{115}
IV
The Greatest Adventure in History
I. The Chief of all the Soldiers of Fortune
At the close of the fifteenth century, to be exact, in the year 1500,in the town of Painala, in the Province of Coatzacualco, one of thefeudatory divisions of the great Aztec empire of Mexico, there was borna young girl who was destined to exercise upon the fortunes of hercountry an influence as great as it was baleful, as wonderful as it wasunfortunate. She was the daughter of the Cacique of Tenepal, who wasLord of the town and province, a feoff of the Mexican Emperor MontezumaXocoyotzin. This was the second Montezuma who had occupied theimperial throne and his last name means "The Younger," which he adoptedto distinguish him from his predecessor in the empire.
This Lord of Painala, whose name has been forgotten, unfortunately forhis country departed this life soon after the birth of his daughter,who was called Malinal because she was born on the twelfth day of themonth, her name indicating that fact. His property naturally devolvedupon the young daughter. Her mother assumed the office of guardian andregent of the state. This lady, whose name has also been lost inoblivion, did not long remain single. After her second marriage, whichapparently took place with a somewhat indecent hurry, there was born to{116} her and her new consort, a young son. To secure to this son theinheritance, she sold her little daughter, too young to realize theunfortunate transaction, to some traders of Xicalango, who in turndisposed of her to a coast tribe of Aztecs called the Tabascans. Shelived in bondage with the Tabascans until she was nineteen years old.She developed into a woman of rare beauty and unusual intellect.Something of the power of high birth was evidently hers, for sheescaped the degrading servitude of the time, and was carefully trainedand prepared for some higher purpose. This girl was to be theinstrument of the downfall of her native land.
Now it happened that when Malinal was nineteen years old, the rumor ofa strange visitation ran up and down the shore among the people whodwelt upon the great Gulf of Mexico. Some remarkable beings, the likeof whom had never been seen or heard of within the memory of livingman, in some remarkable boats which absolutely transcended theimagination of the Aztecs, had been seen upon the coast and some ofthem had landed at different points. Also there had sifted from thesouth, from the Isthmus of Darien and the Panama States, some accountof these white-skinned demi-gods. Just enough rumor was current tocause alarm and uneasiness in the Aztec Empire when the attention ofthe rulers was called to some definite facts.
On Good Friday, March 23, 1519, the dreaded and expected happened, forthere landed at what is now the city of Vera Cruz, in the territory ofthe Tabascans, vassals of Montezuma, a party of these strangeadventurers. They were led by a man of mature years, whose name wasFernando Cortes--sometimes written {117} Hernando Cortes. LikePizarro, whose history has been related, he was from the forgottenprovince of Estremadura. He was born in the year 1485, in the city ofMedellin. He was seven years old when Columbus set sail upon thatepoch-making voyage of discovery and he was thirty-four when he setfoot for the first time on the shores of Mexico. In the interveningyears much interesting and valuable experience had been enjoyed.
The parents of Cortes belonged to the provincial nobility. They wereworthy and respectable subjects of the King of Spain. Theold-fashioned adjectives, "poor, but honest" could be applied to them.The boy was a puny, sickly lad, whom they scarcely expected to reachman's estate. When he was fourteen years old they entered him in thegreat University of Salamanca where he took his degree as Bachelor ofLaws, after a two years' course. The law, in Spain, was considered anentirely proper profession for the nobility, especially when thenobility were unable, through narrow circumstances, properly to supportthe profession of arms. Cortes, therefore, was in receipt of a liberaleducation for his day. His letters, some of which will be quotedhereafter, are evidences of his mental training. In some respects theyare as interesting as are the famous Commentaries of Julius Caesar.
The young man, whose constitution improved as he grew older, until heeventually became the hardiest, most enduring and bravest of hiscompany, which included the most intrepid men of the age, had no lovefor the humdrum profession of law. He desired to go to Italy and takeservice with Gonsalvo de Cordova, who is remembered, when he isremembered at all, as "The Great Captain"; but sickness prevented.{118} Following that, his thoughts turned, as did those of so manySpanish youths who were of an adventurous disposition, toward the NewWorld. After many setbacks, one of which was caused by a woundreceived by the hot-blooded young man while engaged in a love affair,and which left a permanent scar upon his upper lip, he finally landedat Santo Domingo in the Spring of 1504. From there he went to Cuba andserved under one Diego Velasquez, the governor of that province in somefierce fighting in the island, and received as a reward from thegovernor, who was much attached to him, a large plantation with anumber of Indians to work it. There he married and lived prosperously.What he had done before he arrived in Mexico counted little. What hedid afterward gave him eternal fame as one, if not the greatest, of theconquerors and soldiers of fortune in all history. Sir Arthur Helpsthus portrays him:
"Cortes," he says, "was an heroic adventurer, a very politic statesman,and an admirable soldier. He was cruel at times in conduct, but not indisposition; he was sincerely religious, profoundly dissembling,courteous, liberal, amorous, decisive. There was a certain grandeur inall his proceedings. He was fertile in resources; and, while he lookedforward, he was at the same time almost madly audacious in hisenterprises. This strange mixture of valor, religion, policy, andcraft, was a peculiar product of the century. . . . There are two mainpoints in his character which I shall dwell upon at the outset. Theseare his soldier-like qualities and his cruelty. As a commander, theonly fault imputed to him, was his recklessness in exposing himself tothe dangers of personal conflict with the enemy. But then, that is anerror {119} to be commonly noticed even in the greatest generals ofthat period; and Cortes, with this singular dexterity in arms, wasnaturally prone to fall into this error. As regards his peculiarqualifications as a commander, it may be observed, that, great as hewas in carrying out large and difficult operations in actual warfare,he was not less so in attending to those minute details upon which somuch of the efficiency of troops depends. His companion-in-arms,Bernal Diaz, says of him, 'He would visit the hut of every soldier, seethat his arms were ready at hand, and that he had his shoes on. Thosewhom he found had neglected anything in this way he severelyreprimanded, and compared them to mangy sheep, whose own wool is tooheavy for them.'
"I have said that he was cruel in conduct, but not in disposition.This statement requires explanation. Cortes was a man who alwaysdetermined to go through with the thing he had once resolved to do.Human beings, if they came in his way, were to be swept out of it, likeany other material obstacles. He desired no man's death, but if peoplewould come between him and success, they must bear the consequences.He did not particularly value human life. The ideas of the nineteenthcentury in that respect were unknown to him. He had come to conquer,to civilize, to convert (for he was really a devout man from his youthupward); and, as his chaplain takes care to tell us, knew many prayersand psalms of the choir by heart; and the lives of thousands ofbarbarians, for so he deemed them, were of no account in the balance ofhis mind, when set against the great objects he had in view. In sayingthis, I am not apologizing for this cruelty; I am only endeavoring toexplain it.
"Of all the generals who have been made known {120} to us in history,or by fiction, Claverhouse, as represented by Sir Walter Scott, mostclosely resembles Cortes. Both of them thorough gentlemen, verydignified, very nice and precise in all their ways and habits, theywere sadly indifferent to the severity of the means by which theycompassed their ends; and bloody deeds sat easily, for the most part,upon their well-bred natures. I make these comments once for all; andshall hold myself excused from making further comments of a like naturewhen any of the cruelties of Cortes come before u
s--cruelties which onemust ever deeply deplore on their own account, and bitterly regret asineffaceable strains upon the fair fame and memory of a very great man.. . . The conquest of Mexico could hardly have been achieved at thisperiod under any man of less genius than that which belonged toHernando Cortes. And even his genius would probably not have attemptedthe achievement, or would have failed in it, but for a singularconcurrence of good and evil fortune, which contributed much to theultimate success of his enterprise. Great difficulties and fearfulconflicts of fortune not only stimulate to great attempts, butabsolutely create the opportunities for them."
II. The Expedition to Mexico.
Reports brought back to Cuba by one Juan de Grijilva, who told of thepopulous and wealthy cities of the main land to the westward of Cuba,induced Velasquez to fit out an expedition for exploration,colonization or whatever might turn up. Casting about among hisfriends, followers, and acquaintances for a suitable leader, his choiceafter some hesitation {121} devolved upon Cortes. This nascent captainhad not lived at the provincial court of Velasquez without impressinghis characteristics upon those with whom he came in contact. After theoutfitting of the expedition had progressed considerably, Velasquez waswarned that Cortes was of too high and resolved a spirit to be trustedwith an independent command, and it was probable that upon thisopportunity he would disregard his instructions and act for his owninterests, without giving another thought to Velasquez and his backers.
Velasquez ignored the suggestions that he displace Cortes until it wastoo late. Cortes, learning that his enemies were undermining him withthe governor, hastily completed his preparations and set sail a shorttime in advance of the arrival of the order displacing him from thecommand. His little squadron touched at a point in Cuba and was thereovertaken by the missive from Velasquez, which Cortes absolutelydisregarded. He had embarked his property and had persuaded hisfriends to invest and did not propose to be displaced by anybody oranything.
The expedition consisted of eleven ships. The flag was a small caravelof one hundred tons burden. There were three others of eighty tonseach, and the seven remaining were small, undecked brigantines.Authorities vary as to the number of men in the expedition, but therewere between five hundred and fifty and six hundred Spaniards, twohundred Indian servants, ten small pieces of artillery, four falconetsand sixteen horses.
The truth must be admitted. There were three factors which contributedto the downfall of that vast empire against which this expedition ofadventurers {122} was launched. One of them was Cortes himself, thesecond was Malinal, and the third was the sixteen, doubtless sorryhorses, loaded into the ships. Fiske says:
"It was not enough that the Spanish soldier of that day was a bulldogfor strength and courage, or that his armor was proof against stonearrows and lances, or that he wielded a Toledo blade that could cutthrough silken cushions, or that his arquebus and cannon were not onlydeath-dealing weapons but objects of superstitious awe. More potentthan all else together were those frightful monsters, the horses.Before these animals men, women, and children fled like sheep, orskulked and peeped from behind their walls in an ecstasy of terror. Itwas that paralyzing, blood-curdling fear of the supernatural, againstwhich no amount of physical bravery, nothing in the world but modernknowledge, is of the slightest avail."
After touching at various places, in one of which they were luckyenough to find and release a Spanish captive named Geronimo de Aguilar,who had been wrecked on the Yucatan coast while on a voyage from theSpanish settlement in Darien and had been taken captive by the Mayasand held for several years. The hospitable Mayas had eaten most of theexpedition. There were then but two alive. One had renounced hisreligion, married a Maya woman, and had been elected chieftain of thetribe, and accordingly refused to join Cortes. Aguilar was unfetteredand glad of the opportunity. During his sojourn among the Mayas he hadlearned to speak their language fluently.
After landing at Tabasco on Good Friday, there was a great battle withthe warlike inhabitants of that section, a battle which resulted in thecomplete {123} discomfiture of the Tabascans. The artillery did muchto bring this about, but was not especially terrifying to theaborigines because they crowded in such numbers around the Spaniards,and made such terrific outcries, beating on their drums the while, thatthey drowned out the noise of the cannonade; but when Cortes at thehead of the horsemen sallied out from the woods, and fell upon them,the strange, terrifying spectacle presented by these mail-clad monstersand demons, took the heart out of the Tabascans, and they abandoned thecontest, leaving, so the chroniclers say, countless numbers dead uponthe field.
They knew when they had had enough, and immediately thereafter, theysued for peace. Cortes was graciously pleased to grant their request,and to accept as a peace-offering a score of slaves. Among them wasMalinal. In the allotment of the slaves among the officers, she fellto the share of Alonzo de Puerto Carrero from whom Cortes speedilyacquired her.
Of all the Indians present with Cortes, Malinal alone could speak twolanguages. The Tabascans spoke a sort of degenerate Maya, with which,as she had lived among them so long, she was of course perfectlyfamiliar, at the same time she had not forgotten her native Mexican.It would have been impossible for Cortes to have communicated with theMexicans without Malinal, for Aguilar could turn Spanish into Maya, andMalinal could turn Maya into Mexican. This means of communication,round about though it might be, was at once established. Theintervention of Aguilar soon became unnecessary, for Malinal presentlylearned to speak pure Castilian with fluency and grace. She receivedinstruction from the worthy priests who accompanied the expedition andwas {124} baptised under the name of Marina, and it is by that namethat she is known in history. Her eminence is even greater than thatunfortunate Florinda, whose father, to revenge her mistreatment by KingRoderick, the Goth, sold Spain to Tarik, the Saracen, so many centuriesbefore.
Marina learnt among other things to love Cortes, whose fortunes shefollowed and whom she served with an absolute, unquestioning, blinddevotion and fidelity until the end. So absolute was this attachmentof hers that Cortes became known to the Aztecs as the Lord of Marina.The Aztecs could not pronounce the letter R. Marina was thereforechanged to Malina, which curiously enough was nearly her original name.The word "Tzin" is the Aztec name for Lord, consequently Cortes wascalled Malintzin, or more shortly Malinche, meaning, as has beenstated, the Lord of Malina.
Sir Arthur Helps has this to say of her: "Indeed her fidelity wasassured by the love which she bore her master. Bernal Diaz says thatshe was handsome, clever, and eager to be useful (one that will have anoar in every boat), and she looked the great lady that she was.
"There was hardly any person in history to whom the ruin of thatperson's native land can be so distinctly brought home, as it can be tothe wicked mother of Donna Marina. Cortes, valiant and skilful as hewas in the use of the sword, was not less valiant (perhaps we mightsay, not less audacious) nor less skilful, in the use of the tongue.All the craft which he afterward showed in negotiations would have beenprofitless without a competent and trusty interpreter. . . . If amedal had been struck to commemorate the deeds of {125} Cortes, thehead of Donna Marina should have been associated with that of Cortes onthe face of the medal; for, without her aid, his conquest of Mexicowould never have been accomplished."
III. The Religion of the Aztecs
Now the Aztec Empire was a rather loose confederation of states boundtogether by allegiance to a common overlord, who had his capital acrossthe mountains in the City of Mexico. It had been founded by the influxof an army of fierce marauders from the North who had overwhelmed theToltecs who occupied the country and had attained a degree ofcivilization which is presumed to have been higher than that whichdisplaced it. This Empire of Anahuac, as it was sometimes called, hadendured for two centuries. It was a military despotism and the emperorwas a military despot. His rule was the rule of fear. It subsisted byforce of arms and terror was its cohering power. It had been extendedby ruthless conquest
alone until it comprised from eighteen hundred totwo thousand square leagues, about two hundred thousand square miles ofterritory. The capital, situated on an island in the midst of a saltlake, was known as Tenochtitlan, or the City of Mexico, and what Romewas to the Italian states, or Carthage was to the north Africanliteral, this city was to Anahuac, the empire of the Aztecs. The nameTenochtitlan is thus explained by Fiske:
"When the Aztecs, hard pressed by foes, took refuge among thesemarshes, they came upon a sacrificial stone which they recognized asone upon which some years before one of their priests had immolated acaptive {126} chief. From a crevice in this stone, where a littleearth was imbedded, there grew a cactus, upon which sat an eagleholding in its beak a serpent. A priest ingeniously interpretated thissymbolism as a prophecy of signal and long-continued victory, and,forthwith diving into the lake, he had an interview with Tlaloc, thegod of waters, who told him that upon that very spot the people were tobuild their town. The place was thereafter called Tenochtitlan, or"the place of the cactus-rock," but the name under which it afterwardcame to be best known was taken from Mexitl, one of the names of thewar god Huitzilopochtli. The device of the rock, the cactus, with theeagle and the serpent, formed a tribal totem for the Aztecs, and hasbeen adopted, as the coat-of-arms of the present Republic of Mexico."
Included in the sway of its emperor were many different tribes. Theywere kept in submission by the strong and inexorable hand. There werea few tribes, however, which had not been subdued and which stillmaintained a more or less precarious independence. The subject peopleswere only kept from open rebellion by the most rigorous and oppressivemeasures. There was jealousy, humiliation, hoped-for revengethroughout the entire empire.
Each tribe or people had its own local god, but there was a bondcoherent in the general Mexican religion that had its centre of worshipin the great city, and which all of them followed. This religion wasone of the most ferocious, degrading and disgusting of any in history.It required human sacrifice on a larger scale than had ever before beenpractised. Cannibalism was universal. Captives of war were sacrificedto the gods and their bodies eaten. In Mexico, {127} itself, with allits charm, with all its beauty, with all its luxuries, with all itsverdure and wealth, there were huge pyramids of skulls. The priestswere ferocious creatures, whose long black locks, never combed, werematted with blood, as they sacrificed to their awful war-god humanhearts, still palpitating, torn from the victims a moment since alive.Fiske thus describes the temple pyramid and chief shrine in the greatcity:
"On the summit was a dreadful block of jasper, convex at the top, sothat when the human victim was laid upon his back and held down, thebreast was pushed upwards, ready for the priest to make one deepslashing cut and snatch out the heart. Near the sacrificial block werethe altars, and sanctuaries of the gods, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli,and others, with idols as hideous as their names. On these altarssmoked fresh human hearts, of which the gods were fond, while otherparts of the bodies were ready for the kitchens of the communal housesbelow. The gods were voracious as wolves, and the victims as numerous.In some cases the heart was thrust into the mouth of the idol with agolden spoon, in others the lips were simply daubed with blood. In thetemple a great quantity of rattlesnakes, kept as sacred objects werefed with the entrails of the victims. Other parts of the body weregiven to the menagerie beasts, which were probably also kept forpurposes of religious symbolism. Blood was also rubbed into the mouthsof the carved serpents upon the jambs and lintels of the houses. Thewalls and floor of the great temple were clotted with blood and shredsof human flesh, and the smell was like that of a slaughter-house. Justoutside the temple, in front of the broad street which {128} led acrossthe causeway to Tlacopan, stood the _tzompantli_, which was an oblongparallelogram of earth and masonry, one hundred and fifty-four feet(long) at the base, ascended by thirty steps, on each of which wereskulls. Round the summit were upward of seventy raised poles aboutfour feet apart, connected by numerous rows of cross-poles passedthrough holes in the masts, on each of which five skulls were filed,the sticks being passed through the temples. In the centre stood twotowers, or columns, made of skulls and lime, the face of each skullbeing turned outwards, and giving a horrible appearance to the whole.This effect was heightened by leaving the heads of distinguishedcaptives in their natural state, with hair and skin on. As the skullsdecayed they fell from the towers or poles, and they were replaced byothers, so that no vacant place was left."
Concerning the cruelty of the Spaniards, the contrast between theopposing religions must be considered. Ruthless as the conquerorswere, there is no possible comparison between the most indifferentprinciples of the Christian Religion and the application of the awfulprinciples of the Mexican religion. MacNutt, the author of the latestand best life of Cortes, makes this interesting comment on theChristianity of the Spanish adventurers of the time:
"Soldier of Spain and soldier of the Cross, for the Cross was thestandard of militant Christianity, of which Spain was the truestexponent, his religion, devoutly believed in, but intermittentlypractised, inspired his ideals, without sufficiently guiding hisconduct. Ofttimes brutal, he was never vulgar, while as a lover ofsheer daring and of danger for danger's sake, he has never beeneclipsed. . . . {129} Sixteenth-century Spain produced a race ofChristian warriors whose piety, born of an intense realization of, andlove for a militant Christ, was of a martial complexion, beholding inthe symbol of salvation--the Cross--the standard of Christendom aroundwhich the faithful must rally, and for whose protection and exaltationswords must be drawn and blood spilled if need be. They were thechildren of the generation which had expelled the Moor from Spain, andhad brought centuries of religious and patriotic warfare to atriumphant close, in which their country was finally united under thecrown of Castile. From such forebears the generation of Cortesreceived its heritage of Christian chivalry. The discovery of a newworld, peopled by barbarians, opened a fresh field to Spanishmissionary zeal, in which the kingdom of God upon earth was to beextended and countless souls rescued from the obscene idolatries anddebasing cannibalism which enslaved them."
