given. The hair of the victim is erect with horror, his eyes and mouth, are dis- tended, and his throat is spotted with blood, as the fangs and claws of the ferocious beast are driven through his flesh." — Brantz Mayer's Mexico As It Was and As It Is, New York, 1844, page 100. 508 RESULT OF CORTEZ' POLICY, when applied to an Indian who accounts it heroism to endure, but never to yield. To Spaniards ignorant of their character, this would be incomprehensible. The fiction of the royal treasurer, demanding the torture of Guatamozin to discover hidden riches, must have been invented in Spain, after it became known that he had been subjected to the question. The method, too, was Spanish — soaking the feet in oil and then scorching them in the fire — a de- cided refinement on Indian cruelty. In Spain it would be understood as Diaz reports. So little reliance was there then on unforced evidence, that the torture had be- come a part of its legal machinery — the common means of discovering truth. It remains only to consider the results of this system, commenced and carried out in contempt of Las Casas and the new ordinances. The changes sikilfully rung on the charges of rebellion, apostasy, cannibalism, and human sacrifice, seem completely to have foiled the good man in his efforts at restraint. A philanthropist has but a poor chance to be heard, when combating the hero of a suc- cessful war. Cortez understood the world better than his virtuous adversary, and knew well that the successful termination of his expedition cured it of all its irregulari- ties. A victory over the Aztecs was also a victory over Las Casas, and all others; and in this he judged rightly. It had been foreseen that all the other tribes, inhabit- ing the Anahuac, would accept the iron yoke of slavery, as soon as the Aztecs were crushed. The torture of Guatamozin and his braves was thus but a necessary part of the conclusion. It was the most politic course to be EXAGGERATIONS REDUCED TO REALITY. 509 adopted, though hkewise the most devilish. But there is no reason to suppose the " Great Marquis" naturally cruel. He belonged rather to that rare class with whom results are alone considered ; in whom no sentiments of humanity are allowed to conflict with their schemes of interest. We may shudder at the sacrifice of life, and at the vast amount of misery inflicted, but the end vindicated his wisdom ; as that country was not again involved in war, except on the border, for the long period of three hundred years. The superstition in which Cortez was educated, left little for the conscience to effect, either in vindication of truth or in the restraint of crime. Indeed, in his day, torture was as legitimate an engine of Spanish supersti- tion as of Indian war ; but applied for a different purpose. The adoration of the Queen of Heaven was an imjDcrfect substitute for the fear of God. And as that superstition flourished, so did truth and public morality decline, until they shrank to abstract ideas. Had Cortez stated the simple truth, he could hardly have been comprehended. No one was expected to use it when it could be avoided. "We have found him exact in all that related to military affairs, though subjected to the closest criticism. It is only when he speaks of the multitude of his enemies, and his allies, that he assumes the language of exaggeration. When he discourses of the court and capital of Monte- zuma, he describes Grenada. In this none were deceived but those unacquainted with the magniloquent language of Spain. The baptismal record states the number sub- jected to that ordinance in a single year at six thousand. olO CORTEZ ONE OF THE GREAT MEN OF HIS AGE. And as emigration from surrounding tribes about supplied the place of the slaughtered Aztecs, we may safely esti- mate the population of the valley at that number on the arrival of Cortez. All above was most probably ficti- tious. The Mexicans had their allies as well as the Spaniards, and the fighting men within the city were not all Aztecs.* Its supposed impregnability induced many to take refuge there; so that an extraordinary multitude may have been assembled within it at the time of the siege. As there are no laws of exaggeration, so there can- not be any uniform rule of discount by which to bring the statements back to truth. We have tried occasionally to do so, but the sum remaining has been ever too large for credibility, and we have had to leave the numbers in- definite. Not only was Cortez one of the remarkable characters of an age of great men ; he would have been distinguished in any. He warred at the same time against the policy of his own government, the Council of the Indias, its pet governor of Cuba, and the Protector of the Indians, and triumphed over all when he vanquished his savage foes. At the age of twenty-five, with scarce six years of experi- ence, he was more thoroughly conversant with Indian policy, and Indian methods, than those exhibited whose lives have been passed on the frontier. The struggle terminated, he settled down on his estates as the marquis * " We gave the more credit to this of Matalcingo — concerning which we account, because, for a few days past, had little information, except that it every time we entered the city for a was extensive, and about twenty-two hostile purpose we had encountered leagues from our quarters." — Fol- some of the people of the province som's Cortez, page 303. CORTEZ ECLIPSED BY PIZARRO. 511 of the valley of Wah-hah-cah, Oajaca, but he was not satisfied. To the gift of this extensive district, with its inhabitants, the emperor had added that of Caernavaca for a residence; a spot claimed to be another earthly Paradise. Every sensual desire was satisfied; but he found also that happiness does not consist in the gratifica- tion of the appetites only. And never having learned to elevate his thoughts or affections above them, he soon became satiated with these enjoyments, and sought re- lief from an insupportable ennui in new enterprises. He undertook to explore the gold fields of California. The northerly winds of the Pacific baffled his endeavors, and the cross seas of the Gulf of California wrecked his vessels, and he not only returned without discovering the El Dorado of his hopes, but with a diminished prestige. Whether his sail was directed towards the present gold field, or whether it was the northern limits of Sonora, can- not now be determined. We know only that the exjDedi- tion was unfortunate. In Europe he was alike unsuccessful. He accompa- nied the emperor in his fearful Algerine campaign ; and being compelled to swim, in order to escape to the boats, he lost from his person, in the sea, he said, the crown jewels he pretended to have taken from Montezuma ! The many attempts to discover new empires to conquer were all abortive, and involved him in pecuniary embar- rassments. The world is hardly wide enough to afford more than one theatre to each hero. If he reaches the^ zenith early, and lives to a ripe age, it must be with decreasing glory. The world loves variety even in its 512 THE YOUTHFUL HERO GUATAMOZIN. stars. Eacli new one, as it culminates, appears to surpass its predecessors in brilliancy to eyes wearied with their monotony. Cortez was no exception to this rule. The world was tired of his fame, when his cousin Pizarro turned its gaze io another hemisphere ; and his star found itself eclipsed before its proper noon. But the Conquest furnished more than one hero. If the assault of the city displayed the prowess of Cortez, its defence showed that of another equally brilliant. An Indian youth of eighteen, for ninety-seven successive days baffled all the efforts of a great soldier, backed by the inventions of civilized man. An Indian town, hardly deserving the name of city, was long held with no better weapons than bows, arrows, and flint-pointed spears, with alternate success, in open contests, day by day, against steel swords, and mail-clad men.* And it fell at last less from the weapons of the enemy, than the irresistible force of famine. Its defender refused to yield even then, and was captured only after he and the warriors who surrounded him had become helpless. Subjected to the torture, his enemies admit he bore it without a murmur. If he survived, it was because even savage hate had then become satisfied, and policy required his preserva- tion. Dragged in the train of the conqueror from place to place, he was felt at last a useless burden, and perished by a judicial murder, in the forests of Honduras. * Cotton mail, as it is called ; but impervious to Indian weapons. CHAPTER XY. A SUMMARY. Phoenician vestiges in the British Islands, 513— Probabilities of their crossing the Atlantic, 514 — Argument from analogy, 514 — Traditional knowledge of American colonies, 515 — Extinction of an exotic race, 516 — Decay of modern exotics, 517 — Our disappointment with others, 518 — Our faith shaken at Tlascala, 519 — Extinguished at Cholula, 520 — The argument from the brigantines, 521 — Time occupied in the siege explained, 521 — Mexican Empire doubtless a confederacy, 522 — Difference of thia from our own Indian wars, 522 — What the Mexicans really were, 523 — The conclu- sion, 524. A FEW words more, and we have done. However weak and inefficient some may deem our argument in support of a Phoenician origin of the Central American ruins, few, we believe, are prepared to deny the strong proba- bilities which uphold it. Even to this day, much of the worship and habits of Phoenicians is traceable in the holiday games of the common people of England, Scot- land, and Ireland. They have their Beltane fires, Beltavic dances, and other similar memorials of an age, a nation, and a religion so deeply buried in the past, that the period of their introduction defies the research of the antiquary — memorials of a once dominant race that have, ages since, disappeared. These few and disjointed fragments of a colossal power, seeing the many changes that have taken place there, show how deeply rooted was that super- stition of which they are the poor remains. 