Chapter I

. of this Introduction, p. 17.

[266] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 9.--Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 19.

[267] The adventures of the former hero are told with his usual spirit by Sismondi (Républiques Italiennes, chap. 79). It is hardly necessary, for the latter, to refer the English reader to Chambers’s “History of the Rebellion of 1745;” a work which proves how thin is the partition in human life which divides romance from reality.

[268] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 10.

[269] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 10.--Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 20-24.

[270] Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 25. The contrivance was effected by means of an extraordinary personal resemblance of the parties; a fruitful source of comic--as every reader of the drama knows--though rarely of tragic interest.

[271] It was customary, on entering the presence of a great lord, to throw aromatics into the censer. “Hecho en el brasero incienso y copal, que era uso y costumbre donde estaban los Reyes y Señores, cada vez que los criados entraban con mucha reverencia y acatamiento echaban sahumerio en el brasero; y así coneste perfume se obscurecia algo la sala.” Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 11.

[272] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 26.--Relaciones, MS., No. 11.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 47.

[273] “Nezahualcoiotzin le dixo, que si viese á quien buscaban, si lo iría á denunciar? respondió, que no; tornándole á replicar diciéndole, que haria mui mal en perder una muger hermosa y lo demas que el rey Maxtla prometia, el mancebo se rió de todo, no haciendo caso ni de lo uno ni de lo otro.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 27.

[274] Ibid., MS., cap. 26, 27.--Relaciones, MS., No. 11.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 47, 48.

[275] Ixtlilxochitl, MSS., ubi supra.--Veytia, ubi supra.

[276] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 28-31.--Relaciones, MS., No. 11.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 51-54.

[277] See page 21 of this volume.

[278] “Que venganza no es justo la procuren los Reyes, sino castigar al que lo mereciere.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.

[279] See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 247.--Nezahualcoyotl’s code consisted of eighty laws, of which thirty-four only have come down to us, according to Veytia. (Hist. antig., tom. iii. p. 224, nota.) Ixtlilxochitl enumerates several of them. Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 38, and Relaciones, MS., Ordenanzas.

[280] Nowhere are these principles kept more steadily in view than in the various writings of our adopted countryman Dr. Lieber, having more or less to do with the theory of legislation. Such works could not have been produced before the nineteenth century.

[281] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 3, cap. 7.--According to Zurita, the principal judges, at their general meetings every four months, constituted also a sort of parliament or córtes, for advising the king on matters of state. See his Rapport, p. 106; also _ante_, p. 33.

[282] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 137.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 3, cap. 7.--“Concurrian á este consejo las tres cabezas del imperio, en ciertos dias, á oir cantar las poesías históricas antiguas y modernas, para instruirse de toda su historia, y tambien cuando habia algun nuevo invento en cualquiera facultad, para examinarlo, aprobarlo, ó reprobarlo. Delante de las sillas de los reyes habia una gran mesa cargada de joyas de oro y plata, pedrería, plumas, y otras cosas estimables, y en los rincones de la sala muchas de mantas de todas calidades, para premios de las habilidades y estímulo de los profesores, las cuales alhajas repartian los reyes, en los dias que concurrian, á los que se aventajaban en el ejercicio ne sus facultades.” Ibid.

[283] Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 3, cap. 7.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 247.--The latter author enumerates four historians, some of much repute, of the royal house of Tezcuco, descendants of the great Nezahualcoyotl. See his Account of Writers, tom. i. pp. 6-21.

[284] “En la ciudad de Tezcuco estaban los Archivos Reales de todas las cosas referidas, por haver sido la Metrópoli de todas las ciencias, usos, y buenas costumbres, porque los Reyes que fuéron de ella se preciáron de esto.” (Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Prólogo.) It was from the poor wreck of these documents, once so carefully preserved by his ancestors, that the historian gleaned the materials, as he informs us, for his own works.

[285] “Aunque es tenida la lengua Mejicana por materna, y la Tezcucana por mas cortesana y pulida.” (Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.) “Tezcuco,” says Boturini, “where the noblemen sent their sons to acquire the most polished dialect of the Nahuatlac language, and to study poetry, moral philosophy, the heathen theology, astronomy, medicine, and history.” Idea, p. 142.

[286] “He composed sixty songs,” says the author last quoted, “which have probably perished by the incendiary hands of the ignorant.” (Idea, p. 79.) Boturini had translations of two of these in his museum (Catálogo, p. 8), and another has since come to light.

[287] Difficult as the task may be, it has been executed by the hand of a fair friend, who, while she has adhered to the Castilian with singular fidelity, has shown a grace and flexibility in her poetical movements which the Castilian version, and probably the Mexican original, cannot boast. See both translations in Appendix, 2, No. 2.

[288] Numerous specimens of this may be found in Condé’s “Dominacion de los Árabes en España.” None of them are superior to the plaintive strains of the royal Abderahman on the solitary palmtree which reminded him of the pleasant land of his birth. See Parte 2, cap. 9.

[289]

“Io tocaré cantando El músico instrumento sonoroso, Tú de flores gozando Danza, y festeja á Dios que es poderoso; O gozemos de esta gloria, Porque la humana vida es transitoria.” MS. DE IXTLILXOCHITL.

The sentiment, which is common enough, is expressed with uncommon beauty by the English poet Herrick:

“Gather the rosebuds while you may; Old Time is still a-flying; The fairest flower that blooms to-day To-morrow may be dying.”

And with still greater beauty, perhaps, by Racine:

“Rions, chantons, dit cette troupe impie, De fleurs en fleurs, de plaisirs en plaisirs, Promenons nos désirs. Sur l’avenir insensé qui se fie. De nos ans passagers le nombre est incertain. Hâtons-nous aujourd’hui de jouir de la vie; Qui sait si nous serons demain?” ATHALIE, Acte 2.

It is interesting to see under what different forms the same sentiment is developed by different races and in different languages. It is an Epicurean sentiment, indeed, but its universality proves its truth to nature.

[290] Some of the provinces and places thus conquered were held by the allied powers in common; Tlacopan, however, only receiving one-fifth of the tribute. It was more usual to annex the vanquished territory to that one of the two great states to which it lay nearest. See Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 38.--Zurita, Rapport, p. 11.

[291] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 41. The same writer, in another work, calls the population of Tezcuco, at this period, double of what it was at the Conquest; founding his estimate on the royal registers, and on the numerous remains of edifices still visible in his day, in places now depopulated. “Parece en las historias que en este tiempo, antes que se destruyesen, havia doblado mas gente de la que halló al tiempo que vino Cortés, y los demas Españoles: porque yo hallo en los padrones reales, que el menor pueblo tenía 1100 vecinos, y de allí para arriba, y ahora no tienen 200 vecinos, y aun en algunas partes de todo punto se han acabado.... Como se hecha de ver en las ruinas, hasta los mas altos montes y sierras tenian sus sementeras, y casas principales para vivir y morar.” Relaciones, MS., No. 9.

[292] Torquemada has extracted the particulars of the yearly expenditure of the palace from the royal account-book, which came into the historian’s possession. The following are some of the items, namely: 4,900,300 fanegas of maize (the _fanega_ is equal to about one hundred pounds); 2,744,000 fanegas of cacao; 8000 turkeys; 1300 baskets of salt; besides an incredible quantity of game of every kind, vegetables, condiments, etc. (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 53.) See, also, Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 35.

[293] There were more than four hundred of these lordly residences: “Así mismo hizo edificar muchas casas y palacios para los señores y cavalleros, que asistian en su corte, cada uno conforme á la calidad y méritos de su persona, las quales llegáron á ser mas de quatrocientas tasas de señores y cavalleros de solar conocido.” Ibid., cap. 38.

[294] Bancroft, Native Races, vol. ii. p. 162, points out a mistake in translation here, Prescott having made the _estado_ the same measure as the vara. The wall was _three times a man’s stature_ for one half its circumference and _five times a man’s stature_ for the other half.--M.

[295] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36. “Esta plaza cercada de portales, y tenia así mismo por la parte del poniente otra sala grande, y muchos quartos á la redonda, que era la universidad, en donde asistian todos los poetas, históricos, y philósophos del reyno, divididos en sus claves, y academias, conforme era la facultad de cada uno, y así mismo estaban aquí los archivos reales.”

[296] The reader who is familiar with the history of the Moors in Spain must inevitably be reminded of the palace in Cordova when he peruses these pages.--M.