In the Mexican Pantheon, however, there was one good god, namedQuetzalcoatl. He was a Toltec deity, and was venerated as the god ofthe air. He was identified with the east wind which brought thefertilizing rains. Some historians and investigators explain him aspurely a mythical personage. He was supposed to have appeared to theToltecs long before the Aztecs came into the land. He was described inancient traditions as a tall, white-faced, bearded man, whose dressdiffered from that of the aborigines and included a long white tunic,upon which were dark red crosses. His teachings enjoined chastity,charity, and penance. He had but one God and preached in the name ofthat God. He condemned human sacrifice and taught the nationagriculture, metal work and {130} mechanics. He fixed their calendarso that it was much more reliable than either the Greek or the Roman.There were various legends as to his departure, one of them being thathe sailed away across the sea upon a raft composed of serpents, and waswafted into the unknown East whence he had come.
His color, his dress, his teachings, and his character, are all sosymbolic of Christianity, they are so strange, so unique, so utterlywithout an explanation in anything else known of the Aztecs andToltecs, that the conclusion that he was a Christian Bishop, wearing apallium is almost irresistible. Why could not some Christian Bishop,voyaging along the shores of Europe, have been blown far out of hiscourse by a long-continued easterly gale, finally have landed on theshores of Mexico and, having done what he could to teach the people,have built himself some kind of a ship and sailed eastward in the hopeof once more revisiting his native land before he died. At any rate,such is the tradition. It was a tradition or legend which played nosmall part in the conquest about to be effected.
IV. The March to Tenochtitlan
Into this loosely compact political and social organization,hard-headed, clear-sighted, iron-hearted, steel-clad Cortesprecipitated himself. His was a mind at
the same time capable of vastand comprehensive designs and a most minute attention to small details.For instance, he laid out the city of Vera Cruz at the place of hislanding. He caused his men to elect a full corps of municipal officersfrom their number. To this organization he frankly resigned hiscommission and the power that he had by the appointment of {131}Velasquez, which the latter had tried so hard to revoke. Theyimmediately elected him captain-general of the expedition with vastlyincreased prerogatives and privileges. Thus he could now, in form atleast, trace his authority to the crown, as represented by this newcolonial municipality and he therefore had behind him the whole powerof the expedition!
With a skill, which showed not only his adroitness, but hisdetermination, he next caused his men to acquiesce in the scuttling ofthe ships which had conveyed them to Mexico! After saving the cordage,rigging and everything else that might be useful, which was carefullystored away in the little fort rapidly building, the vessels weredestroyed beyond repair. Before this was done, Cortes offered toreserve one ship for certain malcontents and partisans of Velasquez inwhich they might return if they wished. Nobody took advantage of hisoffer.
By this bold and original stroke, he added to his expeditionary forcesome one hundred and twenty hardy mariners, who thereafter took partwith the soldiery in all the hazards and undertakings. With,therefore, less than six hundred men, sixteen horses, ten small cannon,and one woman, Cortes prepared to undertake the conquest of this mightyempire. It was a small force, but its fighting quality wasunsurpassed. Lew Wallace thus characterizes them:
"It is hardly worth while to eulogize the Christians who took part inCortes's crusade. History has assumed their commemoration. I may say,however, they were men who had acquired fitness for the task by servicein almost every clime. Some had tilted with the Moor under the wallsof Granada; some had {132} fought the Islamite on the blue Danube; somehad performed the first Atlantic voyage with Columbus; all of them hadhunted the Carib in the glades of Hispaniola. It is not enough todescribe them as fortune-hunters, credulous, imaginative, tireless;neither is it enough to write them soldiers, bold, skilful, confident,cruel to enemies, gentle to each other. They were characters of theage in which they lived, unseen before, unseen since; knights errant,who believed in hippogriff and dragon, but sought them only in lands ofgold; missionaries, who complacently broke the body of the convertedthat Christ might the sooner receive his soul; palmers of pike andshield, who, in care of the Virgin, followed the morning round theworld, assured that Heaven stooped lowest over the most profitableplantations."
Just what Cortes at first proposed to do is not quite clear. Indeed,he himself could not form any definite plan until the circumstancesunder which he would be compelled to act, should be more preciselyascertained. He was, therefore, an opportunist. For one thing, hemade up his mind to lead his troops to the capital city willy-nilly,and there act as circumstances might determine. He was a statesman aswell as a soldier. It did not take him long to fathom thepeculiarities of the organization and composition of the Aztec Empire.He knew that discord existed and he had only to introduce himself tobecome a focus for the discontent and rebellion. By giving a secretimpression that he was for either side, he could play one party againstthe other, as best suited his purposes. He came to bring freedom tothe one, to promote the revolt of the other, check the oppression ofthe third, and destroy the presumption of the another {133} tribe, orwarring nation. So he caused his purposes to be declared.
Cortes's personal character was not by any means above reproach, yetwithal he was a sincere and devoted Christian, strange and inexplicableas the paradox may seem, but it was an age of devoted Christians, whosedevotion and principles fortunately were not translated into dailylife. Neither Cortes nor any of his followers--perhaps not even thepriests were of different opinion--thought any less of themselves orregarded themselves the less worthy Christians: if their conduct towardthe native races did not manifest that continence, restraint andsympathy which their religion taught. Cortes was a child of his age;the other great men of his age were much like him in these things.Here and there a Las Casas appears, but he shines forth against a darkand universally extensive background. Such as the great apostles tothe Indies were lonely exceptions indeed.
All the Spanish conquerors were cruel; but Cortes was not so cruel asmany others. He was not to be compared to the ruthless Pizarro forinstance. Save in daring and personal courage, he vastly surpassed theLord of Peru in every quality which goes to make a man. Cortes wastreacherous in his dealings with Montezuma and others, but the man ofhis age regarded very lightly the obligation of his word toward asavage. Indeed, it was a well-known principle that no faith wasnecessarily to be kept with either heretics or heathen and no oath wasbinding against the interests of the state. Cortes, of course, had allthe contempt for the Aztecs that Caucasians usually have for inferiorraces, although in his letters, he tried his very best to be fair, tobe just, even to be generous to these {134} people he overcame; and noone can doubt the sincerity with which he desired to promote thespreading of the Christian religion.
They did things differently in those days. Not only did they believethat the religion of the heathen should be changed by force, but theybelieved that in some way they could constrain all people to acceptChristianity. More blood has been shed in promoting the idea that theoutsider should be compelled to come into the fold than from themisinterpretation of any other text in the sacred scriptures. If anycivilized power in the world to-day should send an expeditionary forceinto a heathen country, which should signalize its arrival therein bythe desecration of its temples and the destruction of its idols, thecommander would be recalled at once. We have learned other methods,methods of persuasion, of reason, of love. The age of Cortes knewnothing of these methods, and he was only following out the commonpractice when he smashed with his battle-axe the hideous gods of theMexicans, and washed and purified with clean water, the reeking, gory,ill-smelling slaughter-houses which were the Aztec Holy of Holies, andadorned them with crosses and images of the Blessed Virgin Mary. WhenCharles the IX. offered Henry of Navarre a choice of death, mass, orthe Bastille on the night of Saint Bartholomew, he gave him one morechance than the early steel-clad militant missionary gave to theaborigines of the new world--for them there was no Bastille.
Making friends with the Tabascans, and leaving one hundred and fiftymen to guard his base of supplies at Vera Cruz and to watch the coast,Cortes began his march toward Mexico on the sixteenth day of August,1519. He proceeded with the greatest caution. Bernal {135} Diaz, anold soldier, who afterward wrote a most vivid and graphic account ofthe conquest, of which he was no small part, says that they marchedforward "with their beards on their shoulders," that is, looking fromside to side, constantly. There was no hurry and there was no need totire out the force which was thus facing the danger of a long, hard andrash adventure.
By the aid of Marina and Aguilar, Cortes speedily learned of placeslike Cempoalla, which were hostile to Montezuma and he took in as manyof these places on his march as possible, always with incidentsinstructive and valuable. At Cempoalla, for instance, he met thetax-gatherers of Montezuma. He persuaded the Cempoallans to refusepayment of the tax--an action which would ordinarily have brought downupon them the fury of the Aztec monarch and would have resulted intheir complete and utter extermination. He did more. He caused theCacique of Cempoalla--a man so fat and gross, that, like "the littleround belly" of Santa Claus, he "shook like a jelly" so that theSpaniards called him "The Trembler"--actually to raise his hand againstthe tax-gatherers and imprison them. They would undoubtedly have beensacrificed and eaten had not Cortes, secretly and by night releasedthree of them and allowed them to go back to their royal master, afterhe had sent two into a safe ward at Vera Cruz.
Montezuma's messengers met him at every town. "Bearing rich gifts,they disclosed the possibilities of the _Hinterland_ and germinated inthe brain of Cortes the idea of conquest. One revelation was confirmed
by another, and, as the evidence of Aztec wealth multiplied the proofsof internal disaffection throughout the {136} empire stimulated theconfidence of the brooding conqueror. Disloyalty among the Totonacs,treachery that only waited an opportunity in Texcoco, an ancienttradition of hate in Tlascala, and the superstition that obscured thejudgment and paralyzed the action of the despotic ruler--these were thematerials from which the astute invader evolved the machinery for hisconquest."
Montezuma was in a pitiable state of superstitious indecision. It waspopularly believed that Quetzalcoatl would some day return, and it wasmore than probable to the Aztec monarch and his counsellors that hemight be reincarnated in the person of Cortes and his followers.Indeed, the common name for them among the Mexicans was Teules, whichmeans gods. If Cortes was a god it was useless to fight against him.If he and his were men, they could of course be easily exterminated,but were they men? There were a few bold spirits who inclined to thisbelief, but not many. Besides, whatever the rest might be, thehorsemen must be of divine origin. Cuitlahua, the brother ofMontezuma, and one of the highest and most important of the Aztecrulers was for attacking them whatever the consequences, but he wasalone in advising this. It was thought better to temporize. Perhapslater on it might be decided whether these strange beings were ofcommon clay, and there would be plenty of time to exterminate them then.
Montezuma was therefore an opportunist, like Cortes, but there was avast difference between them. Montezuma was a man of great ability,undoubtedly, or he never could have been chosen by the hereditaryelectors to the position he occupied, and he could never have held itif he had not been. He was a man over {137} fifty years of age, andhad maintained himself on the throne, in spite of many wars, in whichhe had been almost universally victorious. His judgment and hisdecision alike were paralyzed by superstition. He did the unwisestthing he could possibly have done. He sent messengers to Cortes,bearing rich gifts, gold, feather work, green stones, which theSpaniards thought were emeralds, vast treasures. He acknowledged ineffect the wonderful wisdom of Cortes's overlord, the great emperor,Charles V., in whose name Cortes did everything, taking care always tohave a notary to attest his proclamations to the Indians, but he toldCortes not to come to Mexico City. He said that he was poor, that thejourney was a long and hard one; in short, he offered him everyinducement to come with one hand, while he waved him back with theother.
Treasure was the only motive of the conquerors of Peru. Cortes was bigenough and great enough to rise above that. He was after larger thingsthan the mere filling of his purse, and on several occasions herelinquished his own share of the booty to the soldiery. He was anempire-builder, not a treasure-hunter.
As Cortes progressed through the country, the treasure sent byMontezuma grew in value, and the prohibitions, which by and by amountedto entreaties, increased in volume. We wonder what might havehappened, if young Guatemoc, whom we shall hear of later had occupiedthe throne. Certainly, although the Spaniards would have diedfighting, they would undoubtedly have been overwhelmed, and theconquest of Mexico might have been postponed for another generation ortwo. It was bound to happen anyway, sooner or later, as far as thatgoes.
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V. The Republic of Tlascala
Cortes's progress finally brought him to a remarkable tribe, whosefriendship he succeeded in winning, and which must be added as thefourth factor, with himself, Marina, and the horses, as the cause ofthe downfall of Mexico. Curiously enough, this tribe had a sort ofrepublican form of government. It is usually referred to as theRepublic of Tlascala. It was an independent confederation composed offour separate states. The government consisted of a senate, composedof the rulers of the four states or clans of the tribe. Tlascala wascompletely hemmed in by provinces of the Aztec Empire, with which itwas always in a state of constant and bitter warfare. The inhabitantshad no access to the sea, consequently they had never enjoyed the useof salt. They had no access to the lowlands, so they were withoutcotton, a fabric then universally used throughout the country. Theyhad no trade or commerce. They were completely shut in and eternalvigilance was the price of their liberty. They lacked the arts, thegrace, and the refinement of the Mexicans, but they were as hardy, asbold, as skilful in the use of arms, and as determined, as well ascruel, as the Aztecs. Neither Montezuma nor his predecessors with thepower of millions had been able to make them acknowledge anysovereignty but their own. They were protected by the mountain rangesand here and there they had built high walls across the valley.Tlascala was a large and imposing city. Cortes thus describes it:
"This city is so extensive and so well worthy of admiration, thatalthough I omit much that I could {139} say of it, I feel assured thatthe little I shall say will be scarcely credited, for it is larger thanGranada, and much stronger, and contains as many fine houses and a muchlarger population than that city did at the time of its capture; and itis much better supplied with the products of the earth, such as corn,and with fowls and game, fish from the rivers, various kinds ofvegetables, and other exellent articles of food. There is in this citya market, in which every day thirty thousand people are engaged inbuying and selling, besides many other merchants who are scatteredabout the city. The market contains a great variety of articles bothof food and clothing, and all kinds of shoes for the feet; jewels ofgold and silver, and precious stones, and ornaments of feathers, all aswell arranged as they can possibly be found in any public squares ormarkets in the world. There is much earthenware of every style and agood quality, equal to the best Spanish manufacture. Wood, coal,edible and medicinal plants, are sold in great quantities. There arehouses where they wash and shave the head as barbers, and also forbaths. Finally, there is found among them a well-regulated police; thepeople are rational and well disposed, and altogether greatly superiorto the most civilized African nations. The country abounds in leveland beautiful valleys all tilled and sown, without any part lyingunimproved. In its constitution of government that has existed untilthe present time, it resembles the states of Venice, Genoa and Pisa;since the supreme authority is not reposed in one person. There aremany nobles, all of whom reside in the city; the common people arelaborers and the vassals of the nobility, but each one possesses landof his own, some more than others. In war all unite and have a voicein its management {140} and direction. It may be supposed that theyhave tribunals of justice for the punishment of the guilty; since whenone of the natives of the province stole some gold of a Spaniard, and Imentioned the circumstance to Magiscacin, the most powerful of thenobility, they made search for the thief, and traced him to a city inthe neighborhood called Churultecal (Cholula) from whence they broughthim prisoner, and delivered him to me with the gold, saying that I musthave him punished. I acknowledged in suitable terms the pains they hadtaken in the matter, but remarked to them that since the prisoner wasin their country, they should punish him according to their custom, andthat I chose not to interfere with the punishment of their people whileI remained among them. They thanked me and, taking the man, carriedhim to the great market, a town crier making public proclamations ofhis offense; they then placed him at the base of a structure resemblinga theatre, which stands in the midst of the market-place, while thecrier went to the top of the building, and with a loud voice againproclaimed his offense; whereupon the people beat him with sticks untilhe was dead. We likewise saw many persons in prison who were said tobe confined for theft and other offenses they had committed. There arein this province, according to the report made by my order, fivehundred thousand inhabitants, besides those in another smaller provinceadjacent to this, called Guazincango, who live in the manner, notsubject to any native sovereign and are not less the vassals of YourHighness than the people of Tlascala."
Montezuma gave another reason for permitting the Tlascalans theirliberty and independence. He said that he was allowing them tomaintain their existence {141} and remain a republic because everythingelse in the vicinity had been conquered; and as there was no field forthe young warriors
of the Aztec nation to obtain that military trainingwhich it was always best to learn by actual experience, he keptTlascala in a state of enmity because it furnished him a place where hecould get the human beings for sacrifices to his gods that he requiredand at the same time train his young soldiery. In other words,Tlascala was regarded as a sort of game preserve from a religious pointof view. Doubtless, Tlascala did not acknowledge the justice, thepropriety and the correctness of this attitude of scorn and contempt onthe part of the Aztecs. The other tribes of Mexico bore the yokeuneasily, and cherished resentment, but even the enmity between theJews and the Samaritans was not more bitter than the enmity between theTlascalans and the people of the city of Anahuac.
When Cortes drew near Tlascala, the senate debated what course itshould pursue toward him. One of the four regents, so called, of therepublic was a man of great age, feeble and blind, but resolute ofspirit. His name was Xicotencatl. He was all for war. He was opposedby a young man named Maxixcatzin. The debate between the two and theother participants was long and furious. Finally the desire ofXicotencatl prevailed in a modified form. There was a tribe occupyingpart of the Tlascalan territory and under Tlascalan rule calledOtumies. It was decided to cause the Otumies to attack Cortes and hisforce. If Cortes was annihilated, the problem would be solved. If theOtumies were defeated their action would be disavowed by the Tlascalansand no harm would be done to anybody but the unfortunate {142} Otumies,for whom no one in Tlascala felt any great concern.
The Otumies were placed in the front of the battle, but the Tlascalansthemselves followed under the command of another Xicotencatl, son ofthe old regent, who was a tried and brilliant soldier. The battlesalong the coast had been more like massacres, but this was a realfight, and a number of Spaniards were killed, three horses also, morevaluable than the men, were despatched, and at the close of theengagement the Spaniards had lost about fifty, a serious diminution ofthe forces of Cortes, but the unfortunate Otumies and the Tlascalanswere overwhelmed with a fearful slaughter. Of course, the action ofthe Otumies was disavowed, Cortes was invited into Tlascala and analliance between the Spaniards and the republic was consummated. TheTlascalans threw themselves, heart and soul, into the project, whichthey dimly perceived was in the mind of Cortes, the conquest of Mexico.Nothing was said about all of this. Cortes simply declared his designto pay a friendly visit to Montezuma to whom he sent repeated andsolemn assurances that he intended him no harm, that Montezuma couldreceive him with the utmost frankness and without fear and withoutanticipating any violence whatever on the part of the Spaniards. Butthe wise in Tlascala knew that a collision between the Spaniards andthe Aztecs would be inevitable. They saw a chance to feed fat theirancient grudge, and to exact bitter revenge for all that they hadsuffered at the hands of the Aztecs.