33 (513J 514 THE TRANSIT OF THE ATLANTIC PROBABLE. If SO vast a fabric could not only be erected on the shores of these islands — situated in a stormy sea, and distant almost as far as our continent from the parent state — ^but the teachings of its priesthood also be spread so widely, and rooted so deeply as to resist the Druidism of the Celts, the newer polytheism of the Romanists, and even modern Protestantism, what is there, we say, so strange in our argument, if these things be true ? Some chance sail, some storm-driven mariner from the Canaries, the Azores, or the group off the great African cape, may have been the first to visit the Bahamas — carried thither by the trades — and thence to penetrate the mysteries of our great inland sea. In this, there would be nothing beyond the ordinary course of events — kindred accidents occur daily. The road once found, every difficulty van- ishes. To return, and to review the new land, would be but a light task to the enterprise of the Tartessians. To settle upon the shores of the Gulf — or Caribbean Sea — a question of profit merely. That a close analogy in the worship of Phoenicia and Uxmal existed cannot be doubted ; there is that identity in the monuments of both sides the ocean, and those analogies in their emblems and minor resemblances which equally point to a common foundation. If, after the same lapse of time, and could it be possible, under similar cir- cumstances, a wanderer from this side should unveil, in the majestic shadows of European forests on their several sites, the great religious edifices of Rome, London, and Glasgow, would he not, despite the differences of arrange- ment, the nakedness of some, the florid ornament of TRADITIONS OF THE ATLANTIDES. 515 others, see at once their common origin and common use ? In this view many minor difficulties disappear. The chief stumbling-block remains : if these buried cities are the vestiges of Phoenician settlements, once centres of population and marts of trade, how are we to account for their abandonment ? By what strange acci- dent of fate were they severed, not only from the parent state but from the memory of mankind ? In the deep night that hangs upon this question, who may answer? We can only say, the memories of these transatlantic realms were not entirely forgotten. From the days of their European severance to the days of Columbus, the story of their existence was preserved in the fable of the " Hesperian Gardens," and the " Islands of the Blessed." These western worlds, indeed, had a far firmer hold upon mankind than the form and fruitfulness of Africa retained; the voyage or voyages of Pharaoh-Necho or Hanno being only preserved as a misty dream in the minds of a few cosmographers, while the actual existence of the Atlan- tides was a popular belief. It cannot be that the native races, found by the early Spanish voyagers, were either the founders or descendants of the founders of those vast piles beside which they dwelt. They knew nought of them or their builders — they pretended to no such knowledge. To the semi- nomad of those tropical shores they were as mythical as to the wondering European. And on this is a most im- portant point — the carved figures are not American in their cast of features. This peculiarity points to a 516 THE EXTINCTION OF AN EXOTIC RACE. foreign source. Wherever the white has trodden upon this continent, from the extreme north to the extreme south, from Boothia to Tierra del Fuego, there is one uni- versal type, which varies even less than that of any other known race. What occasioned the fall and extirpation of this foreign element is another matter of serious inquiry. So far as our knowledge of the ancient races of the older con- tinents runs, we find, by the concurrent testimony of hieroglyphics, medals, and statues, the same types of mankind to exist now as in the earliest periods. The Berber is the Mauritanian, the Basque the Iberian. Caesar's description of the fiery and changeable Gaul is a portrait of the modern Frenchman, and the German of Tacitus the counterpart of the Teuton of to-day. By some strange, un- known, and inexplicable law, it would appear that the dif- ferent races of mankind were confined to appointed places. The creation of a mixed race is rendered impossible by another, which annuls their procreative capacity. Thus, from these premises, would follow the certain extinction of any exotic nationality on this continent, if separated even but a short time from its native hive. And this, as we have stated in our past pages, is the fate to which the mighty cities of the south succumbed. Unsupported by a steady infusion of fresh blood, climatic influences over- bore them, until the remnant either wasted and went out as a lamp from the exhaustion of its oil, or were swept from the earth in some furious assault of the surrounding natives. There is manifestly some common cause that DECAY OF MODERN EXOTICS. 5l7 works so uniformly.* In Central America the pure Spanish race is all but extinct, in Paraguay it may be said to be perfectly so, and in Mexico it is steadily declining. The same fact holds good in Peru and Equador. In our own country various causes have been assigned for the recog- nised delicacy, which is steadily advancing in what may be called the pure American. The growing smallness of the hands and feet, the shortening of the jaw-bones, the diminution in the number of the teeth and their rapid decay, are matters of daily comment. But it is not equally well known that a like change is to be observed in the colonies of Great Britain, not only in her South African dependencies, but even already in the newer out- posts of Australia. In the West Indies, the hardiest white race melts away in two or three generations, while the climate of Central Africa is so decidedly adverse as to forbid the children of the north even a temporary foot- hold. In these uniform consequences the most obtuse cannot fail to recognise the operation of a universal law, whose primary effects are to diminish migration, and whose ultimate results are the extinction of the exotic population. * The reader is, doubtless, familiar quarter being again free from ice, with the story of the Danish settle- the Danes sent out an exploring ex- ments on the coast of Greenland, in pedition, ■which succeeded in finding the tenth century. How they flourish- the locality of the long-lost settlement, ed — builded churches and public edi- The ruins of churches and other fices — and after some generations a edifices were found, and all the usual flow of ice cut off all communication evidences of a once flourishing settle- for centuries, and that intercourse ment of civilized men. But not a was never renewed after the sea living vestige of the ancient colony " opened." could be discovered. All had perish- In 1836, however, the sea in that ed, perhaps centuries before. 518 OUR DISAPPOINTMENT WITH OTHERS, That the histories of Mexico, upon which we have so freely commented, are but gross and utterly unfounded exaggerations, we have repeatedly proved. The ruined cities of Yucatan, possibly suggested to the imagination of the Great Captain the enormous fictions which disfigure his despatches. And be it always remembered that these despatches, and the work of Gomora, are the only original documents touching the conquest of Mexico, its people, its civilization, its difiiculties, and its dangers. Whatever else we possess is but a rifaccimento of these two. There are no other sources from whence to collect and collate. The picture writings were the worthless inventions of a subsequent age, so coarsely fabulous, so transparently an imposture, as to be equally unworthy of credit or examina- tion. We were driven by this curious chain of incidents to examine the physical condition of the country whose history we had undertaken to write. Fresh from the burning pages of Prescott, whose splendid imagery and glowing periods must enchant every reader, we stepped upon the shore of Mexico, only to find how the dream- land of our heated brain differed from the Mexico of reality. The effect of this disenchantment we have faith- fully reproduced for our readers ; and if in the course of these pages we have struck down many a cherished myth, let each loser remember also we have experienced the same regret and suffered to the same extent. While we lingered around the tropical profusion, which adorns the roadway to the mountains that enclose the table-land, we could hardly turn from its sea of verdure and flowers to hazard a question. But once on the semi- OUR FAITH SHAKEN AT TLASCALA. 519 sterile plateau, all was changed — the howling wilder- ness where Gomora had located legions — Tlascala begirt with an interior ridge. Whence, suggested the first glance at this very uninviting region, came the necessary support of the millions who are said to haA^^e held sway here ? No agricultural skill could have forced from the ungrateful soil a tithe of the amount they required to exist ; nor could the mountains have yielded sufficient food, though they had teemed with animal life like the South African plains, in the periods of the migrations of the antelope. Physically, the stories of the past were false ; and where was the vallum, and the solid wall of miles in length ? No volcano had burst forth here, no earthquake had shaken it into fragments ; and if it had, those fragments must still exist, cumbering the ground, or built into newer structures. Or, " The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them." It was not to be admitted by any possibility, by any faith having the guidance of reason, that these magnifi- cent creations could have had any other existence than the vaunting fancy of Cortez and his chaplain. Thus fell one stone of the edifice, and the key of the mythical arch, which we had so long received as history. If this unlooked for condition of the country had surprised us, the aspect of Cholula shook our faith into a heap of dust. The lofty pyramid of hewn stone still upheld some futile hopes. They who had erected that massive pile, could not be classed Avith the savage 520 CHOLULA EXTIiSTGUISHES IT. inhabitants of those dry and arid plains. Mexico in its glory might yet have been, and our judgment must be restrained. We entered Cholula. We hastened to the great pyramid, the al;pha and the omega of our doubts. The mist passed away. Before us was a large cone, such as still exist in Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana.