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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION.
Dansville, AT. Y., February 2d, 1859.
To Messrs. Ciiallen & Son: —
I regret very much that my History 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
tho 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
Ihe 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 ofthe 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 origiD of the vestiges of civili
zation upon this continent." — N. Y. Com. Advertiser.
The following letter was recently received by the author from Rousseau St.
Hilaire, Author of " The History of Spain," &c, and Professor of the
Faculty of Letters in the University at Paris :—
"236 Rue St. Jaques, Paris, 7 May, 1858.
"Mr. Xi,. 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 sufficient 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
work, 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 Ctesar 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 the 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 Review 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 to 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 Christian Observer thus notices the advance sheets 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 effectually destroys several of the fine theories upon which
Ihe history of Prescott and others are founded — proving pretty conclusively
(hat 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 u 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 different 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 Review, 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. 1". 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.
" The book is one of conscientious research and historical truth, revealing
many important additional facts to previous history." — City Item.

PALENQUE EMBLEM PHOENICIAN,

PHOENICIAN COINS.

ASHTEROTH, GODDESS OF THE SIDONIANS."

A NEW

HISTOK Y

CONQUEST OF MEXICO.

LAS CASAS' DENUNCIATIONS OF THE POPULAR HISTORIANS
OF THAT WAR ARE FULLY VINDICATED.

ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW; AUTHOR OP " MEXICO AND ITS RELIGION," ETC.

LONDON:
TRUBNER & COMPANY,
60 PATERNOSTER ROW.
1859.

NOTICE TO BOOKSELLERS, PROPRIETORS OF CIRCULATING LIBRARIES,
AND THE PUBLIC.
Notice is hereby given that this History of the Conquest of Mexico is copyrighted by
the author, in pursuance of the provisions of the 5th & 6th of Victoria, and other Acts
of Parliament applicable thereto, and that the penalties for any infringement will be
enforoed according to law.

TO
OLIVER MOWAT, Q. C,
MEMBER OE IHE PARLIAMENT OE CANADA,
(Ejfis t&olamt
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BT HIS FRIEND, THE AUTHOR.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Abe 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, Secretary of State
of the United States, who, in the American 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
(vii)

vm 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 MttSrateur, 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 writing.
Many others also who have laid us under obligations, 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 disbelief, 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 affect 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 topography 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
wliich 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.

Engravings. — 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 sepond 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 Cholula 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 OP 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 but parodies on tbe 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 writing 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 Real del Monte mines, 137.

CHAPTER V.
THE EXTINCT EMPIRE OF CENTRAL AMERICA IDENTIFIED AS PHOE
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 wall 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 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
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 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
ofthe 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 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. XVII

CHAPTER VIII.
CORTEZ INVADES 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 white 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 — Tlascala 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

XV1U CONTENTS.

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 vallev 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 entrS and appearance of Mexico,
395 — The effect of historic fables op 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
ofthe night retreat, 413 — The fugitives at the " Hill of 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 VALLEY.
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 to

CONTENTS. XIX

Mexico, 433— The policy of Cortez, 433— The lagunas, 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.

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 of forces 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.
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 — 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.

CHAPTER XV.
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, " Tlie 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 writ
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.

ture 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 Ribero. 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 picture 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 cannibalism !
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 offering infants to the
mask of Saturn (Moloch), and to the cross of Ashteroth
(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 in 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 reaffirming 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. lt
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 pitched 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 CaBs, 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. * * * *
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 difference, 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 different race. ******
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 tomb

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 shall only say there are no equals io them in Spain."
Alas ! for the remains of Roman and Moorish art, which constitute the pride
of the Lusitanian peninsula. " Woe is me, Alhama I"
The best commentary upon this text is that Cortez himself, not finding ?
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 naite, and the workman, after his day's labor, picked up the
articles as he could, we do not see how.

3C 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 book, 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 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 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.

HISTORY

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
(31)

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 outline 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. Mon-

* In 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 censorships 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
established 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 they
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 contrarj', they gave protec
tion first to the Dutch, and then to the English settlers,

x This territory, lying between the
Hudson and Lake Erie, and embrac
ing the most valuable portion of our
state [the state of New York], consti
tuted the Home Country of the Iro
quois, as distinguished from other
territory upon the north, south, east,
and west, which they held in subjec
tion by conquest, and occupied only
in the season ofthe hunt. At the era
of their highest military supremacy,
about the year 1660, the Iroquois in
their warlike expeditions ranged un
resisted from New England to the
Mississippi, and from the St. Law
rence to the Tennessee.

They held under their dominion
the greater parts of these vast terri
tories by the slender tenure of Indian
conquest. But New York was their
hereditary country, the centre of their
power, and the seat of their council
fires. Here were their villages, their
fields of maize and tobacco, their fish
ing and hunting grounds, and the
burial place of their fathers. The
Long House to which they likened
their political edifice, opened its
eastern door upon the Hudson, while
the western looked out upon Niagara.
— Morgan's League of the Iroquois,
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 (Pueblanos) —
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 wliich 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 ofthe 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 RACES. 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
f 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 been the wish of the Devil to substitute himself in the
place of God by taldng a chosen people, which 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 ihe 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 " weight of historical authority" upon which it rests !
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

ARRIVAL 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 difficulty, but would
the case with the laguna of the Mexi- 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 hobgoblins 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 tho 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 confined to our fashionable circles ; 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." — Layard'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 the forest oak, and shoot
it from their bows ; fables of a buffalo
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." — Morgan's
sand subjects, in which fact was em- League ofthe Iroquois, page 106.

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»)
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 Tom, about a, cubit
Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora 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, vol. 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 a este antigo teatro de sus
Don Fernando de Alva. 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 modern 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,f 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 laguna —

el iglesia de San Francisco de Tez-
coco, donde se conservaron hasta el
mes Febraro de 1629, en que fueron
conducidas y sepultadas con gran
pompa y solemn idad en union de las
de sue nieto D. Pedro que falleci6 en
Mexico en la capilla mayor del con
vento de San Francisco de esta capi
tal. Alli 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.
% In Indian phrase it would be the
Bark House, and the Archon would
be the keeper of the Wampum.

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 Archonship 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, — hke most of his class, claiming imperial
descent on his mother's side, — has fully estabhshed 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-erninent 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 sufficient 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 agriculturist.
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. Amon^ O
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. 51

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,f 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 first in- never find fault with 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 TEZCUZINGO.

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 the most authentic historians, not endorsing them.

DAVID AND URIAH.

host, which he determined to gratify at the sacrifice of the
old man's life. 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 hving 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 rehgious 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 worshippers 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 ofthe corn, &c. — (Morgan's Iro- their religion was doubtless the same.

AEZAHUALCOYOTL A POET.

55

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 BT THE
EMPEROR 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 enyidiada
tus triumphos y victoria;
y con la gloria y Magistad pasada
ootejando pesares
de lagrimas haran crecidus Mares.
En Mexico famoso
Montezuma 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 tears
Shall to an ocean swell.

Brave Montezuma's Indian band
With Mexico the great
And Aezahualcoyotl's * hand
Blessed Colhuacan'sf State

* As this emperor 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.
f 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.

a Culhuacan dichosa
de Aezahualcoyotl rigio la mano
Acatlapan la fuerte
Totoquilhuastli le sali& por suerte
Y ningun olvido temo
de la bien que tu regno dispusiste
estando en el supremo
lugar, que mano recibiste
de aquel Seiior del Mundo
factor de aquestas cosas sin segundo.

Whilst Totoquil his portion drew
In Acatlapan strong and true
But no oblivion can I fear
Of good by thee accomplished here
"Whilst high upon thy throne
That station which to match thy worth
Was given by the Lord of Earth
Maker of good alone."

Such, substantially, is the picture which poets and his
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 por
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 supplanted 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-day 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 d'JEspagne, 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 .f
* 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-
f If the reader will turn to Polsom'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 Alva's 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 Mexical-
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, wliich
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 ALVA 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 Active 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 fac 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
bonateof soda; and one-third common century." — See Transactions, vol. I.,
earth. page 150.
f Prescott, vol. I., page 206. <S 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 ALVA 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,f 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.
f 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 I 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 localhy,
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 laguna, 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 oflice 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 peculiar. 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,
gives an indirect title to the land itself.
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 ihe American Society for ihe Advance
ment of Science, Eleventh Annual Report, 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 antagonistic 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." Ibid. 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 tbe 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 different 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- written.
teen tribes, or family divisions,"

LORD KINGSBOROUGH. 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 wood of the true cross, or other ancient relics, are said not to
reserve any of the precious article for their private use ! If we 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 on 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 the fact 1 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, were 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 Ixtlilxochitl 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 ofthe American 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 tequisquita, 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 bakers or soapboilers, who are said to pay fourteen
reafo— shillings — an aroba 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 within 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 enterprise. 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,
ahd 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^nost of all for the booty they had lost.
" They grieved 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
stono 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 » 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
tho 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 writing 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.
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 depart- (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, waB, by New Spain (Mexico) were mostly
the law of Spain, restricted to men in monks.
priestly orders. — Lord 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 .f 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, ||
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- j! 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 eli-
in Cooperstown village was ho 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- tears 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 con si-
found in those ruins. It is the barb dered.
of a sort of dart such as I had never

80 OBJECT OF CORTEZ' LETTEBS.

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 ;-f 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.
t " 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 $900,000* in virgin gold to an exhausted treasury,
dissipated every doubt, and completely effected his object.
Thus gold, and fabulous pictures of the magnificence 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 exercised 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
Diaz, 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.
f 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-" vise'd." — See
Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page
269.

82 EFFECT OF THE EMPEROR'S FAVOR.

the empire * of Montezuma as equal to that of Germany,
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 Spain 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 coloring
of romance instead of the sober garb of truth, since it was
more likely to attract the public favor. By 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 histojy, 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 water ever ran up hill, that navi
gable canals were ever fed by " back
water," that pyramids (teocalli) could
rest on a foundation of soft earth, that
a canal twelve feet broad by twelve
feet deep, mostly belowthe 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 filibustero 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 ofthe 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| — 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 ihe 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.
f " I assure your majesty that 1 \ " This was a good hint to us in
have counted, from a mosque or tem- 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, and gave
city [Cholula] ." — Cortez' Letters (Fol- out that they had escaped. As soon
som's Translation, N. K, 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, hke 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 controlhng influence in shaping the literature of
the country. The fanatically rehgious 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 religious,^ 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 was 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 religious 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. They 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 of the Inquisition, as a note tothe 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
ha"an. 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,
* Presoott'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 ;* 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 Zumarragaf —
* 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 or
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 rehgious 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
Gentleman. 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
— lst. 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
Vaticanus, 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.-)- Unless some further light than the world at
* Judging of the value of the his- posed. — Hon. 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 0Q *ne tw0 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 caciques 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 authora
take the following items : —

Mexicans leave Aztlan
Mexicans arrive at Huel-
colluacan 
Mexicans arrive at Chi-
comoturic 
Mexicans arrive in tbe
valley of Mexico . .
Mexicans arrive at Cha
pultepec 
Foundation of Mexico

64 3
a
S3 (3
>
F=<^
GG
1064
116S
1141
1229
i
1248
1275
1260
1325
1160
I24S 1326
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 text are expressed in hierogly
phics not according to the Aztec, but
according to the Spanish, or Christian
era ; that the Spanish pretended trans
lation is evidently derived from some
other source than the picture records.
Boturnini introduces a plate into
his collection that has broad Italian
countenances. — See Ibid., passim.
* If the difference of dates between
the several authors, even forthe events
which took place within one hundred
years before the Spanish conquest,
throws some doubts on the authenti
city of the documents from which
they were derived, there can be no
doubt with respect to more ancient
times. It is evident that the accounts
given by the several authors are not
derived from any contemporaneous
historical records, and are purely tra

ditional. Facts may be misunder
stood, or misrepresented by contem
poraneous writers. But men who
keep a diary, priests charged with
the care of recording facts as they
occur, cannot be mistaken as to the
dates of such plain and simple facts
as the death of a king, and the acces
sion of his successor, which take place
in their own town, and under their
eyes. When therefore we find that
no two authors agree in that respect,
and that the difference exceeds fifty,
and occasionally one hundred, years ;
we may safely conclude that within
a few years after the conquest, there
did not exist a single original histori
cal painting, in which events prior to
the fifteeenth century were faithfully
recorded under their proper date. —
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 plausibility
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,
they 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,
while 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. BEEN AL 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. 97

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 heartland 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 ? Wehave 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 aB 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 ofthe 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. IL, p. 478.
MODERN HISTORIANS OF 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 writings 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, tod, ofthe character ofthe 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
Indias, 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 Santibafiey, 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-

BOTURNINI.

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 materials 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 VIEfllN 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 of 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

41 <= J£
EOTUBHINl'S PAC-SIMILE OP AZTEC PICTURE WBITISGS.

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 ofthe 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 Sefior  ,
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 adjnre 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 were f emmes 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 determines 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 SeHor de
C  n, Jos6 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 Religion.

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, &o." — 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 Don
Carlos Bustamente. The letter has written a voluminous history of the mira
culous apparition ofthe 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. Hia
talents have not only immortalized himself — they have added a new oharm
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,1 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.