[297] This celebrated naturalist was sent by Philip II to New Spain, and he employed several years in compiling a voluminous work on its various natural productions, with drawings illustrating them. Although the government is said to have expended sixty thousand ducats in effecting this great object, the volumes were not published till long after the author’s death. In 1651 a mutilated edition of the part of the work relating to medical botany appeared at Rome.--The original MSS. were supposed to have been destroyed by the great fire in the Escorial, not many years after. Fortunately, another copy, in the author’s own hand, was detected by the indefatigable Muñoz, in the library of the Jesuits’ College at Madrid, in the latter part of the last century; and a beautiful edition, from the famous press of Ibarra, was published in that capital, under the patronage of government, in 1790. (Hist. Plantarum, Præfatio.--Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Nova (Matriti, 1790), tom. iii. p. 432.) The work of Hernandez is a monument of industry and erudition, the more remarkable as being the first on this difficult subject. And, after all the additional light from the labors of later naturalists, it still holds its place as a book of the highest authority, for the perspicuity, fidelity, and thoroughness with which the multifarious topics in it are discussed.

[298] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.

[299] “Some of the terraces on which it stood,” says Mr. Bullock, speaking of this palace, “are still entire, and covered with cement, very hard, and equal in beauty to that found in ancient Roman buildings.... The great church, which stands close by, is almost entirely built of the materials taken from the palace, many of the sculptured stones from which may be seen in the walls, though most of the ornaments are turned inwards. Indeed, our guide informed us that whoever built a house at Tezcuco made the ruins of the palace serve as his quarry.” (Six Months in Mexico, chap. 26.) Torquemada notices the appropriation of the materials to the same purpose. Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 45.

[300] Ixtlilxochitl, MS., ubi supra.

[301] Thus, to punish the Chalcas for their rebellion, the whole population were compelled, women as well as men, says the chronicler so often quoted, to labor on the royal edifices for four years together; and large granaries were provided with stores for their maintenance in the mean time. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.

[302] If the people in general were not much addicted to polygamy, the sovereign, it must be confessed,--and it was the same, we shall see, in Mexico,--made ample amends for any self-denial on the part of his subjects.

[303] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 37.

[304] The Egyptian priests managed the affair in a more courtly style, and, while they prayed that all sorts of kingly virtues might descend on the prince, they threw the blame of actual delinquencies on his ministers; thus, “not by the bitterness of reproof,” says Diodorus, “but by the allurements of praise, enticing him to an honest way of life.” Lib. 1, cap. 70.

[305] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 42.--See Appendix, Part 2, No. 3, for the original description of this royal residence.

[306] “Quinientos y veynte escalones.” Davilla Padilla, Historia de la Provincia de Santiago (Madrid, 1596), lib. 2, cap. 81.--This writer, who lived in the sixteenth century, counted the steps himself. Those which were not cut in the rock were crumbling into ruins, as, indeed, every part of the establishment was even then far gone to decay.

[307] On the summit of the mount, according to Padilla, stood an image of a _coyotl_,--an animal resembling a fox,--which, according to tradition, represented an Indian famous for his fasts. It was destroyed by that stanch iconoclast, Bishop Zumárraga, as a relic of idolatry. (Hist. de Santiago, lib. 2, cap. 81.) This figure was, no doubt, the emblem of Nezahualcoyotl himself, whose name, as elsewhere noticed, signified “hungry fox.”{*}

{*} [“Fasting coyote.” This animal, “resembling a fox,” is familiar enough to those who dwell in our far Western States.--M.]

[308] [Bancroft, Native Races, ii. p. 171, says these figures were not statues but were all cut on the face of the rock border.--M.]

[309] “Hecho de una peña un leon de mas de dos brazas de largo con sus alas y plumas: estaba hechado y mirando á la parte del oriente, en cuia boca asomaba un rostro, que era el mismo retrato del Rey.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 42.

[310] Bullock speaks of a beautiful basin, twelve feet long by eight wide, having a well five feet by four deep in the centre, etc., etc. Whether truth lies in the bottom of this well is not so clear. Latrobe describes the baths as “two singular basins, perhaps two feet and a half in diameter, not large enough for any monarch bigger than Oberon to take a duck in.” (Comp. Six Months in Mexico, chap. 26; and Rambler in Mexico, Let. 7.) Ward speaks much to the same purpose (Mexico in 1827 (London, 1828), vol. ii. p. 296), which agrees with verbal accounts I have received of the same spot.{*}

{*} [Mayer, “Mexico as it Was and Is,” gives a picture of this “bath,” p. 234.--M.]

[311] “Gradas hechas de la misma peña tan bien gravadas y lizas que parecian espejos.” (Ixtlilxochitl, MS., ubi supra.) The travellers just cited notice the beautiful polish still visible in the porphyry.

[312] Padilla saw entire pieces of cedar among the ruins, ninety feet long and four in diameter. Some of the massive portals, he observed, were made of a single stone. (Hist. de Santiago, lib. 11, cap. 81.) Peter Martyr notices an enormous wooden beam, used in the construction of the palaces of Tezcuco, which was one hundred and twenty feet long by eight feet in diameter! The accounts of this and similar huge pieces of timber were so astonishing, he adds, that he could not have received them except on the most unexceptionable testimony. De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 10.{*}

{*} [Those who have seen the giant Sequoias of California can easily believe in those “enormous wooden beams.” The “Grizzly Giant,” still standing in the Mariposa grove, is two hundred and seventy-five feet high and considerably more than thirty feet in diameter at the ground. Eleven feet from the ground it is more than sixty-four feet in circumference. The Sequoias were not discovered until almost ten years after Prescott wrote this note.--M.]

[313] It is much to be regretted that the Mexican government should not take a deeper interest in the Indian antiquities. What might not be effected by a few hands drawn from the idle garrisons of some of the neighboring towns and employed in excavating this ground, “the Mount Palatine” of Mexico! But, unhappily, the age of violence has been succeeded by one of apathy.

[314] “They are doubtless,” says Mr. Latrobe, speaking of what he calls “these inexplicable ruins,” “rather of Toltec than Aztec origin, and, perhaps, with still more probability, attributable to a people of an age yet more remote.” (Rambler in Mexico, Let. 7.) “I am of opinion,” says Mr. Bullock, “that these were antiquities prior to the discovery of America, and erected by a people whose history was lost even before the building of the city of Mexico.--Who can solve this difficulty?” (Six Months in Mexico, ubi supra.) The reader who takes Ixtlilxochitl for his guide will have no great trouble in solving it. He will find here, as he might, probably, in some other instances, that one need go little higher than the Conquest for the origin of antiquities which claim to be coeval with Phœnicia and ancient Egypt.

[315] Zurita, Rapport, p. 12.

[316] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.

[317] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.

[318] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.

[319] “En traje de cazador (que lo acostumbraba á hacer muy de ordinario), saliendo á solas, y disfrazado para que no fuese conocido, á reconocer las faltas y necesidad que havia en la república para remediarlas.” Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.

[320] “Un hombresillo miserable, pues quita á los hombres lo que Dios á manos llenas les da.” Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.

[321] Ibid., cap. 46.

[322] “Porque las paredes oian.” (Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.) A European proverb among the American aborigines looks too strange not to make one suspect the hand of the chronicler.

[323] “Le dijo, que con aquello poco le bastaba, y viviria bien aventurado; y él, con toda la máquina que le parecia que tenia arto, no tenia nada; y así lo despidió.” Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.

[324] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.

[325] “Verdaderamente los Dioses que io adoro, que son ídolos de piedra que no hablan, ni sienten, no pudiéron hacer ni formar la hermosura del cielo, el sol, luna, y estrellas que lo hermosean, y dan luz á la tierra, rios, aguas y fuentes, árboles, y plantas que la hermosean, las gentes que la poseen, y todo lo criado; algun Dios muy poderoso, oculto, y no conocido es el Criador de todo el universo. El solo es él que puede consolarme en mi afliccion, y socorrerme en tan grande angustia como mi corazon siente.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.

[326] MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.--The manuscript here quoted is one of the many left by the author on the antiquities of his country, and forms part of a voluminous compilation made in Mexico by Father Vega, in 1792, by order of the Spanish government. See Appendix, Part 2, No. 2.

[327] “Al Dios no conocido, causa de las causas.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.

[328] Their earliest temples were dedicated to the sun. The moon they worshipped as his wife, and the stars as his sisters. (Veytia, Hist. antig., tom. i. cap. 25.) The ruins still existing at Teotihuacan, about seven leagues from Mexico, are supposed to have been temples raised by this ancient people in honor of the two great deities. Boturini, Idea, p. 42.

[329] MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.--“This was evidently a _gong_,” says Mr. Ranking, who treads with enviable confidence over the “suppositos cineres” in the path of the antiquary. See his Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, Mexico, etc., by the Mongols (London, 1827), p. 310.

[330] “Toda la redondez de la tierra es un sepulcro: no hay cosa que sustente que con título de piedad no la esconda y entierre. Corren los rios, los arroyos, las fuentes, y las aguas, y ningunas retroceden para sus alegres nacimientos: aceléranse con ansia para los vastos dominios de Tlulóca [Neptuno], y cuanto mas se arriman á sus dilatadas márgenes, tanto mas van labrando las melancólicas urnas para sepultarse. Lo que fué ayer no es hoy, ni lo de hoy se afianza que será mañana.”