To anticipate, they were faithful to the alliance and loyally carriedout their part of the agreement in the resulting campaigns. Withoutthem on several {143} occasions Cortes' fortunes would have been evenmore desperate than they were. Montezuma's envoys, heartily detestingthe Tlascalans, sought to persuade Cortes against any dealings withthem whatsoever. They gave a very bad character to the dusky allies ofthe Spaniards and the Tlascalans returned the compliment in kind.
When his wounded had recovered, accompanied by a large army ofTlascalans under young Xicotencatl, Cortes set forth about the middleof October on the last stage of his wonderful journey. By this time,Montezuma had concluded to make a virtue out of a necessity, and he hadsent word to him that he would welcome him to his capital. He receivedreturn reiterations of the statement that Cortes' intentions wereentirely pacific, that he represented the greatest monarch in the worldwho lived beyond the seas, and all that he would require of Montezumawas the acknowledgment of his dependence in common with every earthlymonarch upon this mysterious potentate across the ocean. ThisMontezuma was quite willing to give. He was also willing to pay anytribute exacted if only these children of the Sun would go away, and hecould be left to the undisturbed enjoyment of his kingdom.
He suggested a way for Cortes to approach the capital. The Tlascalansdid some scouting and informed Cortes that the way was filled withpitfalls, blocked with stones, and the opportunities for ambuscade weremany and good. No one can blame Montezuma for taking theseprecautions, although he afterwards disowned any participation in themand said that the arrangements had been made by some irresponsiblesubjects, and Cortes passed it over.
The Tlascalans, who knew all the passes of the {144} mountains, offeredto lead Cortes and his followers by another way. Although he waswarned not to trust them by the envoys of Montezuma, Cortes with thatjudgment of men which so distinguished him, elected the harder andshorter way across the mountains. Nature had made the pass a difficultone, but the indomitable Spaniards struggled over it, enduring terriblefatigue and periods of piercing cold. They got far above the timberline and approached the boundaries of eternal snow. It ischaracteristic of them, that on one point of their journey, theystopped and despatched a party under Ordaz to scale and explore thesmoking volcano Popocatepetl, which with Ixtaccihuatl guarded thebeautiful valley of Mexico. Ordaz and his twelve companions followedthe guides as far as they would lead them and then they climbed far upthe sides. They were unable to reach the top, but they accomplished aprodigious ascent, and Ordaz was afterwards allowed to add to his coatof arms a flaming volcano.
The summit of the mountain was at last passed, and the magnificentvalley of Mexico opened to their view. It was a scene which causedeven the hearts of these rugged and hardened adventurers to thrill withpleasure and satisfaction. No fairer land had ever burst upon humanvision. The emerald verdure was broken by beautiful lakes, bordered byluxuriant vegetation, diversified by mountains and plateaus, while hereand there magnificent cities glistened in the brilliant tropical sunamong the sparkling waters. As far as one could see the land was undercultivation.
The descent of the mountains was easy, comparatively speaking, and theSpaniards, after some journeying, {145} found themselves in thepopulous and wealthy city of Cholula, remarkable for the splendidpyramid temple--Teocalli--which rose in the centre of its encirclingwalls.
Here a plan was devolved to massacre the whole force which had beenquartered in one of the vast palaces or houses of the town. The womenand the children left the city in large numbers, a vast body of Mexicansoldiers was secretly assembled near by. The provisions, which hadalways been supplied them generously, were suddenly withdrawn. Thesuspicions of the Spaniards were of course awakened and extra goodwatch was kept. They did not know what to suspect, until a Cholulanwoman, who had formed an acquaintance with Marina, told her of thepurpose of the Mexicans, and advised her to flee from the Spanish campif she valued her life. The faithful Marina immediately disclosed thewhole plan to Cortes. He acted with remarkable celerity and decision.There were many Cholulan lords and attendants about the Spanish campand there were many others in town, evidently to lull any suspicionswhich the Spaniards might feel and to make whatever excuse they couldfor the lack of provisions. On one pretense or another, Cortessummoned the whole body to his house, which was a great ramblingstructure of many rooms and thick walls and enclosures. He got themassembled in one room and then proceeded to slaughter most of them,reserving only a few for use after the event had been determined.While this butchering was going on he sent others of his troops intothe streets and squares of the town, where they killed withouthesitation and without mercy all with whom they came in contact,including several bodies of soldiers who {146} were more or lesshelpless without their leaders, whom Cortes had so craftily disposed of.
This was the celebrated massacre of Cholula. Whether it wasjustifiable or not, each reader must settle for himself. Cortes'situation then was certainly desperate; for that matter, it wasdesperate at all times. His life and the lives of his comrades hungupon a thread. He certainly had a right to protect himself.Personally, I do not think such a slaughter was necessary for hisprotection. However, Cortes t
hought so, and he was there. It was hislife that was concerned, and not mine. Other monarchs in morecivilized days have done practically the same as this, as for instance,the famous Barmecide feast, the wholesale assassination of theAbencerrages in Spain, the massacre of the Mamelukes by Napoleon inEgypt, and many others.
To be sure these massacres did not include the helpless inhabitants ofthe towns. However, with his usual policy, Cortes spared some of theCholulan lords and when he had shown his power over them, he releasedthem and told them to summon back the people who had left the city. Hehad no more trouble with the Cholulans after that victory, and hepresently took up his journey toward Mexico.
Now, the City of Mexico to the Spaniards was one of the wonders of theworld. They have described it in such terms as show the impression itmade upon them, but they have not described it in such terms as toenable us to understand from their stories exactly what the city was.It was described as an island city. Some believed it to have been anenormous Pueblo city, such as may be seen in Arizona or New Mexico,surrounded by thousands of squalid huts. {147} Others conjectured itas a city as beautiful as Venice, as great as Babylon, and as wonderfulas hundred-gated Thebes.
Cortes shall tell himself the impression it made upon him in the nextsection which is lifted bodily from one of his famous letters to theemperor Charles V.
VI. Cortes' Description of Mexico, written by his own hand to CharlesV., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain
In order, most potent Sire, to convey to your Majesty a just conceptionof the great extent of this noble city of Temixtitan, and of the manyrare and wonderful objects it contains; of the government and dominionsof Muteczuma, the sovereign; of the religious rites and customs thatprevail, and the order that exists in this as well as other cities,appertaining to his realm; it would require the labor of manyaccomplished writers, and much time for the completion of the task. Ishall not be able to relate an hundredth part of what could be toldrespecting these matters; but I will endeavor to describe, in the bestmanner in my power, what I have myself seen; and, imperfectly as I maysucceed in that attempt, I am fully aware that the account will appearso wonderful as to be deemed scarcely worthy of credit; since even wewho have seen these things with our own eyes, are yet so amazed as tobe unable to comprehend their reality. But your Majesty may be assuredthat if there is any fault in my relation, either in regard to thepresent subject, or to any other matters of which I shall give yourMajesty an account, it will arise from too great brevity rather thanextravagance or prolixity in the details; and it seems to me {148} butjust to my Prince and Sovereign to declare the truth in the clearestmanner, without saying anything that would detract from it, or add toit.
Before I begin to describe this great city and the others alreadymentioned, it may be well for the better understanding of the subjectto say something of the configuration of Mexico,[1] in which they aresituated, it being the principal seat of Muteczuma's power. Thisprovince is in the form of a circle, surrounded on all sides by loftyand rugged mountains; its level surface comprises an area of aboutseventy leagues in circumference, including two lakes, that overspreadnearly the whole valley, being navigated by boats more than fiftyleagues round. One of these lakes contains fresh, and the other, whichis the larger of the two, salt water. On one side of the lakes, in themiddle of the valley, a range of highlands divides them from oneanother, with the exception of a narrow strait which lies between thehighlands and the lofty sierras. This strait is a bow-shot wide, andconnects the two lakes; and by this means a trade is carried on by thecities and other settlement on the lakes in canoes, without thenecessity of traveling by land. As the salt lake rises and falls withthe tides like the sea, during the time of high water it pours into theother lake with the rapidity of a powerful stream; and on the otherhand, when the tide has ebbed, the water runs from the fresh into thesalt lake.
This great city of Temixtitan (Mexico) is situated in this salt lake,and from the main land to the denser parts of it, by which ever routeone choses to enter, {149} the distance is two leagues. There are fouravenues or entrances to the city, all of which are formed by artificialcauseways, two spears' length in width. The city is as large asSeville or Cordova; its streets, I speak of principal ones, are verywide and straight; some of these, and all the inferior ones, are halfland and half water, and are navigated by canoes. All the streets atintervals have openings, through which the water flows, crossing fromone street to another; and at these openings, some of which are verywide, there are also very wide bridges, composed of large pieces oflumber, of great strength and well put together; on many of thesebridges ten horses can go abreast. Foreseeing that if the inhabitantsof this city should prove treacherous, they would possess greatadvantages from the manner in which the city is constructed, since byremoving the bridges at the entrances and abandoning the place, theycould leave us to perish by famine without our being able to reach themainland--as soon as I had entered it, I made great haste to build fourbrigantines, which were soon finished, and were large enough to takeashore three hundred men and the horses, whenever it became necessary.
This city has many public squares, in which are situated the marketsand other places for buying and selling. There is one square twice aslarge as that of the city of Salamanca, surrounded by porticoes, whereare daily assembled more than sixty thousand souls, engaged in buyingand selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that theworld affords, embracing the necessities of life, as, for instance,articles of food, as well as jewels of gold, silver, lead, brass,copper, tin, precious stones, bones, shells, snails and feathers.There were also exposed for sale wrought and unwrought {150} stone,bricks burnt and unburnt, timber hewn and unhewn of different sorts.There is a street for game, where every variety of birds found in thecountry is sold, as fowls, partridges, quails, wild ducks,fly-catchers, widgeons, turtle-doves, pigeons, reedbirds, parrots,sparrows, eagles, hawks, owls, and kestrels; they sell, likewise, theskins of some birds of prey, with their feathers, head and beak andclaws. There they also sold rabbits, hares, deer, and little dogswhich are raised for eating and castrated. There is also an herbstreet, where may be obtained all sorts of roots and medicinal herbsthat the country affords. There are apothecaries' shops, whereprepared medicines, liquids, ointments, and plasters are sold; barbershops where they wash and shave the head; and restauranteurs thatfurnish food and drink at a certain price. There is also a class ofmen like those called in Castile porters, for carrying burdens. Woodand coal are seen in abundance, and brasiers of earthenware for burningcoals; mats of various kinds for beds, others of a lighter sort forseats, and for halls and bedrooms. There are all kinds of greenvegetables, especially onions, leeks, garlic, watercresses, nasturtium,borage, sorel, artichokes, and golden thistle-fruits also of numerousdescriptions, amongst which are cherries and plums, similar to those inSpain; honey and wax from bees, and from the stalks of maize, which areas sweet as the sugar-cane; honey is also extracted from the plantcalled maguey,[2] which is superior to sweet or new wine; from the sameplant they extract sugar and wine, which they also sell. Differentkinds of cotton thread {151} of all colors in skeins are exposed forsale in one quarter of the market, which has the appearance of the silkmarket at Granada, although the former is supplied more abundantly.Painter's colors, as numerous as can be found in Spain, and as fineshades; deer-skins dressed and undressed, dyed different colors;earthenware of a large size and excellent quality; large and smalljars, jugs, pots, bricks, and an endless variety of vessels, all madeof fine clay, and all or most of them glazed and painted; maize orIndian corn, in the grain, and in the form of bread, preferred in thegrain for its flavor to that of the other islands and terra firma;pates of birds and fish; great quantities of fish, fresh, salt, cookedand uncooked; the eggs of hens, geese and of all the other birds I havementioned, in great abundance, and cakes made of eggs; finally,everything that can be found throughout the whole country is sold inthe markets, comprising articles so numerous that, to avoid prolixityand b
ecause their names are not retained in my memory, or are unknownto me, I shall not attempt to enumerate them. Every kind ofmerchandise is sold in a particular street or quarter assigned to itexclusively, and thus the best order is preserved. They selleverything by number or measure; at least, so far we have not observedthem to sell anything by weight. There is a building in the greatsquare that is used as an audience house, where ten or twelve persons,who are magistrates, sit and decide all controversies that arise in themarket, and order delinquents to be punished. In the same square thereare other persons who go constantly about among the people observingwhat is sold, and the measures used in selling; and they have been seento break measures that were not true.
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This great city contains a large number of temples[3] or houses fortheir idols, very handsome edifices, which are situated in thedifferent districts and the suburbs; in the principal ones religiouspersons of each particular sect are constantly residing, for whose use,beside the houses containing the idols, there are other convenienthabitations. All these persons dress in black and never cut or combtheir hair from the time they enter the priesthood until they leave it;and all the sons of the principal inhabitants, both nobles andrespectable citizens, are placed in the temples and wear the same dressfrom the age of seven or eight years until they are taken out to bemarried; which occurs more frequently with the firstborn, who inheritsestates, than with the others. The priests are debarred from femalesociety, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses.They also abstain from eating certain kinds of food, more at someseasons of the year than others. Among these temples there is onewhich far surpasses all the rest, whose grandeur of architecturaldetails no human tongue is able to describe; for within its precincts,surrounded by a lofty wall, there is room for a town of five hundredfamilies. Around the interior of this enclosure there are handsomeedifices, containing large halls and corridors, in which the religiouspersons attached to the temple reside. There are full forty towers,which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has fifty stepsleading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principalchurch at Seville. The stone and wood of which they are constructedare so well wrought {153} in every part, that nothing could be betterdone, for the interior of the chapels containing the idols consists ofcurious imagery, wrought in stone, with plaster ceilings, and woodworkcarved in relief, and painted with figures of monsters and otherobjects. All these towers are the burial places of the nobles, andevery chapel of them is dedicated to a particular idol, to which theypay their devotions.
There are three halls in this grand temple, which contain the principalidols; these are of wonderful extent and height, and admirableworkmanship, adorned with figures sculptured in stone and wood; leadingfrom the halls are chapels with very small doors, to which the light isnot admitted, nor are any persons except the priests, and not all ofthem. In these chapels are the images or idols, although, as I havebefore said, many of them are also found on the outside; the principalones, in which the people have greatest faith and confidence, Iprecipitated from their pedestals, and cast them down the steps of thetemple, purifying the chapels in which they stood, as they were allpolluted with human blood, shed in the sacrifices. In the place ofthese I put images of Our Lady and the Saints, which excited not alittle feeling in Muteczuma and the inhabitants, who at firstremonstrated, declaring that if my proceedings were known throughoutthe country, the people would rise against me; for they believed thattheir idols bestowed upon them all temporal good, and if they permittedthem to be ill-treated, they would be angry and withhold their gifts,and by this means the people would be deprived of the fruits of theearth and die of famine. I answered, through the interpreters, thatthey were deceived in expecting any favors from idols, the work oftheir own {154} hands, formed of unclean things; and that they mustlearn there was but one God, the universal Lord of all, who had createdthe heavens and the earth, and all things else, and had made them andus; that He was without beginning and immortal, and that they werebound to adore and believe Him, and no other creature or thing. I saideverything to them I could to divert them from their idolatries, anddraw them to a knowledge of God our Lord. Muteczuma replied, theothers assenting to what he said: "That they had already informed methat they were not the aborigines of the country, but that theirancestors had emigrated to it many years ago; and they fully believed,after so long an absence from their native land, they might have falleninto some errors; that I, having been recently arrived, must knowbetter than themselves what they ought to believe; and that if I wouldinstruct them in these matters, and make them understand the truefaith, they would follow my directions, as being for the best."Afterward Muteczuma and many of the principal citizens remained with meuntil I had removed the idols, purified the chapels, and placed imagesin them, manifesting apparent pleasure; and I forbade them sacrificinghuman beings to their idols, as they had been accustomed to do;because, besides being abhorrent in the sight of God, your sacredMajesty had prohibited it by law and commanded to put to death whoevershould take the life of another. Thus, from that time, they refrainedfrom the practice, and during the whole period of my abode in thatcity, they were never seen to kill or sacrifice a human being.
The figures of the idols in which these people believe surpass instature a person of more than the ordinary {155} size; some of them arecomposed of a mass of seeds and leguminous plants, such as are used forfood, ground and mixed together, and kneaded with the blood of humanhearts taken from the breasts of living persons, from which a paste isformed in a sufficient quantity to form large statues. When these arecompleted they make them offerings of the hearts of other victims,which they sacrifice to them, and besmear their faces with the blood.For everything they have an idol, consecrated by the use of the nationsthat in ancient times honored the same gods. Thus they have an idolthat they petition for victory in war; another for success in theirlabors; and so for everything in which they seek or desire prosperity,they have their idols, which they honor and serve.
This noble city contains many fine and magnificent houses; which may beaccounted for from the fact that all the nobility of the country, whoare the vassals of Muteczuma, have houses in the city, in which theyreside a certain part of the year; and besides, there are numerouswealthy citizens who also possess fine houses. All these persons, inaddition to the large and spacious apartments for ordinary purposes,have others, both upper and lower, that contain conservatories offlowers. Along one of the causeways that lead into the city are laidtwo pipes, constructed of masonry, each of which is two paces in width,and about five feet in height. An abundant supply of excellent water,forming a volume equal in bulk to the human body, is conveyed by one ofthese pipes, and distributed about the city, where it is used by theinhabitants for drinking and other purposes. The other pipe, in themeantime, is kept empty until the former requires to be cleansed, whenthe water is let into it; and continues to be used {156} until thecleansing is finished. As the water is necessarily carried overbridges on account of the salt water crossing its route, reservoirsresembling canals are constructed on the bridges, through which thefresh water is conveyed. These reservoirs are of the breadth of thebody of an ox, and of the same length as the bridges. The whole cityis thus served with water, which they carry in canoes through all thestreets for sale, taking it from the aqueduct in the following manner:the canoes pass under the bridges on which the reservoirs are placed,when men stationed above fill them with water, for which service theyare paid. At all the entrances of the city, and in those parts wherethe canoes are discharged, that is, where the greatest quantity ofprovisions is brought in, huts are erected and persons stationed asguards, who receive a _certum quid_ for everything that enters. I knownot whether the sovereign receives this duty or the city, as I have notyet been informed; but I believe that it appertains to the sovereign,as in the markets of other provinces a tax is collected for the benefitof their cacique. In all the markets and public places of this cityare seen daily many labo
rers and persons of various employments waitingfor some one to hire them. The inhabitants of this city pay a greaterregard to style in their mode of living, and are more attentive toelegance of dress and politeness of manners, than those of the otherprovinces and cities; since as the Cacique[4] Muteczuma has hisresidence in the capital, and all {157} the nobility, his vassals, arein the constant habit of meeting there, a general courtesy of demeanournecessarily prevails. But not to be prolix in describing what relatesto the affairs of this great city, although it is with difficulty thatI refrain from proceeding. I will say no more than that the manners ofthe people, as shown in their intercourse with one another, are markedby as great an attention to the proprieties of life as in Spain, andgood order is equally well observed; and considering that they are abarbarous people, without the knowledge of God, having no intercoursewith civilized nations, these traits of character are worthy ofadmiration.
