A still earlier author mentions such a sight in the Straits as a miracle. “As they sailed from Algeziras, a fish came flying through the air, and fell upon the deck of the Infante’s Galley, with which they had some fresh food that day; and because I, who write this history, have never heard or seen of any like thing, I here recount it, because it appears to me a thing malrvellous, and in my judgment out of the course of nature.” — Geones Eannes.
“At Barbadoes, the negroes, after the example of the Charaibs, take the flying fish very successfully in the dark. They spread their nets before a light, and disturb the water at a small distance: the fish, rising eagerly, fly towards the light, and are intercepted by the nets.” — McKinnen. — These flying fishes, says the writer of Sir Thomas Roe’s Voyage, “are like men professing two trades, and thrive at neither.”
Language cannot paint
Their splendid tints. — V. p. 48.
Atkins, with some feeling, describes the dolphin as a glorious-coloured fish. A labored description of its beauty would not have conveyed so lively a sense of admiration. He adds, quite as naturally, that it is of dry taste, but makes good broth. — Voyage to Guinea in his Majesty’s Ships the Swallow and Weymouth.
Herbert has given this fish a very extraordinary character upon the authority of the ancients.
“The Dolphin is no bigger than a salmon: it glitters in the ocean with a variety of beautiful colors; has few scales; from its swiftness and spirit, metonymically sirnamed the Prince and Arrow of the Sea; celebrated by many learned pens in sundry epithets; Philalthropoi, for affecting men, and Monoganzoi, for their turtle constancy; generated they be of sperme, nourisht like men, imbrace, join, and go 10 months great. In faciem versi dulces celebrant hymenaos Delphines, similes hominis complexibus hoerent. A careful husband. over his gravid associate, detesting incest, abhorring bigamy, tenderly affecting parents, whom, when three hundred years old, they feed and defend against hungry fishes, and, when dead (to avoid the shark and like marine tyrants), carry them ashore, and there (if Aristotle, AElyan, and Pliny erre not) inhume and bedew their Sepulchres; they were glad of our company, as it were affecting the sight and society of men, many hundred miles in an eager and unwearied pursuit, frisking about us; and, as a poet observed,
Undique dant saltus, multaque aspergine rorant
Emerguntque iterum, redeuntque sub sequora rursus,
Inque chori ludunt speciem lascivaque jactant
Corpora, et acceptum patulis mare naribus efflant.”
Herbert’s Travels.
The Stranger’s House. — V. p. 52.
“There is in every village of the Susquehannah Indians a vacant dwelling called the Stranger’s House. When a traveller arrives within hearing of a village, he stops and halloos; for it is deemed uncivil to enter abruptly. Two old men lead him to the house, and then go round to the inhabitants, telling them a stranger is arrived fatigued and hungry. They send them all they can spare, bring tobacco after they are refreshed, and then ask questions whence they come and whither they go.” — Franklin. - - - a race
Mightier than they, and wiser, and by Heaven
Beloved and favored more. — VI. p. 54.
“They are easily persuaded that the God that made Englishmen is a greater God than theirs, because he hath so richly endowed the English above themselves; but when they hear that, about sixteen hundred years ago, England and the inhabitants thereof were like unto themselves, and since have received from God clothes, books, &c., they are greatly affected with a secret hope concerning themselves.” — A Key into the Language of America, by Roger Williams, 1643.
Her husband’s war-pole. — VI. p. 55.
The war-pole is a small peeled tree painted red, the top and boughs cut off short. It is fixed in the ground opposite the door of the dead warrior, and all his implements of war are hung on the short boughs of it till they rot.” — Adair.
This author, who knew the manners of the North American Indians well, though he formed a most wild theory to account for them, describes the rites of mourning. “The widow, through the long term of her weeds, is compelled to refrain from all public company and diversions, at the penalty of an adulteress, and likewise to go with flowing hair, without the privilege of oil to anoint it. The nearest kinsmen of the deceased husband keep a very watchful eye over her conduct in this respect. The place of interment is also calculated to wake the widow’s grief; for he is intombed in the house, under her bed;. and, if lihe was a war-leader, she is obliged, for the first moon, to sit in the daytime under his mourning war-pole, which is decked with all his martial trophies, and must be heard to cry with bewailing notes. But none of them are fond of that month’s supposed religious duty, it chills or sweats and wastes them so exceedingly; for they are allowed no shade or shelter.”