[331] “Aspiremos al cielo, que allí todo es eterno y nada se corrompe.”

[332] “El horror del sepulcro es lisongera cuna para él, y las funestas sombras, brillantes luces para los astros.”--The original text and a Spanish translation of this poem first appeared, I believe, in a work of Grenados y Galvez. (Tardes Americanas (México, 1778), p. 90, et seq.) The original is in the Otomi tongue, and both, together with a French version, have been inserted by M. Ternaux-Compans in the Appendix to his translation of Ixtlilxochitl’s Hist. des Chichimèques (tom. i. pp. 359-367). Bustamante, who has, also, published the Spanish version in his Galería de antiguos Príncipes Mejicanos (Puebla, 1821, pp. 16, 17), calls it the “Ode of the Flower,” which was recited at a banquet of the great Tezcucan nobles. If this last, however, be the same mentioned by Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 45), it must have been written in the Tezcucan tongue; and, indeed, it is not probable that the Otomi, an Indian dialect, so distinct from the languages of Anahuac, however well understood by the royal poet, could have been comprehended by a miscellaneous audience of his countrymen.

[333] An approximation to a date is the most one can hope to arrive at with Ixtlilxochitl, who has entangled his chronology in a manner beyond my skill to unravel. Thus, after telling us that Nezahualcoyotl was fifteen years old when his father was slain in 1418, he says he died at the age of seventy-one, in 1462. _Instar omnium._ Comp. Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 18, 19, 49.

[334] MS. de Ixtlilxochitl,--also Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.

[335] “No consentiendo que haya sacrificios de gente humana, que Dios se enoja de ello, castigando con rigor á los que lo hicieren; que el dolor que llevo es no tener luz, ni conocimiento, ni ser merecedor de conocer tan gran Dios, el qual tengo por cierto que ya que los presentes no lo conozcan, _ha de venir tiempo en que sea conocido y adorado en esta tierra_.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.

[336] Idem, ubi supra; also Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.

[337] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.

[338] “Solia amonestar á sus hijos en secreto que no adorasen á aquellas figuras de ídolos, y que aquello que hiciesen en público fuese _solo por cumplimiento_.” Ixtlilxochitl.

[339] Idem, ubi supra.

[340] The name _Nezahualpilli_ signifies “the prince for whom one has fasted,”--in allusion, no doubt, to the long fast of his father previous to his birth. (See Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 45.) I have explained the meaning of the equally euphonious name of his parent, Nezahualcoyotl. (_Ante_, ch. 4.) If it be true that

“Cæsar or Epaminondas Could ne’er without names have been known to us,”

it is no less certain that such names as those of the two Tezcucan princes, so difficult to be pronounced or remembered by a European, are most unfavorable to immortality.

[341] “De las concubinas la que mas privó con el rey fué la que llamaban la Señora de Tula, no por linage, sino porque era hija de un mercader, y era tan sabia que competia con el rey y con los mas sabios de su reyno, y era en la poesía muy aventajada, que con estas gracias y dones naturales tenia al rey muy sugeto á su voluntad de tal manera que lo que queria alcanzaba de él, y así vivia sola por si con grande aparato y magestad en unos palacios que el rey le mandó edificar.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 57.

[342] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 67.--The Tezcucan historian records several appalling examples of this severity,--one in

## particular, in relation to his guilty wife. The story, reminding one of

the tales of an Oriental harem, has been translated for the Appendix,

## Part 2, No. 4. See also Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 66),

and Zurita (Rapport, pp. 108, 109). He was the terror, in particular, of all unjust magistrates. They had little favor to expect from the man who could stifle the voice of nature in his own bosom in obedience to the laws. As Suetonius said of a prince who had not his virtue, “Vehemens et in coercendis quidem delictis immodicus.” Vita Galbæ, sec. 9.

[343] Torquemada saw the remains of this, _or what passed for such_, in his day. Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 64.

[344] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 73, 74.--This sudden transfer of empire from the Tezcucans, at the close of the reigns of two of their ablest monarchs, is so improbable that one cannot but doubt if they ever possessed it,--at least to the extent claimed by the patriotic historian. See _ante_, chap. 1, note 25, and the corresponding text.

[345] Ibid., cap. 72.--The reader will find a particular account of these prodigies, better authenticated than most miracles, in a future page of this history.

[346] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 75.--Or, rather, at the age of fifty, if the historian is right in placing his birth, as he does in a preceding chapter, in 1465. (See cap. 46.) It is not easy to decide what is true, when the writer does not take the trouble to be true to himself.

[347] His obsequies were celebrated with sanguinary pomp. Two hundred male and one hundred female slaves were sacrificed at his tomb. His body was consumed, amidst a heap of jewels, precious stuffs, and incense, on a funeral pile; and the ashes, deposited in a golden urn, were placed in the great temple of Huitzilopochtli, for whose worship the king, notwithstanding the lessons of his father, had some

## partiality. Ixtlilxochitl.

[348] [Ixtlilxochitl (born about 1568) wrote in the early part of the seventeenth century. A certificate which he presented to the viceroy bears the date of November 18, 1608. The error is apparently a clerical one; though a previous passage in the text seems to indicate some confusion on the author’s part.]

[349] [Señor Ramirez objects to this remark, on the ground that, however obscure the hieroglyphics may now seem, at the time of Ixtlilxochitl they were, in his language, “as plain as our letters to those who were acquainted with them.” Notas y Esclarecimientos, p. 10.--K.]

[350] The names of many animals in the New World, indeed, have been frequently borrowed from the Old; but the species are very different. “When the Spaniards landed in America,” says an eminent naturalist, “they did not find a single animal they were acquainted with; not one of the quadrupeds of Europe, Asia, or Africa.” Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man (London, 1819), p. 250.

[351] Acosta, lib. 1, cap. 16.

[352] [The existence at some former period of such an island, or rather continent, seems to be regarded by geologists as a well-attested fact. But few would admit that its subsidence can have taken place through any sudden convulsion or within the period of human existence. Such, however, is the theory maintained by M. Brasseur de Bourbourg, who dates the event “six or seven thousand years ago,” and believes that the traditions of it have been faithfully preserved. This is the great cataclysm with which all mythology begins. It may be traced through the myths of Greece, Egypt, India, and America, all being identical and having a common origin. It is the subject of the _Teo-Amoxtli_, of which several of the Mexican manuscripts, the Borgian and Dresden Codices in particular, are the hieroglyphical transcriptions, and of which “the actual letter,” “in the Nahuatlac language,” is found in a manuscript in Boturini’s Collection. This manuscript is “in appearance” a history of the Toltecs and of the kings of Colhuacan and Mexico; but “under the ciphers of a fastidious chronology, under the recital more or less animated of the Toltec history, are concealed the profoundest mysteries concerning the geological origin of the world in its existing form and the cradle of the religions of antiquity.” The Toltecs are “telluric powers, agents of the subterranean fire;” they are identical with the Cabiri, who reappear as the Cyclops, having “hollowed an eye in their forehead; that is to say, raised themselves with masses of earth above the surface and filled the craters of the volcanoes with fire.” “The Chichimecs and the Aztecs are also symbolical names, borrowed from the forces of nature.” Tollan, “the marshy or reedy place,” was “the low, fertile region” now covered by the Gulf of Mexico. Quetzalcoatl is “merely the personification of the land swallowed up by the ocean.” Tlapallan, Aztlan, and other names are similarly explained. Osiris, Pan, Hercules, and Bacchus have their respective parts assigned to them; for “not only all the sources of ancient mythology, but even the most mysterious details, even the obscurest enigmas, with which that mythology is enveloped, are to be sought in the two mediterraneans hollowed out by the cataclysm, and in the islands, great and small, which separate them from the ocean.” (Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique.) There can be no refutation of such a theory, or of the assumptions on which it rests; but it may be proper to remark that its author has not succeeded in deciphering a single hierogiyphical character, and has published no translation of the real or supposed _Teo-Amoxtli_,--a point on which some misapprehension seems to exist.--K.]

[353] Count Carli shows much ingenuity and learning in support of the famous Egyptian tradition, recorded by Plato in his “Timæus,”--of the good faith of which the Italian philosopher nothing doubts. Lettres Améric., tom. ii. let. 36-39.

[354] Garcia, Orígen de los Indios de el nuevo Mundo (Madrid, 1729), cap. 4.

[355] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 1, cap. 8.

[356] Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind (London, 1826), vol. i. p. 81, et seq.--He may find an orthodox authority of respectable antiquity, for a similar hypothesis, in St. Augustine, who plainly intimates his belief that, “as by God’s command, at the time of the creation, the earth brought forth the living creature after his kind, so a similar process must have taken place after the deluge, in islands too remote to be reached by animals from the continent.” De Civitate Dei, ap. Opera (Parisiis, 1636), tom. v. p. 987.

[357] Beechey, Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait (London, 1831), Part 2, Appendix.--Humboldt, Examen critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau-Continent (Paris, 1837), tom. ii. p. 58.