In regard to the domestic appointments of Muteczuma, and the wonderfulgrandeur and state he maintains, there is so much to be told, that Iassure your Majesty I do not know where to begin my relation, so as tobe able to finish any part of it. For, as I have already stated, whatcan be more wonderful, than that a barbarous monarch, as he is, shouldhave every object found in his dominions, imitated in gold, silver,precious stones and feathers?--the gold and silver being wrought sonaturally as not to be surpassed by any smith in the world; the stonework executed with such perfection that is it difficult to conceivewhat instruments could have been used; and the feather work superior tothe finest productions in wax and embroidery. The extent ofMuteczuma's dominions has not been ascertained, since to whatever pointhe despatched his messengers, even two hundred leagues from hiscapital, his commands were obeyed, although some of his provinces werein the midst of countries with which he was at war. But as nearly as Ihave been able to learn, his territories are equal in extent {158} toSpain itself, for he sent messengers to the inhabitants of a citycalled Cumatan (requiring them to become subjects of Your Majesty),which is sixty leagues beyond that part of Putunchan watered by theriver Grijalva, and two hundred and thirty leagues distant from thegreat city; and I sent some of our people a distance of one hundred andfifty leagues in the same direction. All the principal chiefs of theseprovinces, especially those in the vicinity of the capital, reside, asI have already stated, the greater part of the year in that great city,and all or most of them have their oldest sons in the service ofMuteczuma. There are fortified places in all the provinces, garrisonedwith his own men, where are also stationed his governors and collectorsof the rent and tribute, rendered him by every province; and an accountis kept of what each is obliged to pay, as they have characters andfigures made on paper that are used for this purpose. Each provincerenders a tribute of its own particular productions, so that thesovereign receives a great variety of articles from different quarters.No prince was ever more feared by his subjects, both in his presenceand absence. He possessed out of the city as well as within, numerousvillas, each of which had its peculiar sources of amusement, and allwere constructed in the best possible manner for the use of a greatprince and lord. Within the city his palaces were so wonderful that itis hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent; I can only saythat in Spain there is nothing to equal them.
There was one palace somewhat inferior to the rest, attached to whichwas a beautiful garden with balconies extending over it, supported bymarble columns, and having a floor formed of jasper elegantly {159}laid. There were apartments in this palace sufficient to lodge twoprinces of the highest rank with their retinues. There were likewisebelonging to it ten pools of water, in which were kept the differentspecies of water birds found in this country, of which there is a greatvariety, all of which are domesticated; for the sea birds there werepools of salt water, and for the river birds, of fresh water. Thewater is let off at certain times to keep it pure, and is replenishedby means of pipes. Each species of bird is supplied with the foodnatural to it, which it feeds upon when wild. Thus fish is given tobirds that usually eat it; worms, maize and the finer seeds, to such asprefer them. And I assure Your Highness, that to the birds accustomedto eat fish, there is given the enormous quantity of ten arrobas[5]every day, taken in the salt lake. The emperor has three hundred menwhose sole employment is to take care of these birds; and there areothers whose only business is to attend to the birds that are in badhealth.
Over the pools for the birds there are corridors and galleries to whichMuteczuma resorts, and from which he can look out and amuse himselfwith the sight of them. There is an apartment in the same palace, inwhich are men, women, and children, whose faces, bodies, hair,eyebrows, and eyelashes are white from birth. The cacique has anothervery beautiful palace, with a large courtyard, paved with handsomeflags, in the style of a chess-board. There were also cages, aboutnine feet in height and six paces square, each of which was halfcovered with a roof of tiles, and the other half had over it a woodengrate, skilfully made. Every cage contains a bird of prey, of all thespecies {160} found in Spain, from the kestrel to the eagle, and manyunknown there. There were a great number of each kind, and in thecovered part of the cages there was a perch, and another on the outsideof the grating, the former of which the birds used in the night-time,and when it rained; and the other enabled them to enjoy the sun andair. To all these birds fowl were daily given for food, and nothingelse. There were in the same palace several large halls on the groundfloor, filled with immense cages built of heavy pieces of timber, wellput together, in all or most of which were kept lions, tigers, wolves,foxes and a variety of animals of the cat tribe, in great numbers,which were also fed on fowls. The care of these animals and birds wasassigned to three hundred men. There was another palace that containeda number of men and women of monstrous size, and also dwarfs, andcrooked and ill-formed persons, each of which had their separateapartments. These also had their respective keepers. As to the otherremarkable things that the ruler had in his city for amusement, I canonly say that they were numerous and of various kinds.
He was served in the following manner. Every day as soon as it waslight, six hundred nobles and men of rank were in attendance at thepalace, who either sat or walked about the halls and galleries, andpassed their time in conversation, but without entering the apartmentwhere his person was. The servants and attendants of these noblesremained in the courtyards, of which there were two or three of greatextent, and in the adjoining street, which was also spacious. They allremained in attendance from morning until night; and when his mealswere served, the nobles were likewise served with equal profusion, andtheir {161} servants and secretaries also had their allowance. Dailyhis larder and wine-cellar were open to all who wished to eat anddrink. The meals were served by three or four hundred youths, whobrought on an infinite variety of dishes; indeed, whenever he dined orsupped the table was loaded with every kind of flesh, fish, fruit, andvegetables that the country provided. As the climate is cold, they puta chafing-dish with live coals under every plate and dish to keep themwarm. The meals were served in a large hall where Muteczuma wasaccustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which wascovered with mats and kept very clean. He sat on small cushionscuriously wrought in leather. During the meals there were present, ata little distance from him, five or six elderly caciques, to whom hepresented some of the food. And there was constantly in attendance oneof the servants, who arranged and handed the dishes, and who receivedfrom others whatever was wanted for the supply of the table. Both atthe beginning and end of every meal, they furnished water for thehands, and the napkins used on these occasions were never used a secondtime; this was the case also with the plates and dishes, which were notbrought again, but new ones in place of them; it was also the same withthe chafing-dishes. He is also dressed every day in four differentsuits, entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of thecaciques ever enter his palace with their feet covered, and when thosefor whom he sends enter his presence, they incline their heads and lookdown, b
ending their bodies; and when they address him they do not lookin his face; this arises from excessive modesty and reverence.Whenever Muteczuma appeared in public, which was seldom the case, allthose who {162} accompanied him or whom he accidentally met in thestreets, turned away without looking toward him, and others prostratedthemselves until he passed. One of the nobles always preceded him onthese occasions, carrying three slender rods erect, which I suppose wasto give notice of the approach of his person. And when they descendedfrom the litters, he took one of them in his hands, and held it untilhe reached the places where he was going. So many and various were theceremonies and customs observed by those in the service of Muteczuma,that more space than I can spare would be required for the details, aswell as a better memory than I have to recollect them; since no sultanor other infidel lord, of whom any knowledge now exists, ever had somuch ceremonial in their courts.
VII. The Meeting with Montezuma
It was early in the morning of November the 8th, 1519, when Cortes, atthe head of his little army, rode over one of the long causeways andinto the city to his first meeting with Montezuma. As no one can tellbetter than he what happened, I here insert his own account of theepisode:
"The next day after my arrival at this city, I departed on my route,and having proceeded half a league, I entered upon a causeway thatextends two leagues through the centre of the salt lake, until itreaches the great city of Temixtitan (Mexico), which is built in themiddle of the lake. . . .
"I pursued my course over the above-mentioned causeway, and havingproceeded half a league before arriving at the body of the city ofTemixtitan, I found {163} at its intersection with another causeway,which extends from this point to terra firma, a very strong fortresswith two towers, surrounded by a double wall, twelve feet in height,with an embattled parapet, which commands the two causeways, and hasonly two gates, one for the entering and the other for departure.There came to meet me at this place nearly a thousand of the principalinhabitants of the great city, all uniformly dressed according to theircustom in very rich costumes; and as soon as they had come withinspeaking distance, each one, as he approached me, performed asalutation in much use among them, by placing his hand upon the groundand kissing it; and thus I was kept waiting about an hour, until allhad performed the ceremony. Connected with the city is a wooden bridgeten paces wide, where the causeway is open to allow the water freeingress and egress, as it rises and falls; and also for the security ofthe city, as they can remove the long and wide beams of which thebridge is formed, and replace them whenever they wish; and there aremany such bridges in different parts of the city, as Your Highness willperceive hereafter from the particular account I shall give of it.
"When we had passed the bridge, the Senor Muteczuma came out to receiveus, attended by about two hundred nobles, all barefooted, and dressedin livery, or a peculiar garb of fine cotton, richer than is usuallyworn; they came in two processions in close proximity to the houses oneach side of the street, which is very wide and beautiful, and sostraight that you can see from one end of it to the other, although itis two-thirds of a league in length, having on both sides large andelegant houses and temples. Muteczuma came through {164} the centre ofthe street, attended by two lords, one upon his right and the otherupon his left hand, one of whom was the same nobleman who, as I havementioned, came to meet me in a litter, and the other was the brotherof Muteczuma, lord of the city of Iztapalapa, which I had left the sameday; all three were dressed in the same manner, except that Muteczumawore shoes, while the others were without them. He was supported inthe arms of both, and as we approached, I alighted and advanced aloneto salute him; but the two attendant lords stopped me to prevent mytouching him, and they and he both performed the ceremony of kissingthe ground; after which he directed his brother who accompanied him toremain with me; the latter accordingly took me by the arm, whileMuteczuma, with his other attendant, walked a short distance in frontof me, and after he had spoken to me, all the other nobles also came upto address me, and then went away in two processions with greatregularity, one after the other, and in this manner returned to thecity. At the time I advanced to speak to Muteczuma, I took off frommyself a collar of pearls and glass diamonds, and put it around hisneck. After having proceeded along the street, one of his servantscame bringing two collars formed of shell fish, enclosed in a roll ofcloth, which were made from the shells of colored prawns orperiwinkles, held by them in great esteem; and from each collardepended eight golden prawns, finished in a very perfect manner andabout a foot and a half in length. When these were brought Muteczumaturned toward me and put them around my neck; he then returned alongthe street in the order already described, until he reached a verylarge and splendid palace, in which we were to be quartered, {165}which had been fully prepared for our reception. He there took me bythe hand and led me into a spacious saloon, in front of which was acourt, through which we entered. Having caused me to sit down on apiece of rich carpeting, which he had ordered to be made for himself,he told me to await his return there, and then went away. After ashort space of time, when my people were all bestowed in theirquarters, he returned with many and various jewels of gold and silver,feather work and five or six thousand pieces of cotton cloth, very richand of varied texture and finish. After having presented these to me,he sat down on another piece of carpet they had placed for him near me,and being seated he discoursed as follows:
"'It is now a long time since, by means of written records, we learnedfrom our ancestors that neither myself nor any of those who inhabitthis region were descended from its original inhabitants, but fromstrangers who emigrated hither from a very distant land; and we havealso learned that a prince, whose vassals they all were, conducted ourpeople into these parts, and then returned to his native land. Heafterward came again to this country, after the lapse of much time, andfound that his people had inter-married with the native inhabitants, bywhom they had many children, and had built towns in which they resided;and when he desired them to return with him, they were unwilling to go,nor were they disposed to acknowledge him as their sovereign; so hedeparted from the country, and we have always heard that hisdescendants would come to conquer this land and reduce us to subjectionas his vassals; and according to the direction from which you say youhave come, namely the quarter where the sun rises, and from what {166}you say of the great lord or king who sent you hither, we believe andare assured that he is our natural sovereign, especially as you saythat it is a long time since you first had knowledge of us. Therefore,be assured that we will obey you, and acknowledge you for our sovereignin place of the great lord whom you mention, and that there shall be nodefault or deception on our part. And you have the power in all thisland, I mean wherever my power extends, to command what is yourpleasure, and it shall be done in obedience thereto, and all that wehave is at your disposal. And since you are in your own proper landand your own house, rest and refresh yourself after the toils of yourjourney, and the conflicts in which you have been engaged, which havebeen brought upon you, as I well know, by all the people fromPuntunchan to this place; and I am aware that the Cempoallans and theTlascalans have told you much evil of me, but believe no more than yousee with your own eyes, especially from those who are my enemies, someof whom were once my subjects, and having rebelled upon your arrival,make these statements to ingratiate themselves in your favor. Thesepeople, I know, have informed you that I possessed houses with walls ofgold, and that my carpets and other things in common use were of thetexture of gold; and that I was a god, or made myself one, and manyother such things. The houses, as you see, are of stone and lime andearth.' And then he opened his robes and showed his person to me,saying: 'You see that I am composed of flesh and bone like yourself,and that I am mortal and palpable to the touch,' at the same timepinching his arms and body with his hands. 'See,' he continued, 'howthey have deceived you. It is true that I have some things of gold,which {167} my ancestors have left me; all that I have is at yourservice whenever you wish it. I am now goin
g to my other houses whereI reside; you will be here provided with everything necessary foryourself and your people, and will suffer no embarrassment, as you arein your own house and country.' I answered him in respect to all thathe had said, expressing my acknowledgments, and adding whatever theoccasion seemed to demand, especially endeavoring to confirm him in thebelief that Your Majesty was the sovereign they had looked for; andafter this he took his leave, and having gone, we were liberallysupplied with fowls, bread, fruits and other things required for theuse of our quarters. In this way I was for six days amply providedwith all that was necessary, and visited by many of the nobility."
It throws a somewhat amusing light on the interview when we note thatthe presents exchanged were of great value on Montezuma's part, whilethe gift of Cortes was a collar of cheap imitation diamonds!
The emotions of the Spaniards at this singular meeting between theimmeasurable distance of the past and present were so strong that eventhe rough soldier felt it. "And when we beheld," says Bernal Diaz, "somany cities and towns rising up from the water, and other populousplaces situated on the terra firma, and that causeway, straight as alevel, which went into Mexico, we remained astonished, and said to oneanother that it appeared like the enchanted castles which they tell ofin the book of Amadis, by reason of the great towers, temples, andedifices which there were in the water, all of them work of masonry.Some of our soldiers asked if this that they saw was not a thing in adream."
{168}
Fiske thus felicitously alludes to it: "It may be well called the mostromantic moment in all history, this moment when European eyes firstrested upon that city of wonders, the chief ornament of a stage ofsocial evolution two full ethnical periods behind their own. To saythat it was like stepping back across the centuries to visit theNineveh of Sennacherib or hundred-gated Thebes, is but inadequately todepict the situation, for it was a longer step than that. Such chancesdo not come twice to mankind, for when two grades of culture so widelysevered are brought into contact, the stronger is apt to blight andcrush the weaker where it does not amend and transform it. In spite ofits foul abominations, one sometimes feels that one would like torecall the extinct state of society in order to study it. The devotedlover of history, who ransacks all sciences for aid towardunderstanding the course of human events, who knows in what unexpectedways one progress often illustrates other stages, will sometimes wishit were possible to resuscitate, even for one brief year, the vanishedCity of the Cactus Rock. Could such a work of enchantment beperformed, however, our first feeling would doubtless be one ofineffable horror and disgust, like that of the knight in the oldEnglish ballad, who, folding in his arms a damsel of radiant beauty,finds himself in the embrace of a loathsome fiend."
What the emotions of the Mexicans were we have no account, but it isnot difficult to imagine them. Amazement as at the visitation of agod, fear begot of this gross superstition, apprehension of what mightbe the result of the coming of these strange monsters, curiositymingled with admiration; and as they looked at the long lines offierce, dauntless, implacable {169} Tlascalans who accompanied theSpaniards, their hereditary enemies, there must have swelled in theirsavage breasts feelings of deep and bitter hatred.
Outwardly, however, all was calm. The Spaniards marched through theflower-decked streets to the great palace of Ayxacatl, which had beenassigned to them as a residence, and which was spacious and commodiousenough to take them all in, bag and baggage, including their savageallies. It is one of the singular contradictions of the Azteccharacter that with all of their brutal religion and barbarism, theywere passionately fond of flowers and like other barbarians rejoiced incolor. "Flowers were used in many of the religious festivals, andthere is abundant evidence, moreover, that the Mexicans were very fondof them. This is illustrated in the perpetual reference to flowers inold Mexican poems: 'They led me within a valley to a fertile spot, aflowery spot, where the dew spread out in glistening splendor, where Isaw various lovely fragrant flowers, lovely odorous flowers, clothedwith the dew, scattered around in rainbow glory; there they said to me,'Pluck the flowers, whichever thou wishest; mayst thou, the singer, beglad, and give them to thy friends, to the chiefs, that they mayrejoice on the earth.' So I gathered in the folds of my garments thevarious fragrant flowers, delicate, scented, delicious.'"
The will of Montezuma was supreme. Nothing dimmed the warmth andgenerosity of his splendid hospitality. There were no frowning looks,no mutterings of discontent, everything was joyous and pleasant, atleast outwardly, yet not one of the Christians was blind to the perilin which he stood, or doubted that the least accident might precipitatean outbreak {170} which would sweep them all from off the face of theearth.
For six days the Spaniards remained the guests of the Mexican Emperor.Visits were exchanged, religious discussions were indulged in, andCortes was only constrained from overthrowing their idols in thetemples which he visited, and substituting Christian emblems therein byforce, by the prudent counsel of the worthy priests, men remarkable fortheir wisdom and their statesmanship, who accompanied him. Continualefforts were made to convert Montezuma, but without results.
That monarch, who was of a cheerful and jovial nature, professed greatfriendship for and interest in the Spaniards, whom he often visited andto whom he accorded many privileges. Such a condition of affairs,however, could not last very long. The suspense was intolerable to aman of action like Cortes and to the men who followed him as well.They were not good waiters. Something had to be done.
Into the mind of this Spanish soldier of fortune there leaped a bolddesign. He decided upon a course of action, as amazing in itscharacter, so far-reaching in its result, that its conception and itsexecution almost thrust him into the ranks of the demi-gods. Thisproject was nothing less than the seizure of the person of Montezuma inthe midst of his capital, a city of three hundred thousand people,among whom were thousands of fierce and highly trained veteran warriorswho counted their lives as nothing in the Emperor's need. Undoubtedlysuch an action was the basest of treachery, but Cortes had put himselfin such a position that the nakedness of such an action did not prevailwith him for a moment. He quieted his conscience with the {171} oldreasoning that Montezuma was a heathen, and that oaths to him were byno means binding.
Whether he quieted his conscience or not, something was necessary. Hecould not retire from Mexico after this ostensibly friendly visit.Such a withdrawal would not have suited his purposes at all, and it wasmore than possible that the moment he turned his back on the Azteccapital, he would be forced to fight for his life against conditionswhich would leave him little or no possibility of escape. It wasreally Montezuma's life and liberty or Cortes' life and liberty. Insuch an alternative, there was no hesitation.
VIII. The Seizure of the Emperor
Occasion was soon found for the seizure. A chief on the sea coast hadattacked and killed some of the men left at Vera Cruz. It was allegedthat this was done by the orders of Montezuma. Cortes accompanied bythe hardiest and bravest of his companions, and after a night ofprayer--singular with what good consciences they could pray for thesuccess of the most nefarious undertaking!--visited Montezuma, andaccused him of having instigated the crime. Montezuma denied it, anddespatched messengers to the offending cacique, directing that he beput under close arrest and brought to the capital. This was all anyreasonable man could expect, but Cortes and his companions were notreasonable.