Battlements that shone
Like silver in the sunshine. — VI. p. 59.
So dazzlingly white were the houses at Zempoalla, that one of the Spaniiards galloped back to Cortes to tell him the walls were of silver.” — Bernal Diaz, 30.
Torquemada also says “that the temple and palace courts at Mexico were so highly polished, that they actually shone like burnished gold or silver in the sun.” — T. 1. p. 251.
I have described Aztlan like the cities which the Spaniards found in New Spain. How large and how magnificent they were; may be learned from the “True History of the Conquest of Mexico,” by Bernal Diaz. This delightful work has been abridged into English by Mr. Keating; and, if the reader has not seen it, he may thank me for recommending it to his notice.
Gomara’s description of Zempoallan will show, that cities, as splendid in their appearance as Aztlan, did exist among the native Americans.
“They descried Zempoallan, which stoode a myle distant from them, all beset with fayre orchardes and gardens, verye pleasaunte to beholde: they used alwayes to water them with sluices when they pleased. There proceeded out of the towne many persons to behold and receyve so strange a people unto them. They came with smiling countenance, and presented unto them divers kinde of floures and sundry fruites, which none of our menne had heretofore seene. These people came without feare among the ordinance. With this pompe, triumph, and joy, they were received into the citie, which seemed a beautifull garden; for the trees were so greene and high, that scarcely the houses appeared.
“Sixe horsemen, which hadde gone before the army to discover, returned backe as Cortez was entering into the citie, saying that they had scene a great house and court, and that the walles were garnished with silver. Cortez commanded them to proceed on, willing them not to show any token of wonder of any thing that they should see. All the streetes were replenished with people, whiche stoode gaping and wondering at the horses and straungers. And, passing through a great market-place, they saw, on their right hand, a great walled house made of lyme and stone, with loupe-holes and towers, whited with playster that shined lyke silver, being so well burnished, and the sunne glistering upon it; and that was the thing that the Spaniards thought had beene walles of silver. I doe believe, that, with the imagination and great desire which they had of golde and silver, all that shined they deemed to be of the same metall.” — Conquest of the Weast India.
Cortes himself says of Cholula, that he counted above four hundred temple-towers in that city; and the city of Iztapalapa, he says, contained from twelve to fifteen thousand inhabitants. — Carta de Relacion, 16, 20.
A floating islet. — VI. p. 59.
Islets of this kind, with dwelling-huts upon them, were common upon the Lake of Mexico. They were moved at pleasure from bay to bay, as the inhabitants wanted sunshine or shelter.” — Clavigero.
Each held a burning censer in his hand. — VI. p. 60.
“Tendilli,” says the old translator of Gomara, “according to their usance, did his reverence to the captaine, burning frankincense, and little strawes touched in bloud of his own bodie. And, at Chiauiztlan, the lord toke a little chafyng-dishe in his hande, and cast into it a ce
rtaine gum, whyche savoured in sweete smel much like unto frankincense; and with a censer he smoked Cortez, with the ceremonye they use in theyr salutations to theyr gods and nobilitie. So also the Tlascallan embassadors burnt copal before Cortes, having thrice made obeicence; and they touched the ground with their hands, and kissed the earth.
The nexte day, in the morning, the Spaniards came to Chololla; and there came out near ten thousand Indians to receyve him, with their captaynes, in good order. Many of them presented unto him bread, foules, and roses; and every captayne, as he approached, welcomed Cortes, and then stood aside, that:the rest, in order, mighte come unto him; and, when he came entering into the citie, all the other citizens receyved him, maryelling to see such men and horses.”
After all this came out all the religious menne, as priests and ministers to the idols, who were many and straunge to behold, and all were clothed in white, lyke unto surplices, and hemmed with common threede. Some brought instruments of nlusicke like unto cornettes; others brought instruments made of bones; others an instrument like a ketel covered with skin; some brought chafing-dishes of coals, with perfumes; others brought idols covered; and, finally, they al came singing in their language, which was a terrible noyse, and drew neere Cortes and his company, sensing them with sweete smelles il their sensers. With this pomp of solemnitie, which truely was great, they brought him unto the cittie.” — Conquest of the Weast India.