[358] Whatever skepticism may have been entertained as to the visit of the Northmen, in the eleventh century, to the coasts of the great continent, it is probably set at rest in the minds of most scholars since the publication of the original documents by the Royal Society at Copenhagen. (See, in particular, Antiquitates Americanæ (Hafniæ, 1837), pp. 79-200.) How far south they penetrated is not so easily settled.

[359] The most remarkable example, probably, of a direct intercourse between remote points is furnished us by Captain Cook, who found the inhabitants of New Zealand not only with the same religion, but speaking the same language, as the people of Otaheite, distant more than 2000 miles. The comparison of the two vocabularies establishes the fact. Cook’s Voyages (Dublin, 1784), vol. i. book 1, chap. 8.

[360] The eloquent Lyell closes an enumeration of some extraordinary and well-attested instances of this kind with remarking, “Were the whole of mankind now cut off, with the exception of one family, inhabiting the old or new continent, or Australia, or even some coral islet of the Pacific, we should expect their descendants, though they should never become more enlightened than the South Sea Islanders or the Esquimaux, to spread, in the course of ages, over the whole earth, diffused partly by the tendency of population to increase beyond the means of subsistence in a limited district, and partly by the accidental drifting of canoes by tides and currents to distant shores.” Principles of Geology (London, 1832), vol. ii. p. 121.

[361] “La question générale de la première origine des habitans d’un continent est au-delà des limites prescrites à l’histoire; peut-être même n’est-elle pas une question philosophique.” Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. i. p. 349.

[362] _Ante_, p. 75.

[363] The fanciful division of time into four or five cycles or ages was found among the Hindoos (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. mem. 7), the Thibetians (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 210), the Persians (Bailly, Traité de l’Astronomie (Paris, 1787), tom. i. discours préliminaire), the Greeks (Hesiod, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, v. 108, et seq.), and other people, doubtless. The five ages in the Grecian cosmogony had reference to moral rather than physical phenomena,--a proof of higher civilization.

[364] The Chaldean and Hebrew accounts of the Deluge are nearly the same. The parallel is pursued in Palfrey’s ingenious Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities (Boston, 1840), vol. ii. lect. 21, 22. Among the pagan writers, none approach so near to the Scripture narrative as Lucian, who, in his account of the Greek traditions, speaks of the ark, and the pairs of different kinds of animals. (De Deâ Syriâ, sec. 12.) The same thing is found in the Bhagawatn Purana, a Hindoo poem of great antiquity. (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. mem. 7.) The simple tradition of a universal inundation was preserved among most of the aborigines, probably, of the Western World. See McCulloh, Researches, p. 147.

[365] This tradition of the Aztecs is recorded in an ancient hieroglyphical map, first published in Gemelli Carreri’s Giro del Mondo. (See tom. vi. p. 38, ed. Napoli, 1700.) Its authenticity, as well as the integrity of Carreri himself, on which some suspicions have been thrown (see Robertson’s America (London, 1796), vol. iii. note 26), has been successfully vindicated by Boturini, Clavigero, and Humboldt, all of whom trod in the steps of the Italian traveller. (Boturini, Idea, p. 54.--Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, pp. 223, 224.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 24.) The map is a copy from one in the curious collection of Siguenza. It has all the character of a genuine Aztec picture, with the appearance of being retouched, especially in the costumes, by some later artist. The painting of the four ages, in the Vatican Codex, No. 3730, represents, also, the two figures in the boat, escaping the great cataclysm. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 7.

[366] I have met with no other voucher for this remarkable tradition than Clavigero (Stor. del Messico, dissert. 1), a good, though certainly not the best, authority, when he gives us no reason for our faith. Humboldt, however, does not distrust the tradition. (See Vues des Cordillères, p. 226.) He is not so skeptical as Vater; who, in allusion to the stories of the Flood, remarks, “I have purposely omitted noticing the resemblance of religious notions, for I do not see how it is possible to separate from such views every influence of Christian ideas, if it be only from an imperceptible confusion in the mind of the narrator.” Mithridates, oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde (Berlin, 1812), Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 82, note.

[367] This story, so irreconcilable with the vulgar Aztec tradition, which admits only two survivors of the Deluge, was still lingering among the natives of the place on M. de Humboldt’s visit there. (Vues des Cordillères, pp. 31, 32.) It agrees with that given by the interpreter of the Vatican Codex (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 192, et seq.); a writer--probably a monk of the sixteenth century--in whom ignorance and dogmatism contend for mastery. See a precious specimen of both, in his account of the Aztec chronology, in the very pages above referred to.

[368] A tradition, very similar to the Hebrew one, existed among the Chaldeans and the Hindoos. (Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. mem. 16.) The natives of Chiapa, also, according to the bishop Nuñez de la Vega, had a story, cited as genuine by Humboldt (Vues des Cordillères, p. 148), which not only agrees with the Scripture account of the manner in which Babel was built, but with that of the subsequent dispersion and the confusion of tongues. A very marvellous coincidence! But who shall vouch for the authenticity of the tradition? The bishop flourished towards the close of the seventeenth century. He drew his information from hieroglyphical maps, and an Indian MS., which Boturini in vain endeavored to recover. In exploring these, he borrowed the aid of the natives, who, as Boturini informs us, frequently led the good man into errors and absurdities; of which he gives several specimens. (Idea, p. 116, et seq.)--Boturini himself has fallen into an error equally great, in regard to a map of this same Cholulan pyramid, which Clavigero shows, far from being a genuine antique, was the forgery of a later day. (Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 130, nota.) It is impossible to get a firm footing in the quicksands of tradition. The further we are removed from the Conquest, the more difficult it becomes to decide what belongs to the primitive Aztec and what to the Christian convert.

[369] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 1, cap. 6; lib. 6, cap. 28, 33.--Torquemada, not content with the honest record of his predecessor, whose MS. lay before him, tells us that the Mexican Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. (Monarch, Ind., lib. 6, cap. 31.) The ancient interpreters of the Vatican and Tellerian Codices add the further tradition of her bringing sin and sorrow into the world by plucking the forbidden _rose_ (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi., explan. of Pl. 7, 20); and Veytia remembers to have seen a Toltec or Aztec map representing a garden with a single tree in it, round which was coiled the serpent with a human face! (Hist. antig., lib. 1, cap. 1.) After this we may be prepared for Lord Kingsborough’s deliberate conviction that the “Aztecs had a clear knowledge of the Old Testament, and, most probably, of the New, though somewhat corrupted by time and hieroglyphics”! Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 409.

[370] _Ante_, pp. 71-73.

[371] Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 1, cap. 15.

[372] Ibid., lib. 1, cap. 19.--A sorry argument, even for a casuist. See, also, the elaborate dissertation of Dr. Mier (apud Sahagun, lib. 3, Suplem.), which settles the question entirely to the satisfaction of his reporter, Bustamante.{*}

{*} [P. De Roo, in his History of America before Columbus (Philadelphia, 1900), has set forth with great learning the St. Thomas legend. Of the writers upon the subject he says, “They all establish their opinion upon identical foundations,--to wit, upon the authority of ancient and revered writers, who may have had a knowledge of America’s existence and of its religious condition from human sources, yet especially drew their conclusions from the statements of Holy Writ; and again, upon the vestiges and traditions of the New World that are adduced as evidences of St. Thomas’s mission in our hemisphere.”--M.]

[373] See, among others, Lord Kingsborough’s reading of the Borgian Codex, and the interpreters of the Vatican (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi., explan. of Pl. 3, 10, 41), equally well skilled with his lordship--and Sir Hudibras--in unravelling mysteries

“Whose primitive tradition reaches As far as Adam’s first green breeches.”

[374] [See note, _ante_, p. 73.]

[375] [The Cross symbol has been the subject of endless controversy. As usual, we find that Bancroft has given the subject careful consideration. (Native Races, iii.) Brinton (Myths of the New World, pp. 95, 96) quotes authorities to demonstrate in it the four cardinal points, the rain-bringers, the symbol of life and health. He was the first writer to connect the Palenque cross with the four cardinal points. Charles Rau (Palenque Tablet in U. S. National Museum, in No. 331 Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge) concludes that it is a Phallic symbol. Bandelier thinks it was the emblem of fire. Squier calls it the tree of life of the Mexicans. Payne (America, ii. p. 86) thinks it was a representation of a human sacrifice to the sun. The “cross” is simply the conventional representation of a tree. At Palenque the bird which surmounts the tree is a turkey. The celebrant, decorated with a necklace, makes an offering to the winged deity. The living fetish was called Quetzalhuexolotl, and the tree was called “the tree of the plumed turkey.” The sacrifice presented is a diminutive human figure. The monstrous head which the roots of the tree surround is human, but with serpentine details. It represents the “Female Serpent,” the earth goddess to whom the tree owes its growth and nutrition.