ROBERTSON. 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 of 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 off 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 own 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-righteousness
of the bodily torturing devotee, and the humble faith of the true believer,
nor perceive that these two 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 ofa 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., OP ROCHESTER, N. Y.
This is the only author, so far as the writer of this note is aware, 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 ! 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 Caslanada'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
ward 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 with 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, where
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 air, 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 i n 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 we 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 Kellott'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, where
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 ULUA.

began to drag ; even the castle, San Juan de Ulua*
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 httle 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, which stands fact, its only present practical advan-
upon the island of 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. Ih

THE WAY 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 ?

atom

VEEA CEUZ 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 malignity 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 affix 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 lesson, 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 lies 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 chmates 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 leagues
THE MAGUEY, PEEPAEED FOE EXTRACTING ,
pulque. in extent. It thrives luxu-

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 pidque.
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 ofthe 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 1817,739 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
bad 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 bad land — a land of
evil — a land for prowlers ; where vultures watch for the
carcasses of the dying, and robbers ply their calling with
little fear of detection. In the midst of all, there lies 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 mountain 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 civilization. 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 PROVINCES. 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 lie the coun
tries whence the Aztecs appear to have derived their
richest spoils, and which probably witnessed their highest
mihtary achievements — Tabasco, Chiapa, Oajaca, Guate
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.

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 Railroad 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 every 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 Peregrino 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 (Pintos), but also
the goitre. . . .
Not stopping to examine the ruins of great antiquity near this place, I rode

128 CUERNAVACA.

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 was
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 voluptuous 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 Religion, 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 apply 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 which 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 bubbling 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 tequis-
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; 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, 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 t>f 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 Rosario, 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 by
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 oflice, 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 tbe 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 ladr
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 lias 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, aud made our way among gangs of workmen, silently pursuing their

SILVER 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 startled 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 Uos 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 OF 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 was 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 regla.

The Falls and Basaltic Columns of Regla. — The Patio, or open yard of
Regla, on which 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 necessary 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 sufficient 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 Peter is estimated to have expended
two and a half millions of dollars, upon the buildings constituting the refining
establishment of Regla, which goes under the general designation of the patio.

SILVER MINES. 143

Why his walls 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 ioria 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 torta, 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 sufficient 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 ioria, 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 patio ; 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 torta, much after the
manner of sowing seed with us. The tester determines when the silver has
all been collected, and amalgamated with the mercury. 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 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 wall 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 sohdity 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.f In their painted statues, their hieroglyphical
tablets and plinths,^ their painted sculpture § and their
paintings. || In the use and application of hieroglyphical
inscriptions,^ they are Egyptian ; and so too in some of
their common emblems.** They are Egyptian likewise
in their pyramids,ff and in the purposes to which their
vaults are applied. Nor are some of these structures
a whit behind their models in dimension.^ Those extant
show the remains of a stone casing like those of their
prototypes.§§ Each people also excavated sepulchres in
the rock.|||| 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 Note (2).
X Notes (3) and (4). § Note (5). || Note (6). fl Note (7).
** Note (8). ft Note (9). XX Note (10). §§ Note (11).
|||| Note (12.) H1I Note (13). *** Note (14).
¦j-ft 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. % 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). f Note (16). J Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. I. p. 19.
2 Note (17). || 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 ofthe Caphtorim-j- 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.J 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. || 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.^f
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). X Note (19). \ Gen. xxxvi. 34.
|| Note (20). fl Gen. xii. 18, 19. ** Gen. xlvii.

PHILISTIA AND PHOENICIA. 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). (S 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 ! -j- 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,** passed, 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). f Note (25). % Gen. x. 14.
§ Calmet, vol. II. p. 342. || Josh. x. 45, 46, 47. fl 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,f and situated without the
Straits of Gibraltar — was 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,-f-|- 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.
|| Ezek. xxvii.
ft Note (31).

t Herod. I. c.
12. XX Note (32).

xliii.

X Note (27).
fl Note (29).
H Note (33).

1 Note (28).
** Note (30).

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) . f Note (35). J Note (36).
\ Hosea x. 10. || Note (37). fl 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 pointing to
the prow, while her left grasps the staff of a Latin cross — :
the magnetic compass of antiquity .-j- 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
Assyrians 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 IL, fifteen centuries before the Christian era.][
The mariner's magnetic cross of ancient times is thus

f COINS FROM CALMET, NO. 6. PLATE CXL. AND PLATE XVI.

* Note (39).
|| Note (42).

t Note (40). I Note (41).
fl See Wilkinson, I., p. 376.

154 THE CROSS AN EMBLEM OF ASHTEROTH.

described by Boulak Kibdjahck, an Arabian author of the
thirteenth century (1242).* "They take a cup of water
[the cup of Apollo, called also that of Hercules] ,f 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 magnes [the
stone of Hercules], after which the needle stands still,
and points north and south."J 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) | Note (44).
X Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., page 144.

TYRE THE PARIS OF ANTIQUITY. 155

Sidonians.' No. 4, ' 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.' "f To show
his contempt for this Phoenician Venus,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 simihtude. 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. t Note (45). X 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
hke 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!|| 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 ? J Note (48).
$ Note (49). || Note (50). fl 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 human 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.J
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 official, 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. % Note (51).
\ For a description of the offering above referred to, see Stephens, vol. IL,
page 352.
|| Stephens's Yucatan, vol. I., page 306.

158 THE PHOENICIAN 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 appears 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). f Yucatan, vol. I., pp. 205, 306. J Jeremiah ti;- 1~
l Note (53). || 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;* 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.-j- 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."!
Was this last intended for the mother ?
* Note (54). f Note (54).
X Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI.,p. 481.

160 STATUE OF ASTARTE RECOGNISED.

INFANT 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 RIVER WALL — ALLEGED PHOENICIAN 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 copy 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).

RECAPITULATION. 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 Mycenae and Argos. The work is certainly equal to
the best specimens of 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). f Note (59). X 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.-}- 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
Ave 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). f Yucatan, vol. I., page 413. J Note (64). § 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, we
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 ofthe word Canaan.
X Note (67). \ Nahum iii. 8.

ANCIENT ROUTES 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). f Note (69). X Note (70). g Note (71).

168 PROBABLE CAUSES OF EXTINCTION.

nean 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 milhons 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 Romans,
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 limits 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.f
Thus what we have been accustomed to consider as pecu
liar to Grecian art, is, after all, but a copy from barbaric
originals. 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). f Note (74). J Note (75).
g Note (76). || Note (77). fl Note (78).

GREEK IGNORANCE 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 rapid, 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
vitce or sapote — lasting as the lintels in the ruined temples
of Yucatan. Our generations correspond to the forest
products. Grafting and inoculation 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, Abyssinians,
* Note (80).

UNWILLING 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 affirm, contrary to received
notions, that they were extremely ancient, and had
existed for thousands of years.J At that time, we had
not sufficiently 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). f Note (82). J 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 Romanists 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.J
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). f Note (85). J 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 barba
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 belief. 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

THB 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 Egypt, 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 differ
ent families of the same genus. In the laws wbich 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 offspring 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 when I have
added, that the trees most prolific of artificial fruit die the earliest, and suffer
most from running sores ; that the vines, cultivated artificially to produce
choice wines, suffer most from the mildew, and that potatoes of the most arti
ficial varieties are the ones that have suffered 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 bear the impress of i-ast
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 wealth, 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. IL, page 434. Stephens.
(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. IL, 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 tbe 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 V.

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. IL, 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 hideous 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 theEgyptians.
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 OE ASTAKTE.
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
calautiea 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; "For
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-brown, 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, by way
of distinction, with yellow. Where
the red is supposed to be seen through
a thin veil, the tints are nearly of the
[our] natural color." — Pharaoh Necho,
Calmet, page 206, vol. IX.
(7) [Hieroglyphical inscriptions. 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) [Common 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
wholefagade." — Central America, vol.
IL, 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 ofthe Spanish king's
engineer, Captain Dupaix.
Their statements of fact should

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

181

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. IL, 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
slope." 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 tlie 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 Copan, 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,
Carres, 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
where 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) [Sepidchres 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. Stephens never having visit
ed Mitla, denies the existence of Ame
rican excavated tombs.

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

185

(13) [Celebration 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." — Bev. Mr. Osborn.
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 nowin 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 Romanist,
describes it as a stone of victory. This

it doubtless is. It is a circular shaft,
of sufficient 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.4is
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 V.

of the arch were not understood by
the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or
Etruscans, 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 ¦-,- 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 ivere 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 chaya, 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) [Doubtful 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 affords 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 by 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],
Tho 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 LVL, vol. 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-
rum) 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 !
We have had to shorten these quo
tations as much as we could without
marring the effect 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 new
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) [Grandchildrenof Mizraim. P.
148.] — " Have not I 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, As. 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 islatids
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 high-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 Archaeolo

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
Kenriok's Ancient Egypt, vol. IL, 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 kings. 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. IL,
pages 25, 36, &c.
(23) [Public works. P. 149.]—
The last correction of Egyptian chro
nology makes an interval of five dy
nasties between the early religious
structures and those magnificent pro
ductions of the beginning of the
eighteenth dynasty.
This long period — -say six hundred
and fifty years — is claimed to have
been an era of barbarism, the reign
of the shepherd kings. In confirma-

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

189

tion of this, an author refers to the
painting in the Theban tomb of the
reign of Thothmes III., where the
persons engaged making brick are
identified as the Israelites, working
under task masters. — Ibid., p. 196.
If we adopt this solution, it at once
establishes a conclusion the very op
posite of tbat author's.
These edifices, which have aston
ished the world, are of no utility
whatever ; and it may well be claimed
that it is the dedication of the accu
mulations of 650 years of successful
and prudent administration to the
uses of a blind superstition. Would
not the wealth of the English have
been appropriated to a like supersti
tious use if the Sepoys had been suc
cessful in the late war in India ?
The burthen of Israel in Egypt was
not slavery in our sense, but a griev
ous tax in the form of personal ser
vice on the king's works — called
among us statute labor. It seems to
have continued for several successive
reigns ; with the departure of Israel
from Egypt, these works seem almost
entirely to have ceased ; Egypt was
exhausted. The subsequent achieve
ments of her kings do not amount to
much, though ostentatiously paraded
on their tombs.
(24) [Strongly fortified. P. 150.]—
It must be recollected that these
spies that were so astonished at the
magnitude of the cities of Canaan
had just come from the great city of
Rameses in Egypt. We must also
recollect that, of the thirty-one cities
captured by Joshua, Ai is called a
little one, though he slew in its cap
ture 12,000 men and women.
(25) [Divine interposition. P. 150.]
— The immense army which Joshua

led had been undergoing a con
tinued discipline, during their long
abode in the wilderness — necessary to
transform a nation of slaves into sol
diers — yet their conquest of Canaan
was expressly declared to be miracu
lous. Phoenicia too, it must be recol
lected, was settled before Egypt. Now
Hebron was built seven years before
Zoan [Sais] (Wilkinson, vol. I., p.
175) in Egypt. — Numbers xiii. 22.
At this time Phoenicia had a larger
population and greater resources than
Egypt itself. There were still the
remnants of the giant race, as the
shortening of human life, and the
dwarfing of human stature, had not
been entirely consummated.
(26) Commerce, io and from India.
P. 150.] — From Rhinocolorum on the
Mediterranean to the Red Sea.
(27) [Gadir, now Cadiz. P. 151.]
— Isaiah opens his denunciation
against Tyre (chap, xxiii.) by calling
on the ships of Tarshish to howl, as
though Tarshish and her commerce
would be the chief sufferers by the
destruction of Tyre. He also (verse
10) calls Tyre the daughter of Tar
shish, a figurative expression, as Tyre
was really the daughter of Sidon, as
stated in verse 12. The most natural
inference, both from this expression
and from the whole scope of the
chapter, is that at that early period
Tarshish was a. more important city
than Tyre, and that the two held the
most intimate relations. The country
of Chittim may be the same as Kittim
mentioned in connection with Tar
shish in Genesis x. 4. If so, then we
have a country associated with the
Isle of Tarshish, supplying the mar
kets of Tyre. The ships of Tarshish
too have clearly the pre-eminence.