Gage’s. account of Mexico is copied verbatim from this old translation, even, in some places, to the literal error of using the hard c instead of z, which the g with the cedilla lrepresents.
The Great Temple: ’twas a huge, square hill. — VI. p. 60.
The great Cu of Mexico — for thus these mounds were called - had a hundred and fourteen steps to the summit; that of Tezcuco, a hundred and fifteen; of Cholula, a hundred and twenty. Gold and jewels, and the different seeds of the country, and human blood, were thrown in the foundations. The Spaniards found great treasures when they levelled the Cu at Mexico to make room for a church to Santiago. — Bernal Diaz.
The lines which follow describe its structure, as related bv Clavigero and by the Spanish conquerors. The Tower of Babel is usually painted with the same kind of circuitous ascent.
The Tambour of the God. — VI. p. 61.
Gumilla (c. 36) describes a prodigious drum used as a signal to assemble the people, in time of danger, by some of the Orinoco tribes, especially by the Caverres, to whom the invention is ascribed. It is a hollowed piece of wood, in thickness about an inch, in girth as much as two men can clasp, in length about eleven or twelve feet. This is suspended by a with at each end from a sort of gallows. On the upper surface are three apertures like those in a fiddle; and in the bottom of the instrument, immediately under the middle of the middle aperture, which is shaped like a half-moon, a flint about two pounds in weight is fastened with gum. This is said to be necessary to the sound. Both ends of this long tube are carefully closed; and it is beaten on the middle aperture with a pellet, which is covered with a sort of gum called Currucay. Gumilla positively affirms, and on his own knowledge, that its sound may be heard four leagues round. This is scarcely possible. I doubt whether the loudest gong can be heard four miles; and it is not possible that wood can be made as sonorous as metal.
Ten Cities hear its voice. — VI. p. 61.
There, in the great Cu, they had an exceeding large drum; and, when they beat it, the sound was such, and so dismal, that it was like an instrument of hell, and was heard for more than two leagues round. They said that the cover of that drum was made of the skin of huge serpents.” — Bernal Diaz.
After Cortes had been defeated, he always heard this drum when they were offering up the reeking hearts of his men. The account in Bernal Diaz of their midnight sacrifice, performed by torchlight and in the sight of the Spanish army, is truly terrific. Four Towers
Were piled with human skulls. — VI. p. 61.
These skull-built temples are delineated in Picart’s great work: I suppose he copied them from De Bry. They are described by all the historians of Mexico. Human heads have often been thus employed. Tavernier and Hanway had seen pyramids of them in Persia erected as trophies. The Casa dos Ossos at Evora gave me an idea of what these Mexican temples must have been. It is built of skulls and thigh-bones in alternate layers; and two whole bodies, dried and shrivelled, are hung up against the walls, like armor in an old baron’s hall.
He lights me at my evening banquet. — VI. p. 64.
The King of Chalco, having treacherously taken and slain two sons of the King of Tetzcuco, had their bodies dried, and placed as candelabras in his palace to hold the lights.” — Torquemada, i. 151.
This same king wore round his neck a chain of human hearts set in gold, — the hearts of the bravest men whom lie had slain or taken, and sacrificed.” — Ditto. 152.
The more usual custom was to stuff the skin of the royal or noble prisoner, and suspend it as a trophy in the palace or the house of the priest. Gomara’s account of this custom is a dreadful picture of the most barbarous superstition which ever yet disgraced mankind. “On the last day of the first month, a hundred slaves were sacrificed: this done, they pluckt off the skinnes of a certaine number of them; the which skinnes so many ancient persons put, incontinent, upon their naked bodies, all fresh and bloudy as they were fleane from the dead carcases. And, being open in the backe parte and shouldcers, they used to lace them, in such sort that they came fitte upoln the bodies of those that ware them; and, being in this order attired, they came to daunce among many others. Ian Mexico, the king himself did put on one of these skinnes, being of a principall captive, and daunced among the other disguised persons, to exhalte and honour the feast; and an infinite number followed him, to behold his terrible gesture; although some hold opinion, that they followed him to contemplate his greate devotion. After the sacrifice ended, the owner of the slaves did carry their bodies home to their houses, to make of their fieshe a solemlne feaste to all their friendes, leaving their heads and heartes to the priests, as their dutie and offering; and the skinnes were filled with’ cotton-wool or strawe, to be hung in the temple and kyng’s palayce for a memorie.” — Conquest of the Weast India.