In spite of the fact that the prompt action of the Aztec had deprivedthem of the faintest pretext, they nevertheless at last declared to theunhappy monarch that he must accompany them to the pueblo, which he hadassigned to them, and remain in the custody of {172} the Spaniardsuntil the matter had been decided. In vain Montezuma protested. Hissituation was unfortunate. He was surrounded by an intrepid body ofsteel-clad Spaniards, and although the room was filled with officers,courtiers and soldiers, he realized--indeed he was bluntly told--thatthe first act of hostility against the Spaniards would result in hisimmediate dea
th. He made a virtue of a necessity, and complied withthe Spaniards' demand. Forbidding his subjects, who were moved totears--tears of rage and anger, most probably--to assist him, hesubmitted himself to the will of his captors, and went away with them.He had to go or he would have died then and there. Far better would ithave been if he had chosen the nobler course, both for his fame and hisempire.
The affairs of the government were carried on as usual by Montezuma, towhom his officers and his counsellors had free access. Cortes evenpermitted him to go to the Temple on occasion for the ordinary worship,but in every instance he was accompanied and practically surrounded bya body of one hundred completely armed and thoroughly resoluteSpaniards. Cortes did not attempt to interfere in the least degreewith the national administration, although it was patent to everybodythat as he held the person of the Emperor, he could also command, if heso elected, the power of the empire.
Meanwhile, the Cacique Quahpopoca, who was guilty of the murder of theSpaniards on the coast, was brought into Mexico two weeks after theseizure of Montezuma. With a loyalty touchingly beautiful, he promptlydeclared that he had acted upon his own responsibility and thatMontezuma had had {173} nothing whatever to do with it, which was, ofcourse, highly improbable. The official clearing of Montezuma wascomplete; nevertheless, despite the testimony of Quahpopoca, Cortesactually put the Mexican monarch in double irons. It is true, theirons were removed almost immediately, and he was treated as he hadbeen during his two weeks' captivity, with the greatest possiblerespect and deference, but the irons had not merely clasped the wristsand ankles of the unfortunate Aztec. They had entered his soul.
Quahpopoca was burned in the public square. The heaping fagots whichsurrounded the stake were made of javelins and spears collected byCortes with intrepid audacity and far-seeing prudence, from the publicarmory. Vast numbers of them were used. The populace looked on insullen and gloomy silence. Montezuma was not merely the ruler of thecountry, but in some senses he was a deity, and his capture, togetherwith the capture of the great lords of his family, who, under ordinarycircumstances would have succeeded to his throne, paralyzed thenational, social, political and religious organization.
Cortes actually held his captive in this way until spring. Theintervening months were not wasted. Expeditions were sent to all partsof the country to ascertain its resources and report upon them, sothat, when the Spaniards took over the government, they would beprepared to administer it wisely and well. No such prudent andstatesmanlike policy was inaugurated by any other conqueror. Cortes inthis particular stands absolutely alone among the great adventurers,Spanish and otherwise. He was not a mere plunderer of the people, hewas laying a foundation for an empire. Vast treasures were,nevertheless, collected. {174} Messengers were despatched to CharlesV. with the letters which have already been quoted and with the royalshare of the booty, which was great enough to insure them a favorablereception.
What Cortes would have done further can only be surmised. Somethinghappened suddenly which forced his hand. In the spring, Montezumareceived word through an excellent corps of messengers which suppliedhim daily with information from all parts of the empire, of the arrivalof a strange Spanish force on the coast. Mexico had no writing, butits messenger system was one of the best in the world. Messengersarrived daily from the farthest parts and confines of the Mexicanempire, supplementing pictures, which the Mexicans drew very cleverly,with verbal accounts. Incidentally, there was no money in the empire,either. The art of coinage had not been attained.
IX. The Revolt of the Capital
Cortes was naturally much interested and not a little perturbed by thenews. Soon the exact tidings reached him from the commander at VeraCruz, that the force consisted of some twelve hundred men, includingeighty horse, all under the command of one Panfilo de Narvaez, whichhad been organized, equipped and sent out by Cortes' old enemy,Velasquez, with instructions to seize him and his companions and sendthem back to Cuba for trial. Narvaez was loud in his threats of whathe was going to do with Cortes and how he was going to do it.
The great Spaniard acted with his usual promptness. He left in chargeof the city one Pedro de Alvarado, called from his fair hair, Tonatiuh,or the {175} child of the sun. Committing the care of Montezuma tothis cavalier and bidding him watch over him and guard him with hislife, as the safety of all depended upon him, Cortes with some twohundred and fifty men made a dash for the coast. It was two hundredand fifty against five times that number, but with the two hundred andfifty was a man whose mere presence equalized conditions, while withthe twelve hundred and fifty was another whose braggart foolishnessdiminished their superiority until, in the end, it really amounted tonothing!
Cortes actually surprised Narvaez in the town in which he had takenrefuge and seized him after an attack--a night surprise of bold andaudacious conception--by the two hundred and fifty against the twelvehundred which was completely successful. With Narvaez in Cortes'shands all opposition ceased on the part of the men. In one swoopNarvaez lost power, position and one eye, which had been knocked outduring the contest, and Cortes found his following reinforced by sogreat a number and quality that he had never dreamed of such a thing.
"You are, indeed, fortunate," said Narvaez to his conqueror, "in havingcaptured me."
"It is," said Cortes carelessly, "the least of the things I have donein Mexico!"
While affairs were thus progressing favorably on the coast, thesmouldering rebellion had at last broken out in Mexico, and Cortesreceived a message from Alvarado, bidding him return with all possiblespeed. There was not a braver soldier, a fiercer fighter, or a moreresolute man in the following of Cortes than Pedro de Alvarado. Whenthat has been said, however, practically all has been said that can besaid in {176} his favor. He was a rash, impetuous, reckless,head-long, tactless, unscrupulous man, and brutal and cruel to a highdegree.
His suspicions that the Aztecs, led by Montezuma, were conspiring tooverwhelm his small force were aroused. It is probable that there wassome truth in his apprehensions, although he could not point toanything very definite upon which to base them. He knew of but one wayto deal with such a situation--by brute force. He waited until thegreat May Festival of the Aztecs was being held, and then fell uponthem in the midst of their joyous play and slew six hundred, includingmany of the noblest chiefs of the land. The outbreak was instant anduniversal. The house of Ayxacatl was at once besieged, the influx ofprovisions was stopped, and the pueblo was surrounded by vast numbersof thoroughly enraged citizens. Neither the Spaniards nor the alliescould leave the pueblo without being overwhelmed. Alvarado at lastcompelled Montezuma to show himself on the walls and bid the peoplestop fighting, to enable him to strengthen his position and hold ituntil the arrival of Cortes, and some fifteen hundred men, his ownforce and that of Narvaez combined.
When the conqueror met Alvarado he upbraided him and told him that hehad behaved like a madman. There was little or no provision. Cortesnow made the mistake of sending Cuitlahua, the brother of Montezuma,out into the city with instructions for him to have the markets openedat once and secure provisions for the Spaniards and their horses.Cuitlahua, being free, called the council of priests. This council atonce deposed Montezuma and elected Cuitlahua {177} emperor and priestin his place. The revolution and the religion now had a head.
The next morning an attack of such force was delivered that many ofeven the stoutest-hearted Spaniards quailed before it. The slaughterof the natives was terrific. The Spanish cannon opened long lanesthrough the crowded streets. The Spanish horse sallied forth andhacked and hewed broad pathways up the different avenues. Still, theattack was pressed and was as intrepid as if not a single Aztec haddied. The roar that came up from every quarter of the city, from thehouse tops, from the crowded streets, from the Temples, was in itselfenough to appall the bravest.
X. In God's Way
Finally Cortes resorted to Alvarado's expedient. He compelled theunhappy Montezuma to mount the walls of the pal
ace and bid the peopledisperse. When he appeared in all his splendid panoply upon the roofof the palace there was a strange silence. He was no longer priest, hewas no longer emperor, he was no longer a power, he was no longer agod, but some of the old divinity seemed to cling to him, to lingeraround him still. The situation was so tragic that even the meanestsoldier, Mexican or Spanish, felt its import. A long time the Azteclooked over his once smiling capital, and into the faces of his oncesubordinate people. Finally he began to address them. He bade themlay down their arms and disperse.
The people, led by the great lords and Montezuma's brother, Cuitlahua,and his nephew, Guatemoc, answered with a roar of rage, and the roarspread as the purport of the message was communicated to those {178}further back. Montezuma stood appalled. The next instant a rain ofmissiles was actually launched at him and the Spaniards who stood byhis side. A stone hurled, it is said by young Guatemoc, struck him inthe forehead. He reeled and fell. With the bitter words: "Woman!woman!" ringing in his ears, he was carried away by the Spaniards. Hisface, says Lew Wallace, was the face of a man "breaking because he wasin God's way!" He lived a few days after that, but he refused to eat,and repeatedly tore the bandages from his wounds until death put an endto his miseries. The stone that had struck him had broken his heart.Neither Cortes nor Montezuma himself knew that he had been deposed.Cortes and the principal Spaniards visited him and endeavoured toconsole him, but he turned his face to the wall and would have none ofthem. It was said afterward that he became a Christian, but it is mostprobably not true. He died as he had lived. Helps thus describes thescene and the great Montezuma's end:
The Death of Montezuma. From an old engraving.]
"He was surrounded by Spanish soldiers, and was at first received withall respect and honor by his people. When silence ensued, he addressedthem in very loving words, bidding them discontinue the attack, andassuring them that the Spaniards would depart from Mexico. It is notprobable that much of his discourse could have been heard by the ragingmultitude. But, on the other hand, he was able to hear what theirleaders had to say, as four of the chiefs approached near him, and withtears addressed him, declaring their grief at his imprisonment. Theytold him that they had chosen his brother as their leader, that theyhad vowed to their gods not to cease fighting {179} until the Spaniardswere all destroyed, and that each day they prayed to their gods to keephim free and harmless. They added, that when their designs wereaccomplished, he should be much more their lord than heretofore, andthat he should then pardon them. Amongst the crowd, however, were,doubtless, men who viewed the conduct of Montezuma with intensedisgust, or who thought that they had already shown too much disrespecttoward him ever to be pardoned. A shower of stones and arrowsinterrupted the parley; the Spanish soldiers had ceased for the momentto protect Montezuma with their shields; and he was severely wounded inthe head and in two other places. The miserable monarch was borneaway, having received his death-stroke; but whether it came from thewounds themselves, or from the indignity of being thus treated by hispeople, remains a doubtful point. It seems, however, that, to use someemphatic words which have been employed upon a similar occasion: 'Heturned his face to the wall, and would be troubled no more.'
"He Defended Himself With His Terrible Spear"]
"It is remarkable that he did not die like a Christian,[6] and I thinkthis shows that he had more force of mind and purpose than the worldhas generally been inclined to give him credit for. To readMontezuma's character rightly, at this distance of time, and amidstsuch a wild perplexity of facts, would be very difficult, and is notvery important. But one thing, {180} I think, is discernible, and thatis, that his manners were very gracious and graceful. I dwell uponthis, because I conceive it was a characteristic of the race; and noone will estimate this characteristic lightly, who has observed howvery rare, even in the centres of civilized life, it is to find peopleof fine manners, so that in great capitals but very few persons can bepointed out who are at all transcendent in this respect. The graciousdelight which Montezuma had in giving was particularly noticeable; andthe impression which he made upon Bernal Diaz may be seen in thenarrative of this simple soldier, who never speaks of him otherwise as'the great Montezuma'; and, upon the occasion of his death, remarksthat some of the Spanish soldiers who had known him mourned for him asif he had been a father, 'and no wonder,' he adds, 'seeing that he wasso good.'"
Cortes sent out the body to the new king, and Montezuma was mournedover by the Spaniards, to whom he had always been gracious, andprobably, by his own people; but little could be learned of what theMexicans thought, or did, upon the occasion, by the Spaniards, who onlysaw that Montezuma's death made no difference in the fierceness of theenemy's attack.
Meanwhile the situation of the Spaniards was indescribable. There wasmutiny and rebellion among them. The soldiers of Narvaez, who lookedfor a pleasant promenade through a land of peace and plenty, wereappalled. There was daily, desperate fighting. The Mexicans hadmanned the temple of the war-god which overlooked the Spanish pueblo,and Cortes determined to capture it. With a large body of chosen menhe attempted its escalade. It was crowded to the very top with themost resolute {181} Aztecs, and they fought for it with the courage offanaticism and despair itself. The feather shields were no match forthe steel cuirasses. The wooden clubs, stuck full of sharp pieces ofobsidian, could not compete on equal terms with the Toledo blades.Step by step, terrace by terrace, the Spaniards fought their way to thevery top. As if by mutual consent, the contests in the streets stoppedand all eyes were turned upon this battle in the air.
Arriving at the great plateau upon the crest, the Spaniards were met byfive hundred of the noblest Aztecs, who, animated by their priests,made the last desperate stand for the altars of their gods.
"And how can men die better, Than in facing fearful odds, For the ashes of their Fathers, And the temples of their Gods?"
In the course of the terrific conflict which ensued, two of the bravestleaped upon Cortes, wrapped their arms around him, and attempted tothrow themselves off the top of the temple, devoting themselves todeath, if so be, they might compass their bold design. It was on thevery verge of eternity that Cortes tore himself free from them.Singled out for attack because of his position and because of hisfearlessness in battle, his life was saved again and again by hisfollowers, until it seemed to be miraculously preserved.
After a stupendous struggle the summit of the temple was carried. Amidthe groans of the populace, the Spaniards tumbled down from itsresting-place the hideous image of the war-god, and completed in Azteceyes the desecration of the temple. They were victorious, but they hadpaid a price. Dead Spaniards {182} dotted the terraces, the sunlight,gleaming on their armor, picking them out amid the dark, naked bodiesof the Mexicans. Of those who had survived the encounter, there wasscarcely one but had sustained one or more wounds, some of them fearfulin character. The Mexicans had not died in vain.
Leaving a guard at the temple, Cortes came back to the garrison. Theattack was resumed at once by the natives. Attempts were made to burnthe thatched roofs of the pueblo. A rain of missiles was poured uponit. The Spaniards made sally after sally, inflicting great slaughter,but losing always a little themselves. The Aztecs would sometimesseize a Spaniard and bear him off alive to sacrifice him on some highpyramid temple in full view of his wretched comrades below. TheSpaniards fired cannon after cannon, but to no avail. They werestarving, they were becoming sick, and they were covered with wounds;their allies, who took part gallantly in all the hard fighting,suffered frightful losses. It was at last reluctantly agreed among theleaders that their only salvation was the evacuation of the city.
XI. The Melancholy Night
Although the course thus thrust upon them was indeed a hard one, therewas nothing else to be done. Sick, wounded, starving, dying, theycould by no means maintain themselves longer in the city. Fight asthey might and would, the end would come speedily, and would meanannihilation. Happy in that ev
ent would be those who died upon thefield, for every living captive, whatever his condition, would bereserved for that frightful sacrifice to the war-god, in which his{183} body would be opened, and his reeking heart torn, almost whilestill beating, from his breast. To retreat was almost as dangerous asit was to remain. It was certain, however, that some would get throughin that attempt, although it was equally certain that many would not.
Cortes, mustering his soldiers and allies, after a day ofheart-breaking fighting, disclosed the situation to them in bluntsoldier-like words, although they all knew it as well as he, and thenthe hasty preparations began. A vast treasure had been amassed by theSpaniards. Making an effort to preserve the fifth portion of it, whichby law belonged to the King, Cortes threw open the treasure chamber andbade the rest help themselves. He cautioned them, however, that thosewho went the lightest, would have the greatest prospects for escape, awarning which many, especially among those who had come to the countrywith Narvaez, chose to disregard.
The causeway along which they determined to fly and which connectedMexico with the mainland was pierced at intervals to admit passage fromone portion of the lake to the other. The bridges which usuallycovered these openings had been taken away by the Aztecs. Cortescaused a temporary bridge or pontoon to be built which was to becarried with the fugitives to enable them to pass the openings.
The night was the first of July, 1520. It was pitch dark and a heavyrain was falling. The forces consisted of twelve hundred and fiftySpaniards, of whom eighty were mounted, and six thousand Tlascalans.They were divided into three divisions. The advance was under thecommand of Juan Valesquez, Cortes led the main body, and the rear wasput in the charge {184} of the rash, cruel, but heroic Alvarado. Theless severely wounded were supported by their comrades, and thoseunable to walk were carried on litters or mounted on horses. Montezumahad died the night before. Any lingering hopes of being able to effectpeace through his influence had departed. Leaving everything theycould not carry, the Spaniards, after prayer, confession andabsolution, threw open the gates,[7] and entered the city.
Midnight was approaching. The streets and avenues were silent anddeserted. The retreat proceeded cautiously for a little way,unmolested, when suddenly a deep, booming sound roared like thunderover the heads of the Spaniards, through the black night, filling theirhearts with alarm. Cortes recognized it at once. The Aztecs wereawake and ready. The priests in the great teocallis, or templepyramids, were beating the great drum of the war-god, Huitzilopocahtli.Lights appeared here and there in the town, the clashing of arms washeard here and there on the broad avenues. Under the lights farther upthe streets could be seen files of troops moving. The hour was full ofportent.
Dragging their artillery, carrying their wounded, bearing theirtreasure, the Spaniards and their allies passed rapidly through thestreets. Before the advance reached the first opening in the causewayit was already hotly engaged. The water on either side of thecause-way suddenly swarmed with canoes. Spears, javelins, arrows,heavy war-clubs with jagged pieces of obsidian were hurled upon theSpaniards on the causeway. In front of them, almost, it seemed, forthe whole length, the {185} Indians were massed. Step by step, by thehardest kind of hand-to-hand fighting, the Spaniards and their alliesarrived at the first opening. Their loss had been frightful already.They were surrounded and attacked from all sides. Indians scrambled upthe low banks in the darkness, seized the feet of the flying Spaniardsand strove to draw them into the water. Many a white man, many aTlascalan locked in the savage embrace of some heroic Aztec, stumbledor was dragged into the lake and was drowned in the struggle. Thefrightened horses reared and plunged and created great confusion. Thegolden treasure with which many had loaded themselves proved afrightful incumbrance. Those who could do so, flung it away; those toobitterly occupied in fighting for their lives could do little butdrive, thrust, hew, hack and struggle in the dark and slippery way.
But the army did advance. Arriving at the brink of the first opening,the bridge was brought up and the division began its passage. It hadscarcely crossed the gap when under the pressure of tremendous fear,the second division, in spite of all that could be done to refrain andcontrol them by Cortes and his officers--and there were no braver menon earth--crowded on the frail bridge. The structure which wassufficiently strong for ordinary and orderly passage, gave way,precipitating a great mass of Spaniards and Indians into the causeway.Cortes with his own hands, assisted by a few of the cooler veterans,tried to lift up the shattered remains of the bridge but was unable todo anything with it. It was ruined beyond repair, and sank into asplintered mass of timber under the terrific pressure to which it hadbeen subjected. A passage at that gap was afforded to those who came{186} after because it was filled level with dead bodies of Spaniards,Indians and horses, to say nothing of guns, baggage and equipment.