190

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

They are to suffer by the destruction
of Tyre, and of its "entering in,"
viz., its harbor, and the destruction
of its merchant princes.
" Tarshish was thy merchant [thy
customer] by reason of the multitude
of all kinds of riches; with silver,
iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy
fairs :" Ezekiel xxvii. 12.
Here again we have a plain intima
tion of the commercial importance of
this European city of Tarshish. Other
European nations brought slaves to
Tyre, Tubal, Javan, and Mashech, but
Tarshish brought the products of
civilized industry.
(28) [The Turdetanians. P. 151.]
— " The country to the eastward of
the Anas, and the Celtic districts
bordering on the river, was termed
Bastica from the river Btetis, the
Gaudalquivir, which flows through
it. It had the name of Turdetania
from its inhabitants. * * * Turde
tania comprehends most of the south
of Spain, reaching from the river
Anas to the mountainous country of
the Oretani or La Mancha. It was,
according to Strabo, said to contain
200 cities, the principal of which were
Gadir or Cadiz, Cordova, and His-
palis. This country was very pro
ductive. The exports of corn, wine,
and oil were so considerable, that the
ships in which they were brought to
Ostia, the port of Rome, were nearly
as numerous as those from Africa.
Among the exports were great quan
tities of gold and silver. * * * The
Turdetani were the most civilized
people of Spain ; and, according to
the same geographer, the river Baatis
was in earlier times named Tartessus.
Tartessus is mentioned by Herodotus
[Lib. 1 (Clio), sec. CLXIIL] as a

place of great power and opulence
at the period of the earliest voyages
of the Phocaeans into the Western
Mediterranean. " He also informs us that the Turde
tani (people of Tartessus) were the
most learned people in Spain. They
were acquainted with the use of
letters, and preserved among them
records of antiquity and poems, and
laws composed in metre, handed down
from a period of 6000 years. — Strabo,
vol. III., page 193. — Prichard's Phy
sical History of Mankind, London,
1841, vol. III., page 37.
" Tartessus stood between the two
branches of the river Bsetica, which
it formed in its passage through the
Lake Lybistinus, and most commodi
ous it was in consequence for the
purposes of navigation and trade.
This people (the Turdetani) gave
their name not only to the island and
river on which their city was, but to
the whole country which was called
Tartessus. Burkhardt informs us that
Cadiz and Cavia were anciently called
Tartessus, and thinks that the former
was built by the Tarshish of Scrip
ture, immediately after the dispersion,
and the two latter long after by the
Phoenicians." — Note to Lib. 1 (Clio),
sec. CLXIIL, Herodotus: Beloe's
edition. This idea places Andalusia in a
new and important relation to anti
quity, a flourishing and civilized peo
ple long before the historic period, or
according to the poetical expression,
before antiquity had a beginning. It
is said that their allies, the Phoeni
cians, claim to have invented letters.
May they not have received them, as
they did the commodities of their com
merce, from Tartessus ? from whence

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

191

too they derived the adoration of Her
cules. We have already seen, that
in the times of its greatest prosperity
Tyre was subordinate to this once
famous focus of ocean commerce.
Here was deposited in the temple of
Hercules, as we shall presently see,
that mysterious stone which the Phoe
nician mariners brought on board,
with religious ceremony, to guide
their navigation after they had passed
out into the ocean.
(29) [Tin from England. P. 151.]
¦ — Strabo however holds that tin was
found by the Turdetanians in the
mountain country inhabited by bar
barians above Lusitania. — Strabo,
Lib. III., p. 192.
(30) [ The process of hardening brass
had been lost. P. 151.] — The reader
will excuse the author from claiming
any practical knowledge of the mys
teries of literature. In every instance
where translators of Homer use the
word steel or cold steel, the original
word is brass — if the author's recollec
tions of his early lessons are correct.
(31) [The times of tlie Pharaohs.
P. 151.] — Caesar thus describes the
ocean ships of the Veneti — a nation of
the west of Gaul. It will be seen that
they were the model of the Dutch
ships of the present day. " The keels
were somewhat flatter than those of
our ships, whereby they could more
easily encounter the shallows and the
ebbing of the tide. The prows were
raised very high, and, in like manner,
the sterns were adapted to the force
of the waves and storms. The ships
were built wholly of oak, and designed
to endure any force and violence what
ever. The benches, which were made
of planks a foot in breadth, were
fastened by iron spikes of the thick

ness of a man's thumb. The anchors
were secured fast by iron chains in
stead of cables, and for sails they
used skins and thin dressed leather.
* * * Although turrets were built
[on the Roman decks], yet the height
ofthe sterns ofthe barbarous [foreign]
ships exceeded these, so that weapons
could not be cast up from our lower po
sition with sufficient effect." — Cesar,
III., chap. xhi.
This is about the last ever heard of
the ocean going ships of antiquity.
The Veneti were sold into slavery at
Rome, and Roman galleys took the
place of the barbarian ships.
The reader cannot fail to have
noticed how exactly these ships
correspond in model to the Chinese
junks— superior to them indeed in
size and strength, but not in model.
(32) [ Without the aid of oars. P.
151.] — '' Their name is written Shaire-
taan, with an addition which shows
them to have been a maritime people.
* * * * it is the only repre
sentation of a naval battle remain
ing among the Egyptian monuments.
The Egyptian vessels have both oars
and sails ; those of the enemy sails
only, and they differ in their build,
&c." — Kenrick, vol. II. , page 278.
(33) [Basques or peopk of Biscay.
P. 151.J— " These facts lead us to the
inference, that Celtic tribes once occu
pied a great part, namely, the western
half of the peninsula, before the
Euskaldunes [Turdetani] gained pos
session of it, and while the latter
were the inhabitants of Bxtiea, Tur-
detania, and the other eastern and
southern provinces, where the Celts
appear never to have had the least
footing." — Prichasd, vol. III., page
47.

192

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

"That the Euskarian is identical
with the language of the ancient
Iberi, or its genuine descendant [the
Basque], and that the Euskaldunes
are the offspring of the aborigines
of the Spanish peninsula ; are points
which M. [W.] de Humboldt has un
dertaken in his work to establish." —
Ibid., page 26.
" In this we recognise," says Hum
boldt, " a confirmation of an opinion
deduced from other grounds, viz.,
that the Iberians belong to the very
earliest stock of European nations.
Their history manifestly reaches back
beyond the periods of languages which
we regard as ancient, namely, those
of the Greeks and Romans, and if we
seek a point of comparison, can only
be placed on a line with the pre-
hellenic idiom of the old Pelasgi."—
Uniersuchungen, page 177.
" It had been supposed by English
writers, since the time of Edward
Shuyd, that the Biscayan dialects are
a remote branch of the Celtic lan
guage. This opinion, which had no
foundation but conjecture, has long
ago been refuted and entirely aban
doned. It is well known that in its
whole formation the Euskarian differs
entirely from the Celtic." — Prichabd,
vol. III., p. 22.
" The Euskaldunes, or ancient Ibe
rians, are the aborigines of Western
Europe ; their language is the Euska
rian. They are supposed to have
inhabited Spain, Gaul, and Italy." —
Ibid., page 17.
" It is well known that several
parts of Spain were inhabited by
Celtic tribes, and that through a
great portion of the interior of the
peninsula, Celtic people had become
blended with Iberians, forming the

Celt-Iberian nations, who were the
most considerable and powerful clans
in Spain." — Ibid., page 29.
The foregoing extracts will fully
explain the apparent anomaly, viz.,
that of the ancient emigration from
Spain to Ireland and Britain being
Celts, and not Turdetani ; that is,
the emigration naturally took place
from the northern part of Spain, then
occupied by that mixed population
called Celt-Iberians. In this migra
tion the Celtic element predominated,
and rooted out the Basque element, or
at least language, in those ancient
colonies. If the Euskalde element has since
rooted out the Celtic element in the
Basque provinces, it may be ac
counted for by this emigration, and
by the Euskaldunes being driven out
of the south of Spain by the ingress
of foreign races, as will be seen when
we come to the next chapter.
(34) [Enjoyment of the fueros of the
provinces. P. 152.] — " To this day
the Irish and Scotch are entitled, on
setting foot in Biscay, to every privi
lege and immunity of the natives —
they have the rank of nobles, can be
elected to any magistracy, and have
the right of holding land. From these
privileges Spaniards are excluded." —
Pillars of Herades, vol. II. , page 201.
It will be recollected that Urquhart,
the author of " Pillars of Hercules,"
was himself a Celt, of the Scottish
branch of that race. As he speaks of
his own personal knowledge, we must
credit him, the commissioner in those
parts of Her Majesty's government,
though his conclusions are at variance
with Prichard.
(35) [The Indian system of caste. P.
152.] — The king, the priests, and war-

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

193

riors were the proprietors of the soil.
Those who had charge of cattle con
stituted a distinct class. The swine
herds formed another — a Pariah caste
—to whom alone of all the Egyptians
access to the temples was denied, and
who could ODly intermarry among
themselves. — Kenrick, vol. IL, page
36. (36) [Calpe and Abyla. P. 152.]
— " To call Calpe [Gibraltar] and
Abyla the Pillars of Hercules, was
a license, and might be a poetic
one; but to assume these mountains
to be so, geographically, was to
withdraw the license by destroying
the poetry. This solecism modern
philosophy has adopted." — Pillars of
Hercules, vol. II. (Harper's Ed.), page
22. Our old chronicler explains fully
this apparent solecism — that there
were both pillars in the temple and
also upon those lofty hills.
" Here stood the Altars of Hercules.
It was to visit this spot that I had
Btarted from Cadiz. * * * An antique
bridge joins the isla (island) to the
mainland ; it stands about half way
between the bay and the sea. It was
rather a causeway, with arches, than
a bridge, and was said to be Phoeni
cian." — Ibid. vol. I., page 92.
" In this temple two Hercules are
worshipped, without having statues
erected to them. The Egyptian Her
cules has two bronze altars, without
inscriptions ; the Theban (Greek) but
one. Here we see engraved the Hydra
and Diomede's mares, and the twelve
labors of Hercules, together with the
golden olive of Pygmalion, wrought
with exquisite skill, and placed here
no less on account of the beauty of its
branches, than on that of its fruit, of
emeralds, which appeared as if real.
Besides, the golden belt of Telamonian
13

Teucer was shown to us. * * * The
pillars in the temple were composed
of gold and silver ; and so nicely
blended were the metals, as to form
but one colot . They were more than
a cubit high, of a quadrangular form,
like anvils, whose capitals were in
scribed with characters neither Egyp
tian nor Indian, nor such as could be
deciphered. These pillars are the
chains which bind together the earth
and sea. The inscriptions on them
were executed by Hercules, in the
house of Parcaa, to prevent discord
arising among the elements, and that
friendship being interrupted which
they have for each other." — Philos-
tratus in Apollonius, vol. 5.
"Among the various articles which
enrich and adorn it, [the temple of
Hercules, at Tyre] I saw two pil
lars ; the one was of the purest gold,
the other of emerald; [Phoenician
stained glass?] which, in the night,
diffused an extraordinary splendor.
This temple, as they [the priests]
affirmed, had been standing ever since
the first building of the city, a period
of 2300 years." — Herodotus, Book II. ,
XLIV. Egypt has certainly communicated
to Greece the names of almost all the
gods : that they are of barbaric [for
eign] origin I am convinced by my dif
ferent researches. — Ibid. L.
(37) [Emblem of fruit fulness. P.
152.] — It is hardly worth while to
make more quotations of authority in
relation to this common emblem of
antiquity ; we have not the space.
Plate CXXXV. vol. 5 of Calmet. Coin
No. 8, is a serpent around a cornuco
pia. No. 10 is a very customary repre
sentation to Health and Esculapius.
It results from the whole that the ser
pent denotes Agalho-daimon, or good

194

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

genius of the worshipper. — Calmet,
vol. III., page 760.
(38) [Saint Patrick caused to be ef
faced. P. 152.] — The author is com
pelled to refer to an anonymous autho
rity for this statement ; as it is an
unimportant point, he has not thought
it worthy the labour of tracing it to a
responsible source.
(39) [Personifies the moon. P. 153.]
— " The Egyptians do not pay reli
gious ceremonies to heroes," says Hero
dotus: Ibid. Book II, chap. L. But
this statementis not strictly true. They
did not worship, — they only adored,
heroes. See tbe representations on
the tombs of Medenet-Aboo.
(40) [Hercules-Apollo. P. 153.]—
The attempt to establish Samson as
the Phoenician Hercules, (see trans
lator Beloe, note to Book VIII., chap.
LXVIL, Herodotus) is not without
plausibility. But there is another
satisfactory way of accounting for it :
viz., that they engrafted into the char
acter of Hercules the story of Sam
son, and in his worship followed the
Hebrew, which was substantially the
Egyptian ritual, without the idolatry,
or, the adoration of Hercules may have
been older than idolatry.
(41) [A canonized king. P. 153.]
— " The Egyptians are commonly said
to have nothing answering to the
Greek hero-worship. [See previous
note.] But they paid religious honors
to eminent persons after their decease,
not unlike Greek hero worship. Thoth-
nios III., on the tablet of Karnak, pre
sents offerings to his predecessor: so
does Rameses." — Kenrick, vol. I.,
page 301.
In the present confused notions of
Egpytian chronology there is a diffi
culty in identifying any one of the
Egyptian kings, who appears unon

the lists, as a patron of commerce,
and one who had distinguished him
self by exploits beyond sea. As Her
cules most probably was one of the
Hyksos, or shepherds, one that ap
proaches nearest to the required cha
racter is Rameses IV., who celebrates
a victory at sea on . his tomb, and
Hercules would then be Rameses V.
" On the sarcophagus of Rameses
V. the 24 hours are represented, show
ing the antiquity of this division. Each
has a star placed above it, and a figure
12, male, representing the day, have
their faces turned towards the god
Horus (from whence comes the word
hour,) the representative of the sun,
the 12 female towards a crocodile, the
symbol of darkness. In a great astro
nomical picture, from the tombs of
Bab-el-Melook, a variety of circum
stances connected with the rising and
setting of the stars are evidently indi
cated." — Kenrick, vol. IL, page 383.
"The Tyrians of Phoenicia, who had
now learned the way to Spain, came
with their king, Eurythree, and good
store of ships, who gave them to under
stand that he had been commanded
by the Oracle to come and build a
temple to Hercules Libique, in the
island of Tartissa, that is Calis ; [Ca
diz ?] thoy were not only received, 1 ut
Eurythree was chosen king of that
part of Spain: who built a stately
temple in the island to Hercules ;
changing the name thereof, and caus
ing it to be called Eurythree, or else
renewed that name which it might
have had from the sister of Orus [Ra
meses] above-mentioned, or of the
Erythenes of the east, [Gauls or Celts,
perhaps,] who followed Hercules Orus,
which had dwelt there." The same
author says, that a king of Egypt,
whom he calls Orus Denis, came with