* It was nothing more, saving that its sides were clothed in rich shrubbery, and a chapel covered its crest ; we were in a tropical country and a Eomish land, and the erection was to the honor of the Virgin, " Queen of Heaven." These were the only differences. From that moment our task was a simple one. All credence in the relations of previous historiographers being annihilated,^ w^e had to * We clip the following item from a Western journal, to show that the custom oi mound-sepulture is not local, but universal among the tribes. "The Leavenworth (Kansas) City Ledger, of October 25th, announces the death and burial of a young Indian chief, son of To-he. He was placed in a sitting posture, upon the summit of a high hill ; his bow and arrow, a war-club, and a pipe, depo- sited near him, when a pony was shot to accompany him to the happy hunt- ing-grounds. A mound of earth was then thrown over the whole, a white flag raised, and the usual charms placed around to keep away evil spirits. The young chief was not more than twelve years of age." f Many of our readers may be startled at the deliberate charge of forgery we have made in connection with the standard chroniclers. Such should recollect that we are discours- ing not about an Anglo-Saxon country or people, but about Spaniai'ds and Spanish-Americans — among Avhom forgery is a crime shockingly com- mon. Where a whole category of miracles rests on forged evidence, sus- tained, perhaps, by perjury, it is not remarkable that such priestly prac- tices should infect secular affairs. Persons familiar with the state of those countries are not moved at the discovery of even forged cebulas of the king, after they have for years stood the ordeal of judicial decisions ; and Avhile I write, the community is startled at the detection of wholesale Mexican forgeries of California land- titles that had repeatedly passed the ordeal of the American courts. There may be, and doubtless are, occasional adjudications of a bishop in favor of a forged bequest or grant to the church or its ministers, on the testimony o;' the confessor of a dying penitent. But THE ARGUMENT FROM THE BRIGANTINES. 521 search for the solution of their elaborate fictions, in the features of the country itself, and, from whatever frag- ments of the past could be collected, to reproduce its picture truthfully. Faithfully we have labored at the work. Had our eyes never dwelt upon the lakes of the great, valley of Mexico, the ways that lead into it assured us that no such struc- tures as brigantines, accepting the terra to mean vessels of three feet draft, could ever have been transported, even in sections, by such wild and broken roads as they even now must be borne along. If that were not enough, when we beheld the broad and marshy ponds of the valley, which it has been the fashion to dignify as lakes, the proof became complete. For, granting the building and transport of the so-called brigantines, the naked fact re- mained, they could not have floated in the shallow water for which they were designed. To fulfil both the re- quirements of the case, these vessels must have been broad and shallow, such as we have described them, and such as navigate to-day the canals and marshes of the valley. To move such constructions to their destination was still no ordinary task; and the skill and conduct evinced in their creation and transit elevate Cortez far from the facilities offered by these were found ready to swear to the one-sided proceedings for fraudulent genuineness of their signatures, and practices, all similar adjudications are it was only in the forgery of the regarded by many as mere legal rob- official seal that the fraud was de- beries. Thus the community is fami- tected. liarized with a crime, or at least with What is true in secular affairs is a criminal accusation, which has a true in their literature. To determine most deleterious effect on public mo- which is untrue and which is genuine, rals. In the California case before requires the most rigid application of us, the highest Mexican ex-officials the laws of evidence. 522 TIME OCCUPIED IN THE SIEGE. above the ordinary leaders of such a force as was gathered under his banner. Once master of the lakes, and this his fleet of chaloupes instantly gave him, Mexico was at the feet of the invader. How came it, it may well be asked, then, that its fall was so long delayed ? The reply is clear and decisive — the superiority of the Spaniards in numbers and arms was barely sufficient, even under the skilful guidance of a leader, trained in all the wiles of savage warfare, to cast the balance in their favor. It is but a few years since we saw some thousands of half-armed Caffres, with but a few muskets among them, ill trained in their use, chiefly armed with clubs {knoh-herries) and assagaies, resist for over two years a well-appointed army of many British regiments.* There is not, therefore, any cause of surprise at the long struggle which preceded the fall of the city. That the Spaniards succeeded at all, with the paucity of means at their command, is sufficiently wonderful, without outraging all probability, by evoking the enormous array they are said to have finally overthrown. We have little doubt, could we disentangle thoroughly that meshwork of fact and fiction, called the despatches of Cortez, we should find the fabled empire of Montezuma a confederacy, like that of the Iroquois and Hurons. The position of Mexico in the temperate region {tierra templadd) of the tropics must, however, have greatly modified the habits of its people ; they were probably more agricultural * The long-protracted war with the equally protracted one with those of Indians of the Northwest, soon after the Everglades of Florida, are cases the ximerican Revi lution, and the in point. MEXICAN EMPIRE A CONFEDERACY. 52i and less nomadic than our northern tribes. We do not in- tend to detract from the darino; character of this famous ex- pedition, which exemplifies so accurately the peculiarities of the people of Spain of that period, remarkable for an overweening self-reliance and desperate tenacity ; and if we did, our own history would be its refutation. What five hundred Anglo-Saxons would have thus thrown them- selves into the heart of the Iroquois confederacy, and so doing, have achieved as great a triumph ? Step hy step, and year by year, we have waged war against the red race; our triumph has been slow, but sure; they, the Spaniards, won it almost in an hour, and remained, in the midst of the conquered, the masters of submissive slaves. We have left none to crush with the fetter ; the dead alone are behind and beneath; before us is only a broken band, whom our fast-advancing numbers will speedily thrust into the ocean. No such government as Cortez pretends to have found could have existed without ample means of intercommuni- cation, without a currency, without a literature, and with- out a written law. Now it is not pretended that any of these were found ; and even the polity of the state, what- ever its peculiarities were, is rather hinted at than de- fined. If more be needed to confirm the view we have taken, it may be found in the fact that Mexico itself, like Cholula and Tlascala, has no buildings or fragments of buildings anterior to the conquest, nor, excepting those which we claim as Phoenician, throughout the entire con- tinent north and south. The lapse of years is utterly insufficient to account for this, and could not be pleaded 524 CONCLUSION. with reason in face of those vast erections which remain to us yet, hke the sepulchral statues of a buried empire. The structures, the cities, and the numbers of the Mexican people were probably then but little superior to those which once surrounded us — different they undoubtedly were, and superior also, from their more fixed character and habits. But they were thoroughly Indian still. That Mexico was rich in gold admits of but little doubt. Being always found native, and abounding in its rivers, it was likely to be gathered and applied to the common pur- poses of savage ornaments. But the great metallic wealth of the country has been worked out by Spanish skill. The native Mexican could never have discovered in the rocky ores the glitter of the silver bar; and could he have done so, he had no tools by which to reach the coveted prize. We dismiss, then, these pages to the reader, and if our sagacity has not greatly misled us, we think he will be satisfied also, as we have, of the apocry- phal nature of those works, which, hitherto, he has re- ceived for truth. CONCLUSION. We have now accomplished oux- allotted task. Others before us have, in good faith, undertaken the same work, but, unfortunately, they sought at the wrong repository for their materials. There is such a pleasure in labor, we almost regret that ours is ended. Hardships have joys mingled with them ; and perils, whether on land or at sea, or among robbers, have been succeeded by the gratification derived from an escape. A solitary, unarmed traveller, leaving a disabled steamer in the " South Sea," found his way to the city of Mexico alone — the companion of peasants, the associate of arrieros. The novelty of such a journey more than compensated for its hardships, even to one inured to life on the borders of civilization. It was the beginning of a CONCLUSION. 525 series, necessary to qualify the author for his task. For how could a man write a history of the Conquest who had endured less? who was less fami- liar with the ground ? less familiar with Spaniards ? less familiar with the Indian race? less familiar with the topography of the country?