Father De Roo (America before Columbus, vol. i. ch. xvii, pp. 423-455) concludes that “Christ and his cross were known in ancient America.” In his subsequent chapters he describes remains of Christian ceremonies, baptism, confirmation, a eucharist, confession, penance, etc.--M.]

[376] Antiquités Mexicaines, exped. 3, Pl. 36.--The figures are surrounded by hieroglyphics of most arbitrary character, perhaps phonetic. (See, also, Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. I.--Gomara, Crónica de la Nueva-España, cap. 15, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.) Mr. Stephens considers that the celebrated “Cozumel Cross,” preserved at Merida, which claims the credit of being the same originally worshipped by the natives of Cozumel, is, after all, nothing but a cross that was erected by the Spaniards in one of their own temples in that island after the Conquest. The fact he regards as “completely invalidating the strongest proof offered at this day that the Cross was recognized by the Indians as a symbol of worship.” (Travels in Yucatan, vol. ii. chap. 20.) But, admitting the truth of this statement, that the Cozumel Cross is only a Christian relic, which the ingenious traveller has made extremely probable, his inference is by no means admissible. Nothing could be more natural than that the friars in Merida should endeavor to give celebrity to their convent by making it the possessor of so remarkable a monument as the very relic which proved, in their eyes, that Christianity had been preached at some earlier date among the natives. But the real proof of the existence of the Cross, as an object of worship, in the New World, does not rest on such spurious monuments as these, but on the unequivocal testimony of the Spanish discoverers themselves.

[377] “Lo recibian con gran reverencia, humiliacion, y lágrimas, diciendo que comian la carne de su Dios.” Veytia, Hist. antig. lib. 1, cap. 18.--Also, Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 24.

[378] _Ante_, p. 78.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 37.--That the reader may see for himself how like, yet how unlike, the Aztec rite was to the Christian, I give the translation of Sahagun’s account, at length: “When everything necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism, was summoned. At early dawn, they met together in the court-yard of the house. When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her arms, called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those about her placed the ornaments which had been prepared for the baptism in the midst of the court. To perform the rite of baptism, she placed herself with her face towards the west, and immediately began to go through certain ceremonies.... After this she sprinkled water on the head of the infant, saying, ‘O my child! take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body, and dwell there; that they may destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given to you before the beginning of the world; since all of us are under its power, being all the children of Chalchivitlycue’ [the goddess of water]. She then washed the body of the child with water, and spoke in this manner: ‘Whencesoever thou comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from him, for he now liveth anew, and is born anew; now is he purified and cleansed afresh, and our mother Chalchivitlycue again bringeth him into the world.’ Having thus prayed, the midwife took the child in both hands, and, lifting him towards heaven, said, ‘O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom thou hast sent into this world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and thine inspiration, for thou art the great God, and with thee is the great goddess.’ Torches of pine were kept burning during the performance of these ceremonies. When these things were ended, they gave the child the name of some one of his ancestors, in the hope that he might shed a new lustre over it. The name was given by the same midwife, or priestess, who baptized him.”

[379] Among Egyptian symbols we meet with several specimens of the Cross. One, according to Justus Lipsius, signified “life to come.” (See his treatise, De Cruce (Lutetiæ Parisiorum, 1598), lib. 3, cap. 8.) We find another in Champollion’s catalogue, which he interprets “support or saviour.” (Précis, tom. ii., Tableau gén., Nos. 277, 348.) Some curious examples of the reverence paid to this sign by the ancients have been collected by McCulloh (Researches, p. 330, et seq.), and by Humboldt, in his late work, Géographie du Nouveau-Continent, tom. ii. p. 354, et seq.

[380]

“Ante, Deos homini quod conciliare valeret _Far_ erat,”

says Ovid. (Fastorum, lib. 1, v. 337.) Count Carli has pointed out a similar use of consecrated bread, and wine or water, in the Greek and Egyptian mysteries. (Lettres Améric., tom. i. let. 27.) See, also, McCulloh, Researches, p. 240, et seq.

[381] Water for purification and other religious rites is frequently noticed by the classical writers. Thus, Euripides:

“Ἀγνοἴς καθαρμοἴς πρῶτά νιν νίψαι θέλω. θάλασσα κλύϛει πάντα τἀνθρώπων κακά.” IPHIG. IN TAUR., vv. 1192, 1194.

The notes on this place, in the admirable Variorum edition of Glasgow, 1821, contain references to several passages of similar import in different authors.

[382] The difficulty of obtaining anything like a faithful report from the natives is the subject of complaint from more than one writer, and explains the great care taken by Sahagun to compare their narratives with each other. See Hist. de Nueva-España, Prólogo,--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Pról.,--Boturini, Idea, p. 116.

[383] The parallel was so closely pressed by Torquemada that he was compelled to suppress the chapter containing it, on the publication of his book. See the Proemio to the edition of 1723, sec. 2.

[384] “The devil,” says Herrera, “chose to imitate, in everything, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their subsequent wanderings.” (Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 10.) But all that has been done by monkish annalist and missionary to establish the parallel with the children of Israel falls far short of Lord Kingsborough’s learned labors, spread over nearly two hundred folio pages. (See Antiq. of Mexico, tom. vi. pp. 282-410.) _Quantum inane!_

[385] The word משיח from which is derived _Christ_, “the anointed,” is still more nearly--not “precisely,” as Lord Kingsborough states (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 186)--identical with that of Mexi, or Mesi, the chief who was said to have led the Aztecs on the plains of Anahuac.

[386] Interp. of Cod. Tel.-Rem. et Vat., Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 3, Suplem.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 1, cap. 16.

[387] This opinion finds favor with the best Spanish and Mexican writers, from the Conquest downwards. Solís sees nothing improbable in the fact that “the malignant influence, so frequently noticed in sacred history, should be found equally in profane.” Hist. de la Conquista, lib. 2, cap. 4.

[388] D. G. Brinton, International Congress of Anthropology, 1893 (Harper’s Magazine, March, 1903, p. 534). “Up to the present time there has not been shown a single dialect, not an art or an institution, not a myth or religious rite, not a domesticated plant or animal, not a tool, weapon, game, or symbol, in use in America at the time of the discovery, which had been previously imported from Asia, or from any other continent of the Old World.”--M.

[389] The bridal ceremony of the Hindoos, in particular, contains curious points of analogy with the Mexican. (See Asiatic Researches, vol. vii. mem. 9.) The institution of a numerous priesthood, with the practices of confession and penance, was familiar to the Tartar people. (Maundeville, Voiage, chap. 23.) And monastic establishments were found in Thibet and Japan from the earliest ages. Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 179.

[390] “Doubtless,” says the ingenious Carli, “the fashion of burning the corpse, collecting the ashes in a vase, burying them under pyramidal mounds, with the immolation of wives and servants at the funeral, all remind one of the customs of Egypt and Hindostan.” Lettres Améric., tom. ii. let. 10.

[391] Marco Polo notices a civilized people in Southeastern China, and another in Japan, who drank the blood and ate the flesh of their captives, esteeming it the most savory food in the world,--“la più saporita et migliore, che si possa truovar al mondo.” (Viaggi, lib. 2, cap. 75; lib. 3, 13, 14.) The Mongols, according to Sir John Maundeville, regarded the ears “sowced in vynegre” as a particular dainty. Voiage, chap. 23.

[392] Marco Polo, Viaggi, lib. 2, cap. 10.--Maundeville, Voiage, cap. 20, et alibi.--See, also, a striking parallel between the Eastern Asiatics and Americans, in the Supplement to Ranking’s “Historical Researches;” a work embodying many curious details of Oriental history and manners in support of a whimsical theory.

[393] Morton, Crania Americana (Philadelphia, 1839), pp. 224-246.--The industrious author establishes this singular fact by examples drawn from a great number of nations in North and South America.

[394] Gomara, Crónica de la Nueva-España, cap. 202, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. pp. 94, 95.--McCulloh (Researches, p. 198), who cites the Asiatic Researches.--Dr. McCulloh, in his single volume, has probably brought together a larger mass of materials for the illustration of the aboriginal history of the continent than any other writer in the language. In the selection of his facts he has shown much sagacity, as well as industry; and, if the formal and somewhat repulsive character of the style has been unfavorable to a popular interest, the work must always have an interest for those who are engaged in the study of the Indian antiquities. His fanciful speculations on the subject of Mexican mythology may amuse those whom they fail to convince.

[395] _Ante_, p. 126, et seq.