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

195

an army of Egyptians, Africans, Syri
ans, and Phoenicians, and in a battle
by land and sea, routed the party of
Gerion, and that this Orus was the
father to Hercules the Great. In the
land and sea fight, represented on his
tomb, the same people are fighting on
both sides. — Translation by Ed. Grim-
shaw from the French of Louis de
Mayenne Turgut, London, 1612,
page 8. See next chapter.
The purport of all these authorities,
approaching the subject from different
positions, is to fix the connection of
Hercules with the division of time, and
the leadership of the Gauls, [Celts] —
mercenaries in Egypt, of the East,
with an army of Egyptians.
The excellent divisions of time,
which we have borrowed of the an
cient Egyptians, may have had this
origin. (42) [Queen of Heaven. P. 153.]
— "One of the finest specimens of
Assyrian sculpture brought to Eng
land, represents an early Nimrod
king, in high relief, carved on a solid
block of limestone. Round his neck
are hung the four sacred signs : the
crescent, the star or sun, the trident,
and the cross." — Layard's Nineveh
and Babylon, page 306.
(43) [Thirteenth century (1242). P.
154.] — The date of this publication is
important. It will be seen that it is
just sixty years earlier than the pre
tended discovery of this important
instrument by Flavio Gioja. Dr.
Robertson, who is a good authority
on the subject of all old wives, fables,
that have crawled into our school
books as histories, thus enlightens
us : —
" Flavio Gioja, a citizen of Amalfi,
a town of considerable trade in the
kingdom of Naples, was the author

of this great discovery about the year
1302." — History of America, Book I.,
p. 32. Whereupon this learned school
master waxes indignant at the neglect
with which this great discoverer was
treated by the world ! A discoverer
who did not discover anything. That
is to say, the people of Amalfi being
engaged in commerce with the Sara
cens, borrowed from them the use of
the compass, as we have borrowed
from them our architecture and civili
zation, and, in our profound ignorance,
credited them to an impositor, as a
new discovery, lest good Catholics
should be shocked by using an Arab
invention. (44) [They take a cup of water. P.
154.] — "I have shown in the method
first practised by the Arabs the instru
ment to which the otherwise meaning
less myths of Greece refer. I have iden
tified the stone of Hercules, the cup
of Apollo, the arrow of Abaris. That
the stone of Hercules was the mag
net, no one contests. The polarity of
the needle, and the art of manufac
turing gems, did not die with them
[the Phoenicians]." — Pillars, vol. I.,
page 162. " The outer Ocean, that in
which the compass was necessary, is
called El Bahar El Bossul, the vio
lent (Boussale is the present name
for the compass), as distinguished for
El Bahar El Muit."— El Edressi's
Geography of Spain.
" Amalfi, the earliest of European
commercial states, arose under the
Greeks and Saracens. To the latter it
owed the lead it took in instruction
and navigation. Centuries and gene
rations before Flavio Gioja the needle
was known at Amalfi." * * The
perusal of the catalogue of the Escu-
rial suggested to M. Villemain the
remark, that most of the modern dis-

19C

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

coveries of wliich the date and the
name of the inventor are set down as
certain, were no more than inventions
of the Arabs which he had appro
priated." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. I.,
page 139.
Without extending our quotations
it is sufficient to say that the Eastern
Arabs, the agents and correspondents
of the Phoenicians on the Red and
Indian Seas, had no motive to conceal
the use of the needle, or to throw
around it religious rites. It was to
conceal the extent of their commerce
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar that
made this mystery necessary about
the cup, and stone, and arrow.
Vasco de Gama, on his arrival in
the Indian seas, 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
lxv. 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 01' 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) [Phoenician Venus. 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
authors 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 diviDe 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 bo a snare
unto you." Judges ii. 4.
(48) [All 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.

SIDOXIAS GODDESS AXD 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 patroness 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 ofthe 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 may 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 referred to
in Captain Dupaix' reconnoissances,
but in the work 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 ils 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 CROSS. P. 159.
(54) Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., p.
379 : " On the opposite side ofthe 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) [Bishop of Chiapa. P. 162.]
— Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega,
Bishop of Chiapa, is the new MS.
burner I
The imposture that hardly rises to
the dignity of a humbug, occupies a
conspicuous place in the volume of
Rivero, 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 Rivero.
" Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega,
Bishop of Chiapa, possessed, as he
himself slates, 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,
tlie MS. was to be permanently depo
sited iu a dark house or cavern in the
province of Soconusco, and there con-

NOTES TO CHAPTER V.

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 hande of Don Ramon de
Ordonez y Agular, 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 of the Plwenicians.
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 Mal and Cardt, the "Prince ofthe
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 swords, 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 ground 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 those of copper. P.
165 .] — " Availing my self 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 in
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 we 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 OP 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. IL, 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 Kingsboroogh, 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?"
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, were
dragged by muscular power. — See the
representation in Layard'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 fhe 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 [ih 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 tbey 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, &o." — Layard, page 162.
" In 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 offered for sale in the bazaars
of Cairo, and are used to hold the
koll or powder for staining the eyes
of ladies." — Ibid., 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 ofthe
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 the 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 differentways.
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
[Ammon, 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. IL,
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 in 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, aud 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 without
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.
(72) [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

osity 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 tbe 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 their 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."— /Md., 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 Hercules.
(73) [Were borrowed also. P.
170.] — " The arts passed from Assy
ria to the sister nations, and to Ionia.
There is much in tbe 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.

!«VV"1

"WW

I-/WA*

rwiwi

|
v  __. „
IONIC COLUMN POUND 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.
mtmmntmimm  TWwitwiiftfiwinTinir
(74) DORIC COLUMNS IN YUCATAN.
(75) [Ionic in the ruins of 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 ofthe Tigris."— Ibid., 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 they might
have been traced to more remote an
tiquity : neither will I affirm 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 Tyrian 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 V.

207

(78) [Fabled 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 which 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.
173.1 — 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
so 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 by tho 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 different and dis
tinct races of men, animals, or even
plants." — Mexico and its Religion,
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, ahd
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 more
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 V.

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,
where 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) [Of 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 136.

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 Spainj 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
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.
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 array, 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
peninsula, 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, by Lewis
Mayerne Torqvet. 1583. Translated
into English, and continued Unto these
times, by 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 determining.

" 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." — Kenrick, vol.
IL, p. 253.
" Armais of the ancient authors,
is the Osirei I. of the monuments,
1385 e. c." — Wilkinson, vol. I., page
48. London. 1837.
Captain Head speaks of Osiris as
tbe 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 affairs." — 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 tho same pur
pose, subduing the nations, not by

212 BEGINNING OF THE "HISTORIE OF SPAINE.1

to their relief with a mixed army of Egyptians, Syrians
[Phoenicians], and Africans, and in battell 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, IL, 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
some of 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 JUL 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
diguity to his god when conversing
with Herodotus ? 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 Rameses 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

*" A naval 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.
Kenrick, vol. IL, page 279.

214 HERCULKS 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 chapter. 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 offered 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
affairs, and planted two pillars, the one in Europe and
the other in Affrick, and two others in the island still

* According to Lepsius, 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, he took his course towards
Italie," 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.,f 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.
f 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 ofthe 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-two 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. a], 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 V. 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 Osiris,| 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." — Lord 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 weigher.

X "The centre is occupied by a
large scale beam, which Anubis has
erected ; in the one scale is a vase,
Bhaped 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
bimilar to legends ofthe 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.
f 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. IL, 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 offerings 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 Karnak, 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 lali-
ter omni nalioni.' " — 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 searabsei,
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
ofthe 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 Rameses V.,j-
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 exjnoits, 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 Iler- consequences of two such noble cha-
cules. racters coming in contact.

NEPTUNE. 221

received the name of Hesperides. " But Atlas, envious
of his brother's greatness, came with an army and dis
possessed him of the kingdom, forcing him to flee to
Italie." 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 Italie
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 was worshipped as a divinity. where he has been long known and
f This would seem to imply that honored." — Herodotus, IL, sec. 1.
Horus, 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

eeed." Palatius being dead, " the Tyrians 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 Calis
[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 Avould hardly be popular with the imaginative and
unscrupulous Greeks. Neither would his peculiar adora
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.
* Grimshaw, p. 8 (M.) ¦)¦ Ed. Grimshaw, 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,
iu 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 Apollonius 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 Italie which they call the Great Greece
and of Tarentum, bred up at Beoce,-j- 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 iErete, 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 ihule, 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, estabhshed 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 alread}-
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.-j- 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. " Iler-
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 tbat 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 MINES.

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 every 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 Cahfornia 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, <5 188, X 521. Serapion, sons of Serapion, Tyrians,
X " Abdassar and Asseremor, sons to Hercules Archegetes.
of Asseremor, son of Abdassar, per- g " 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.4; 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 own 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 [fiscal] 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 fail-
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
Sonora* 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. The}'- 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 tho
door of his house to the great hall
[sala] for the bishop to walk upon."
— Ward, vol. IL, page 578.
" In the case of the famous mine
of the priest Flores at Cuatorce, which
ho blasphemously named ' tho 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 crudo 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 tbe crest of an
immense lode laid bare by the force
of tho 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 [raras], 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 wliich it is disseminated." —
Ward, vol. IL, 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 pyrates 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 [Acerbas] 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. IL,
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 ofthe 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 was about one

* "The sister of the king [Pyg- womanlydevolion 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." — Jones's Ancient Am., page
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 difficulty 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 INVITED TO SPAIN. 231

hundred and thirty-five years before the founding of
Rome* 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
Gaditanians " 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 jEneas
reader must of course understand a contemporary of Dido.
that Virgil probably indulges in a

232 REASONS 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 affairs.
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
unto the communion shall say after the priest the words
* " 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 IP'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.
By 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 Spain, 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 effect it-!
* Grimshaw, page 143 (sec. F.) draw all his adherents with him —
f "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 Mussulmen. There ex-
warlike? The Goths were engaged isted these links between the two
in 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 J " 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 civilization
— 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,! 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 French
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 ihe 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.
f We should have said romances,
if the expression would not be a
contradiction : for while the name is
clearly of Provengal origin, the thing
itself is as clearly Moorish.
X The most surprising feature of
Europe of the middle ages, is the
architectural elegance ofthe 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,-)- or Saxon! 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.
IL, 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. IL, 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. IL, 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. IL, 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
political 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 Constantine an
uninterrupted connection ofthe 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 tho catalogue
of the Escurial, suggested to M.
Villomain, 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}7
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, whence 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. IL, page 152.
acquainted with the luxuries and de-

238 TIME AND PLACE OF MAHOMET'S BIRTH.

empire, between them there necessaril}- 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,f according to received authorities. To
this negative doctrine, Avhen 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, Avho
placed the chance of attaining to the seventh Heaven in
the inviolability with which he kept his engagements,
the exactness with which he administered justice, and the
mercy he showed to the defenceless.!

* My 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 new 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 established 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 pubhcly, 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 Abu
serve God in. Beer, the first caliph, lo Sofian, on his
"As for those members of the syna- setting out to invade Syria. — 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 .f
* " 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
[tlie Rock 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 u, 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, defying 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], who, 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
which 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 ; whereas there
in the former part of this Chapter. was a total dissimilarity.
t 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. 24c

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.-j- 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,
j "Here was exposed the imbe- equally subjects of the law." — Pillars,
cility of the supposition that Islam- vol. I., page 96.

244 VIEWS 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
parties 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
abundaut 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 " Christians" 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 reliquesf of the Roman saints.
As 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 J 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,"-}- 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."! 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 prayers to Alia, and
the Ulemas exhorted them to faithfulness ; then, with the
war-cry Alla-acbar, 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 CXLL, vol. 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. IL, 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 xi. 4, 20.

TREASON OF THE ARCHBISHOP OPAS. 247

and without material loss, and in return they 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 haye
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 archbishop 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 ARABS. 249

neither is there any parallel to its results. As the defeat
was total, 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.-j- 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 tbe
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 f 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 (albuheras) 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 huerta of Va
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, ofthe Sor-
bonne. Paris. Vol. VI., pages 138
to 141.
f 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 sustained 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 wastes Avere then covered by the
practical apphcation 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
tnrned 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.

254

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.f
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 cholbah was received for
him from nineteen thousand pulpits."
— St. Hilaire, vol. VI., pages 148-
149. f I can find no statistics of this
commevce, 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." — Ibid., page 181.

PROGRESS OF LEARNING.

255

pre-eminence in Mahometan universities. * Grecian
authors, translated into Arabic,f were familiar studies.
Rhyme was first introduced by them into the highest
order of poetry,! 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 || and the arts show, too, that the
practical, as well as the speculative, also attracted atten
tion. The encyclopaedist 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. IL, 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 in
their own country and language, have
been preserved in Arabic. From that
time Arabia became the chief seat of
learning ; and we find mentioned by
Abulpharagius, Pocoeke, D'Herbelot,
and Hottinger, of learned men and
books without number." — Ibid., vol.
IL, page 185.
X "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.
|| " 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.
If " 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, wdiile 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. Ofthe Utility and Advantages
of Science — 20 books.
" 2. Of Innocence and Criminality
— 2 books.
"3. Of Health and Remedies— 18
books. " 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. Encyclopaedia — 20 volumes."
Ibid., vol. IL, page 688.
f 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 bis floors daily 1
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 Gebra, 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 origin of these inventions.