By this time the advance guard was again heavily engaged. TheSpaniards and their allies staggered along the dyke, fightingdesperately all the time. Velasquez, leading the advance division waskilled at the brink of the second opening. The wretched fugitives weredriven headlong into the second opening which was soon choked withhorses and men as the first had been. Over this living, dying bridgethe survivors madly ploughed. Some of them led by Cortes himself founda ford on the side. Although they were cut down by the hundreds, thereseemed to be no end to the Aztecs. The rain still fell. The drum ofthe war-god mingled with frightful peals of thunder, and the shrillcries of the Mexicans rose higher and higher. The Spaniards were sick,wounded, beaten and terrified. Only Cortes and his captains and a fewof his veterans preserved the slightest semblance of organization.
The third gap was passed by the same awful expedient as the other twohad been. There was not a great distance from the third opening to themainland. The few who had passed over rushed desperately for theshore. Way back in the rear, last of all, came Alvarado. There was astrange current in the lake, and as he stood all alone at the lastopening, confronting the pursuers, his horse having been killed underhim, a swift movement of the water swept away the gorged mass ofbodies. Torches in the canoes enabled the Aztecs to recognizeAlvarado, Tonatiuh, the child of the sun. His helmet had been knockedoff and his fair hair streamed over his shoulders. He indeed would{187} be a prize for their sacrifice, second only to Cortes himself.With furious cries, the most reckless and intrepid leaped upon the dykeand rushed at him. At his feet lay his neglected lance. Dropping hissword, he seized his spear, swiftly plunged the point of it into thesand at the bottom of the pass, and, weighted though he was with hisarmor, and weak from his wounds and from the loss of blood, leaped tosafety on the other side. To this day, this place of Alvarado'smarvelous leap is pointed out. Like Ney, Alvarado was the last of thatgrand army, and like the French commander, also, he might properly becalled the bravest of the brave.
Darkness was not the usual period for Aztec fighting. It was thisalone that saved the lives of the remaining few for, having seenAlvarado stagger to freedom along the causeway, the Aztecs concludedthat they had done enough and returned to the city rejoicing. Theytook back with them many Spaniards and Tlascalans as captives forsacrifice and the cannibalistic feast which followed.
When day broke, Cortes sitting under a tree, which is still to be seenin Mexico,[8] ordered the survivors to pass in review before him. Theynumbered five hundred Spaniards and two thousand Tlascalans and a scoreof horses. Seven hundred and fifty Spaniards had been killed or takencaptive and four thousand Tlascalans. All the artillery had been lost,seven arquebuses had been saved, but there was no powder. Half theSpaniards were destitute of any weapons and the battle-axes and spearswhich had been saved {188} were jagged and broken. Their armor wasbattered and the most important parts, as helmets, shields,breastplates, had been lost. Some of the Tlascalans still preservedtheir savage weapons. There was scarcely a man, Spanish or Tlascalanwho was not suffering from some wound.
It is no wonder that when Cortes saw the melancholy and dejected
array,even his heart of steel gave way and he buried his face in his handsand burst into tears. This terrible night has always been known inhistory as _la noche triste_--the melancholy night. Melancholy indeedit was. Surely the situation of a man was never more desperate. Ifthe Mexicans had rejoiced in the leadership of a Cortes, they wouldhave mustered their forces and fallen upon the Spaniards without thedelay of a moment, and the result could only have been annihilation.But the Mexicans themselves had suffered terrifically. They had won agreat victory, but they had paid a fearful price for it. Now theywanted to enjoy it. They wished to sacrifice their captives to theirgods, and they thought that there was no hope for the Spaniards, andthat they might overwhelm them at their leisure.
This is Sir Arthur Helps' vivid description of the awful retreat:
"A little before midnight the stealthy march began. The Spaniardssucceeded in laying down the pontoon over the first bridge-way, and thevanguard with Sandoval passed over; Cortes and his men also passedover; but while the rest were passing, the Mexicans gave the alarm withloud shouts and blowing of horns. 'Tlaltelulco![9] Tlaltelulco!' theyexclaimed, 'come out quickly with your canoes; the _teules_ are going;cut {189} them off at the bridges.' Almost immediately after thisalarm, the lake was covered with canoes. It rained, and themisfortunes of the night commenced by two horses slipping from thepontoon into the water. Then, the Mexicans attacked thepontoon-bearers so furiously that it was impossible for them to raiseit up again. In a very short time the water at that part was full ofdead horses, Tlascalan men, Indian women, baggage, artillery,prisoners, and boxes (_petacas_) which, I suppose, supported thepontoon. On every side the most piteous cries were heard: 'Help me! Idrown!' 'Rescue me! They are killing me!' Such vain demands weremingled with prayers to the Virgin Mary and to Saint James. Those thatdid get upon the bridge and on the causeway found hands of Mexicansready to push them down again into the water.
"At the second bridge-way a single beam was found, which doubtless hadbeen left for the convenience of the Mexicans themselves. This wasuseless for the horses, but Cortes diverging, found a shallow placewhere the water did not reach further than up to the saddle, and bythat he and his horsemen passed (as Sandoval must have done before).He contrived, also to get his foot-soldiers safely to the mainland,though whether they swam or waded, whether they kept the line of thecauseway, or diverged into the shallows, it is difficult to determine.Leaving the vanguard and his own division safe on shore, Cortes with asmall body of horse and foot, returned to give what assistance he couldto those who were left behind. All order was now lost, and the retreatwas little else than a confused slaughter, although small bodies of theSpaniards still retained sufficient presence of mind {190} to acttogether, rushing forward, clearing the space about them, making theirway at each moment with loss of life, but still some few survivorsgetting onward. Few, indeed, of the rear-guard could have escaped. Itis told as a wonder of Alvarado, that, coming to the last bridge, hemade a leap, which has by many been deemed impossible, and cleared thevast aperture. When Cortes came up to him, he was found accompanied byonly seven soldiers and eight Tlascalans, all covered with blood fromtheir many wounds. They told Cortes that there was no use in goingfurther back, that all who remained alive were there with him. Uponthis the General turned; and the small and melancholy band of Spaniardspushed on to Tlacuba, Cortes protecting the rear. It is said that hesat down on a stone in the village called Popotla near Tlacuba, andwept; a rare occurrence, for he was not a man to waste any energy inweeping while aught remained to be done. The country was arousedagainst them, and they did not rest for the night till they hadfortified themselves in a temple on a hill near Tlacuba, whereafterward was built a church dedicated, very appropriately, to Our Ladyof Refuge (_a Nuestra Senora de los Remedios_)."
There is an old story of a Roman general, who after a most terrificdefeat, a defeat due largely to his own incompetency, not only escapedcensure but was officially thanked by the senate, because he declaredpublicly that he did not despair of the republic. Of that same temperwas Cortes.
Exhorting his men in the face of this awful peril which menaced them toconduct themselves as white men, as Spaniards, and as soldiers of theCross, Cortes led his army toward Tlascala. Upon the position of {191}that republic absolutely depended the future. It depends upon the wayyou look at the situation as to how you estimate the conduct of thesedusky allies of the unfortunate conqueror. Had there been any nationalfeeling among them, had their hatred of the Aztecs been less, theymight have broken their agreements with the Spaniards and overwhelmedthem, but the hatred of the Tlascalans did not permit them to lookbeyond the present day. They decided to maintain the alliance they hadentered into with Cortes and welcomed him with open arms. They gavehim a chance to recuperate, to get something to eat, and to dress thewounds of his men. All the Spaniards wanted was time to bring aboutthe inevitable downfall of Mexico and the Mexicans.
Among the men who had followed Narvaez was a Negro who had brought withhim the germs of small-pox, which were communicated to the Aztecs inthe city. It spared neither rich nor poor, as one of the first victimswas their leader, Cuitlahua. The electors chose his nephew to succeedhim, the youthful Guatemoc, or, as he was commonly called, Guatemotzin.In some respects in spite of the lack of the sagacity andfarsightedness of Cuitlahua, he was a better man for the problem, forhe at once mustered his forces and launched them upon Cortes and theTlascalans in the valley of Otumba. The Tlascalans had furnishedshelter and provisions to Cortes, and had resolved to stand by theirtreaty with him, but they had not yet furnished him with any greatassistance. A strong party in the council had been entirely opposed todoing anything whatever for him. Cortes practically had to fight thebattle alone and the battle had {192} to be won. He and his fought, asthe saying is, with halters around their necks.
All day long the Spaniards and their few allies fought up and down thenarrow valley. Defeat meant certain death. They must conquer or betortured, sacrificed and eaten. It was Cortes himself who decided theissue. With Alvarado and a few of the other captains, he finally brokethrough the Aztec centre, with his own hand killed the Aztec general,to whom Guatemoc had committed the battle, and seized the Aztecstandard. At the close of the long hours of fighting the natives brokeand fled, and the supremacy of Cortes and the Spaniards was once moreestablished.
Wavering Tlascala decided for Cortes and he was received with generous,royal and munificent hospitality, which accorded him everything heasked. Messengers were despatched to Hispaniola for reinforcements andevery preparation made for the renewal of the campaign. During thefall, troops, horses, men, guns and thousands of the flower of theTlascalan army were placed at Cortes's disposal. He occupied them bysending expeditions in every direction, thus restoring their morale andpunishing the savage tribes who had revolted against the Spanish ruleand had returned to their old allegiance to the Aztec emperor. Thepunishments were fearful. The resources of the Mexicans were graduallycut off and by the end of the year the Aztecs realized that they wouldhave to fight their last battle alone. These successful campaignsreestablished the prestige which the Spaniards had lost. The peopleeverywhere knew that they were no longer gods, but they now enjoyed ahigher reputation, that of being invincible.
Cortes was resolved to attack Mexico. With a {193} prudence as greatas his determination he decided to neglect no precaution which wouldinsure his success. He caused to be built a number of brigantines bywhich he could secure the command of the lake, and thereby give accessto the city for his troops and allies. These brigantines were built atTlascala under the supervision of the sailors of the expedition. Therigging of the ships, which had been destroyed, was useful in fittingthem out. They were built in pieces and arrangements were made tocarry them over the mountains and put them together at the lake whenthe campaign began. Guns and provisions were also amassed. Powder wasbrought from Cuba and it was also made by means of the sulphur depositsof the volcanoes round about. The troops
were daily drilled andtrained. Daily prayers were held, and every effort was made to givethe forthcoming campaign the spirit of a crusade. The strictest moralregulations were promulgated. In short, nothing was left undone tobring about the downfall of Mexico.
On his part, Guatemoc was not idle. He summoned to his assistance allthe tribes that remained loyal to him, especially those to the west,not subjected to the Spanish attack. He strove by bribery to detachthose who had given their adherence to Cortes. Vast numbers of alliesassembled in Mexico, which was provisioned for a siege. Everythingthat occurred to the minds of these splendid barbarians was done.After having done all that was possible, with resolution which cannotbe commended too highly, they calmly awaited the onset of the Spaniards.
On Christmas day, 1520, Cortes took up the march over the mountainsagain for the great city of the cactus rock.
{194}
XII. The Siege and Destruction of Mexico
It was April of the next year when Cortes at last arrived before thecity and began the siege. The force which he had mustered for thistremendous undertaking consisted of seven hundred Spanish infantry, onehundred and twenty arquebuses, eighty-six horsemen, twelve cannon, anda countless multitude of Tlascalan fighters together with numbers ofslaves and servants.
As the city was connected with the mainland by three causeways, it wasnecessary to invest it on three sides. The army was divided into threeequal divisions. He himself commanded the force that was to attackalong the south causeway; with him was Sandoval, his most trusted andefficient lieutenant; Alvarado led that which was to advance over thewest causeway and Olid was to close the north causeway. Thebrigantines were brought over the mountains by hand by thousands ofTlascalans. There were no vehicles or highways of any sort in Mexico;the Mexicans not having domesticated any animals there was no use foranything broader than a foot-path, a fact which throws an interestingside-light on their civilization, by the way. These Spanish boats wereput together on the shores of the lake and when they were launched theyserved to close the ring of steel which surrounded the doomed city.
The three great tribal divisions of the Aztec empire were the Aztecsthemselves, the Cholulans and the Tezcocans. Cholula had beenconquered and with Tezcoco at this critical juncture went over to theSpaniards, leaving Guatemoc and his Aztecs to fight the last fight{195} alone. Besides the forces enumerated, each Spanish division wasaccompanied by formidable bodies of Tlascalans. The Tlascalans werenearly, if not quite, as good fighters as the Aztecs; perhaps they werebetter fighters, so far as their numbers went, when led and supportedby the white people.
The first thing that Cortes did was to cut the aqueduct which carriedfresh water into the city. The lake of Tezcoco in which Mexico stoodwas salt. By this one stroke, Cortes forced the inhabitants to dependupon a very meagre, scanty supply of water from wells in the city, manyof which were brackish and unpalatable. The shores of the lake wereswept bare by the beleaguerers. Iztatapalan, a rocky fortress wastaken by storm and on April 21, 1521, the first attack was deliveredalong the causeways. The Mexicans met the advance with their customaryintrepidity. The water on either side of the causeway swarmed withcanoes. Thousands of warriors poured out of the city. The canoesswept down the lake intending to take the Spaniards in reverse and thenpour in a terrible flank fire of missiles as they had done on theMelancholy Night. Cortes sustained this fire for a short time in orderto draw the canoes as far toward him as possible, then he let loose thebrigantines.
These brigantines were boats propelled by oars and sails on a singlemast. They carried about a score of armed men and were very well andstoutly built. I suppose them to have been something like a modernman-o'-war cutter. They played havoc with the frail canoes. Theirsolid construction, their higher free-board, that is, the height theywere above the water-line, the armor of their crews and the fact thatthe wind happened to be favorable and they {196} could sail instead ofrow that morning, all contributed to the utter and complete destructionof the Indian flotilla. Canoes were splintered and sunk. Men werekilled by the hundreds. They strove to climb up the slippery sides ofthe causeways and dykes. The Spaniards thrust them off into the deepwater with their spears or cut them to pieces with their swords. Thebattle along the causeways, which were narrow, although quite wideenough for a dozen horsemen abreast, was terrible. The Aztecsliterally died in their tracks, disdaining to fly. The Spaniards madetheir way over a floor of dead and writhing bodies.
Bare breasts, however resolute the hearts that beat beneath them, wereno match for the steel cuirasses. The wooden shields did not evenblunt the edge of the Toledo blade; the obsidian battle-axes could notcontest with the iron maces. The jewelled feather work of the proudestnoble was not equal even to the steel-trimmed leather jerkin of thepoorest white soldier. The Spaniards literally cut their way, hewed,hacked, thrust their way into the city.
Here the fighting was slightly more equalized. The low roofs of thehouses and pueblos swarmed with warriors. They rained missiles downupon the Spaniards' heads, while a never diminishing mob hurled itselfinto the faces of the white men. The Aztecs could have done moredamage if they had not sacrificed everything in order to capture theSpaniards alive. In some instances they succeeded in their purpose.The fighting which was the same in all three of the causeways lastedall day and then the Spaniards retired to their several camps.
Save for the fact that they afterward cleared the lake of the canoes bythe aid of the brigantines, one {197} day's fighting was like another.The Spaniards would march into the city, slaughter until their armswere weary. They would lose a few here and there every day. TheTlascalans who took their part in all the fighting lost many. The endof the day would see things _in statu quo_. There were enough of theIndians even to sacrifice one hundred of them to one Spaniard and stillmaintain the balance of power. Cortes observed that he might fightthis way until all of his army had melted away by piecemeal and havetaken nothing.
He determined upon the dreadful expedient of destroying the city as hecaptured it. After coming to this decision, he summoned to his aidlarge bodies of the subject tribes. Thereafter, while the Spaniardsand the Tlascalans fought, the others tore down that portion of thecity which had been taken. The buildings were absolutely razed to theground and nothing whatever was left of them. Canals were filled,gardens were ruined, trees cut down and even the walls of the city tornapart. In short, what once had been a teeming populous quarter of thecity, abounding in parks, gardens and palaces, was left a desert.There was not enough power left in the Aztec Confederacy to rebuild thedevastated portions over night and the Spaniards daily pressed theirattack on every side with relentless rigor.
The Mexicans were slowly constricted to an ever narrowing circle. TheSpaniards seized and choked up the wells. The Mexicans were dying ofthirst. The brigantines swept the lake and prevented anyreenforcements reaching them, which cut off their supply of provisions.They were dying of hunger. After every day's fighting Cortes offeredamnesty. To do {198} him justice, he begged that peace might be madeand the fighting stopped before the city was ruined and all itsinhabitants were killed. He was no mere murderer, and such scenes ofslaughter horrified him. He had a genuine admiration for the enemytoo. He tried his best to secure peace. His offers were repudiatedwith contempt. In spite of the fact that they were starving, theAztecs in bravado actually threw provisions in the faces of theadvancing Spaniards. They declared to the Tlascalans that when therewas nothing left to eat they would eat them, and if there was nothingelse, they would live on one another until they were all dead. Theymocked and jeered at the tribes tearing down the houses, and with grimhumor pointed out to them that they would have to rebuild the citywhoever was successful in the strife, for either the Aztecs or theSpaniards would compel them to do so. So the fighting went on throughthe long days.