[396] This will be better shown by enumerating the zodiacal signs, used as the _names of the years_ by the Eastern Asiatics. Among the Mongols, these were--1, mouse; 2, ox; 3, leopard; 4, hare; 5, crocodile; 6, serpent; 7, horse; 8, sheep; 9, monkey; 10, hen; 11, dog; 12, hog. The Mantchou Tartars, Japanese, and Thibetians have nearly the same terms, substituting, however, for No. 3, tiger; 5, dragon; 8, goat. In the Mexican signs for the names of the days we also meet with _hare_, _serpent_, _monkey_, _dog_. Instead of the “leopard,” “crocodile,” and “hen,”--neither of which animals was known in Mexico at the time of the Conquest,--we find the _ocelotl_, the _lizard_, and the _eagle_.--The lunar calendar of the Hindoos exhibits a correspondence equally extraordinary. Six of the terms agree with those of the Aztecs, namely, _serpent_, _cane_, _razor_, _path of the sun_, _dog’s tail_, _house_. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 152.) These terms, it will be observed, are still more arbitrarily selected, not being confined to animals; as, indeed, the hieroglyphics of the Aztec calendar were derived indifferently from them, and other objects, like the signs of our zodiac. These scientific analogies are set in the strongest light by M. de Humboldt, and occupy a large and, to the philosophical inquirer, the most interesting portion of his great work. (Vues des Cordillères, pp. 125-194.) He has not embraced in his tables, however, the Mongol calendar, which affords even a closer approximation to the Mexican than that of the other Tartar races. Comp. Ranking, Researches, pp. 370, 371, note.

[397] There is some inaccuracy in Humboldt’s definition of the _ocelotl_ as “the tiger,” “the jaguar.” (Ibid., p. 159.) It is smaller than the jaguar, though quite as ferocious, and is as graceful and beautiful as the leopard, which it more nearly resembles. It is a native of New Spain, where the tiger is not known. (See Buffon, Histoire naturelle (Paris, An VIII), tom. ii., _vox Ocelotl_.) The adoption of this latter name, therefore, in the Aztec calendar, leads to an inference somewhat exaggerated.

[398] Both the Tartars and the Aztecs indicated the year by its sign; as the “year of the hare” or “rabbit,” etc. The Asiatic signs, likewise, far from being limited to the years and months, presided also over days, and even hours. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 165.) The Mexicans had also astrological symbols appropriated to the hours. Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, p. 117.

[399] _Ante_, p. 127, note.

[400] Achilles Tatius notices a custom of the Egyptians,--who, as the sun descended towards Capricorn, put on mourning, but, as the days lengthened, their fears subsided, they robed themselves in white, and, crowned with flowers, gave themselves up to jubilee, like the Aztecs. This account, transcribed by Carli’s French translator, and by M. de Humboldt, is more fully criticized by M. Jomard in the Vues des Cordillères, p. 309, et seq.

[401] [See note, _ante_, p. 373.]

[402] Jefferson (Notes on Virginia (London, 1787), p. 164), confirmed by Humboldt (Essai politique, tom. i. p. 353). Mr. Gallatin comes to a different conclusion. (Transactions of American Antiquarian Society (Cambridge, 1836), vol. ii. p. 161.) The great number of American dialects and languages is well explained by the unsocial nature of a hunter’s life, requiring the country to be parcelled out into small and separate territories for the means of subsistence.

[403] Philologists have, indeed, detected two curious exceptions, in the Congo and primitive Basque; from which, however, the Indian languages differ in many essential points. See Du Ponceau’s Report, ap. Transactions of the Lit. and Hist. Committee of the Am. Phil. Society, vol. i.

[404] Vater (Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 70), who fixes on the Rio Gila and the Isthmus of Darien as the boundaries within which traces of the Mexican language were to be discerned. Clavigero estimates the number of dialects at thirty-five. I have used the more guarded statement of M. de Humboldt, who adds that fourteen of these languages have been digested into dictionaries and grammars. Essai politique, tom. i. p. 352.

[405] No one has done so much towards establishing this important fact as that estimable scholar, Mr. Du Ponceau. And the frankness with which he has admitted the exception that disturbed his favorite hypothesis shows that he is far more wedded to science than to system. See an interesting account of it, in his prize essay before the Institute, Mémoire sur le Système grammaticale des Langues de quelques Nations Indiennes de l’Amérique. (Paris, 1838.)

[406] The Mexican language, in particular, is most flexible; admitting of combinations so easily that the most simple ideas are often buried under a load of accessories. The forms of expression, though picturesque, were thus made exceedingly cumbrous. A “priest,” for example, was called _notlazomahuizteopixcatatzin_, meaning “venerable minister of God, that I love as my father.” A still more comprehensive word is _amatlacuilolitquitcatlaxtlahuitli_, signifying “the reward given to a messenger who bears a hieroglyphical map conveying intelligence.”

[407] See, in particular, for the latter view of the subject, the arguments of Mr. Gallatin, in his acute and masterly disquisition on the Indian tribes; a disquisition that throws more light on the intricate topics of which it treats than whole volumes that have preceded it. Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. ii. Introd., sec. 6.

[408] This comparative anatomy of the languages of the two hemispheres, begun by Barton (Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America (Philadelphia, 1797)), has been extended by Vater (Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 1, p. 348, et seq.). A selection of the most striking analogies may be found, also, in Malte Brun, book 75, table.

[409] _Othomi_, from _otho_, “stationary,” and _mi_, “nothing.” (Najera, Dissert., _ut infra_.) The etymology intimates the condition of this rude nation of warriors, who, imperfectly reduced by the Aztec arms, roamed over the high lands north of the Valley of Mexico.

[410] See Najera’s Dissertatio de Lingua Othomitorum, ap. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. v. New Series.--The author, a learned Mexican, has given a most satisfactory analysis of this remarkable language, which stands alone among the idioms of the New World, as the Basque--the solitary wreck, perhaps, of a primitive age--exists among those of the Old.

[411] Barton, p. 92.--Heckewelder, chap. 1, ap. Transactions of the Hist. and Lit. Committee of the Am. Phil. Soc., vol. i.--The various traditions have been assembled by M. Warden, in the Antiquités Mexicaines, part 2, p. 185, et seq.

[412] The recent work of Mr. Delafield (Inquiry into the Origin of the Antiquities of America (Cincinnati, 1839)) has an engraving of one of these maps, said to have been obtained by Mr. Bullock from Boturini’s collection. Two such are specified on page 10 of that antiquary’s Catalogue. This map has all the appearance of a genuine Aztec painting, of the rudest character. We may recognize, indeed, the symbols of some dates and places, with others denoting the aspect of the country, whether fertile or barren, a state of war or peace, etc. But it is altogether too vague, and we know too little of the allusions, to gather any knowledge from it of the course of the Aztec migration.--Gemelli Carreri’s celebrated chart contains the names of many places on the route, interpreted, perhaps, by Siguenza himself, to whom it belonged (Giro del Mondo, tom. vi. 56); and Clavigero has endeavored to ascertain the various localities with some precision. (Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 160, et seq.) But, as they are all within the boundaries of New Spain, and, indeed, south of the Rio Gila, they throw little light, of course, on the vexed question of the primitive abodes of the Aztecs.

[413] This may be fairly gathered from the agreement of the _traditionary_ interpretations of the maps of the various people of Anahuac, according to Veytia; who, however, admits that it is “next to impossible,” with the lights of the present day, to determine the precise route taken by the Mexicans. (Hist, antig., tom. i. cap. 2.) Lorenzana is not so modest. “Los Mexicanos por tradicion viniéron por el norte,” says he, “y se saben ciertamente sus mansiones.” (Hist. de Nueva-España, p. 81, nota.) There are some antiquaries who see best in the dark.

[414] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 2, et seq.--Idem, Relaciones, MS.--Veytia, Hist. antig., ubi supra.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., tom. i. lib. 1.

[415] In the province of Sonora, especially along the California Gulf. The Cora language, above all, of which a regular grammar has been published, and which is spoken in New Biscay, about 30° north, so much resembles the Mexican that Vater refers them both to a common stock. Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 143.

[416] On the southern bank of this river are ruins of large dimensions, described by the missionary Pedro Font on his visit there in 1775. (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 538.)--At a place of the same name, Casas Grandes, about 33° north, and, like the former, a supposed station of the Aztecs, still more extensive remains are to be found; large enough, indeed, according to a late traveller, Lieut. Hardy, for a population of 20,000 or 30,000 souls. The country for leagues is covered with these remains, as well as with utensils of earthenware, obsidian, and other relics. A drawing which the author has given of a painted jar or vase may remind one of the Etruscan. “There were, also, good specimens of earthen images in the Egyptian style,” he observes, “which are, _to me at least, so perfectly uninteresting_ that I was at no pains to procure any of them.” (Travels in the Interior of Mexico (London, 1829), pp. 464-466.) The lieutenant was neither a Boturini nor a Belzoni.

[417] Vater has examined the languages of three of these nations, between 50° and 60° north, and collated their vocabularies with the Mexican, showing the probability of a common origin of many of the words in each. Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 212.

[418] The Mexicans are noticed by M. de Humboldt as distinguished from the other aborigines whom he had seen, by the quantity both of beard and moustaches. (Essai politique, tom. i. p. 361.) The modern Mexican, however, broken in spirit and fortunes, bears as little resemblance, probably, in physical as in moral characteristics to his ancestors, the fierce and independent Aztecs.