* " Physical and mathematical % " 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 bythe Spanish lines
by them was communicated to the of St. Rock, and its own batteries corn-
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

258

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 .f

* 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 the new 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.
f 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 rook 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 HISTORIES 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 affairs for the restoration of his
what race belonged, at that date, the health ! The fiendish method of pun-
chcmists, 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 baueheries 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 wliich
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,f
* "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 brought 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-
aud sublimation." — Britannica, vol. ons, Nimes, and Paris have never
IL, 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 property
of Christendom.f
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. VI., 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.
X 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. \ Though I had been at Algeciras
on several occasions, I now for the
first time visited the wails. * * *
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 spite of
the Romish traditions incorporated with our primary
text-books as facts of history. But hght 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
history 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 personal, 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 were urns, but on closer carried away- — indeed he offered me
inspection they proved to be shot, one still larger from the store of the
and I found one twenty inches in artillery ground. — Pillars of Hercules,
diameter, and weighing about seven vol. I., page 49.

AN APOLOGY. 26

E>

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
sirnul 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 up 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. Qap. 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 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.
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 ofthe 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, NAVARRE.

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 ;-j- 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 -j- " 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 embassado 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 bo governed
—Grimshaw, page 169 (C). by tho laws of the kings of the Goths,
* "At that time such as had ro- with other privileges. By this means
tired, and preserved themselves in the the Moors retained an infinite num-
Pyronees, 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 Castilians and their con
federates, in population and in arms, little 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
Cel<>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,
Ibid., 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. X "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
f " 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 brilliant 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 disastrousf 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 disappoaranco of
in another often referred to, I havo divers families of mankind, as well
so frequently pointed out tho perni- as of races of animals and plants.
cious effects of the intermixture of f This subject has boon fully dis
ropugnant races, that it will not bo cussed in a note to tho 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 hfe, 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 supplied. 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 wanting-)- — 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 new
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 !f Her designs on Portugal
* Neither party in Spain placed late ambassador at Constantinople,
any confidence in Jews and Moslems, the most learned archgeologist 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 was
It is the opinion of Mr. Marsh, our newly born, 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 Avas 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 censorship, 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." — Grimshaw, 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
coffers 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 coffers
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 full 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. 273

Nor must we forget a just tribute of praise to Alphonso
Quintanello* who first brought Columbus 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 Quintanello' s 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 rela
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 Navarre was even in a worse
state of demoralization. The Portuguese hostilities were
scarcely ended,f when the war 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
relieve the embarrassments of Isabella, for the neio Christ
ians 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 b}- 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
without 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 hfe, 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. Eyes, 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 best, 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 islanddrs 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 deprived 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 Albigenses] ; 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." — Li.orente (abridged), page
13.

EFFECT OF SLAVERY 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 abohtionist, 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 Nombre-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 archaeology; as proof that struc
tures exhibiting the highest grade of art were the work
of a race hardly 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 bloody hand* and the further re
presentation of priests in the act of offering infants to the
cross and to the mask of Saturn,f 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 mattates* 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 temples, we felt over
joyed at the discovery of the country ."f 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 la,rge number. They
appear all of one type, to have had an allegorical charac
ter,! and to be very ancient. With much hesitation we
* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 4. J The author first came in con-
f 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 civilized 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, seeming 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 $3,000,000. 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 Ashteroth and her emblem,'] 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 Avent
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 Spanish 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 no diffi- blood," most probably meant nothing
eulty 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 party continued coasting westwardly as far as
Potonchan, or Bahia 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 nE la Mala Pelea. —
The mouth of this river forms part of
the bay, which Hernandez de Cor
dova and his companions called, with
much propriety, de la Mala Pelea,
where 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.

APOLOGY 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 Ibid., 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, who 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. Likethe volatile riches of a gold-quartz vein, whose
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 lst
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
httle 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.

chaplain, 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 facades 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 Diazf tell us, the Indians at
the river Tobasco, " brought pans filled with red-hot
* Stephens's Yucatan, vol. IL, 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 base 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 !{ He states, further, that " we pene-

* Lookhart's Bernal Diaz, vol. I., J Were not these the Phoenician
page 32. " houses of the high-places ?"
-j- Stephens's Yucatan, 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 beheve 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 Romish 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 in
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- suffered 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 with 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, distica, torn. III., No. 5, page 243.

ANTIQUE TEMPLES. 297

from the 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
civihzed men, who made it the seat of their empire ages
before the beginning of our profane history. These ruins
* Bernal Diaz, vol. 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 the 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. IL, page
211), " he found an artificial bot
tom of large, flat stones. These were
laid upon each other in this form,

r-1

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 by

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, f 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 sufficient 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_ sufficient 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 grualva'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 Uloa,
now occupied by the famous fortress that defends the city
of Vera 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.f
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-
f 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 GEOGKAFIA Y ESTADISTIOA.
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.
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 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 Medellin, 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 \-\ Two years 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." ganrzation 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
f 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

o

06 CORTEZ' 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
persou 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 morality had an existence,
and long before it made itself felt in Romish countries.
Europe had j ust been devastated by a pestilence, propa-

* " The story of his early life now t 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. Thero
who rises to great eminence, and who was such irregularity in this respect,
was connected with some ambiguous that tho safest way is to consider
transactions." — Prescott. That is thom 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 ;* 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 country, 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-! 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,"
ke.—Ibid., 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

o

OS 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 Velasquez. 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 boon 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, tho peace of families was
of this intimation, such numbers broken, and the whole city rang with
flocked to the Triana that the Inqui- scandal." — Montants, 184-188.
sitors were forced to prolong the pe- « Uomora, Chron., chap. 4.

CORTEZ SAILS FROM TIIE 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 ofthe 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.-j- 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-
how such statements could possibly ning through Dupaix' notes, combat-
pass uncontradicted. ting a disbelief in ancient Aztec civili-
There are two 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 " H's 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 charnc-
auto defe. ter." — Prescott's Charles V., vol.
The intelligent people of Spain and III., p, 307.
Mexico fully understood the character
of their published books.

ROBERTSON AS AN HISTORIAN.

311

ment, 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,-}- or the prosper
ous villages of New England, and the squalid abodes of
Lower Canada.! Having sacrificed 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.
t 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 Cochanawagah. 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 cf
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

ROBERTSON 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 1 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 bis 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 effigy, 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 lst 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 popularity he
fitted out a powerful armada 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. Qualificatory. Inquisitors.* and Royal
Councillors. We pointed out these difficulties 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 exceedin<:lv minute iu

church, or show fhe royal approval of this nation. . . . According to
of the Inquisition. fhe boils which created the hi.lv office,
The monk, S tra da, must have eon- the bishops are joint judges in the
suited them in the composition of his affairs which depend on that tribunal.
history ofthe L.w Country Wars. See Why then have these natural judges
pages 3 and 6 ( Stapleton 's Transla- of all discussions whieh niav arise on
tion. Loudon, 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 III.) Procurators to the
X. is almost literally taken from Council of Castile.
Strada. He hoped it was true, as it "In the year 155*. 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." — Llorexte
sition, is one cause of the ignorance (abridgment), Secretary to iAe Inqui-
wbich prevails over the greatest part sit ion, pa ire 44.

314 BERNAL 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
written 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-! 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 ; J 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 bravo tions the extensive buildings we were
officers 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 wos 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 he had been 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 OVERTURNED. 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
visited 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. IL, 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.-}- Diaz
says it bore an image of the Virgin ;! 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 blessing 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. J Diaz, vol. I., page 51.
t Folsom's Cortez, page 54. § Ibid., 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 shoes! 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.-]- We have taken the liberty of deducting a
cipher from the twelve thousand who Bernal Diaz says
were 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 ofthe Spaniards.§ These figures
* Diaz, vol. I., page 70. X 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,f 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.

ordinarily 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 different
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 ofthe
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
Personates, that is to say, masked —
who said they had seene 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 rehgion 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 Virgin's
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 INTRUSTED TO INDIANS.

Don Martin Cortez. Afterwards Cortez married her to
Juan Javamillo of Orozaba. This unfortunate woman
enjoyed the distinguished honor 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 years 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 pecuhar dominion of the
Virgin. As Cortez coasted along, in the track of Grijalva,
he passed the mouths ofthe 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 pecuhar 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; 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 Carrero
exclaimed :
" Cata Francia, Montesinos!
Cata Paris, la ciudad i
Cata las aguas de Duero,
Do van a dar en la mar 1" *
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,
ders these lines : Carries Us watorB t0 the ooean !"
"Montesinos cost a glanoe t Diaz, vol. I., page 83.
On your lands, the soil of France;

326 DONA MARINA.

took the name of Vera 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 adapt
ing her to the last oflice. 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 cuted 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 ofa 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 hi 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 wliich 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
qualities which ever confer on their possessor despotic
(328)

Montezuma's administration and policy. 329

sway. In him they were well expressed by the combined
oflice 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,f 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 Brandt! anc^ ¦^,ec^ 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, however, was in the
chief, as well as the war chief, is an habit of attending councils in which
office conferred for merit. Brandt was orator.
f 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 lengthy ; his
formerly. speeches oftentimes extending to a
X The author 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 J I havo 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 tho expectod 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 historio
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. 331

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

OO u

INDIAN PRESENTS.

CORTEZ S VOYAGE TO VERA CKUZ.

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 something 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,! 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 be
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 things sacred.
which outward ceremonials alone con- X 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."! To justify an open violation ofthe law, Cortez
accused the Indians of rebellion and cannibalism. Diaz,
* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 94. order to strike terror into the Chu-
t 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 was 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. 335

who invented the piety* 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
f 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 difficulties 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- X 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 acquired 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 things," says
Diaz, "there were also thirty golden ducks, exactly
resembling the hving 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. 337

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 b}r those pictorial scenes,
which elicited equal astonishment in Europe, and with
still less reason. When Cortez landed Montezuma sent
runners! — called great lords by the same author — to
* Diaz, vol. I., page 87. sun to dry ; the sap which has been
t 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 ofthe Amazon, vol. IL, page
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 J " After this personage had taken
cloth is afterwards spread out in the his departure, we learnt that he was

338 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 pohtical 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." — Bernal Diaz, vol. 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 1
hand over to him the paintings and * Diaz, vol. I., page 89.

CORTEZ MOVES TO SEMPOALLA. 339

have no hope of royal 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 V., though he
pardoned the irregularity of the enterprise, and accepted
the sovereignty it had added to his dorninions, took good
care to suppress the letter which 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 bitte*1 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,f 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 Cruz, 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.-j- The first
fortress there, must not be confounded with that on the
island of Uloa. 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 piety. 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 redress wrongs wherever we came, punish the bad,
and make known his commands, that human sacrifice
* Diaz, vol. I., page 111. Ciudad de Vera Cruz. M. M. Lerdo
f Apuenles Historicos 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."*

est or lst town of Vera Cr../.

^h'poalla or Cempoal
*" Crnz (Antiqua) or 2nd
location of that 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 was 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 TZINPANTZINCO.

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 Avas
put around the fellow's neck, who would have been hung,
when Alvarado interceded, and he escaped.-]- 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."f
By this politic course the whole hot country, between
the table land and the sea, was brought into subjugation
* Apuentes Historicos de X'era 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 offended 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 Marina's 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.f The six remaining were
distributed among the other soldiers. Before any were
* Diaz, vol. I., page 130. \ Ibid., page 123.

344 cortez' zeal for religion.

delivered, however, to their new masters, they were con
verted, nominally, to the Komish 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
pictures 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 would 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. t 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 Virgin,
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."f " 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."! " 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 countiy 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 women, 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. {S Ibid., 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 Carrero 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 120.

COUNCIL OF TIIE 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 httle 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 Avith 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 V., 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 ofa title could not be contested.
grant from Alexander VII., the Bor- The levying war, 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 informed 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 Garay, 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! 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. J Pillars of Hercules, page 95. See
f Folsom's Cortez, page 41. Diaz, also Robertson's Am.
vol. I., page 134.

350 DESTRUCTION 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, Cortez 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 Vera 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 TIIE 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 Vera 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 Yugged de-
tile 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 cliff.* But
* The National Road of Mexico company of merchants known as the
was conceived and executed by a Consulado de Vera Cruz. It is about

352 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 August, 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\ 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 4204
Gulf, until it nearly reaohei 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. 353

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

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,"-)- not by
* It was 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 exercised 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," Sea., 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 Religion.

CORTEZ CROSSING THE HIGH MOUNTAIN. 357

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 Iocotlan, 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."! 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 Ibid., 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-cf -Water, Ojo diAgua, 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— Tlascala 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 1 378— 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
ofthe achievements ofthe 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 the 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 fac 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
hmits. 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
sand! 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. J 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 Ara
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^ 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,! 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 || are but forty thousand in the pages of Diaz.^f
In Gomora the discrepancies are still more extraordinary.
Another curious difference 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.-\ f " We cannot get beyond to get salt for our
* Folsom's Cortez, page 61. || Cortez, page 53.
f Ibid., page 63. f Diaz, vol. I., page 147.
t Diaz, vol. I., page 145. ** Cortez, page "49, fc\
(S Ibid., page 165. ft Diaz, vol. I., page 157.