XIII. A Day of Desperate Fighting
On one occasion the soldiers, tiring of this, demanded, and Cortes incompliance with their wishes project
ed, an attack which was hoped wouldcapture the narrow circle of defense by storm. In his own words thestory of this day's fighting is now related. It will be seen how henarrowly escaped with his life:
"The day after mass,[10] in pursuance of the arrangements alreadymentioned, the seven brigantines with more than three thousand canoesof our allies left the encampment; and I, with twenty-five horses and{199} all the other force I had, including the seventy-five men fromthe division at Tacuba, took up the line of march and entered the city,where I distributed the troops in the following manner: There werethree streets leading from where we entered to the market-place, calledby the Indians Tianguizco, and the whole square in which it is situatedis called Tlaltelulco; one of these streets was the principal avenue tothe marketplace, which I ordered your Majesty's treasurer and auditorto take, with seventy men and more than fifteen or twenty thousand ofour allies, and rear-guard consisting of seven or eight horses. I alsodirected that, whenever a bridge or entrenchment was taken, it shouldbe immediately filled up; and for this purpose they had twelve men withpick-axes, together with many more of our allies who were very usefulin this kind of work. The two other streets also lead from that ofTacuba to the market-place, and are narrower and full of causeways,bridges, and water-streets (or canals). I ordered two captains,[11] totake the wildest of these with eighty men and more than ten thousand ofour Indian allies; and at the head of the street of Tacuba I placed twoheavy cannon with eight horse to guard them. With eight other horseand about one hundred foot, including twenty-five or more bowmen andmusketeers, and an innumerable host of our allies, I took up the lineof march along the other narrow street, intending to penetrate as faras possible. At its entrance I caused the cavalry to halt, and orderedthem by no means to pass from there, nor to come in my rear, unless Ifirst sent them orders to that effect; and then I alighted from my{200} horse, and we came to an entrenchment that had been raised infront of a bridge, which we carried by means of a small field-piece,and the archers and musketeers, and then proceeded along the causeway,which was broken in two or three places, where we encountered theenemy. So great was the number of our allies, who ascended theterraces and other places, that it did not appear possible anythingcould stop us. When we had gained the two bridges, the entrenchmentsand the causeways, our allies followed along the street without takingany spoils; and I remained behind with about twenty Spanish soldiers ona little island, for I saw that some of our Indians were getting intotrouble with the enemy; and in some instances they retreated until theycast themselves into the water, and with our aid were enabled to returnto the attack. Besides this, we were on the watch to prevent the enemyfrom sallying forth out of the cross-streets in the rear of theSpaniards, who had advanced on the main street and at this time sent usword that they had made much progress, and were not far from the greatsquare of the market-place; adding, that they wished to push forward,for they already heard the noise of the combat in which the Alguazilmayor and Pedro de Alvarado were engaged on their side of the city. Ianswered them that they must by no means go forward without leaving thebridges well filled up, so that, if it became necessary to beat aretreat, the water might present no obstacle or impediment, for in thisconsisted all the danger. They sent to me a message in reply, theamount of which was that the whole they had gained was in goodcondition, and that I might go and see if it was not so. Butsuspecting that they had disregarded the orders and left the {201}bridges imperfectly filled up, I went to the place and found they hadpassed a breach in the road ten or twelve paces wide, and the waterthat flowed through it was ten or twelve feet deep. At the time thetroops had passed this ditch, thus formed, they had thrown in it woodand reed-canes, and as they had crossed a few at a time and with greatcircumspection, the wood and canes had not sunk beneath their weight;and they were so intoxicated with the pleasure of victory that theyimagined it to be sufficiently firm. At the moment I reached thisbridge of troubles, I discovered some Spaniards and many of our alliesflying back in great haste, and the enemy like dogs in pursuit of them;and when I saw such a rout, I began to cry out, 'Hold, hold!' and onapproaching the water, I beheld it full of Spaniards and Indians in sodense a mass that it seemed as if there was not room for a straw tofloat. The enemy charged on the fugitives so hotly, that in the_melee_ they threw themselves into the water after them; and soon theenemy's canoes came up by means of the canal and took the Spaniardsalive.
As this affair was so sudden, and I saw them killing our men, Iresolved to remain there and perish in the fight. The way in which Iand those that were with me could do the most good was to give ourhands to some unfortunate Spaniards who were drowning, and draw themout of the water; some came out wounded, others half-drowned, andothers without arms, whom I sent forward. Already such multitudes ofthe enemy pressed upon us, that they had completely surrounded me andthe twelve or fifteen men who were with me; and being deeply interestedin endeavoring to save those that were sinking, I did not observe norregard the danger to which I was exposed. Several Indians {202} of theenemy had already advanced to seize me and would have borne me off, hadit not been for a captain of fifty men whom I always had with me, andalso a youth of his company, to whom next to God, I owed my life; andin saving mine, like a valiant man, he lost his own.[12] In themeantime the Spaniards who had fled before the enemy, pursued theircourse along the causeway, and as it was small and narrow, and on thesame level as the water, which had been effected by those dogs onpurpose to annoy us; and as the road was crowded also with our allieswho had been routed, much delay was thereby occasioned, enabling theenemy to come up on both sides of the water, and to take and destroy asmany as they pleased. The captain who was with me, Antonio deQuinones, said to me: 'Let us leave this place and save your life,since you know that without you none of us can escape'; but he couldnot induce me to go. When he saw this, he seized me in his arms, thathe might force me away; and although I would have been better satisfiedto die than to live, yet by the importunity of this captain and of myother companions, we began to retreat, making our way with our swordsand bucklers against the enemy, who pressed hard upon us. At thismoment there came up a servant of mine and made a little room; butpresently he received a blow in his throat from a lance thrown from alow terrace, that brought him to the ground. While I was in the midstof this conflict, sustaining the attacks of the enemy, and waiting forthe crowd on the narrow causeway, to reach a place of safety, one of myservants brought {203} me a horse to ride on. But the mud on thecauseway, occasioned by the coming and going of persons by water, wasso deep that no one could stand, especially with the jostling of thepeople against one another in their effort to escape.
"I mounted the horse, but not to fight, as this was impossible onhorseback; but if it had been practicable I should have found on thelittle island opposite the narrow causeway, the eight horsemen I hadleft there, who were unable to do more than effect their return; whichindeed, was so dangerous that two mares, on which two of my servantsrode fell from the causeway into the water; one of them was killed bythe Indians, but the other was saved by some of the infantry. Anotherservant of mine Cristobal de Guzman, rode a horse that they gave him atthe little island to bring to me, on which I might make my escape; butthe enemy killed both him and the horse before they reached me; hisdeath spread sorrow through the whole camp, and even to this day hisloss is still mourned by those who knew him. But after all ourtroubles, by the blessing of God, those of us who survived, reached thestreet of Tlacuba, which was very wide; and collecting the people, Itook my post with nine horsemen in the rear-guard. The enemy pressedforward with all the pride of victory, as if resolved that none shouldescape with life; but falling back in the best manner I could, I sentword to the treasurer and auditor to retreat to the public square ingood order. I also sent similar orders to the two captains who hadentered the city by the street that led to the market-place, both ofwhom had fought gallantly, and carried many entrenchments and bridges,which they had caused to be well filled up, on account of {204} which
they were able to retire without loss. Before the retreat of thetreasurer and auditor some of the enemy threw in their way two or threeheads of Christian men from the upper part of the entrenchment wherethey were fighting, but it was not known whether they were personsbelonging to the camp of Pedro de Alvarado, or our own. All beingassembled in the square, so large a multitude of the enemy charged uponus from all directions that we had as much as we could do to keep themback; and that, too, in places where, before this defeat, the enemywould have fled before three horse and ten foot. Immediately after, ina lofty tower filled with their idols that stood near the square, theyburned perfumes and fumigated the air with certain gums peculiar tothis country, that greatly resembled _anime_, which they offer to theiridols in token of victory. Although we endeavored to throw obstaclesin the way of the enemy, it was out of our power, as our people werehurrying back to the camp.
"In this defeat thirty-five or forty Spaniards, and more than athousand of our allies, were slain by the enemy, besides more thantwenty Christians wounded, among whom was myself in the leg. We lostthe small field-piece that we had taken with us, and many crossbows,muskets and other arms. Immediately after their victory in order tostrike terror into the Alguazil mayor and Pedro de Alvarado, the enemycarried all the Spaniards, both living and dead, whom they had taken,to the Tlaltelulco which is the market-place, and in some of the loftytowers that are situated there they sacrificed them naked, openingtheir breasts and taking out their hearts to offer them to the idols.This was seen by the Spaniards of Alvarado's division from {205} wherethey were fighting, and from the whiteness of the naked bodies whichthey saw sacrificed they knew them to be Christians; but although theysuffered great sorrow and dismay at the sight, they effected a retreatto their camp after having fought gallantly that day, and carried theirconquests almost to the market-place, which would have been taken ifGod, on account of our sins, had not permitted so great a disaster. Wereturned to our camp, such was the grief we felt, somewhat earlier thanhad been usual on other days; and in addition to our other losses, wehad been told that the brigantines had fallen into the hands of theenemies, who attacked them in their canoes from the rear; but itpleased God this was not true, although the brigantines and the canoesof our allies had been seen in danger enough, and even a brigantinecame near being lost, the captain and the master of it being wounded,the former of whom died eight days afterward."
This modest account of the brave soldier scarcely does justice to thesituation, his peril and his courage. Therefore, I supplement it byHelps' description of the same day of desperate fighting:
"The impatience of the soldiers grew to a great height, and wassupported in an official quarter--by no less a person than Alderete,the King's Treasurer. Cortes gave way against his own judgment totheir importunities. There had all along been a reason for hisreluctance, which, probably, he did not communicate to his men; namely,that he had not abandoned the hope that the enemy would still come toterms. 'Finally,' he says, 'they pressed me so much that I gave way.'
"The attack was to be a general one, in which the {206} divisions ofSandoval and Alvarado were to cooperate; but Cortes, with thatknowledge of character which belonged to him, particularly explainedthat, though his general orders were for them to press into themarket-place, they were not obliged to gain a single difficult passwhich laid them open to defeat; 'for,' he says, 'I knew, from the menthey were, that they would advance to whatever spot I told them togain, even if they knew that it would cost them their lives.'
"On the appointed day, Cortes moved from his camp, supported by sevenbrigantines, and by more than three thousand canoes filled with hisIndian allies. When his soldiers reached the entrance of the city, hedivided them in the following manner. There were three streets whichled to the market-place from the position which the Spaniards hadalready gained. Along the principal street, the King's Treasurer, withseventy Spaniards, and fifteen or twenty thousand allies was to makehis way. His rear was to be protected by a small guard of horsemen.
"The other streets were smaller, and led from the street of Tlacuba tothe market-place. Along the broader of these two streets, Cortes senttwo of his principal captains, with eighty Spaniards and the thousandIndians; he himself with eight horsemen, seventy-five foot-soldiers,twenty-five musketeers, and an 'infinite number' of allies, was toenter the narrower street. At the entrance to the street of Tlacuba,he left two large cannon with eight horsemen to guard them, and at theentrance of his own street, he also left eight horsemen to protect therear.
"The Spaniards and their allies made their entrance into the city witheven more success and less embarrassment than on previous occasions.Bridges and {207} barricades were gained, and the three main bodies ofthe army moved forward into the heart of the city. The ever-prudentCortes did not follow his division, but remained with a smallbody-guard of twenty Spaniards in a little island formed by theintersection of certain water streets, whence he encouraged the allies,who were occasionally beaten back by the Mexicans, and where he couldprotect his own troops against any sudden descent of the enemy fromcertain side streets.
"He now received a message from these Spanish troops who had made arapid and successful advance into the heart of the town, informing himthat they were not far from the market-place, and that they wished tohave his permission to push forward, as they already heard the noise ofthe combats which the Alguazil mayor and Pedro de Alvarado were wagingfrom their respective stations. To this message Cortes returned foranswer that on no account should they move forward without firstfilling up the apertures thoroughly. They sent an answer back, statingthat they had made completely passable all the ground they had gained;and that he might come and see whether it were not so.
"Cortes, like a wise commander, not inclined to admit anything as afact upon the statement of others which could be verified by personalinspection, took them at their word, and did move on to see what sortof a pathway they had made; when, to his dismay, he came in sight of abreach in the causeway, of considerable magnitude, being ten or twelvepaces in width, and which, far from being filled up with solidmaterial, had been passed upon wood and reeds, which was entirelyinsecure in case of retreat. The Spaniards, 'intoxicated withvictory,' as their Commander {208} describes them, had rushed on,imagining that they left behind them a sufficient pathway.
"There was now no time to remedy this lamentable error, for when Cortesarrived near this 'bridge of affliction,' as he calls it, he saw manyof the Spaniards and the allies retreating toward it, and when he cameup close to it, he found the bridge-way broken down, and the wholeaperture so full of Spaniards and Indians, that there was not room fora straw to float upon the surface of the water. The peril was soimminent that Cortes not only thought that the conquest of Mexico wasgone, but that the term of his life as well as that of his victorieshad come; and he resolved to die there fighting. All that he could doat first was to help his men out of the water; and meanwhile, theMexicans charged upon them in such numbers, that he and his littleparty were entirely surrounded. The enemy seized upon his person, andwould have carried him off, but for the resolute bravery of some of hisguard, one of whom lost his life there in succoring his master. Thegreatest aid, however, that Cortes had at this moment of urgent peril,was the cruel superstition of the Mexicans, which made them wish totake the Malinche alive, and grudged the death of an enemy in any otherway than that of sacrifice to their detestable gods. The captain ofthe body-guard seized hold of Cortes, and insisted upon his retreating,declaring that upon his life depended the lives of all of them.Cortes, though at that moment he felt that he should have delightedmore in death than life, gave way to the importunity of his captain,and of other Spaniards who were near, and commenced a retreat for hislife. His flight was along a narrow causeway at the same level as thewater, an additional circumstance of danger, {209} which to use hisexpression about them, those 'dogs' had contrived against theSpaniards. The Mexicans in their canoes approached the causeway onboth sides, and the slaughter they we
re thus enabled to commit, bothamong the allies and the Spaniards, was very great. Meanwhile, two orthree horses were sent to aid Cortes in his retreat, and a youth uponone of them contrived to reach him, although the others were lost. Atlast he and a few of his men succeeded in fighting their way to thebroad street of Tlacuba, where, like a brave captain, instead ofcontinuing his flight, he and the few horsemen that were with himturned around and formed a rear-guard to protect his retreating troops.He also sent immediate orders to the King's Treasurer and the othercommanders to make good their escape; orders the force of which wasmuch heightened by the sight of two or three Spanish heads which theMexicans, who were fighting behind a barricade, threw amongst thebesiegers.
"We must now see how it fared with the other divisions. Alvarado's menhad prospered in their attack, and were steadily advancing toward themarketplace, when, all of a sudden, they found themselves encounteredby an immense body of Mexican troops, splendidly accoutred, who threwbefore them five heads of Spaniards and kept shouting out, 'Thus wewill slay you, as we have slain Malinche and Sandoval, whose headsthese are.' With these words they commenced an attack of such fury,and came so close to hand with the Spaniards, that they could not usetheir cross-bows, their muskets, or even their swords. One thing,however, was in their favor. The difficulty of their retreat wasalways greatly enhanced by the number of their allies; but on thisoccasion, the {210} Tlascalans no sooner saw the bleeding heads andheard the menacing words of the Mexicans, than they cleared themselvesoff the causeway with all possible speed.
"The Spaniards, therefore, were able to retreat in good order; andtheir dismay did not take the form of panic, even when they heard, fromthe summit of the Temple, the tones of that awful drum, made from theskin of serpents, which gave forth the most melancholy soundimaginable, and which was audible at two or three leagues' distance.This was the signal of sacrifice, and at that moment ten human hearts,the hearts of their companions, were being offered up to the Mexicandeities.
"A more dangerous, though not more dreadful sound was now to be heard.This was the blast of a horn sounded by no less a personage than theMexican King--which signified that his captains were to succeed or die.The mad fury with which the Mexicans now rushed upon the Spaniards wasan 'awful thing' to see; and the historian, who was present at thescene, writing in his old age, exclaims that, though he cannot describeit, yet, when he comes to think of it, it is as if it were 'visibly'before him, so deep was the impression it had made upon his mind.
"But the Spaniards were not raw troops; and terror however great, wasnot able to overcome their sense of discipline and their duty to eachother as comrades. It was in vain that the Mexicans rushed upon them'as a conquered thing'; they reached their station, served their cannonsteadily--although they had to renew their artillery-men--andmaintained their ground.
"The appalling stratagem adopted by the Mexicans--of {211} throwingdown before one division of the Spanish army some of the heads of theprisoners they had taken from another division, and shouting that thesewere the heads of the principal commanders--was pursued with greatsuccess. They were thus enabled to discourage Sandoval, and to causehim to retreat with loss toward his quarters. They even tried withsuccess the same stratagem upon Cortes, throwing before his camp, towhich he had at last retreated, certain bleeding heads, which theysaid, were those of 'Tonatiuh' (Alvarado), Sandoval, and the other_teules_. Then it was that Cortes felt more dismay than ever,'though,' says the honest chronicler, who did not like the man, nomatter how much he admired the soldier, 'not in such a manner thatthose who were with him should perceive in it much weakness.'
"After Sandoval had made good his retreat, he set off, accompanied by afew horsemen, for the camp of Cortes, and had an interview with him, ofwhich the following account is given: 'O Senor Captain! what is this?'exclaimed Sandoval; 'are these the great counsels, and artifices of warwhich you have always been wont to show us? How has this disasterhappened?' Cortes replied, 'O Don Sandoval! my sins have permittedthis; but I am not so culpable in the business as they may make out,for it is the fault of the Treasurer, Juan de Alderete, whom I chargedto fill up that difficult pass where they routed us; but he did not doso, for he is not accustomed to wars, nor to be commanded by superiorofficers.' At this point of the conference, the Treasurer himself, whohad approached the captains in order to learn Sandoval's news,exclaimed that it was Cortes himself who was to blame; that he hadencouraged his men to go {212} forward; that he had not charged them tofill up the bridges and bad passes--if he had done so, he (theTreasurer) and his company would have done it; and, moreover, thatCortes had not cleared the causeway in time of his Indian allies. Thusthey argued and disputed with one another; for hardly any one isgenerous, in defeat, to those with whom he has acted. Indeed, agenerosity of this kind, which will not allow a man to comment severelyupon the errors of his comrades in misfortune, is so rare a virtue,that it scarcely seems to belong to this planet.
"There was little time, however, for altercation, and Cortes was notthe man to indulge in more of that luxury for the unfortunate thanhuman nature demanded. He had received no tidings of what had befallenthe Camp of Tlacuba, and thither he despatched Sandoval, embracing himand saying, 'Look you, since you see that I cannot go to all parts, Icommend these labors to you, for, as you perceive, I am wounded andlame. I implore you, take charge of these three camps. I well knowthat Pedro de Alvarado and his soldiers will have behaved themselves ascavaliers, but I fear lest the great force of those dogs should haverouted them.'
"The scene now changes to the ground near Alvarado's camp. Sandovalsucceeded in making his way there, and arrived about the hour ofVespers. He found the men of that division in the act of repelling amost vigorous attack on the part of the Mexicans, who had hoped thatnight to penetrate into the camp and carry off all the Spaniards forsacrifice. The enemy were better armed than usual, some of them usingthe weapons which they had taken from the soldiers of Cortez. At last,after a severe conflict, {213} in which Sandoval himself was wounded,and in which the cannon shots did not suffice to break the serriedranks of the Mexicans, the Spaniards gained their quarters, and, beingunder shelter, had some respite from the fury of the Mexican attack.
"There, Sandoval, Pedro de Alvarado, and the other principal captains,were standing together and relating what had occurred to each of them,when, suddenly, the sound of the sacrificial drum was heard again,accompanied by other musical instruments of a similar dolorouscharacter. From the Camp of Tlacuba the great Temple was perfectlyvisible, and the Spaniards looked up at it for the interpretation ofthese melancholy tones; they saw their companions driven by blows andbuffetings up to the place of sacrifice. The white-skinned Christianswere easily to be distinguished amidst the dusky groups that surroundedthem. When the unhappy men about to be sacrificed had reached thelofty level space on which these abominations were wont to becommitted, it was discerned by their friends and late companions thatplumes of feathers were put upon the heads of many of them, and thatmen, whose movements in the distance appeared like those of winnowers,made the captive dance before the image of Huitzilopochtli. When thedance was concluded, the victims were placed upon the sacrificialstones; their hearts were taken out and offered to the idols; and theirbodies hurled down the steps of the temple. At the bottom of the stepsstood 'other butchers' who cut off the arms and legs of the victims,intending to eat these portions of their enemy. The skin of the facewith the beard was preserved. The rest of the body was thrown to thelions, tigers, and serpents. 'Let the curious {214} reader consider,'says the chronicler, 'what pity we must have had for these, ourcompanions, and how we said to one another, 'Oh, thanks be to God, thatthey did not carry me off to-day to sacrifice me.' And certainly noarmy ever looked on a more deplorable sight.