After the Inga Yupangui had successfully defended Cuzco against the Chancas, he had all of them who were slain skinned, and their skins stuffed and placed in various attitudes, some beating tambours, others blowing flutes, &c., in a large building which he erected as a monument for those who had fallen in defending the city.” — Herrera, 5, 3, 12.
Oh, what a pomp,
And pride and pageantry of’ war! — VII. p. 69.
Gomara thus describes the Tlascallan army: “They were trimme felowes, and wel armed, according to their use, although they were paynted so, that their faces shewed like divels, with great tuffes of feathers and triumphed gallantry. They had also slinges, staves, speares, swordes, bowes and arrowes, skulles, splintes, gantlettes, all of wood, gilte, or else covered with feathers or leather; their corslets were made of cottonwoole; their targettes and bucklers, gallant and strong, made of woode covered with leather, and trimmed with laton and feathers; theyr swordes were staves, with an edge of flint stone cunningly joyned into the staffe, which would cutte very well, and make a sore wounde. Their instruments of warre were hunters’ hornes, and drummes, called attabals, made like a caldron, and covered with vellum.” — Conquest of the Weast India.
In the inventory of the treasure which Grijalva brought fiom his expedition are a whole harness of furniture for an armed man, of gold, thin beaten; another whole armor of wood, with leaves of gold, garnished with little black stones; four pieces of armor of wood, made for the knees, and covered with golden leaf. And among the presents designed for the king were five targets of feathers and silver, and twenty-four of feathers and gold, set with pearls, both curious and gallant to behold.
They pil’d a heap of sedge before our host. — VII.. 70.
When the Spaniards discovered Camp
eche, the Indians heaped up a pile of dry sedge, and ranged themselves in troops. Ten priests then came from a temple, with censers and copal, wherewith they incensed the strangers, and then told, them by signs to depart, before that pile, which they were about to kindle, should be burnt out. The pile was immediately lighted; the priest withdrew without another word or motion; and the people began to whistle, and sound their shells. The Spaniards were weak, and many of them wounded; and they prudently retired in peace.” — Bernal Diaz, 3.
At the sacring of the popes, when the new-elected pope passeth (as the manner is) before St. Gregory’s Chapel, the master of the ceremonies goeth before him, bearing two dryreeds, at the end of the one a burninfg wax candle tied, and at the end of the other a handfull of flax, the which he setteth on fire, saying, with a loud voice, Pater Samete, sic transit gloria mundi. — Ccamerarius.
The Arrow of the Omen. — VII. p. 70.
The Tlaxcaltecas had two arrows, which they regarded with great reverence, and used to augur the event of a battle. Two of their bravest chiefs were to shoot them at the enemy, and recover them or die. If the arrow struck and wounded, it was held an omen that the fight would be prosperous; but, if they neither struck nor drew blood, the army retired.” — Torquemada, i. 34.
This is more particularly noticed by Gomara. “In the warres, the Tlascallans use their standerde to be carried behynde the army; but, when the battyle is to be fought, they place the standerde where all the hoste may see it; and he that commeth not incontinent to hys ancient payeth a penaltie. Their standerde hath two crossebow arrowes set thereon, which they esteeme as the relikes of their ancestors. Thys standerde two olde soldiers and valiant menne, being of the chiefest captaynes, have the charge to clrrie; in the which standerde, an abusion of southsaying, eyther of losse or victory, is noted. In. this order they shote one of these arrowes against the first enemies that they meete; and, if with that arrowe they do eyther kill or hurte, it is a token that they shall have the victorie; and, if it neyther kill nor hurte, then they assuredly believe that they shall lose the field.” — Conquest of the Weast India.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 70