THE FACTS IN RELATION TO TLASCALA. 365

victuals, nor cotton for our clothingV 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 established, 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.-|- 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 Avar of the
conquest, Avas 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 Politique of Humboldt, vol. + Coleccion de Leges, page 184.
I., pago 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 fo 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 Eomish 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.

568 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 sachems 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 Avas
brought to the arbitration of the sword. Without, there
fore, Avasting 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 Avarfare, could have conducted a campaign
better than this of Tlascala.
Having sent forward his cavalry, avIio were drawn into
an ambuscade, a general engagement Avas determined
upon, rather than encourage the enemy by retreat. For
a short time the battle Avas Avell sustained ; at last the
Tlascalans Avavered, then gave Avay. They left seventeen
dead upon the field. On the Spanish side four were
Avounded, one of whom died.f Crossing a mountain ridge,
the Spaniards fell in with another body, with which a
neAV but unsuccessful attempt Avas again made to nego
tiate; failing in this, Cortez gave the war-cry of Spain,
" Forward, San Diego is with us !" This party was greatly
more numerous than their oavu. 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 Uvo first days of September, 1520.
* In hoc signo, &e. a campaign, yet is it represented as
There is suspended in the Museum, the banner borne by Cortez in tbe
at the city of Mexico, a damask war of the conquest 1 an evidence to
silk banner, in a gilt frame, with a the faithful of the superintending
picture of the A'irgin portrayed upon work of the blessed A'irgin 1
it. This comparatively fresh and p Diaz, vol. I., page 146.
bright ensign apparently never saw
2J

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, Avhen Gomora uses
the same. He tells us to write down one thousand, when
Gomora speaks of eighty thousand.-)- But, alas ! we are
compeUed 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."! The war of Tlascala was noAV 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 Avould
give two hundred and fifty, according to the liberal rule
of Diaz — more, perhaps, than the real number. But
through this mass of exaggeration Ave 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. \ Cortez, page 57.

SUCCESS OF THE TLASCALAN WAR. 371

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 Khine ; yet
three hundred of them, in full armor, were lost in an
ambuscade.-]- 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.! ^he 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, X 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
receiA'ed 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 military 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 well to them ! Cortez, at the
same time, shoAved 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
t Ibid., page 182. depravity in doctrine ; and the incor-
% Ibid., page 181. poration into the Christian system of
g 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 Bense) are less corrupt in the cross.
doctrine than the Romish. Nothing All the change these emblems re-
could be more opposite the truth. Not ceived was 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 Phosnican 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, 0 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, 0 holy
mother of God, intercede with Christ
to save his people whom he hath pur
chased with his blood.' ' AVe have
thee, 0 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, 0 mother of God, who
art the boast of virginity, the mo
ther of human stability,' &o 

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.

' 0 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, ' AYho believes
in these things now ?' 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 1" — Letters from Me.
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.
f 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.

MAECH TO CHOLULA.

The scene now shifts to an adjoining tribe, one bearing
the familiar name of Cholula, in common with a niud-

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 six
thousand leagues distant. Bacchus
metamorphosed him from a divine
into an orator, and made him a Cicero
in parts of rhetorical 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 be 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 [1] 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, Avas in the time of Indian paganism ! sacred to
Quetzalcoatl, " the god of the air,"* Avho, during his abode
on earth, had taught mankind the use of metals, the prac
tice of agriculture, and the arts of gOArernment. 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, saAv 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 Romish
idolatry. The account Avhich Cortez gives of Cholula is even
more extravagant than his description of Tlascala. Ac
cording to him, the Aollage of Cholula Avas 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 toAvers, the whole of Avhich were cues, or temples,
on which the human sacrifices Avere offered, and their idols
stood. The principal cu, here, Avas even higher than that
of Mexico, though the latter, he says, Avas magnificent, and
very high. " I well remember Avhen Ave first entered this
town, and looking up to the elevated white temples, how
the whole place put us completely in mind of Valladolid."!
Other historians go yet further, and represent Cholula
not only as the Mecca and commercial centre, but also
* Folsom's Cortez, pago 71. idea that he was conducting a holy
f This word mosques Cortez con- war.
stantly makes use of, apparently to J Diaz, vol. I., page 206.
keep before tho peoplo of Spain the

380 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
Lacedasmon, 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 Avas 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! of Robert
son. " The large mount of earth at Cholula, Avhich the
Spaniards dignified with the name of temple, still remains,
* Mexico and its Religion. X Note lo Robertson, No. 154.
f Torquamada, Liber III., c. 19.

THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT CHOLULA.

381

THE GREAT MOUND, OK PYRAMID OF CHOLULA — SOUTH VIEW.*
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 Avas 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, [vega] 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 religious f for others in the
more congenial, because more polluted atmosphere of
Puebla,^ six miles distant. The village is a collection of
adobe § 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,^} says that
narrator, were collected by the orders of Cortez in the

x 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. Puebla 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.
X We have already called attention \ Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 207.

THE CHOLULA MASSACRE. 383

great square ; the pretence was, their employment as
auxiliaries 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 affair. 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, vol. 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 Avas 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 Avas 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 Avhich little abatement from
the received account is necessary. Ordas set out with
two companions on his perilous expedition, 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 Avas then presented that richly reAvarded his
fatigue and danger — one that European eyes .had neATer
before beheld. A lake of fire, three miles in diameter,
lay before him, boiling and simmering, dim Avith 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 your Majesty 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 eA^ery 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 de\'oting 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,-}- four thou
sand auxiliaries, according to Diaz, one thousand,! to 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. X Diaz, vol. I., page 211.
¦j- 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 arriA^ed
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 mvaders, 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 affords : 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
soon 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 smoking 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.

Talmacalco

MAP OF THE VALLEY OF MEXICO.

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 entre" 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
ofthe night retreat, 413— The fugitives at the " Hill oi Remedies," 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 feAV 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 ; 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 Avhetted 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 e\er 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 porcupines 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 Avere 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 pain-
rienced person even to get into a bark- fui recollections of this kind of travel-
canoe. The first attempt generally ling, when 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 \ralor, 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 eA^er 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
maybe 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 u, beauti
ful garden, with balconies extending
over it, supported by marble columns,
and having » 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 large
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 his
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-OAvl 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 leA7els 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

INTERVIEW WITH MONTEZUMA. 399

Diaz, Cortez opened the conversation with an exceedingly
inappropriate attempt at religious proselytism. 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 be«ome 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 Ibid., 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 Avell-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 Avhat at best was but an armistice, by the
surprise and capture of Montezuma. The pretext was
the falling off in supphes, 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 pious 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 Avar. 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 peo
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, which he prescribed.
Accordingly, all those caciques to whom he sent, contri
buted freely Avhat he demanded of them; ... we
found that the fifth part belonging to your majesty
¦amounted to thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars."*
He further Avrites, " 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 OArer-
threw this pohcy. When that hostile expedition was
turned into a reinforcement, it was hardly politic to con
tinue the same state of things. For the lawful accomphsh
ment 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.-}- Active war, too, was as necessary
now as peace had been before. A host of new ad\ren-
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-
f 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 Avith an overwhelming
force. But when their women were seized by violence,
fury, rather than courage, seemed to possess them.
The regular order of the, war 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 differ 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 aAvay 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 narrati\-es
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
alloAV his papas [medicine-men, or conjurers, called also
priests by the Spaniards] to sacrifice any human beings."f
* Diaz, vol. I., page 334. f Ibid., page 303.

404 BATTLE WITH NARVAEZ.

After this pious exhibition, our missionary 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,-}- 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. f Once they agree — in the number of horses
— in both they are eighty. The battle Avhich 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 mihtary
annals of Mexico ; victories in Avhich 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 Avant 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 Avere suspended. The Indians, acting on their
original plan, or overawed by his greatly augmented force,
made no opposition to his re-entering their capital.

RETURN 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,-}- and two thousand auxiharies." 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 haA7e 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 Span
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 Avorld."§ Now
buildings within the enclosure are set on fire, and are
torn down to check the progress of the flames. Again, the
enemy Avho 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 Ibid., page 336. J 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 Avhile
addressing them. Such a public indignity was a mortal
Avound that he could not survive. He refused surgical
aid, and was soon a corpse. Again the battle raged with
renewed \dolence; 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
Avere 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, when
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-AVestern 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.

408 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 day, 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 Avas
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 effort. That for the pos
session of this height Avas fairly fought, and bravely won,
Ave 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, Avithout decisive
results, from the 24th of June until the lst of July, the
sorrowful night of Cortez ; but which Diaz fixes as the
10th.| 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.
* Folsom's Cortez, page 153. f Diaz, vol. I., page 342. X 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 ihe midst of the water!
and were connected to each other by drawbridges only."f
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. J Folsom's Cortez, page 155,

410 NIGHT RETREAT FROM MEXICO.

all the advantages of a central position Avere 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,
Avith their baggage, materiel, and armor, upon a narrow
causeway, having a wide opening, to be crossed only by
Avading 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
* Folsom's Cortez, page 160.

NIGHT RETREAT FROM MEXICO.

411

NIGHT RETREAT TO TACUBA.

the rear, through 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 Ahrarado 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,-}- 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, aftenvards, 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 Avas certainly saved. Besides
that, many of the eighty Tlascalans, Avho were loaded
with the gold, and retreated from Mexico in the van
guard, got safely over the bridges."|| That is, nothing
was really lost but the imaginary treasure, noAV grown
inconveniently large, and which had to be accounted for
* Folsom's Cortez, page 161. \ Diaz, vol. I., page 356.
t Ibid., page 158. || Ibid., page 382.
X Ibid., page 161.

INCIDENTS OF THE RETREAT. 413

to the emperor .* The Conquistador was too good a soldier
to hazard his gold ; it Avas 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 impohtic 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 buchram 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 Pemedios-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, tequisquita,
— 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 Avounds.J Yet, eAren 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 feAV days had
* Diaz, vol. I., page 349.
f See supplemental note, " Our Lady of Remedies."
\ Diaz, vol. I., page 353.

RETREAT 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 noAV, 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 arriAred 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 Avay among the hills, bogs,
and pools, Avhich then, as now, characterize the route
from Tacuba to the neighborhood of the laguna of Joltoca
or San Christobal. They were not, however, undis
covered by their watchful enemies, who continued to
annoy them with arrows, stones, and reviling s\ through
the march. In one of the passes among the hills, a
wounded man died ; and a horse was killed, over Avhich
* See supplemental note, " Our Lady of Remedies.''
f Diaz, vol. I., page 354.

416

RETREAT CONTINUED.

-^m-v^'y

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 Avith the custom of Indian
warfare, some intricate defile or pass should haAre 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 Avas selected.

RETREAT 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
haA^e been anticipated. While preparations for the great
battle were making, the fugitives, comparatively undis
turbed, had time to recover their spirits, and hope re-
viAred 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 Avas made
on the second or third day, which is impossible. On the
second day, in the account of Cortez,f they marched
around seA*eral 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, || as on the next day,
the seventh of the retreat, the great battle of Otumba was
* The Spanish league is two and \ Lockhart's Diaz, vol. I., page
three quarters of a mile. 354.
f Folsom's Cortez, page 162. || This blasphemy is shocking.
X 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 Avith 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 Avere 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 Avhich a retreating
force has been successfully intercepted. Even the supple
Alvarado Avas brave, when 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 Spain ; 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 Avith 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 OAving 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 eArent 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 household," 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.

TIIE 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 tho 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 bod.
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
Amoricans 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 tho 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 Remedios, 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 off with renewed vigor
upon their disheartening retreat. The whole story of the Arirgin 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 AVest 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; but 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 ofthe unsuccessful rebels; while
" Viva the Lady of Remedies 1" was shouted back by the conquering forces
of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary
designs ; while all honors were lavished upon1 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 bill 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 tbe 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 tbe 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, that 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 and 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, and 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 Hushuatoca.
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 OF 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 — 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 to
Mexico, 433 — The policy of Cortez, 433 — The lagunas, 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, 440 — 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 Avere styled rebellion and apostasy.
While the Spaniards Avere in the full tide of success, all the
tribes through Avhich 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
dwinaled to a company of fugitives, its prestige was gone.
The crosses were no longer regarded as "good rain
makers" in time of drought. The notary and his parch
ment, 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 sIoav
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 \Tengeance.
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 Avould deem it a sufficient cause
of Avar 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 Lorenzano, 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 Gomora." The main object of the campaign
Avas to re-open communication, by the southern route,
Avith 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."}- The first encounter was in
* Folsom's Cortez, page 172. f I>iah vo1- !•> PaSe 366-

430 BRANDING OF INDIAN WOMEN.

some open fields of maize and maguey, with the same
result as at Tobasco. The cavalry having a good opportu
nity to manoeuvre, scattered the savages with considerable
slaughter. This victory Avas followed by their submis
sion and the entry of the A'ictors 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
Avas not a sufficient imposition ! and now he Avas going to
deprive the poor soldier Avho 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 Itiid., 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 were
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 realm, we
haA'e the same Oriental exhibition of moral and religious
obliquity. And thus it was that the leAvd champions 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 lad land. So intensely fabu
lous are his relations, they arouse eAren 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 feAV 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- rais, excepting her great namesake ;
spondence. though the watchword of a success-
The foregoing is a pretty fair speci- fui rebellion was morality.