* We have no fault to find with the monks, who wrote historic romances to illustrate the doctrines of Romanism, and drew their dramatis persons from an Indian war. But we do object to having Spanish fictions turned into American history. As the survivor of a family that, for generations, had lived in the territory of the Iroquois, enjoj'ing their protection and their friendship, it was a sacred duty to defend them and others of their race from the libels of centuries. But this was not enough ; it had been done again and again already, to no purpose. The anxiety to have a history of the Con- quest of Mexico was so great, that one after another would resort to these exploded fables for the materials of a history. The ink was hardly dry on the leaves of the North American Quarterly, which contained the exposure of these fictions, when another contributor to the same periodical, Mr. Pres- cott, began his history, founded on authors already denounced as fabulous by so high an authority as the Hon. Lewis Cass. So little do even literary men notice the refutations of romantic falsehoods ! Who has not listened with wonder to that absurd showman's tale, of the " Aztec children ;" yet, who ever remembered its refutation, or read the report of the legal proceedings by which the father acquired possession of his idiot ofispring ? These well- known traits demonstrated the necessity, not only of again refuting these fables, but also of compiling an actual history of the Conquest, that hereafter there should be no occasion again to disturb the moles and the bats, in order to gratify public curiosity. The work may not justify, according to the American standard, the expeu- * In the language of a new work cal economy ; another knowing no- which has just made its appearance, thing of law ; another nothing of we may sum up our objections to ecclesiastical changes of opinion ; each and every of the historians we another neglecting the philosophy have had to consult in writing our of statistics, and another physical narrative. sciences — although these topics are " Historians, taken as a body, the most essential of all, inasmuch as have never recognised the necessity they comprise the principal circum- of such a wide and preliminary study stances by which the temper and as would enable them to grasp their character of mankind have been subject in the whole of Its natural re- affected, and in which they ai-e dis- lations. Hence the singular fact of played." — History of Civilization in one historian being Ignorant of politi- England, page 3. 526 COXCLUSION. diture of time and trial it has cost. But there is even a higher consideration than that of dollars. The scrofula that invades the aboriginal constitution, so soon as the vrhite race plants itself beside the native, does not always spare the intruder. As in the instance before us, a single tombstone records the names of fourteen members of a single family ; while a niche remains to be filled with that of the survivor, the author. To such an one, health is dearer than money ; and a vagabond life in distant countries, and amid diver- sified climates, the only antidote for an hereditary consumption. To him death has perils but in a single form, and he unhesitatingly ventures where in other men it would be temerity. He can contemplate death on the deck of a foundering ship, as a familiar topic. When, in a tropical fever, he is pronounced incurable, there is the consolation of knowing that the summons has not come in the hated form. Again, when assured the dreaded malady was at last certain to complete its work, a new journey has stayed its pro- gress, while a ghostly form and a death-like visage has been a passport AA'here other men would not venture. These are considerations, beside money, that have lightened our task. Educated in a system of " godliness," may we call it, ever unpopular with the world, and taught to look to it as the only solution of political and social evils, we are, at every step, in conflict with the monk, and the popular histo- rian. From a different point of view every fact of history is contemplated, every result is weighed. There is no deification of chance, no Red Republic- anism. If Spanish religion has often been referred to, it is because it was inevitable ; the very idea of history with Spaniards, seems to have been but an exhibition of the prowess of their demigods. "We have found Bernal Diaz a faithful exponent of that religious system, as understood by its highest ecclesiastical authorities ; and if we have placed it, from time to time, in jux- taposition to our own, it is that the Protestant reader might better understand the motives that swayed those authors in the fabrication of their narratives. They should all be endorsed " historical expositions of the religion of Spain, with fables to match." Farewell. INDEX. Acapulco, city of, 125,- its commerce with India the Spice Islands, and Philipines, 126; its commercial condition, 126; the author's journey from, 126. Acayucan, from whence comes cocoa, 117. Aculman village in alliance with Cortez, 467. Adventurers attracted by Cortez' first de- spatch, 478. Aezahualcoyotl the Magnificent, 50 ; adornments of his palace, 50 ; plays the part of David in Uriah, 52; a religious reformer, 54 ; a poet, 54 ; translation from his alleged poems, 55 ; his pretend- ed capital rivals Bagdad, 50 ; provides accommodations for the sovereigns of Mexico and Tacuba, 52. Alaman, Don Lucas, notice of, 104. Algonquins melted away in spite of the favor of the French, 35. Allies' fabulous numbers reduced, 489. Aloe (century plant, or maguey), 120. Alvarado sent back to Cuba with gold, 302 ; comes to relief of Cortez (Tobasco), 320 ; slaughters the Mexicans, 402 ; with Leon covers the night retreat, 410 ; escapes by leaping, 411 ; assigned to Tacuba in the siege, 479 ; defeat of, 495 ; and San- doval, witness the cruel execution of the Spanish prisoners, 499. Amaqueracan or Amaquemacan village near Chalco, 387. American colonies (ancient), traditional knowledge of, 515. Analogies, Egyptian, 146 ; Phoenician re- capitulation of, 162. Analogy, argument from, 514. Ancient Americans not Egyptian, 145. Ancient American ruins, 285. Ancient magnetic cross, 152. Ancient nations, era of their prosperity, 166. Ancient ships unknown to Greeks or Ro- mans, 175. Antiquity, Greek ignorance of, 170 ; a retrospect of, 165. Antiquity of Central American ruins, 145 ; a retrospect of, 165. Apam, plains of, topography of, 454. Apology for Ferdinand, King, 273. Apology of Cordova — returning from Yuca- tan, 288. Apostle Thomas's visit to America fabu- lous, 25. Arabs, our indebtedness to, 261 ; progress of learning among, 254 ; genius for arts of peace, 248 ; their fortifications, 261. Arianism, cause of its decline, 236. Ashteroth, her emblem the Latin cross, 24. Astarte, or Ashteroth, worshipped at Nine- veh, 153. Astarte, Queen of Heaven, 153 ; our en- graving of an American goddess, recog- nised as Ashteroth, 160 ; her head dress the ancient mural crown — prototype of that of Diana of Ephesus, 160. Atlantic crossed, 277. Aztec law of succession, 62 ; foreign policy, 123 ; dominion to the Pacific, 124; south- eastern provinces, 125 ; causeways, 459. Aztecs, their pretended Jewish origin, 37; their true origin, 38 ; their pretended co- venant with the devil, 39 ; where did the Monks get information about this ? 40 ; (527) 528 INDEX. were they the devil's peculiar people ? 39 ; their arrival in the valley of Mexico, 41 ; their first settlement in that valley, 42 ; their federative system, 61; their alleged theory of the flood, how proved, 24; specimen of their alleged picture writ- ing, 24; history rejects all inconsistent with Indian traits, 32 ; were Indians, not Arabs, 32 ; Indians of the California stock, 38 ; migration an ordinary in- stance, 41 ; first stop at Tlascala, 42 ; their first settlement at Tezcueo, 42 ; country — the table land of America — Chapter III., 109 ; its mountain scenery, 109; an isolated country, 112; a country of silver, 112; once washed gold, 112; ceased to when they lost liberty, 112; struggle with Tlascalans to shut them in, 124; never could have understood the processes of silver mining, 133; incapable of the necessary combinations, 134 ; silver mines require the applica- tion of gunpowder and steel, 134 ; slaughtered by Alvarado, 402; light watch fires on the approach of Cortez, 444 ; resolve to die in defence of their capital, 464; routed at Xochimilco, 475. See Mexicans. Bahia de mala Pelea, or Bay of the Dis- asterous Battle [of Cordova] in Yucatan, 288. Baptism administered to twenty Indian females to convert them to Romanism, 323 ; converts eight more, granted to Cortez at Sempoalla, in like manner, 342. Benefits resulting from revolt of Zimines and Pelagius, 266. Boturnini wrote 200 years after Diaz, 23 ; how he proves the visit of the Apostle Thomas to America, 45 ; notice of, 98 ; specimen picture writing, 101. Brigantines, building of (Chapter XII.), 426 ; size of, 434 ; materials for, how prepared, 435 ; effect of their appear- ance, 462 ; transported to Tezcueo, 464 ; used in carrying an intrenchment, 489 ; argument from this use of, 521. Britain, tin of, carried to Tarshish, 151 ; Celts emigrate to, from Spain, 151; tin brought from, to Phoenicia, 165 ; tin of, at Nineveh, 166. Bronze tools and weapons, 163 ; supplanted by steel, 164; medallion at Palenque, 160; bronze tools found at Mitla, 165. Bull, Papal, arrival of, 469. Bustamente, Don Carlos, notice of, 104. Canal built by Cortez, 477 ; its fabulous depth, 478. Canary Islands 3300 miles from America, 175. Carthage, commonwealth of, 230. Carthaginians invited to Spain, 231 ; Spain under the, 231. Cass, Lewis, his criticism of Spanish authors, abridged, 27 ; his letter to the author, 30. Castilian race, origin and progress of (Chapter VII.), 265; decline of, 269. Causes of Indian extermination, 33. Cavalry, advantage of, to Cortez, 490. Celt-Iberians (Celts and Turdetani), 166. Celts emigrate to Britain from Spain, 152. Cempoal, an Indian village (Sempoalla), 339. Censors of Spain, seven, 81. Central America, ancient, when at her zenith, 167 ; Mesopotamia, (fee, as pro- ductive now, 167 ; commerce, cause of the wealth of, 167; cause of early de- population of, 169 ; Americans had Roman lineaments, 174. Central American ruins, their antiquity, 145 ; dense population of (ancient), 166 ; not Egyptian, 146. Central Americans, Egyptians in their obelisks, note (2) page 179 ; painted sta- tues, tablets, and plinths, notes (3) and (4), page 179 ; in their inscriptions, note (7), page 182; sculpture, note (5), page 181 ; in their paintings, note (6), page 181; in common emblems, note (8), page 182; in their pyramids, note (9), page 183 ; not less in dimensions, note (10), page 184; in the stone casing of pyra- mids, note (11), page 184; in excavated sepulchres, note (12), page 184; in cele- brating victory, note (13), page 185; and in approximations to the arch, note (14), page 185 : not Egyptians — in that they did not embalm their dead, note (16), page 186; in that their pyramids were not truncated, note (15), page 186 ; no sacred animals, note (17), page 186. Centviry plant, maguey {aloe), 120. Chalco pond, in valley of Mexico, its topography, 454 ; canal, its location — curious manner of its construction, 453 ; laguna, effect of increasing its volume, 455; Sandoval's expedition to, 468. INDEX. 