[419] Prichard, Physical History, vol. i. pp. 167-169, 182, et seq.--Morton, Crania Americana, p. 66.--McCulloh, Researches, p. 18.--Lawrence, Lectures, pp. 317, 565.

[420] Thus we find, amidst the generally prevalent copper or cinnamon tint, nearly all gradations of color, from the European white, to a black, almost African; while the complexion capriciously varies among different tribes in the neighborhood of each other. See examples in Humboldt (Essai politique, tom. i. pp. 358, 359), also Prichard (Physical History, vol. ii. pp. 452, 522, et alibi), a writer whose various research and dispassionate judgment have made his work a text-book in this department of science.

[421] Such is the conclusion of Dr. Warren, whose excellent collection has afforded him ample means for study and comparison. (See his Remarks before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, ap. London Athenæum, Oct., 1837.) In the specimens collected by Dr. Morton, however, the barbarous tribes would seem to have a somewhat larger facial angle, and a greater quantity of brain, than the semi-civilized. Crania Americana, p. 259.

[422] “On ne peut se refuser d’admettre que l’espèce humaine n’offre pas de races plus voisines que le sont celles des Américaines, des Mongols, des Mantchoux, et des Malais.” Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. i. p. 367.--Also, Prichard, Physical History, vol. i. pp. 184-186; vol. ii. pp. 365-367.--Lawrence, Lectures, p. 365.

[423] Dr. Morton’s splendid work on American crania has gone far to supply the requisite information. Out of about one hundred and fifty specimens of skulls, of which he has ascertained the dimensions with admirable precision, one-third belong to the semi-civilized races; and of them thirteen are Mexican. The number of these last is too small to found any general conclusions upon, considering the great diversity found in individuals of the same nation, not to say kindred.--Blumenbach’s observations on American skulls were chiefly made, according to Prichard (Physical History, vol. i. pp. 183, 184), from specimens of the Carib tribes, as unfavorable, perhaps, as any on the continent.

[424] Yet these specimens are not so easy to be obtained. With uncommon advantages for procuring these myself in Mexico, I have not succeeded in obtaining any specimens of the genuine Aztec skull. The difficulty of this may be readily comprehended by any one who considers the length of time that has elapsed since the Conquest, and that the burial-places of the ancient Mexicans have continued to be used by their descendants. Dr. Morton more than once refers to his specimens as those of the “genuine Toltec skull, from cemeteries in Mexico, older than the Conquest.” (Crania Americana, pp. 152, 155, 231, et alibi.) But how does he know that the heads are Toltec? That nation is reported to have left the country about the middle of the eleventh century, nearly eight hundred years ago,--according to Ixtlilxochitl, indeed, a century earlier; and it seems much more probable that the specimens now found in these burial-places should belong to some of the races who have since occupied the country, than to one so far removed. The presumption is manifestly too feeble to authorize any positive inference.

[425] The tower of Belus, with its retreating stories, described by Herodotus (Clio, sec. 181), has been selected as the model of the _teocalli_; which leads Vater somewhat shrewdly to remark that it is strange no evidence of this should appear in the erection of similar structures by the Aztecs in the whole course of their journey to Anahuac. (Mithridates, Theil. iii. Abtheil. 3, pp. 74, 75.) The learned Niebuhr finds the elements of the Mexican temple in the mythic tomb of Porsenna. (Roman History, Eng. trans. (London, 1827), vol. i. p. 88.) The resemblance to the accumulated pyramids composing this monument is not very obvious. Com. Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. 36, sec. 19). Indeed, the antiquarian may be thought to encroach on the poet’s province when he finds in Etruscan _fable_--“cum omnia excedat fabulositas,” as Pliny characterizes this--the origin of Aztec science.

[426] See the powerful description of Lucan, Pharsalia, lib. 9, v. 966.--The Latin bard has been surpassed by the Italian, in the beautiful stanza beginning _Giace l’ alta Cartago_ (Gerusalemme Liberata, c. 15, s. 20), which may be said to have been expanded by Lord Byron into a canto,--the fourth of Childe Harold.

[427] The most remarkable remains on the proper Mexican soil are the temple or fortress of Xochicalco, not many miles from the capital. It stands on a rocky eminence, nearly a league in circumference, cut into terraces faced with stone. The building on the summit is seventy-five feet long and sixty-six broad. It is of hewn granite, put together without cement, but with great exactness. It was constructed in the usual pyramidal, terraced form, rising by a succession of stories, each smaller than that below it. The number of these is now uncertain; the lower one alone remaining entire. This is sufficient, however, to show the nice style of execution, from the sharp, salient cornices, and the hieroglyphical emblems with which it is covered, all cut in the hard stone. As the detached blocks found among the ruins are sculptured with bas-reliefs in like manner, it is probable that the whole building was covered with them. It seems probable, also, as the same pattern extends over different stones, that the work was executed after the walls were raised.--In the hill beneath, subterraneous galleries, six feet wide and high, have been cut to the length of one hundred and eighty feet, where they terminate in two halls, the vaulted ceilings of which connect by a sort of tunnel with the buildings above. These subterraneous works are also lined with hewn stone. The size of the blocks, and the hard quality of the granite of which they consist, have made the buildings of Xochicalco a choice quarry for the proprietors of a neighboring sugar-refinery, who have appropriated the upper stories of the temple to this ignoble purpose! The Barberini at least built palaces, beautiful themselves, as works of art, with the plunder of the Coliseum. See the full description of this remarkable building, both by Dupaix and Alzate. (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. i. Exp. 1, pp. 15-20; tom. iii. Exp. 1, Pl. 33.) A recent investigation has been made by order of the Mexican government, the report of which differs, in some of its details, from the preceding. Revista Mexicana, tom. i. mem. 5.

[428] _Ante_, pp. 196-199.

[429] It is impossible to look at Waldeck’s finished drawings of buildings, where Time seems scarcely to have set his mark on the nicely chiselled stone, and the clear tints are hardly defaced by a weather-stain, without regarding the artist’s work as a _restoration_; a picture true, it may be, of those buildings in the day of their glory, but not of their decay.--Cogolludo, who saw them in the middle of the seventeenth century, speaks of them with admiration, as works of “accomplished architects,” of whom history has preserved no tradition. Historia de Yucatan (Madrid, 1688), lib. 4, cap. 2.{*}

{*} [The age of these ancient cities is still an unsolved problem, but the conviction seems to be growing that many of them were inhabited at the time of the Conquest. The sacred edifices at Uxmal did not cease to be used until some time after the Spaniards had become lords of the land. Charnay (Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 328) thinks Chichen Itza was inhabited “scarcely sixty years before the Conquest.” Bandelier (Peabody Museum Report, ii. 126) says of the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque, “These tablets and figures show in dress such a striking analogy of what we know of the military accoutrements of the Mexicans, that it is a strong approach to identity.” Bancroft (Native Races, vol. iv.) specifies the literature dealing with Palenque. For a while scholars were mystified by Waldeck’s absurd elephants on the walls of Palenque. But after a time these animal representations were shown to have existed only in the artist’s brain.--M.]

[430] In the original text is a description of some of these ruins, especially of those of Mitla and Palenque. It would have had novelty at the time in which it was written, since the only accounts of these buildings were in the colossal publications of Lord Kingsborough, and in the Antiquités Mexicaines, not very accessible to most readers. But it is unnecessary to repeat descriptions now familiar to every one, and so much better executed than they can be by me, in the spirited pages of Stephens.

[431] [Bandelier (Archæological Tour in Mexico) gives an account of the statues, etc., found in Mexico up to the year 1881.--M.]

[432] See, in particular, two terra-cotta busts with helmets, found in Oaxaca, which might well pass for Greek, both in the style of the heads and the casques that cover them. Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. iii. Exp. 2, Pl. 36.

[433] Dupaix speaks of these tools as made of pure copper. But doubtless there was some alloy mixed with it, as was practised by the Aztecs and Egyptians; otherwise their edges must have been easily turned by the hard substances on which they were employed.

[434] Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. pp. 246-254.

[435] _Ante_, p. 155

[436] Waldeck, Atlas pittoresque, p. 73.--The fortress of Xochicalco was also colored with a red paint (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. i. p. 20); and a cement of the same color covered the Toltec pyramid at Teotihuacan, according to Mr. Bullock, Six Months in Mexico, vol. ii. p. 143.

[437] Description de l’Egypte, Antiq., tom. ii. cap. 9, sec. 4.--The huge image of the Sphinx was originally colored red. (Clarke’s Travels, vol. v. p. 202.) Indeed, many of the edifices, as well as statues, of ancient Greece, also, still exhibit traces of having been painted.

[438] The various causes of the stationary condition of art in Egypt, for so many ages, are clearly exposed by the Duke di Serradifalco, in his _Antichità della Sicilia_ (Palermo, 1834, tom. ii. pp. 33, 34); a work in which the author, while illustrating the antiquities of a little island, has thrown a flood of light on the arts and literary culture of ancient Greece.