CORTEZ SECURES THE PASSES. 433

Cortez to free them from their oppressive Aztec garrison.
This Avas 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 Arillage. 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 ofthe 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
undertaking 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 times
* Folsom's Cortez, page 179.
28

434 SIZE OF 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 A'olume, 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 leArel, the Tezcuco,
the north-eastern laguna. It is impossible, therefore, it
could ever have been navigated by that class of vessels
known as brigantines.-}- 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 X 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 civilized 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 of Francisco de Garay 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 affair 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 Caesar'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
* Caesar 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 baptizing, 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 Diaz-}- 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 Avas 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 people 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 causeAvay of Tacuba,
by passing through that of Guadidupe or Tepeac. Pur
suing a southerly direction, through ditches and shallow
waters, the brigantines might reach the important dike

SAILINS ABOUND 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 Churubusco, 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 noche, 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 Avere 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-

MUSTER 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 alliance.-}- 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
t Folsom's Cortez, page 203. armor would not only be of no advan-
X 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 ;"* 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 eArery direction.
Diaz unfortunately adds, " Many took shelter in the reeds
growing in the [salt !] lake !"f 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. For 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 Iztapalapa,
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 flotilla, 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, U. S. A.
ingly in contrast with the flatness

^j^v0*90

.Talmanalco

AfARCH OP CORTEZ FROM TEZCUCO 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 Avith cause-
Avays ; because Cortez sometimes uses the word dike for
causeway, and sometimes treats them as synonymous,*
as in the present instance. They are, howeA^er, entirely
distinct ; the dike is to impede a current, while the
causeway is so constructed as not to interfere Avith 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 Xochimilco, 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 Avere 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
uhalf 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,
Avill afford the probable number. " Write one, Avhere he
says eighty."
The Cuetravacin-}- of Cortez, the CuitlahuatzinJ of Diaz,
a brother of Montezuma, was that sachem of Iztapalapa
whose duty it had been to welcome 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
Avorthy to fill the place of his illustrious predecessor. But
the small-pox soon made him its A'ictim 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 Lockhart'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 Avho 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 haA'e forced upon 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 Avay 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 Avas
worthy a name among the immortal braves. Thus he died.
There is no difficulty in reconciling Avith truth that
portion of the narrative of Cortez Avhich declares the
enemy opened the dike or causeway tAvo miles in his
rear, and that the water flowed Avith impetuosity from
the salt into the fresh laguna, as Ave have already sug
gested ; for the water, close to the eastern shore, is both
deep and salt, and we have Avitnessed the same pheno
mena there, at the same season of the year, when the
north wind blew furiously. If the Avaters ceased their Aoav

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 OA^erflowing 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
Romish superstition, and baptized under the name of Don
Fernando. This youth, on his arrival at Tezcuco, Avas
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
Avhich, for many generations, furnished the rulers of Tez
cuco, and who, under a royal commissioner, Avere its here
ditary lords. It is pleasant to notice kindly traits in the
Conquistador. They were feAAr, but they did exist. Of
them the brightest instance is his ardent friendship for
this Indian chief, Avhich terminated only at his death.

452 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW.

According to a provision in his last testament, the remains
of Cortez, as already noticed, were brought from Spain,
and deposited by the side of those of his bronze-visaged
friend. A little chapel and a rough-stone Avail mark the
spot where the two once lay side by side. We have never
hesitated to condemn the wrongs that Avere 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 haAre been not only
the great man he was, but a good man also, which is a
thousand-fold more desirable.

A TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW OF 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 ofthe 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 (tequisquita) 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
* Report ofM. L. Smith, Lieutenant of Topographical Engineers, XI. S. A.

454 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW.

Chalco in the extreme south-east, being 4-^ feet above the level of the Grand
Plaza of the city, and twenty miles distant therefrom, and 11T23 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 GJ 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 ofthe 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 tequisquita —
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 iequisquita.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
f Ibid. clear indications of the presence of te-
X 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 hole 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 J 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. Rut 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
* Come'rcio 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. Ey 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 when, from the uncleanly habits of the Indians, they were 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 VIEW.

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 ofthe 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 present 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 "floating 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

TOPOGRAPHICAL 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 ofthe 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 affords 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 difficulty, 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, fi 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.

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 ofa 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 of forces 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 assaidt 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 folloAv even his bark-built ATessels in the shal
lowest water, yet so large they still contained tAventy 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 neAV auxiliary entered the
contest, the chief comprehended at once the fate that
awaited both him and his people. No longer Avas he
master of the time, and point of attack or retreat, that
power Avas now transferred to the enemy. His ditches Avere
* 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 oavii. 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 Avater, 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 Avent, morning and eA'ening, under
the protection of their boats, with the regularity of daily
laborers. The very gardens upon the water, those artifi
cial islands Avhich until now had ever been a certain
source of supply to his city, were in the poAver 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 Avas 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 Avith iron weapons. Either they
must succumb noAV, or expose their bodies to the bullets
of the arquebus and the fire of the artillery, Avith the
additional risk of being trampled into the earth by those
to them strange beasts, the horses. Yet this last Avas the
choice our youthful hero adopted, and successfully con-

464 GUATAMOZIN MISREPRESENTED.

tinued, as long as there Avas 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-
Arors, Avith Indian stoicism he aAvaited 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 easily 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 toAvards Otumba. But they chose rather to die
among the houses and by the graves of their ancestors,
that they might be counted AArorthy 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 warricrs
Avho 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 BRIGANTINES. 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
Avas eighteen Spanish leagues,* OArer 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 hke 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 Avith the beating of Indian
drums, and other rejoicings. Three days to recruit Avere
then allowed the Tlascalans, after which they Avere sum
moned to a Avarlike 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 mo\rement 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 — Avas, that he went to Tacuba to parley Avith 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

* Folsom's Cortez, page 229.

TOPOGRAPHICAL BLUNDER. 467

being routed and driven out, the march was resumed
and the column proceeded to the " large and beautiful
city," that is, the small Indian village of Guatitan, and
this Avas 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.* Hurrying 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.f 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, Avas 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.
¦j- Lockhart's Diaz, vol. IL, page 22. X 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 Avaters. 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 Avith 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, ff strongly fortified position, which Sandoval carried
by assault, and with so great a slaughter, that, Cortez in
forms us,f for a Avhole 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"! of Gomora. Other matters con
nected with this expedition Avere more congenial to the
* Lockh art's Diaz, vol. IL, page 25. X Lockhart's Diaz, vol. IL, page
f 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, SandoA'al
returned to Tezcuco, bringing Avith 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 "lavo thousand canoes"!*
Avas despatched Avith an expedition consisting of twenty
thousand, viz., two hundred and fifty warriors.-}- Passing
through the narrow laguna of Xochimilco, it made a
descent upon the territories of Chalco, Avith.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 folloAved 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, Avith which he returned to Spain" ! J Such was
* Lockhart's Diaz, vol. IL, page 30. f Ibid., page 31. X 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 Avhich 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 Avould indeed haA7e 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
so 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 tAventy 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 neAV accession of "forty
thousand,"! viz., five hundred, making, Avith the Tezcucans,
a body of seven hundred and fifty, a number extravagantly
* Folsom's Cortez, page 236. -j- Ibid., page 239.

MARCH INTO THE HOT COUNTRY. 471

large for such a district to furnish, and incomreniently so
for the purposes contemplated by the expedition.
At daAvn on the third day the march Avas resumed, and
they entered upon a rugged mountain district, Avhich
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 Csesar 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.

CORTEZ MAKES A COMPLETE CIRCUIT OF THE CITY.
nothing, indeed, in nature more beautiful than the scenes
presented to the eye, in some of those valleys Avhich 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 Avithout its deleterious malaria. Cottages em-

Folsom's Cortez, page 242.

CAPTURE OF CUERNAVACA. 473

bowered in trees are coATered Avith Avild fioAvers and
creepers; Avhile 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 Avhich
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
Avhere 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 ; 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
f " 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 is

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 laguna 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
Avorks the enemy had constructed to oppose him. The
inhabitants had Aramly supposed themselves secure from
the Spaniards by the intervention of their ditches ; and
not until they were shot down at a distance by fire-arms.
crossbows, &c, and found no cover from such, to them
unusual Aveapons, did they fly from their effect. Even
then they rallied, returned, and renewed the attack with
a boldness Avhich Cortez says "astonished him;" eATen
rushing upon the quarter he occupied. Yet it was only
to be subjected to an encounter with another, to them
still strange element of Avar ; to be trampled on by the
cavalry. " Then they again," says he, " fled from the
fear of the horses."-}- " Though some of them," he con
tinues, " discovered so much courage as to Avait 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
vation of 3000 feet. The immense faces of the people celebrating New
church edifices here proclaim the mu- Year's day in the shade ofthe orange-
nificence of Cortez ; while 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, Avas Chris-
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, Ave retired for
the night." Thus terminated the first day at Xochimilco.
On the next there came from Mexico, by the canal and
the narrow laguna of Xochimilco, an army of "tAvelve
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."-)- 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,
Avhile 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."{ 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

* Lockhart's Diaz, vol. IL, page f Folsom's Cortez, page 248.
44. X Ibid-, page 249.

476 RECONNOISSANCE TO TACUBA.

of the enemy avIio had disembarked from the canoes.
Here, likewise, 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, Avho construed their
movement into a flight. Continuing the reconnoissance,
hoAvever, Avithout heeding these attacks, Cortez noAV ad
vanced to Cuyocan, Avhich place he contemplated making
his head-quarters during the siege. He states Avith great
brevity his reason for selecting this point; that it was
situated about equidistant from Mexico, Coluacan, Chu
rubusco, Iztapalapa, 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 Chapidtepec, 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 Avas
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 real', on the plain and in the mountain passes, it yet

CANAL FORMED BY CORTEZ. 477

fully succeeded. From time to time, Avhile advancing, the
enemy was beaten in the field ; besides Avhich, the hostile
garrisons placed upon the route Avere driven in, and Gua
tamozin left Avithout 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 step as it adA'anced. Every
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 Avith the blind halting of
Diaz. The latter adds nothing to the account of his pre
decessor, except 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, was the completion and launching of the flotilla,
the " brigantines" 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 laguna, and the constant Aoav

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 Avhole a work of great labor and much ingenuity.
This is evidently designed to be described by Cortez when
he says, "it Avas 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
Avorthy 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 Avith
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 250.

MUSTER OF THE FORCES. 479

even of the good Las Casas. Adventurers began to flock
to Vera Cruz. Ships laden with Avarlike 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 with 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,
Avere 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 reAriewed 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 Avas 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, A'iz. three hundred and twelve, warriors of Tlascala.
An equal force, under Christoval Olid, was to march with
* Folsom's Cortez, page 257. t Ibid., 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 ; more 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 Avith
twenty-four horse, four musketeers, thirteen boAvmen,
one hundred and fifty infantry, fifty of whom Avere 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 Avas 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, Avere to com
mence. We now return to the thirteen "brigantines,"
the flotilla of Cortez.
A picked body of three hundred men Avas assigned to
the flotilla, giving a creAV to each of twenty-five, including
captains and commissioners. Six on each of the vessels

31

ROUTE OF 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."^ 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 PiBon ; and it was not until
valley of Mexico, he proposed to ad- after the position was found impreg-
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 J Folsom'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 Spanish success
depressed the spirits of Guatamozin, while it elated those
of the pale-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 causeAvay, 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 causeAvay.
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" Avere 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 causeAvay and their canoes, notwithstanding the raking
fire of the heavy ordnance and the small brass swivel
each brigantine carried.* During this time, 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 ; Avhile 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 Avas
ignorant of its existence, until informed of it by Alva
rado ;| 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 J Folsom's Cortez, 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 noAV crowded
together within this fortress, as Cortez properly calls the
city, to die of hunger and thirst, or by the destructive
Aveapons 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 affirmed. 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 pase~o, 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.

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.i
that he saw floating islands of some thirty feet in length in the midst of the

* Essai Politique, vol. II. , page 61.

CHINAMPAS. 487

current of rivers, amounts to little in this case ; for every one that has
travelled extensively in tropical lowlands has seen vegetation spring up upon
floating masses of brush-wood. 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. — AVilson'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 oity, 500 — Cortez plans a successful ambuscade, 500 — Cortez providing
cannibals with their food, 501 — Cortez in possession of seven-eighths ofthe
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 Avork of slaughter was now fairly systematized.
For two days, from the newly established camp, the
attack continued. The forces at head-quarters — after the
departure of SandoAral — 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 Avas added to this, excepting ten
horse left at the entrance of the causeAvay 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 bythe "brigantines." By means of these
the land forces passed the water together with " eighty
thousand" f Indian allies ! These, it must be recollected,
were in addition to the " twenty-five thousand" Avith Al
varado at Tacuba,J and the unmentioned thousands fol
lowing Sandoval at the barren rock of Tepeac or Guadu-
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
f Ibid., page 272. synonymous.
X Ibid., page 259. The causeways were built with re-
i 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 allies 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
Avas encountered. It required two hours of steady fight
ing, to dislodge the enemy from it ; nor Avas it effected
even then, until the Spaniards, leaping into the water
and assailing their flanks, compelled the Mexicans to
give way. FolloAving 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 reheve the Spaniards now hard pressed ;
but to enable them to resume the offensiAre, recover the
Plaza, and again obtain possession 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 haA^e 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

* Folsom's Cortez, page 274.