"There was no time, however, for such contemplation: for, at thatinstant, numerous bands of warriors attacked the Spaniards on allsides, and fully occupied their attention in the preservation of theirown lives.
"Mod
ern warfare has lost one great element of the picturesque innarrative, namely, in there being no interchange, now, of verbalthreats and menaces between the contending parties; but in those daysit was otherwise, and the Mexicans were able to indulge in the mostfierce and malignant language. 'Look,' they said, 'that is the way inwhich all of you have to die, for our Gods have promised this to usmany times.' To the Tlascalans their language was more insulting andmuch more minutely descriptive. Throwing to them the roasted flesh oftheir companions and of the Spanish soldiers, they shouted, 'Eat of theflesh of these _teules_, and of your brethren, for we are quitesatiated with it; and, look you, for the houses you have pulled down,we shall have to make you build in their place much better ones withstone and plates of metal, likewise with hewn stone and lime; and thehouses will be painted. Wherefore continue to assist these _teules_all of whom you will see sacrificed.'
"The Mexicans, however, did not succeed in carrying off any moreSpaniards for sacrifice that night. The Spanish camp had some fewhours of repose, and some time to reckon up their losses, which werevery {215} considerable. They lost upward of sixty of their own men,six horses, two cannon, and a great number of their Indian allies.Moreover the brigantines had not fared much better on this disastrousday than the land forces. But the indirect consequences of this defeatwere still more injurious than the actual losses. The allies from theneighboring cities on the lake deserted the Spaniards, nearly to a man.The Mexicans regained and strengthened most of their positions; and thegreatest part of the work of the besiegers seemed as if it would haveto be done over again. Even the Tlascalans, hitherto so faithful,despaired of the fortunes of their allies, and could not but believe,with renewed terror, in the potency of the Mexican deities, kindred to,if not identical with, their own."
XIV. The Last Mexican
The courage of the Aztecs was beyond all question. Their heroismawakens a thrill of admiration, although we are fully aware of theirfearful and ferocious and degrading religious rites. Again and againthe heart-sick Spaniards saw lifted up before the hideous gods on thetemple pyramids, the white, naked bodies of their unfortunate comradeswho had been captured for that awful sacrifice. Both parties werewrought up to a pitch of furious rage.
No valor, no heroism, no courage, no devotion could prevail againstthirst, hunger, smallpox, pestilence, the fever of besieged towns, withthe streets filled with unburied dead. On August 13, 1521, the cityfell. There was no formal surrender, the last defender had beenkilled. The old, weak and feeble were left. Only a small portion ofthe city, the {216} cheapest and poorest part, was left standing. Intothis ghastly street rode the Spaniards.
Where was Guatemoc? A wretched, haggard, worn, starved figure, havingdone all that humanity could do, and apparently more, in the defence ofhis land, he had striven to escape in a canoe on the lake. One of thebrigantines overhauled him. The commander was about to make way withthe little party when some one informed him that the principal captivewas no less than Guatemotzin. The unfortunate young emperor, aftervainly trying to persuade Garcia Holguin to kill him then and there,demanded to be led to Cortes. He found that great captain on one ofthe house-tops, watching the slaughter of the men and women andchildren by the furious Tlascalans who were at last feeding fat theirrevenge by indiscriminate massacre.
"Deal with me as you please," said the broken-hearted Mexican, as hetouched the dagger which hung by Cortes's side. "Kill me at once," heimplored.
He had no wish to survive the downfall of his empire, the devastationof his city, and the annihilation of his people. Cortes spared hislife and at first treated him generously. He afterward marred hisreputation by yielding him and the Cacique of Tlacuba to torture at theurgent and insistent demand of the soldiery. There was no treasurefound in the city. It had been spirited away or else buried foreverbeneath the ruins of the town.[13] The soldiers, their greed fortreasure excited, insisted upon the torture of the noble Guatemoc andhis comrade. The Cacique of Tlacuba, unable through weakness tosustain the torture, which consisted of burning the soles of their feetwith boiling {217} oil, broke into lamenting reproaches, some of themaddressed to the emperor.
"And am I taking pleasure in my bath, do you think?" proudly repliedthe young chief, while the soles of his feet were being immersed in thesame dreadful cauldron.
He was lame and more or less helpless for the rest of his life. I haveno doubt that he often wished that he had been cut down in the finalmoment of his defeat. He dragged on a miserable existence until Cortesput him to death by hanging several years after the conquest while inHonduras on an expedition. The charge against him, so Cortes writes toCharles V., was conspiracy. The evidence was flimsy enough, yet it isprobable that Cortes believed it. The expedition was far from Mexico,surrounded by hostile nations, and Cortes, as usual, was in greatdanger. Helps thus describes the bitter end of the noble young emperor:
"When led to execution, the King of Mexico exclaimed, 'O Malinche, Ihave long known the falseness of your words, and have foreseen that youwould give me that death which, alas! I did not give myself, when Isurrendered to you in my city of Mexico. Wherefore do you slay mewithout justice? May God demand it of you!'
"The King of the Tlacuba said that he looked upon his death as welcome,since he was able to die with his Lord, the King of Mexico. Afterconfession and absolution, the two kings were hanged upon a ceyba treein Izzancanac, in the province of Acalan, on one of the carnival daysbefore Shrovetide, in the year 1525. Thus ended the great Mexicandynasty--itself a thing compacted by so much blood and toil and {218}suffering of countless human beings. The days of deposedmonarchs--victims alike to the zeal of their friends and the suspicionsof their captors--are mostly very brief; and perhaps it is surprisingthat the King of Mexico should have survived as long as four years theconquest of his capital, and have been treated during the greater partof that time with favor and honor.
"Some writers have supposed that Cortes was weary of his captives, andwished to destroy them, and that the charge of conspiracy wasfictitious. Such assertions betray a total ignorance of the characterof this great Spaniard. Astute men seldom condescend to lying. Now,Cortes was not only very astute, but, according to his notions, highlyhonorable. A genuine hidalgo, and a thoroughly loyal man, he would assoon have thought of committing a small theft as of uttering afalsehood in a despatch addressed to his sovereign."
XV. The End of Cortes
Cortes received a full reward for his conquest, at least for a time.He was received in high favor by Charles V., whom he visited in Spain,and who made him Marques of the Valley of Mexico.
"There is on record a single sentence of the Emperor's that must havebeen addressed to Cortes in some private interview, which shows thegracious esteem in which he was held by his sovereign. Borrowing ametaphor from the archery-ground, and gracefully, as it seems, alludingto a former misappreciation of the services of Cortes, the Emperor saidthat he wished to deal with him as those who contend with the crossbow,whose first shots go wide of the mark, and then {219} they improve andimprove, until they hit the centre of the white. So, continued HisMajesty, he wished to go on until he had shot into the white of whatshould be done to reward the Marquis' deserts; and meanwhile nothingwas to be taken from him which he then held.
"It was very pleasing to find that Cortes did not forget his oldfriends the Tlascalans, but dwelt on their services, and procured fromthe Emperor an order that they should not be given _encomienda_ to HisMajesty, or to any other person."
The only reward the Tlascalans got from the Emperor was that, when theother Mexicans were made slaves, they were left at least nominallyfree, but their republic soon fell into decay and the city in whichthey had so proudly maintained themselves in their independence, becamea desolate ruin. A dirty and squalid village to-day marks the place.
Marina, who had served the Spaniards for the love of the great captainwith such fidelity and such success, was cast off by Cortes andcompelled to marry one of his officers, whom sh
e scarcely knew. Thiscrushed her spirit. She abandoned her husband and sank into wretchedand miserable obscurity, and died at an early age of a broken heart.
Cortes conducted other expeditions, most of them without any greatsuccess, as that to Honduras, where he hanged the last of the AztecKings. Jealousy arose in the great state which he had founded, and hefell out of favor with the Emperor, who refused to see him, and he wasreceived with cold and bitter reproaches by his wife, whom he marriedafter the death of his former wife, and who had never proved a comfortto him. An admirable marriage which {220} he had arranged for hisdaughter with one of the highest nobility of Spain failed, his lastdays were sad and miserable, and he died old, lonely andbroken-hearted. I again quote Helps concerning these closing scenes:
"The poets say, 'Care sits behind a man and follows him wherever hegoes.' So does ill-success; and henceforward the life of Cortes wasalmost invariably unsuccessful. There is an anecdote told of him(resting upon no higher authority than that of Voltaire) which,although evidently untrue, tells in a mythical way the reception whichCortes met at the Spanish Court; and his feelings as regards thatreception.
"One day he broke through the crowd which surrounded the carriage ofthe Emperor and jumped on the step.
"'Who are you?' asked the Emperor in astonishment.
"'I am the man,' replied Cortes fiercely, 'who has given you moreprovinces than your ancestors have left you cities.'
"Quitting fiction, however, and returning to fact, there is a letterextant addressed by Cortes to the Emperor, Charles V., which conveysmore forcibly than even a large extent of narrative could do, thetroubles, vexations, and disappointments which Cortes had to endure atthis latter period of his life, and his feelings with regard to them.It is one of the most touching letters ever written by a subject to asovereign. I will here translate some of it, greatly condensing thoseparts of the letter which relate to the business in hand, and whichwould be as wearisome to the reader to read, as they were to the writerto write; for doubtless, it was not the first time, by many times,{221} that Cortes had set down the same grievance in writing. Theletter bears date, Valladolid, the 3rd. of February, 1544. It beginsthus:--
"'Sacred Cesarian Catholic Majesty:--I thought that having labored inmy youth, it would so profit me that in my old age I might have easeand rest; and now it is forty years that I have been occupied in notsleeping, in eating ill, and sometimes eating neither well nor ill, inbearing armor, in placing my person in danger, in spending my estatesand my life, all in the service of God, bringing sheep into hissheep-fold--which were very remote from our hemisphere, unknown, andwhose names are not written in our writings--also increasing and makingbroad the name and patrimony of my King--gaining for him, and bringingunder his yoke and Royal sceptre, many and very great kingdoms and manybarbarous nations, all won by my own person, and at my own expense;without being assisted in anything, on the contrary, being muchhindered by many jealous and evil and envious persons who, likeleeches, have been filled to bursting with my blood.'
"He then proceeds to say that for the part which God has had in hislabors and watchings he is sufficiently paid, because it was His work;and it was not without a reason that Providence was pleased that sogreat a work should be accomplished by so weak a medium, in order thatit might be seen that to God alone the good work must be attributed.
"Cortes then says that for what he has done for the King, he has alwaysbeen satisfied with the remuneration he has received. The King hasbeen grateful to him, has honored him, and has rewarded him, and headds that His Majesty knows that the rewards {222} and honors which theEmperor offered were, in the opinion of Cortes, so far greater than hismerits, that he refused to receive them.
"What, however, His Majesty did mean him to receive, he has notreceived. That which His Majesty has given has been so completelywithout fruit, that it would have been better for Cortes not to havehad it, but that he should have taken care of his own estate, and notspent the fruit of that in defending himself against 'the Fiscal ofYour Majesty, which defence has been, and is, a more difficultundertaking than to win the land of the enemy.'
"He then implores His Majesty that he will be pleased to render clearthe good will which he had shown to reward him. 'I see myself,' heexclaims, 'old, poor and indebted. Not only have I no repose in my oldage, but I can foresee labor and trouble until my death.' And he adds,'Please God that the mischief may not go beyond death; but may finishwith the body, and not exist forever, since whosoever has such toil indefending his bodily estate, cannot avoid injuring his soul.'
"All that he asks is that his appeal may be heard; that members of theKing's Council be added to the Council of the Indies; and that thecause may be determined, and judgment given, without further delay.'For, otherwise, I must leave it and loose it, and must return to myhome, as I am no longer of the age to go about to hostelries; andshould withdraw myself to make my account clear with God, since it is alarge one that I have, and little life is left to me to discharge myconscience; and it will be better for me to lose my estate than mysoul.' He concludes by saying that 'he is of Your Catholic Majesty the{223} very humble servant and vassal, who kisses your very royal feetand hands--the Marquis del Valle.'
"In addition to these vexations he had a domestic trouble whichdoubtless caused him much mortification. His daughter, Donna Maria,was engaged to one of the greatest nobles in Spain; but ultimately theyoung man refused to fulfil the engagement. Some say that this causedthe death of Cortes. But this is not so. He was broken, alike inhealth and in spirits, by reason of the many reverses he had met within these his latter days.
"We live, to a great measure, upon success; and there is no knowing theagony that an unvarying course of ill-success causes to a sanguine andpowerful mind which feels that, if only such and such small obstacleswere removed out of its way, it could again shine forth with all itspristine force and brightness.
"To meet this rejected daughter, who was coming from New Spain, Corteswent to Seville. There he was taken ill, and, being molested by theimportunity of many persons who came to see him on business, he retiredto a small village, about half a league from Seville, called Castillajede la Cuesta. He also sought retirement for the purpose, as BernalDiaz says, of making his will and preparing his soul for death. 'Andwhen he had settled his worldly affairs, our Lord Jesus Christ waspleased to take him from his troublesome world.' He died on the 2nd ofDecember, 1547, being then sixty-two years of age."
His bones were interred in Mexico. During the civil wars of the lastcentury, his bones were taken away and hidden. It is reported thatonly the other day the place of his sepulchre had been discovered.Some monument to his memory should be erected to {224} match the statueof Guatemoc, which is one of the principal adornments of Mexico.
As is well said by William H. Johnson: "To the honor of Spain be itsaid, her rule in Mexico was firm and kind. The Indians becamethoroughly incorporated into the national life, enjoying theopportunities of advancement as Spaniards. In the present Republic ofMexico the greatest name has been that of Benito Juarez, the presidentwho upheld the national cause during the French-Austrian usurpation.He was of pure Aztec blood. Porfirio Diaz, the gallant soldier who ledthe army of the Republic during the same trying period, and who, as itspresident, is a model of a strong and wise ruler, is also, in part, adescendant of the ancient race."
With the following tributes to the great captain the story of hisamazing adventures is ended. Says Helps:
"He was the mighty conqueror of one of the most compact andwell-ordered barbaric nations of the world--a conqueror who, with a fewhundreds of his fellow-countrymen, not all of them his partisans,overcame hundreds of thousands of fanatic and resolute men fightingagainst him with immense resources, and with a resolution nearly equalto his own. Let us give him the benefit of his sincere belief inChristianity, and his determination to substitute that beneficentreligion for the hideous and cruel superstition of the people he wasresolved to conquer. And let us e
cho the wish of that good commonsoldier, Bernal Diaz, who, though having his grievances against Cortes,as all of the other _Conquistadores_ thought they had, could yet, afterwatching every turn in the fortunes of the great Marquis, and knowingalmost every sin {225} that he had committed, write most tenderly ofthe great captain whose plume he had so often followed to victory.
"After saying that, subsequently to the conquest of Mexico, Cortes hadnot had good fortune either in his Californian or his Hondurasexpedition, or indeed in anything else he had undertaken, Bernal Diazadds, 'Perhaps it was that he might have felicity in heaven. And Ibelieve it was so, for he was an honorable cavalier, and a devotedworshipper of the Virgin, the Apostle St. Peter and other Saints. MayGod pardon his sins, and mine too, and give me a righteous ending,which things are of more concern than the conquests and victories thatwe had over the Indians.'"
Writes MacNutt:
"His sagacity, his foresight, and his moderation have caused criticalhistorians to rank him higher as a statesman than as a soldier. Invirtue of his pre-eminent qualities both as a statesman and as ageneral, as well as because of the enduring importance of his conquest,Fernando Cortes occupies an uncontested place amongst the heroes of thenations."
However we may sympathize with the Aztecs, we cannot escape from thefact that it was much better that there should be a Spanish ruleinstead of an Aztec rule in Mexico, and that the civilization of theformer should supplant the so-called civilization of the latter. Thatdoes not prevent us from wishing that the supersession might not havebeen so harsh and ruthless, but in view of the times, and the men, bothAztecs and Christians, it was not to be expected.
Personally, I love the memory of Guatemoc for his heroism and hisdevotion. I also have a warm feeling {226} for Cortes. It is true, ashas been stated, that he was a child of his age, but he was the bestchild of his age, and it was not his fault altogether that in somerespects it was the worst age. The Spanish rule in Mexico was betterthan the Spanish rule in Peru, and Cortes and his successors, by theside of Pizarro and his successors, were almost angels of light.
I close with these noble words of John Fiske in his great and highlyvalued _Discovery of North America_:
"A great deal of sentimental ink has been shed over the wickedness ofthe Spaniards in crossing the ocean and attacking people who had neverdone them any harm, overturning and obliterating a 'splendidcivilization,' and more to the same effect. It is undeniable thatunprovoked aggression is an extremely hateful thing, and many of thecircumstances attendant upon the Spanish conquest in America were notonly heinous in their atrocity, but were emphatically condemned, as weshall presently see, by the best moral standards of the sixteenthcentury. Yet if we are to be guided by strict logic, it would bedifficult to condemn the Spaniards for the mere act of conqueringMexico without involving in the same condemnation our own forefatherswho crossed the ocean and overran the territory of the United Stateswith small regard for the proprietary rights of Algonquins, orIroquois, or red men of any sort. Our forefathers, if called upon tojustify themselves, would have replied that they were foundingChristian states and diffusing the blessings of a higher civilization;and such, in spite of much alloy in the motives and imperfection in theperformance, was certainly the case. Now if we would not lose ordistort the historical perspective, we must bear in mind that theSpanish conquerors would have returned {227} exactly the same answer.If Cortes were to return to the world and pick up some history book inwhich he is described as a mere picturesque adventurer, he would feelhimself very unjustly treated. He would say that he had higher aimsthan those of a mere fighter and gold-hunter; and so doubtless he had.In the complex tangle of motives that actuated the mediaevalSpaniard--and in his peninsula we may apply the term mediaeval to laterdates than would be proper in France or Italy--the desire of extendingthe dominion of the Church was a very real and powerful incentive toaction. The strength of the missionary and crusading spirit in Cortesis seen in the fact that where it was concerned, and there only, was heliable to let zeal overcome prudence.
"There can be no doubt that, after making all allowances, the Spaniardsdid introduce a better state of society into Mexico than they foundthere. It was high time that an end should be put to those hecatombsof human victims, slashed, torn open and devoured on all the littleoccasions of life. It sounds quite pithy to say that the Inquisition,as conducted in Mexico, was as great an evil as the human sacrificesand the cannibalism; but it is not true. Compared with the ferociousbarbarism of ancient Mexico, the contemporary Spanish modes of lifewere mild, and this, I think, helps further to explain the ease withwhich the country was conquered. In a certain sense the prophecy ofQuetzalcoatl was fulfilled and the coming of the Spaniards did mean thefinal dethronement of the ravening Tezcatlipoca. The work of the nobleFranciscan and Dominican monks who followed closely upon Cortes, anddevoted their lives to the spiritual welfare of the Mexicans, is a moreattractive {228} subject than any picture of military conquest. Tothis point I shall return hereafter, when we come to consider thesublime character of Las Casas. For the present we may conclude in thespirit of one of the noble Spanish historians, Pedro de Cieza de Leon,and praise God, that the idols are cast down."
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