529 Character, Moorish, given to Indians, 84. Charles V., his favor sways the law of evi- dence, 82 ; effect of his favor on the seven censors of Spain, 81. Children, imperial, of Tezcuco, 51. Chinampas, artificial islands, foolishly called " floating gardens," 485. Cholula, author first set on inquiry at, 78 ; country of, at the foot of the volcano, 123-; Cholula, 376 ; the city of, 379 ,• its political state, 380 ; simple truth about, 380 ; the massacre at, 382 ; as described in note, 388 ; the fabulous Mecca of the Anahuac, 378 ; reconciled to Tlascala by Cortez, 386 ; extinguishes our faith, 520. Civilization, Greek, of oriental origin, 169. Civilization, of the Arabs, its influence on Europe, 257 ; of the Saracens, peculiar, 237 ; fragments of Ancient American, 174 ; traces of, first discovered, 283 ; how the idea of an Indian origin of, arose, 287 ; effect of the discovery of, 290. Clavigero wrote 200 years after Diaz, 23 ; notice of, 103. Climate, its changes, 118. Cocoa comes from Acuyacan, 117. Codex, Vaticanus, No. 1556, index of a copy of the fabulous picture writing, 91; Tellurianus, 91. Color more the effect of climate than of race, 37; of the Jews varies, 37. Columbus, Christopher, 271 ; his character, 272 ; introduced by Quintanello, 273 ; derives benefits from him, 275 ; motives that sustained, 276 ; the trials and priva- tions of his first voyage, 277 ; the Indi- ans discovered by, 278 , returns success- ful, 282; chequered experience, 282. Commerce, effect of, on ancient nations, 165. Commerce, Grecian, what it was, 167; Roman, what it was, 167 ; extinguished by war, 175 ; ships of, in times of Pha- raoh, 175. Commerce of Tarshish, 150 ; result of ancient, 166; ancient routes of, 166; probable causes of extinction of, 167. Controversy of Dominicans and Francis- cans benefits the Indians, 280. Cordova, expedition of, discovers Yucatan, 283 ; his loss at the battle of Pontonchan, or Bay of the Unfortunate Battle, 288. Cordova, fabulous Mexico drawn from, 258 ; caliphate of, 250 ; rapid growth of, 251. Copan, its river wall, 161. Cortez, the Crusoe of Gomora, 22 ; author led to give greater weight to, 27 ; genius and character of mistaken, 25 ; not a Romish propagandist, 25 ; an adroit leader in Indian war, 25 ; object of his letters, 80 ; wrote without fear of contra- diction, 80; the Cid of Spanish historians, 85 ; birth and parentage, 304 ; sails for the West Indies (1504), 305; life in the "West Indies, 306 ; in San Domingo, 306 ; becomes expert in hunting Indians, 308 ; removes to Cuba, 308 ; becomes leader of the malcontents, 308 ; found in bed with Velasquez, 308 ; marries, and is made an Alcalde, 308; is selected by Velasquez to lead an expedition, 309 : sails from the Havana after his departure is countermanded, 309 ; makes Cozumel Island, 309 ; is represented by Diaz as there playing the religious reformer, 315 ; there preaching the adoration of the Madonna and her emblem, 316 ; the abominable idols of Diaz recognised as antique statues, 317 ; arrives at Tobasco, 319 ; has there three battles with In- dians, 320 ; converts twenty female cap- tives by baptizing, 323 ; lands at Vera Cruz, 325 ; picture writing scene, 338 ; how made captain-general, 338 ; first letter, probable cause of the emperor suppressing it, 339; first Indian alliance, 339 ; professes to the Indians to be an- other Don Quixote, 340; expedition against Tsinpazingo, 342 ; exhibits a touch of discipline, 342 ; firmly esta- blishes himself in the country, 343 ; forms matrimonial alliances with the Sempoallans, 343; reforms the religion of the Sempoallans, as Diaz pretends, 344; sermon to the Sempoallans, 345; sends Paerto Gurrero and Montejo with presents and a letter to the emperor, 346; his letters, first printing done in Spain, 347 ; letter, reception of, by the council of the Indias, 348 ; effect of on the young emperor, 348 ; effect of upon adventurers. 478; attempts to capture a vessel coasting by his encampment, 348; vessels destroy- ed in a tornado, 349; begins his march to the interior, 361 ; his rapid movements , in Indian war, 352 ; when a reliable authority, 355 ; when not reliable, 355 : climbs the mountain barrier, 356 ; de- scription of Tlascala, 360 ; statements impossible, 362; campaign of Tlascala, 530 INDEX. 368; first battle, 369; success in the Tlascalan war, 370 ; alliance with the Tlascalans, 371; reforms the Tlascalan religion, 372 ; preparation to march to Mexico, 386; enters the valley of Mexico, 386 ; treaty with Tlascala kept invio- late, 367 ; receives $3000 in gold from Mexican ambassador in Tlascala, 372 ; sets out for Tlascalan capital, 372 ; holds up to the Tlascalans the Madonna and child, says Diaz — telling them she is our mediator, 373 ; reconciles Cholulans and Tlascalans, 386 ; enters the valley of Mexico, 387 ; enters the city with great ostentation, 395 ; Aztecs insincere in protestation of friendship, 394; fabulous description of the city, 395 ; enormity of his fiction, 395 ; gratifies the popular taste for the marvellous, 396 ; influences the architectural taste of the new build- ers of Mexico, 397 ; seizes Montezuma, 400 ; policy disarranged by arrival of Narvaez, 402 ; marches against Narvaez, 403 ; conquers Narvaez by bribery, 404; returns to Mexico, 405 ; is assailed in his quarters, 406 ; makes a night retreat, 408 ; continues his retreat, 415 ; account of his retreat, 417 ; fights a battle at Otumba, 418 ; reaches Tlascala, 420 ; •' another Moses," says the Cardinal Archbishop Lorenzano, 418; determines to build a flotilla, 427 ; enslaves the Indians of Tepeaca, 429 ; founds a colony at Tepeaca {Seguridad de la Frontera), 430; brands his female cap- tives, 430 ; secures the mountain passes into the Mexican valley, 433 ; policy of, 433 ; difiiculties he encounters in build- ing flotilla, 435 ; makes a reconuoissance, 465; incidents of his march, 466; expedi- tion south of the lagnna8,4:70; makes war upon the mountain tribes, 472 ; captures Cuernavaca, 473 ; captures Xochimilco, 474 ; second day at Xochimilco, 475 ; extends his reconuoissance to Tacuba, 476; the caual built by, 477; its fabu- lous depth, 478 ; first despatch attracts adventurers, 478 ; musters and divides his forces for the siege, 479 ; places his land forces in position, 480 ; captures the Pinon from his brigantines, 480 ; first battle on the water, 482 ; effects a complete investment, 484 ; good faith to his allies, 471 ; captures Yantepec, Gilu- tipec, Cuernavaca, and Xochimilco, 474 ; narrowly escapes death at Xochimilco, 474; success wonderful, but disfigured by fables, 436 ; how he obtained supplies and friends, 436 ; how he circumvented Las Casas, 437; how he justified hia enslavement of Indians, 438 ; muster of forces before leaving Tlascala, 442 ; com- mences his return to Mexico, 439 ; leads the van, 444 ; passage of the mountains, 444; entry into Tezcuco — fortifies his quarters, 445 ; marches to Iztapalapa, 446; entrapped at Iztapalapa — his night retreat, 446 ; how his statement becomes possible, 450 ; account of it, 450 ; why he invents the charge of cannibalism, 428 ; motive of his cruelty to the Tepeacans, 429 ; inspirits the panic-stricken expedi- tion of Guaoahula, and leads it to suc- cess, 433; instals Don Fernando Lord of Tezcuco, 451 ; his afiection for his Indian protege, Fernando, 452 ; buried with Fernando, 452 ; selects Cuyocan for his head quarters in the siege, 475; retreats, abandoning a cannon — battle renewed, 490 ; divides his flotilla, 491 ; makes another assault, 493 ; pre- tends to bvirn the fabulous palaces, 493 ; declares the number of allies at the siege infinite, 493; represents the Tlascalans as cannibals, 494 ; suffers a serious re- pulse 497 ; rescued from the enemy, 498 ; again suffers a defeat — barely escapes with his life, 498; resolves to destroy the city, 500 ; places a successful ambuscade, 500 ; provides cannibals with food, 501 ; charges the Spaniards witt procuring human flesh for his allies, 501 ; in pos- session of seven-eighths of the city, 502 ; tortures his prisoners, 505 ; motive not understood in Spain, 507; policy, result of, 508 ; governed by policy, 508 ; triumphs over Las Casas, 508 ; exagge- rations accounted for, 509 ; exaggera- tions reduced to reality, 509 ; one of the great men of his age, 510; eclipsed by Pizarro, 511. Council of music at Tezcuco, 47. Cozumel, Island of, 292 ; ruins on, 294. Cross, the ancient magnetic, 153 ; offering children to, 158; great antiquity of this emblem, 153; on the ancient coins of Sidon, and modern — the emblem of Ashteroth, the Queen of Heaven, 153; on it Alexander nailed 2000 Tyrians, 155. Criticism of Spanish historians, 77. Cuba conquered by Velasquez, 283; mal- contents led by Cortez, 284. INDEX. 531 Cuemavaca, its attractions — capture of, by Cortez 473 ; made his residence, 511 ; second expedition to, 600. Cuetravacin, emperor, death of, 449. Cuitlahuatzin, emperor. See Cuetrava- cin. Cuyocan assigned to Olid in the siege, 479. De Alva, Fernando, genius of, 57 ; as a witness, 58 ; wrote fifty years after Dias, 23 ; a quadroon, 23. Decline of ancient nations, cause of, 156. De Lugo, relieved by Alverado (Tobasco), 320. De Nonville, defeated by the Iroquois, 371. Desert of the table-land, 122. Devil, the part assigned him in Aztec his- tory by the monks, 40 ; his part trans- ferred afterwards to the Virgin, 40. Diaz, Bernal, the ghost of, evoked, 22; notice of, 95 ; probable origin of this myth, 79 ; deficient in morals, 85 ; rails at Las Casas, 96 ; the purpose for which we use the book, 313 ; why the charge of cannibalism and human sacrifice intro- duced in, at an earlier date than by Cor- tez, 335; charges human sacrifice against Montezuma, 335 ; describes a pretended overthrow of Sempoallan idols, 345 ; account of the destruction of the ships, 349 ; ignorance of the route of march, 352 ; shows total ignorance of the cha- racter and tactics of the enemy, 355 ; gives an account of the Cholula massa- cre, 382 ; makes Cortez preach Roman- ism to Montezuma, 399 ; exaggerates the forces of Narvaez, 404; invents the piety displayed at Tobasco, 322; at Sem- poalla, 345 ; at Tlaseala, 373 ; at Mexico, 397-403 ; perpetrates another blunder, 417; exaggerates the number killed in night retreat, 412 ; accuses Cortez of secretly setting apart the finest of the female captives the night before brand- ing, 431 ; says write one, when Gomora says eighty, 432 ; makes another un- fortunate statement — represents reeds growing in a salt lake, 444; more of his topographical blundering, 467 ; gives account of more woman-branding 469 ; again blundering — causing water to run up hill, 467 ; repeats his stereotype phrases, 477 ; again reduces the nume- rals of Cortez, 494. Discovery of ruins in Yucatan, 283 ; efiect of, 290, Discrepancies among historians, 92 ; in the narrations, 291 ; difficulty of writing history, &c., 93. Dupaix and Stephens, the first asserters of Indian origin of antique C. A. civili- zation, 25; notice of, 107; describes infant sacrifice at Palenque, 158. Dupaix' representation of woman and child at Palenque, Phoenician Ma- donna ? 