RESULTS OF TWO DAYS' FIGHTING. 491

not stop them; nor would they desist from following
us."* This is 'plainly confessing to the rout of the in
fantry, cavalry, and artillery ; and that, too, by saA^ages
armed only Avith flint-pointed wooden spears, and boAvs
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 slaArery, or to the
Tlascalan torture.
While this assault Avas 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,
Avere in open rebelhon, but effectually prevented from
making any movement against his camp by the ten horse
stationed at the land-entrance of the causeway.-}- This
rebellion, however, was neutralized by the arrival of a
brother of Don Fernando, with " thirty-five thousand (say
three hundred or so) Tezcucans."% 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 Avith him
as heretofore. The remaining six were to pass around
to the north side of the city, and patrol the flats of San
* Folsom's Cortez, 275. f Ibid., page 271. X Ibid, 276.

Talm analco

POSITION OF TUE CAMPS OF CORTEZ, ALVARADO, AND SANDOVa

CORTEZ MAKES ANOTHER ATTACK. 493

Lazarus betAveen 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
Avere also to aid those captains in their assaults.
A respite of two days Avas now allowed, after Avhich
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 carefully
* Folsom's Cortez, page 279.

494 NEW FABLES.

preserved, so this left him nothing further to demohsh
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 Avas 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 haA^e 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 Avas allowed — are adroitly handled.
There is such sameness in the daily contests about a
beleaguered city, that the mind grows weary Avith 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
j- 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 X 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 facility, 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, which 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 shoAved it
also by furnishing building materials, when commanded
to do so, and by the erection of huts for the soldiery. As
they were noAV 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 Avater. Four of the num
ber Avere 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
played greater actiATe 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. 491

Avater, but they could remove the hurdles on which their
causeAvays 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 Avould have been useless. The reality
Avas a sufficient annoyance.
Preparations Avere now completed for a general assault,
Avhich 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 causeAvays, was simul
taneous. Cortez tarried in the rear of his own column to
secure its communication Avith 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 folloAvers,
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
Avater, in their efforts to gain the opposite side, they were
joined by the Spanish foot. Soon both were mingled
Avith 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 hfe 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

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 Avas 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 undisciphned
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 aATenue of escape.
The Spaniards were now to suffer as well as to inflict
suffering. The party stationed in the public plaza Avere
first notified of this disaster by the heads of their
slaughtered companions being throAvn into their ranks.-}-
And this monition was folloAved 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 AVAR. 499

where the enemy Avould 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 Avas that witnessed by 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,-}-
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-
Avhelmed 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. t Ibid., page 298. X Ibid., page 300.

500 THE CITY TO BE DEMOLISHED.

tribes to attack those in alliance with the Spaniards.
The people of CuernaAraca 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 proAdng 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 Avith 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,"y says Cortez. He, therefore,
resolved to level the houses, and to fill up the canals, as
he advanced. This, to some extent, Avas 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 Avork of considerable labor.
The Avar 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 Ibid., page 308.

A SUCCESSFUL AMBUSCADE. 501

professes to haye 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 ; Avhile
Cortez, with the remaining thirty, concealed himself in
some houses along the line of the accustomed evening
retreat, after Avhich the adA'anced 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 /"j- 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 Cortez, page 313. f Ibid., page 315.

502 FAMINE IN THE CITY.

The mihtary knowledge of the emperor would have de
tected the commissariat impossibility, had his general not
confessed himself an accessary to cannibalism ! Living
Avith such allies on terms of equality, and cohabiting even
Avith those addicted to this crime. In his eyes it may
have been mitigated by their faith ; 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 was fast ceasing to exist. The famishing de
fenders Avere 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 ofthe 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 Avas 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 Avithout defence, beseeching Cortez to slay them, that
they might escape their misery, "in loud cries vociferating
that death was all they Avished.'"* The scene of famine
* Folsom's Cortez, page 323.

CONDITION OF THE BESIEGED. 503

is thus described : — " We found the streets through which
Ave 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,"| &c. ; and in a grand assault
aftenvards 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 OArer 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
sla\'es? In these statements Cortez convicts himself and
those who have folloAved 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.
f Ibid., page 321. || Ibid.
X Ibid. i Ibid., page 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
Avere the moArements 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 Avar, and the tribe against
which it was waged, he demanded the surrender of Gua
tamozin. The answer returned Avas, "he preferred to
die."f And now the consummation was reached. They who
remained aliAre 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 Avere
upon the water, and others were seen swimming about or
drowning in that part of the lake where canoes were
lying."J ^he 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. J Ibid., page 329.

CAPTURE OF GUATAMOZIN. 505

Now, and as a last resort, at once to close the AATar, the
entire force was so arranged as to secure his person beyond
a doubt ; the net Avas 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 Avarriors, 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 Gua-:
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 Avhen
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 ahvays 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 kneAV 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-
fiAre 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 ;f and the Indian allies of Cortez
Avould 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, Avith all the attendant cruelties of
such a conclusion. Noav to omit the torture of those who

* Folsom's Cortez, page 331. tray the results of a religious war,
f 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- AVhere 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 ;
of the chiefs especially. Policy, too, required it in order
to strike such terror that all Avould 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.f
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 offi
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 La's 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. f " 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." — Bkantz Mayer's Mexico As
It Was and As II 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 knoAvn 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 Avould
be understood as Diaz reports. So little reliance Avas
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 rebelhon, 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 Avas also a A'ictory OA~er
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 Avere 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 likeAvise 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 alloAved 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 imperfect
substitute for the fear of God. And as that superstition
flourished, so did truth and public morality dechne, 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.
AVe 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.

510 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 Avhose
lives have been passed on the frontier. The struggle
terminated, he settled down on his estates as the marquis
* " AVe 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 Avas not
satisfied. To the gift of this extensive district, Avith its
inhabitants, the emperor had added that of Cuernavaca
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 Avhether it was the northern limits of Sonora, can
not now be determined. We know only that the expedi
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. Each neAV 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
Avorld was tired of his fame, when his cousin Pizarro
turned its gaze to 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
Aveapons than bows, arrows, and flint-pointed spears, with
alternate success, in open contests, day by day, against
steel SAVords, 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 Avho
surrounded him had become helpless. Subjected to the
torture, his enemies admit he bore it Avithout 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 XV.

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 thio 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 Aveak
and inefficient some may deem our argument in support
of a Phoenician origin of the Central American ruins,
feAv, we believe, are prepared to deny the strong proba
bilities which uphold it. Even to this day, much of the
Avorship 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, Beltane
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 feAv and disjointed fragments
of a colossal power, seeing the many changes that have
taken place there, shoAV hoAV deeply rooted Avas that super
stition of which they are the poor remains.
33 (513)

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 vieAv 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 Avhat 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 Avorlds, 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 Avondering 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-
Arersal type, Avhich 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 iioav 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 folloAV the certain extinction
of any exotic nationality on this continent, if separated
even but a short time from its native hive. And this, as
Ave 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 OArer-
bore them, until the remnant either A\rasted and Avent out
as a lamp from the exhaustion of its oil, or Avere SAvept
from the earth in some furious assault of the surrounding
natives. There is manifestly some common cause that

DECAY OF MODERN EXOTICS. 517

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 laAv,
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
Sees — 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 Avork of Gomora, are the only original
documents touching the conquest of Mexico, its people, its
civilization, its difficulties, and its dangers. Whatever
else Ave 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 Avere driA^en 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 eA'ery reader, Ave 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, Avhich
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 have 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 Avho had erected
that massive pile, could not be classed with the savage

520

CHOLULA EXTINGUISHES 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 alpha 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 Romish land, and the erection
Avas to the honor of the Virgin, " Queen of Heaven."
These Avere the only differences. From that moment
our task Avas a simple one. All credence in the relations
of previous historiographers being annihilated,-}- we had to

* We clip the following item from
a Western journal, to show that the
eustom 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 Spaniards and
Spanish-Americans — among whom
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
while 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 of
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 Ave have labored at the work. Had our eyes
never dAvelt 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 term to mean vessels of
three feet draft, could ever have been transported, even
in sections, by such wild and broken roads as they even
noAV must be borne along. If that were not enough, when
we beheld the broad and 'marshy ponds of the A^alley,
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 Avater
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,
rais. 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 fiwor. 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 Avith clubs (hnob-Tcerries) and assagaies, resist for
o\Ter 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 overthroAAOi.
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 templada)
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 American Revi lution, and the in point.

MEXICAN EMPIRE A CONFEDERACY. 523

and less nomadic than our northern tribes. We do not in
tend to detract from the daring character of this famous ex
pedition, Avhich 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 Avould have thus thrown them-
sel\-es into the heart of the Iroquois confederacy, and so
doing, haAre achieved as great a triumph ? Step by step,
and year by year, we have Avaged war against the red
race; our triumph has been slow, but sure; they, the
Spaniards, Avon 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 Avill
speedily thrust into the ocean.
No such government as Cortez pretends to haA^e found
could have existed without ample means of intercommuni
cation, without a currency, without a literature, and with
out a Avritten law. Now it is not pretended that any of
these Avere 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 haA'e
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, like 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
Avhich 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 ahvays found native, and abounding in its rivers, it
Avas 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 ha\Te 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 Avill 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 our 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 personce 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, enjoying 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 ofthe 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 offspring ? 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 expen-

* 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 are dis-
lations. Hence the singular fact of played." — History of Civilization in
one historian being ignorant of politi- England, page 3.

526 CONCLUSION.

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 white 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
where 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 oonflict 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 Pbilipines,
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 ofthe California
stock, 38; migration an ordinary in
stance, 41 ; first stop at Tlascala, 42 ;
their first settlement at Tezcuco, 42 ;
country — the table land of America —
Chapter III., 109 ; its mountain Bcenery,
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 Tezcuco, 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 Palonque,
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, &c, 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 1S4; 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.
Century 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,
3S0 ; 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.
Civilizalion, 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 j 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. 34

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, 310 ; 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, 351 ; 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
tbe 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 ; difficulties he encounters in build
ing flotilla, 435 ; makes a reconnoissance,
465; incidents of his march, 466; expedi
tion south of the lagunas, 470 ; makes war
upon the mountain tribes, 472 ; captures
Cuernavaca, 473 ; captures Xochimilco,
474; second day at Xochimilco, 475;
extends his reconnoissance to Tacuba,
476 ; the canal 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 his
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 Guacahula, and leads it to suc
cess, 433; instals Don Fernando Lord
of Tezcuco, 451 ; his affection 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 burn 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 with 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 ofthe
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

Cuernavaca, its attractions — capture of, by
Cortez 473 ; made his residence, 511 ;
second expedition to, 500.
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 Tlascala, 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 ; effect
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 tbeir 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; iu 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
picture writings, by Hon. Albert Galla
tin, 25 ; evidence, effect 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.

Fernando de Alva, 57 ; as a witness, 58 ;
flourished fifty years after Diaz, 23 ;
Don, Lord of Tezcuco — friend of Cortez,
47, 451.
Flotilla, 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.
Gallies 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.
Genius 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 Do
Foe of historians, 22; makos Cortez
his Crusoe, 22 ; when he says eighty wc
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 sail3 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.
Guacahula, an Indian tribe, joins Cortez,
432 ; expedition to, panic-stricken, hut
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 tu
surrender, 503 ; capture of, 504 ; torture
of, 505; motive for inflicting it, 506;
a youthful hero, 512 ; understood the
intentions of Cortez, 505.
Hakal (Haxal or Xakal) silver-mines, 136.
Hawks, Rev. 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) ofthe 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 he gathered, 31.
History, writing of, relative to the new
world, restricted to persons in the
priestly oflice, 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, 77; MSS., their character, 86.
Holgin Garci seizes Guatamozin, 505.
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 support 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 effect
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? 4&; 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 ono
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 Office (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

IKDEX.

League ofthe Iroquois (Morgan's), 105.
Learning, progress of, among the Arabs,
254 ; 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 Garrero, 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 to re
store their defences, 502; slaughter of,
continued, 503; what they really were,
523. 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, 522.
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 Cortez than now, 455 ; effect
upon it of increasing the volume of water,
455 ; 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, 500 ; 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 tbe 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 ; hut 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 tbe 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, 500.
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 ; Tezcoeingo,
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, Grecque antique, 163; Doric, 209;
Phoenician resemblances recapitulated,
163.
Pelagius founds the kingdom of Leon, 265.
Peregrino 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 placea

536

INDEX.

discovered, 293 ; ruins found on the
island of Sacrificios, 301 ; vestiges in
the British Islands, 513; probabilities
of crossing the Atlantic, 514.
Picture writings fabrications, 21 ; do not
purport to he 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.
Pinon, 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 Carrero 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.
Real 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
Mary).
Result of author's inquiry, 78.
Retreat, effect 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;
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
£he historie 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 ofthe 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, effect 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 ; suffer a defeat — cruelties inflicted
by Mexicans, 498 ; charged hy Cortez
with supplying Tlascalans with human
flesh, 501 ; now make rapid progress,
502. 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 kept 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
reconnoissance to, 465; Cortez' second
reconnoissance to, 476; assigned to
Alverado in siege, 479.
Tacubaya, canal of, its location, 453.
Talmanaleo, 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
his 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 proves 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; tho 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 tho 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

Remedios, 415 ; her miraculous powers,
422 ; her decay, 423.
Volcano of Popocatapetl, ascent of, 384.
Votan MS. of Phoenician ' 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, laguna, topography of, 454;
effect of increasing its volume, 455 ;
town, its capture, 474; Cortez, second
day at, 475.
Yautepec 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 laguna, topography of, 454.

THE END.

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