157 ; describes infant sacrifice to the cross, 159. Egypt, Noah pretended king of, 147 ; Mizraim, pretended king of, 147 ; Shep- herd kings of (name of reproach), 147 ; Shepherd kings, their expulsion, effect of, 149 ; " Osiris Denis," king of 211 ; succors Cadiz or Tartesse, 213. Egyptian analogies, 146 ; ancient Ameri- cans not, 146 ; obstacles to migration, 147; prosperity, era of, 148 ; Central Ameri- can ruins remind us of, 146 ; ruins as venerable as, 146 ; in their obelisks, note (2) page 179 ; or painted statues, hiero- glyphical tablets, and plinths, notes (3), (4), page 179 ; in their inscriptions, note (7), page 182 ; sculpture, note (5), page 181 ; in their paintings, note (6), page 181 ; in common emblems, note (8), page 182 ; in their pyramids, note (9), 183 ; not less in dimensions, note (10), 184 ; in the stone casing of pyramids, note (11), page 184; in excavating sepulchres, note (12), 184; in celebrat- ing victory, (13), 185 ; in their approxi- mations of the arch, note (14), 185 ; Central Americans not, in truncating their pyramids, note (15), page 186 ; did not embalm, note (16), page 186 ; no sacred animals, note (17), page 186; Philistian, Phoenician gods are, 147. Egyptians, Christians (nominal) imitate, 244; ethnologist in Indian dialects, 46. Enslavement of the Indians, 279. Era succeeding the Greeks, 170. Ethnological Society, American Trans., vol. 1, 1845, contains critique on Aztec 2jicture writings, by Hon. Albert Galla- tin, 25 ; evidence, efi"ect of emperor's favor on, 81. Evidence, proper judges of, 176. Extinction of races, law of, 169. Fables, new ones, more reduction by DiaZ; 494. Ferdinand, king, vindication of, 273. 532 INDEX. Pernando de Alva, 57 ; as a witness, 58 ; flourished fifty years after Diaz, 23 ; Don, Lord of Tezcuco — friend of Cortez, 47, 451. Plotilla, difficulties encountered in its con- struction, 435-439 ; divided in the siege, 490. Foreign policy of the Aztecs, 123. Founding of Mexico and Tacuba, 48. Fouseca, President of the Council of the Indias, 347; imprisons Puerto Carrero for his gallantries, 348. Gallatin, Hon. Albert, criticises the alleged Aztec picture writings for American Ethnological Society, 25 ; the first to scrutinize them, 91 ; also pointed out discrepancies of the Spanish historians, 91 ; by collating, 92. G-allies incapable of crossing the ocean, 175. Gaudalete, field of, 241 ; how the faithful regarded it, 244 ; first day of the battle of, 246 ; the battle of, continued, 248 ; religious results of the victory of, 248. G-enius of the Arabs for the arts of peace, 248. Geology of a country producing precious metals (Chapter IV.), 129 ; in Mexican history, 129 ; the gold digger's, 131. Gilutepeque, south of Mexico, Cortez cap- tives, 473. Gold, value of, remitted to Spain, 83 ; why the Aztecs ceased to wash, 112 ; and silver procured in different ways, 112 ; passion for, triumphed, 113 ; diggers, civilized and savage, difference between, 129 ; digger, a geologist, 130 ; digger's geology, 131 ; digger's speculation on floods, 132; diggers avoid primitive rocks, 134; search for, in beds of ex- hausted rivers, 130 ; bewildering specu- lations, 131 ; first bartered for, 299 ; Grijalva barters for, at Bandera river, 300 ; the only god of the Spaniards, but the adoration of the Virgin and cross their religion, 333 ; difference between Spanish and Saxon diggers, 131 ; fields, why more productive in the hands of Saxon, 136. Gomora, chaplain of Cortez, leading his- torian of the conquest, 22 ; is the De Foe of historians, 22 ; makes Cortez his Crusoe, 22 ; when he says eighty we must write one, says Diaz, 432 ; de- nounced by Las Casas, still a historic authority, 432 ; his fabulous campaign of Tepeaca, 432 ; studs the desert with fabulous cities, 432. Greek civilization of Oriental origin, 169 ; ignorance of antiquity, 170 ; commerce, character of, 170. Grijalva sails from Cuba, and discovers Yucatan, 291 ; expedition terminates, 302 ; barters for gold, at the Bandera river, 300 ; is fumigated with copal, 300 ; expedition of, returns to Cuba, 302. Gua,cahula, an Indian tribe, joins Cortez, 432 ; expedition to, panic-stricken, but succored and led by Cortez to victory, 433. Guadalupe, street leading to, gained, 502. Guastipeque, captured by Sandoval, 468 ; beautiful gardens of, 472. Guatamozin, 461 ; appearance of flotilla, effect on him, 462 ; his heroism, 463 : line of defence, 463 ; prefers death to surrender, 503 ; capture of, 504 ; torture of, 505 ; motive for inflicting it, 606 ; a youthful hero, 612 ; understood the intentions of Cortez, 605. Hakal (Haxal or Xakal) silver-mines, 136. Hawks, Kev. Dr., translates Ribero, 23. Hercules, his pillars, 152 ; deified, at Tar- shish (Cadiz), 151; the story of, 153; adored at Tarshish, 151 ; why repre- sented in Grecian story, &c., &c., 170 ; is the Palenque statue? 174; the Great, son of Osiris, 214 ; why supposed by the author to personify Rameses V., 216 ; canonization of, 219 ; successors of, in Spain, 220 ; the Grecian, at Tartesse, 223 ; unpoetical picture of, 224 ; true character of the Great, 224. Hieronomites, an honorable order of monks, 437. Historians (Spanish) of the Conquest, 76; discrepancies among, 82 ; modern, of the Conquest, 97; at Mexico, 104; dis- carded monkish, resuscitated by Ro- bertson, 310 ; shed no light on Tlascala, 382. Historic material, how to be gathered, 31. History, writing of, relative to the new world, restricted to persons in the priestly office, 23 ; how composed, 23 ; how to be published, 23 ; to be licensed by seven censors, 23 ; Aztec, intermin- gled with romance, 82 ; of the Conquest, difficulty of writing, 93 ; of America INDEX. 533 (Robertson's) notice of, 105 ; why its modern improvement has not reached Mexico, 775 MSS., their character, 86. llolgin Grarci seizes Guatamozin, 605. Huaxotzingo (Guajotzingo) village of, 386. Human sacrifice first mentioned, 301 ; tales of, not reliable, 24 ; how they ori- ginated, 24 ; the fable Cortez carried from Yucatan to Mexico, 25. Humboldt, Alexander Von, 107. Indian civilization, origin of the idea of, 287 ; system of hostilities, 26 ; tradition, its value, 42 ; traditions number legion, 43 ; languages barren, 43 ; tradition alone suppoi-t Spanish histories of the Aztecs, 44; tradition not reliable evi- dence, 44; agrarian laws, 64; social system peculiar, 65 ; all have a family type, 66 ; tribal divisions, 63 ; their efiect of tribal divisions, on inheritance and marriage, 63 ; war, effects of dilatory movement on, 352 ; monarchy doubtful, 67 ; inscriptions, 182 ; idolatry doubt- ful, 292 ; cannibalism and human sacri- fice, charge of, when invented, 334; war, effect of retreat on, 409 ; outbreaks styled rebellion and apostacy, 429 ; auxiliaries march with Cortez, 442 ; peculiarities in war, 499 ; allies at the siege, Cortez declares were infinite, 493 ; information of monks about Indians — where obtained? 40; their federative system, 61 ; their law of descent, 62 ; lords of the forest doomed, 33 ; more wasted by destruction of the forests than by Spanish cruelty, 34; effect of sub- jecting them to task-labor, 35, 279 ; now repeopling Spanish America, 21 ; fabu- lous number engaged in transporting the flotilla, 439 ; in the rear of Cortez, break out into rebellion, 491 ; absurdity of assigning a Jewish origin to, 35; one of primitive races, 36 ; have some vague notions of religion, ghosts, and spirits, 44 ; represented by Spaniard as pagans, 44; by us as monotheists, 44 their alleged mythology fabulous, 44 tribal divisions, restrictions on marriage 64 ; Moorish character given to, 84 when discovered, 278 ; to enslavement of, 279; effect of slavery on, 281 their numbers when first discovered, 279 ; benefited by the controversies of the monks, 280; when first charged with idolatry, 294; when first charged with human sacrifice, 301 ; fabulous numbers of, got rid of in night retreat, 414; number subjected to baptism, at Mexico, the first year, 509; all of one type, 516. See Mexicans. Indio-monkish tradition, 44. Indio-Spanish traditional history, 88. Indulgences, the monk Urea brings to New Spain for sale, 469 ; he amasses a for- tune by sale of, 469. Influence of Holy Ofiice (Inquisition) on literature, 86. Information of monks about Aztecs, where obtained ? 40. Inquisition kept alive Spanish fanatics, 85. Inquisitor, sanction of, not relied on, 21 ; licenses the historians, 32. Inquiry, result of, 78. Intermarriage with Indians, effect of, 179. Investigation, author's qualification for conducting one, 77. Iroquois (Six Nations), ancient extent of their dominion, 34; protected Dutch and English settlers, 34; defeat De Nouville, 371. Iztapalapa, topography of, 446 ; Cortez entrapped at, and retreats at night, 446 ; affair, explanation of, 448 ; Sandoval to march to, 480 ; Sandoval, from Iztapa- lapa to camp of Cortez, 480. Jalapa, plateau of, 117; the plant jalap, 117. Jews, their color various, 37 ; Indians not Jews, 37. Joltoca laguna, Joltoca village captured by Cortez, 466. Juan Diego, his pretended interview with the Virgin, 88. Kingsborough, Lord, character of, 68 ; attempts to prove the visit of Apostle Thomas, 35 ; attempts to prove the Jewish origin of the Indians, 35 ; mad enthusiasm benefits the world, 90. Las Casas denounces Gomora, 22 ; his cha- racter, 34, 281 ; assailed by Diaz, 96 ; his office and title, 334; denounces the Cholula massacre, 381 ; circumvented by Cortez, 437. Latin cross, emblem of the goddess Ashte- roth, 24; at Tyre and Nineveh, 152. Law of the forest, 34 ; of Aztec succession, 62. 534 INDEX. League of the Iroquois (Morgan's), 105. Learning, progress of, among the Arabs, 254 5 of Arabs disseminated through Europe, 257. Leon (Captain), with Alvarado covers night retreat, 411. Leon, kingdom of, founded by Pelagius, 265. Lerdo de Tajede, notice of, 104. Libyans deify Neptune, 221. Llorente, Don Juan Antonio, notice of, 303. Lords of the forest doomed, 33. Magnetic cross (ancient), 152. Maguey (aloe) or century plant, 120. Maguey, fields of, 123. Mahomet's birth, time and place of, 238. Malinche (Marina), a present to Cortez at Tobasco, 323; the joint property of Cortez and Puerto Carrero, 323 ; at last marries Juan Javaniello, 324; a female Joseph ! 326. Maps used in this chapter, 452. Manilla company, 127. Mankind not alone created for the eastern continent, 35. Medallion (copper) at Palenque, 160. Mexicalzingo, its topography, 453. Mexican canals and causeways, 456. Mexican Indians (Aztecs), for what pur- pose they used gold, 130 ; ambassadors at Vera Cruz, 336, 337, 338 ; ambassa- dors at Tlascala present Cortez $3000 in gold, 372. Mexicans prepare ambuscades for Cortez, 386 ; give Cortez a public reception, 395 ; slaughtered by Alvarado, 402 ; assail the Spaniards in the city, 406 ; light watch fires on approach of Cortez, 444; resolved to die in defence of their capital, 464 ; routed at Xochimilco, 475 ; renew the battle of Xochimilco, 475 ; continue to fight on the causeways, 484; construct a ditch and breastwork, 489 ; take shelter in the enclosure of the great mound, 490 ; remarkable courage exhibited by, 491 ; preferred death to slavery and torture, 491; rout Alvarado and torture to death the prisoners taken, 495 ; again and again restore their defences, 495, 496; have the advantage for the first twenty days, 496; remarkable fortitude of, 496 ; inflict a fearful retribution, 498 ; again torture Spanish prisoners to death in sight of Alvarado and Sandoval, 499 ; assume the offensive, 500 ; miserable condition of, 502 ; no longer able lo re- store their defences, 502 ; slaughter of, continued, 503 ; what they really were, 623. See Aztecs. Mexican valley, return to (Chapter XII.), 427 ; lagunas, not lakes, 434 ; conquest, histories of — their attractions, 437 ; sur- vey of, 452 ; causeways, 452 ; trenches, how made, 496 ; defences — probable manner of their construction, 497 ; pri- soners tortured to death, 505 ; empire, doubtless a confederacy, 522 ; war dif- ferent from our own Indian wars, 622. Mexico, founding of, 48 ; its lagunas the seas of Gomora, 22 ; why Spanish critics have neglected the history of, 84 ; a country of silver, 112 ; a country isolated, 112 ; a country in the clouds, 116 ; a country of table land, 123 ; prepara- tion for a march to, 386 ; Cortez enters the valley of, 386; first seen by Ordaz from Popocatapetl, 385 ; Cortez' entry into, 395 ; peculiarities of its loca- tion, 397 ; hostilities break out at, 405 ; city of its peculiar topography, 454; volume of water in valley of, not greater in time of Cort«z than now, 455 ; effect upon it of increasing the volume of water, 466 ; floods that have occurred at, 457 ; the siege of (Chapter XIII.), 461 ; re- connoissance of, as far as Tacuba, 467 ; second reconnoissance of, 476 ; character < of second reconnoissance of, 476 ; its capture and destruction (Chapter XIV.), 488 ; fabulous palaces of, Cortez pre- tends to have burnt, 493; hunger, thirst, and small-pox in, 494 ; Cortez resolves to demolish, 600 ; city of, no impression made on, in first forty-five days, 500 ; Cortez' possession of seven-eighths of, 502 ; famine in, 502. Migration, obstacles to Egyptian, 145. Miner (silver), seeks the primitive, 135. Miners' geology, practical, 131. Mines (Real del Monte), 137. Mining, chemistry of, 134. Miracles, how they are proved, 82 ; victory of Tobasco a, 322. Mitla, fortifications of, 165 ; bronze tools found at, 165. Modification of races, 36. Molech (Saturn), infants sacrificed to, at Palenque, 24. Monkish historians appear about the time of Diaz, 22 ; their productions absurd, INDEX. 535 contradictory, and impossible, 22,- their real object, 22 ; authors claim the Phoe- nician Madonna, infant, and cross as Romish, 25 ; where they acquired infor- mation, 40. Monks, and zealots, how they invent history, 325; Hieronomite an honorable order of, 437. Montezuma, history of, rewritten, 26 ; with- out a Moorish dress, 33 ; his empire similar to that of the Iroquois, 78 ; re- presented equal to that of Germany, 82; the Sultan of Spanish historians, 85 ; his famous present to Cortez, 332; falsely charged with human sacrifice, 335 ; for what purpose charge invented, 336; real as well as apocryphal presents, 336; sends rich presents to Cortez at Cholula, 372 ; urges Cortez to visit Mexico from Cholula, 386 ; his first interview with Cortez, 399; seized by Cortez, 400 ; appoints Spaniards to collect his revenue, 401 ; but a tool in the hands of Cortez, 402 ; slain by his own people, 406. Moorish character given to Indians, 84; factitious court and capital of Monte- zuma, 397. Morgan, Lewis H., notice of, 105. Moslems invited into Spain, 232 ; decay of, cause, 267. MS. histories, their character, 87 ; of three kinds, 87. Mural crown of Astarte recognised, 160 ; crown of Hercules recognised, 163. Muster of forces at Tlascala, 442 ; for the siege, 479. Nantla, in the forests of, vanilla produced, 117. Narvaez disturbs, by his arrival, the policy of Cortez, 402 ; Cortez marches against, 463 ; vanquished by bribery of his offi- cers, 404; forces correctly stated by Cortez, 404 ; forces exaggerated by Diaz, 404. National Intelligencer on Mexican history and antiquities, 27 ; extracts from Hon. Lewis Cass, 27. Navarre founded by Zimines, 266. Neptune deified by the Libyans, 221. Nineveh, Latin cross at, 152 ; in her great- est prosperity, 166; commerce of, 166. North American Quarterly for October, 1840, contains review by Lewis Cass, 25 ; races not of Jewish origin, 35. Obelisks, Central American, not Egyptian, 146. Object of Cortez' letters, 80. Olid, Christopher, assigned to Cuyocan, 480. Olmedo, priest, explains the superiority of the image of the Virgin and cross over the Indian gods, 334. Ordas, ascent of Popocatapetl, 384. Osborn, Rev. Wm., the orientalist, 159 ; recognises our engraving of an American goddess as Ashteroth, 160. "Osiris Denis, King of Egypt," 210; re- lieves Tartesse, 212 ; believed to be Rameses IV., 216. Otomas, expedition to, 600. Otumba, battle of, 418; magnitude of the battle, 418 ; battle concluded, 419 ; re- sults of the battle, 420 ; enters into alliance with Cortez, 451 ; plains of topography, 454. Pachuca, silver mine of, 136 ; its topo- graphy, 454. Painted statues (Central American), 146; sculpture, 146. Paintings (Central American), Egyptian, 146. Palace of Aezahualcoyotl, 50 ; Tezcocingo, 52. Palenque, infant sacrifice at, 158 ; cross, 157; and Madonna and infant, 188; Molech or Saturn at, 157; theory of Phoenician origin not new, 162 ; archi- tecture, Greeque antique, 163 ; Doric, 209; Phoenician resemblances recapitulated, 163. Pelagius founds the kingdom of Leon, 265. Peregrine pass, 127. Perote, road across the mountain of, 118. Philistia, 149. Philistians "helpers of Tyre," 150. Phoenicia, 149 ; its prosperity for the 430 years Israel abode in Egypt, 149 ; in time of Joshua, 156. Phoenician, alleged MS. (Votan), 24, 161 ; American antique civilization, 25 ; Ma- donna at Palenque, 138 ; extinct empire in Central America recognised as, 145 ; infant sacrifice at Palenque, 157 ; Ma- donna like that of Rome, 157 ; Madonna at Palenque, 157; colony, tortoise the emblem of, 161 ; analogies, recapitula- tion of, 162 ; resemblances at Palenque recapitulated, 163 ; look-out stations in Yucatan, 295 ; houses of the high places 536 INDEX. discovered, 293 ; ruins found on the island of Sacrificios, 301 ; vestiges in the British Islands, 513; probabilities of crossing the Atlantic, 614. Picture writings fabrications, 21 ; do not purport to be originals, 21 ; the monk Pietro their ci-devant transcriber, 22 ; probably the pious fraud of Bishop Zumarraga, 22 ; three burnings of, re- corded, 24; Spanish, not Aztec, 90; no evidence of being of Aztec origin, 91; a specimen, 101 ; first mentioned, 300, 338 ; worthless inventions, 518. Pietro, the monk, ei-devant transcriber of pretended Aztec picture writings, 21 ; produces copies, but no original, 91 ; one of his copies (Codex Vaticanus, No. 1556), 91 ; foundation of factitious pictures of, 300, 330. Piiion, its capture by Cortez, 482. Plateau, crossing the, 117. Plaza grand, or public square, its topo- graphy, 454. Prescott, Mr. Wm. H., his authorities, romances, 26 ; corrects Robertson in new edition, 26 ; notice of, 104, 264 ; his early opinion of Spanish historians, 81. Proof necessary, 173. Puerto Garrero obtains Marina, or Ma- linche, 323 ; exchanges her with Cortez for the belle of Sempoalla, 343 ; returns ambassador to Spain, imprisoned for absconding with another man's wife, 348. Pulque, extracted from aloe, "century plant," or maguey, 122. Pyramids (Central American), had a stone casing Egyptian like, 146. Queen of Heaven, Phoenician Astarte, 25 ; Romish, 25. Quetzalcoatl, was he the Apostle Thomas ? 378. Quiahuitzlan, Indian village, 340. Races, original division of, 37 ; law of exotic, 169 ; have a common hive, 172 ; decay of, 174; incongruity of, 177; de- cay of exotic, 516 ; decay of modern exotic, 517. Rameses IV., gods represented in his tomb, 147 ; in his tomb representation of sea fight, 151. Pi,eal del Monte silver mine, 137 ; author descends it 1000 feet, 137; its immense steam pump, 137; history of, 137; its immense extent of galleries, 138 ; its company, 138 ; its ores, how reduced, 139. Regla, the refining works of {Patio), 143 ; refining mills of, 142 ; Count of, 141 ; his fortune, 142 ; how he expended it, 142 ; falls of, 140. Remedios, hill of, the night of the retreat, 414, 422; the Virgin of (see Virgin Maky). Result of author's inquiry, 78. Retreat, efiFect of, on Indian war, 409, 410 ; of Cortez at night from Mexico, 408. River wall of Copan, 161. Road from Vera Cruz to the interior, 115. Robertson (author of History of America) and Prescott have relied on historic romances, 26; corrected by Prescott, 26; discards living witnesses in order to re- suscitate monkish fables, 310.. Romance intermingled with Aztec history, 82 ; the passion for, in Spain, 85. Rome, character of her commerce, 171. Rosario, shaft of, at Hakal silver mine, 136. Routes (probable) of ancient commerce, 167. Royal councillors license Spanish histo- rians, 32. Ruins of Yucatan defaced by Castilians, 299. San Christobal laguna. See Joltoca. San Diego, castle of, at Acapulco, 127. Sandoval marches to Chalco, 468 ; to Guastapeque, 468 ; to Iztapalapa, 480 j to Cuyocan, 483 ; to Guadalupe, 483. Sahagan, " father of Aztec history," 40. Sailing vessels prior to galleys, 174. Saracens, cause of success of, 239 ; genius for the arts of peace, 248. Sarmiento, his fabulous history of the Incas, 87 ; must have been grateful to Philip II., 86. Saturn (called Molech in scripture) at Palenque, 24. Saxon, an emigrant race, 38. Sempoalla, (Cempoal) an Indian village of the coast, 329 ; Cortez' head quarters at, 344; alleged human sacrifice at, 344; pretended overthrow of idols at, 345. Sempoallans dismissed to their homes, 386. Sepulchres in the rock at Mitla, 184. Shore, tropical, 116. Siege of Mexico, commencement of, 488 ; INDEX. 537 results of the two first days of, 491 ; time occupied in, explained, 521. See Mexicans. Silver, increased product of, excited interest, 22 ; the Aztecs a country of, 112; and gold, the different ways of procuring, 112 ; miner, 133 ; seeks for ores in primitive rocks, 135 ; mines, 127 ; more galleries than Gibraltar, 138. Silver mines of Spain, immense yield of, 226. Six nations (Iroquois), their ancient domi- nion, 34. Slave labor expensive, 167. Slavery cannot explain ancient wealth, 167. Smith, Lieut. H. L., U. S. A., survey of, 460. Sochimilco. See Xochimilco. Sociedad Mejicana (Mexicana), notice of, 302. Spain established her Mexican dominion, 33 ; from the traditional era to rise of Castilian kingdom, 210; "beginning of the historic of Spaine,"210; under the successors of Hercules, 220 ; immense yield of silver in, 226 ; traditional ac- counts of the mines of, 228; Cartha- ginians invited into, 230 ; under the Carthaginians, 231 ; Tarik invades, 240 ; Gothic preparation for the defence of, 241. Spaniards lose, to the close of the Tlascalan war, fifty-five men, 370 ; return to the valley of Mexico, 391 ; selected by Montezuma to collect his revenues, 401; number not exaggerated by Cortez, 404; assault the great mound, 408 ; night re- treat of, 408 ; lose 150 men in retreat, 412 ; at the hill of Remedies, 414 ; con- tinue their retreat, 415 ; gain the battle of Otumba, efiect of, 426 ; ten killed by a native insurrection, 427 ; 420 employed in the campaign of Tepeaca, 429 ; combining the branding, baptizing, and violating women, disgust the In- dians with Christianity — act like Sepoys, 431 ; obtain a sure native support, 433 ; enter the valley of Mexico, 439 ; enter Tezcuco, 439 ; escort the brigantines, 465 ; sins pardoned by a Pope's bull, 469 ; suff'er a defeat — cruelties inflicted by Mexicans, 498 ; charged by Cortez with supplying Tlascalans with human flesh, 501 ; now make rapid progress, 602. See Cortez. Spanish authorities, when followed, 21; authorities, searcher among, must pro- ceed like ancient pilots, 31 ; historians of highest rank not to be trusted, 32; historians licensed by Inquisitors and Royal Councillors, 32 ; America repeo- pling by Indians, 33 ; historian's account of the devil's leading his peculiar people, 39 ; histories of the Aztecs, their only support tradition, 44; histories of the conquest, criticism of, 76 ; histories a parody on Joshua, 79 ; when divested of Moorish elements, 80 ; historians, Mr. Prescott's early opinion of, 83 ; historians, their statements impossible without the aid of the Virgin, 84; critics, why they have neglected the history of Mexico, 84 ; fanaticism kejjt alive by the Holy Office, 86 ; authors, their verisi- militude, 94; Arabs, our indebtedness to, 234; quarters in the city attacked, 406; quarters set on fire, 407; force, retreat of, 409, 410 ; successes depress Guatamozin, 482 ; lines drawn close round the city, 484. Steel supplanting bronze, 164. Superior, sanction of, not relied on, 21. Table-land, country of, 123. Tablets, Central American Egyptian, 146. Tacuba, founding of, 48 ; Cortez sends Ordas to for women, 406 ; 300 houses burned in street of, 409 ; the night of the retreat, 414, 422 ; the Spaniards at, 414 ; author's visit to, 421 ; Cortez' first reeonnoissance to, 465 ; Cortez' second reconnoissance to, 476; assigned to Alverado in siege, 479. Tacubaya, canal of, its location, 453. Talmanalco, village in the valley of Mexico entered by Cortez, 387. Tarik invades Spain, 240 ; moral power of, 242. Tarshish, place of adoration of Hercules, 151 ; and its commerce, 150 ; the reli- gion of, 152 ; where and what was it, 150 ; recognised as Tartessus (Cadiz), 151 ; its ships navigate the ocean, 151 ; prophet Ezekiel places it in the first rank, 151 ; furnishes tin to Tyre, 151 ; sends ships to Britain, 151 ; sends ships to colonies, 151 ; deifies Hercules, 151. Tartessians first might have crossed the ocean, 514. Temple found in a deserted district, 296. Tepeac. See Guadalupe. 538 INDEX. Tepeaca, campaign of (Chapter XII.), 426 ; colony of Seguridad de la Frontera at, people enslaved — women branded, 429 ; disposition made of the women, 431. Teuchille, an Indian runner, called also a great lord by Diaz, 336, 337, 338. Tezcuco, city of, fabulous, 56 ; without the fable, 63 ; the author's visit to, 70 ; a mud-built village, 23 ; capital of, an imaginary extinct empire, 23 ; where Zumarraga pretends he burnt the fabu- lous picture writings, 23 ; with Mexico and Tacuba lorded over the Anahuac, 33; alone retained its independence, 33; suffered nothing by the war, 33; should have flourished, 33 ; colonizes Mexico and Tacuba., 42 ; head of the Aztec con- federacy, 49 ; its fabled imperial serag- lio, 49 ; its fabulous council of music, . 47 ; its fabulous hanging gardens, 49 ; its fabulous villas, palaces, Ac, 49; ac- cording to monk Thomas Gage, 53 ; a real as well as fictitious, 53 ; why selected as the flotilla station, 440 ; Cortez' entry into, 445 ; Cortez fortifies Ms quarters in, 445 ; Don Fernando, Lord of, 451 ; evacuated on the approach of Cortez, 444 ; lake of \laguna or pond], its topography, 454. Tezcuzingo, fabulous palace of, 52. Thomas (Apostle), his alleged visit to America, 45 ; how Boturnini pj-otJe« it, 45; origin of the fable of, 173; was he Quetzalcoatl ? 378. Tlascala, its history same as Tezcuco, 34 country of, at the foot of volcanoes, 123 the war of, Chapter X. ; of Cortez, 360 according to Diaz, 361 ; according to the historians, 362 ; impossibility of Cortez' statement of, 362 ; an unfortu- nate remark of Diaz about, 364 ; the facts in relation to, 365 ; advantages of, to Cortez, 366; religious toleration, at, 367 ; government, 368 ; first battle with, 369 ; of the geographers, 365. Tlascalans have melted away, 34 ; an- other battle with, 370 ; success in the war, 370 ; an alliance consummated, 371; hatred of Mexico, effect of, 366; loss, seventeen in the first battle, 369 ; in the night battle, 379; form an alli- ance with Cortez, 372 ; reconciled to Cholula by Cortez, 386 ; furnish auxil- iaries to Cortez, 386; the eighty trea- sure bearers escaped, 412; muster of forces at, 442 ; represented by Cortez as cannibals, 494; fabulous numbers of, employed in the siege, 465, 479 ; Span- iards faithfully observe treaties with, 517. Tobasco, the spice of (grain of the myrtle), 117; Cortez' arrival at, 319; battles at, 320 ; St. Jago appears, according to Gomora, on a white horse at, 322 ; vic- tory claimed by Diaz for the Virgin, 322. Toltecs, alleged records of, burnt by the Aztec emperor, Ytzcoalt, 24. Tornado, the author witnesses at Vera Cruz, 113. Torquamada, foundation and key of his fabulous account of a Tezcuco account- book, 39. Tradition, Indian, 42 ; Indio-monkish, 44 ; appealed to, as authority by Spanish authors, 88 ; of no value for want of free discussion, 88. Traditional knowledge of ancient Ameri- can colonies, 515. Traditions, patriarchal, 43. Twilight (morning) on the desert, 121. Tyre, the Latin cross at, 152 ; the Paris of antiquity, 155; a jackass on the coins of, 154; Alexander crucifies 2000 citi- zens of, in contempt of Ashteroth, 155. Tyrians migrate to Tartesse, 222. Vegetable kingdoms, view of all, 119. Vegetation changes, 118. Velasquez conquers Cuba, 283 ; selects Cortez to command an expedition, 369; countermands his sailing, 369 ; sends Narvaez to bring him back, 402. Vera Cruz, a tornado at, 113 ; road from, to the table-land, 115; is without a har- bor, 113 ; why named, 325 ; its locality removed three times, 34; vegetation changes, 118. Veytia (the historian), notice of, 102 ; wrote two hundred years after Diaz, 23. Victory, celebration of, 185. Virgin Mary, her apparition at Guada- lupe, pious fraud of Zumarraga, 22 ; her glory the object of historians, 22; and saints, myths of, to be discarded, 32 ; of Remedios, her shrine deserted, 415 ; disputes with St. James the vic- tory at Tobasco, 323 ; image of kissed and left at Tobasco, 324 ; image of, left in charge of Montezuma, 403; Tlasca- lans taught her adoration, 373; of INDEX. 539 Remedies, 415 ; her miraculous powers, 422 ; her decay, 423. Volcano of Popocatapetl, ascent of, 384. Votan MS. of Phoerician era, alleged burning of, by bishop of Chiapa, 24. Weight of authority, 21. Women branded, 430, 431, 469 ; and bap- tized, 323, 345, 430. Women's Promontory (Puerto de las Mu- geres), 296. Xakal. See Hakal and Haxal. Xochimilco, laguiia, topography of, 454; effect of increasing its volume, 455 ; town, its capture, 474; Cortez, second day at, 475. Yantepec or Yantepeque, a village of the hot country, captured by Cortez, 473. Yucatan, ruins of, 146 ; traces of an an- tique civilization, discovered first in, 283; effect of the discovery, 290; builders of the ruins of, 285 ; apology of Cordova for returning from, 288 ; temples in a deserted district, 296 ; the extinct race of, 297; the expedition of Cordova discovers, 283 ; ruins of, de- faced by Spaniards, 299 ; statues over- turned by Cortez, 299. Yztcoatl, an Indian emperor of Mexico, alleged burner of fabulous Toltec pic- ture records, 24. Zimines founds Navarre, 265. Zumarraga, pseudo-burner of fabulous pic- ture writings, 21-90; author of that pious fraud — the apparition of the Vir- gin Mary, 22-90. Zumpango laguiia, topography of, 454. THE END, PUBLICATIONS OF JAMES CHALLEN & SON, No. 25 South Sixth Street, above Chestnut, PHILADELPHIA. * -3; * Ilessrs. James Challen ^ Son invite special attention to the following stan- dard vjorks, all of ivhich are issued in the most elegant style, and are indispensable hocks for reference and for the library. 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