[439] “The ideal is not always the beautiful,” as Winckelmann truly says, referring to the Egyptian figures. (Histoire de l’Art chez les Anciens, liv. 4, chap. 2, trad. Fr.) It is not impossible, however, that the portraits mentioned in the text may be copies from life. Some of the rude tribes of America distorted their infants’ heads into forms quite as fantastic; and Garcilaso de la Vega speaks of a nation discovered by the Spaniards in Florida, with a formation apparently not unlike the Palenque: “_Tienen cabezas increiblemente largas, y ahusadas para arriba_, que las ponen así con artificio, atándoselas desde el punto, que nascen las criaturas, hasta que son de nueve ó diez años.” La Florida (Madrid, 1723), p. 190.

[440] For a notice of this remarkable codex, see _ante_, p. 119. There is, indeed, a resemblance, in the use of straight lines and dots, between the Palenque writing and the Dresden MS. Possibly these dots denoted years, like the rounds in the Mexican system.

[441] The hieroglyphics are arranged in perpendicular lines. The heads are uniformly turned towards the right, as in the Dresden MS.

[442] “Les ruines,” says the enthusiastic chevalier Le Noir, “sans nom, à qui l’on a donné celui de _Palenque_, peuvent remonter comme les plus anciennes ruines du monde à trois mille ans. Ceci n’est point mon opinion seule; c’est celle de _tous_ les voyageurs qui ont vu les ruines dont il s’agit, de _tous_ les archéologues qui en ont examiné les dessins ou lu les descriptions, enfin des historiens qui ont fait des recherches, et qui n’ont rien trouvé dans les annales du monde qui fasse soupçonner l’époque de la fondation de tels monuments, dont l’origine se perd dans la nuit des temps.” (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. ii., Examen, p. 73.) Colonel Galindo, fired with the contemplation of the American ruins, pronounces this country the true cradle of civilization, whence it passed over to China, and latterly to Europe, which, whatever “its foolish vanity” may pretend, has but just started in the march of improvement! See his Letter on Copan, ap. Trans, of Am. Ant. Soc., vol. ii.

[443] From these sources of information, and especially from the number of the concentric rings in some old trees, and the incrustation of stalactites found on the ruins of Palenque, M. Waldeck computes their age at between two and three thousand years. (Voyage en Yucatan, p. 78.) The criterion, as far as the trees are concerned, cannot be relied on in an advanced stage of their growth; and as to the stalactite formations, they are obviously affected by too many casual circumstances, to afford the basis of an accurate calculation.{*}

{*} [Charnay (Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 260) shows the worthlessness of the argument from tree growth. He says, “In my first expedition to Palenque in 1859, I had the eastern side of the palace cleared of the dense vegetation to secure a good photograph. Consequently, the trees that have grown since cannot be more than twenty-two years old; now one of the cuttings, measuring some two feet in diameter, had upwards of 230 concentric circles, that is, at the rate of one in a month, or even less.” Reasoning on the idea that a concentric circle upon a tree represents a growth of one year, Waldeck had calculated the age of the structures at 2000 years.--M.]

[444] Waldeck, Voyage en Yucatan, ubi supra.

[445] Antiquités Mexicaines, Examen, p. 76.--Hardly deep enough, however, to justify Captain Dupaix’s surmise of the antediluvian existence of these buildings; especially considering that the accumulation was in the sheltered position of an interior court.

[446] [Ober, Travels in Mexico, p. 76. This granite pavement with its carven tortoises has never been seen by mortal man, although described by the unreliable and wonder-seeking Waldeck. It is true that there are many sculptures of this kind in Uxmal, but only on the doors and cornices. Ancona in his history says, “Estes tortugas, expuestas a las piedras de la muchedumbre, solo han existido en la imaginacion de Waldeck.” Ancona was the native historian of Yucatan.--M.]

[447] Waldeck, Voyage en Yucatan, p. 97.

[448] The chaplain of Grijalva speaks with admiration of the “lofty towers of stone and lime, some of them very ancient,” found in Yucatan. (Itinerario, MS. (1518).) Bernal Diaz, with similar expressions of wonder, refers the curious antique relics found there to the Jews. (Hist, de la Conquista, cap. 2, 6.) Alvarado, in a letter to Cortés, expatiates on the “maravillosos et grandes edificios” to be seen in Guatemala. (Oviedo, Hist, de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 42.) According to Cogolludo, the Spaniards, who could get no tradition of their origin, referred them to the Phœnicians or Carthaginians. (Hist, de Yucatan, lib. 4, cap. 2.) He cites the following emphatic notice of these remains from Las Casas: “Ciertamente la tierra de Yucathan da á entender cosas mui especiales, y de mayor antiguedad, por las grandes, admirables, y excessivas maneras de edificios, y letreros de ciertos caracteres, que en otra ninguna parte se hallan.” (Loc. cit.) Even the inquisitive Martyr has collected no particulars respecting them, merely noticing the buildings of this region with general expressions of admiration. (De Insulis nuper Inventis, pp. 334-340.) What is quite as surprising is the silence of Cortés, who traversed the country forming the base of Yucatan, in his famous expedition to Honduras, of which he has given many details we would gladly have exchanged for a word respecting these interesting memorials. Carta Quinta de Cortés, MS.--I must add that some remarks in the above paragraph in the text would have been omitted, had I enjoyed the benefit of Mr. Stephens’s researches when it was originally written. This is especially the case with the reflections on the probable condition of these structures at the time of the Conquest; when some of them would appear to have been still used for their original purposes.

[449] “Asimismo los Tultecas que escapáron se fuéron por las costas del Mar del Sur y Norte, como son Huatimala, Tecuantepec, Cuauhzacualco, Campechy, Tecolotlan, y los de las Islas y Costas de una mar y otra, que despues se viniéron á multiplicar.” Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 5.

[450] Herrera, Hist, general, dec. 4, lib. 10, cap. 1-4.--Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucatan, lib. 4, cap. 5.--Pet. Martyr, De Insulis, ubi supra.--M. Waldeck comes to just the opposite inference, namely, that the inhabitants of Yucatan were the true sources of the Toltec and Aztec civilization. (Voyage en Yucatan, p. 72.) “Doubt must be our lot in everything,” exclaims the honest Captain Dupaix,--“_the true faith always excepted_.” Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. i. p. 21.

[451] “Inter omnes eos non constat a quibus factæ sint, justissimo casu, obliteratis tantæ vanitatis auctoribus.” Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. 36, cap. 17.

[452] _Ante_, p. 200.

[453] At least, this is true of the etymology of these languages, and, as such, was adduced by Mr. Edward Everett, in his Lectures on the Aboriginal Civilization of America, forming part of a course delivered some years since by that acute and highly accomplished scholar.

[454] The mixed breed, from the buffalo and the European stock, was known formerly in the northwestern counties of Virginia, says Mr. Gallatin (Synopsis, sec. 5); who is, however, mistaken in asserting that “the bison is not known to have ever been domesticated by the Indians.” (Ubi supra.) Gomara speaks of a nation, dwelling about 40° north latitude, on the northwestern borders of New Spain, whose chief wealth was in droves of these cattle (_buyes con una giba sobre la cruz_, “oxen with a hump on the shoulders”), from which they got their clothing, food, and drink, which last, however, appears to have been only the blood of the animal. Historia de las Indias, cap. 214, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.

[455] The people of parts of China, for example, and, above all, of Cochin China, who never milk their cows, according to Macartney, cited by Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. iii. p. 58, note. See, also, p. 118.

[456] The native regions of the buffalo were the vast prairies of the Missouri, and they wandered over the long reach of country east of the Rocky Mountains, from 55° north, to the headwaters of the streams between the Mississippi and the Rio del Norte. The Columbia plains, says Gallatin, were as naked of game as of trees. (Synopsis, sec. 5.) That the bison was sometimes found also on the other side of the mountains, is plain from Gomara’s statement. (Hist. de las Ind., loc. cit.) See, also, Laet, who traces their southern wanderings to the river Vaquimi (?), in the province of Cinaloa, on the California Gulf. Novus Orbis (Lugd. Bat., 1633), p. 286.

[457] _Ante_, p. 155.

Thus Lucretius:

“Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, Quo facilis magis est natura, et copia major. Ære solum terræ tractabant, æreque belli Miscebant fluctus.” DE RERUM NATURA, lib. 5.

According to Carli, the Chinese were acquainted with iron 3000 years before Christ. (Lettres Améric., tom. ii. p. 63.) Sir J. G. Wilkinson, in an elaborate inquiry into its first appearance among the people of Europe and Western Asia, finds no traces of it earlier than the sixteenth century before the Christian era. (Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. pp. 241-246.) The origin of the most useful arts is lost in darkness. Their very utility is one cause of this, from the rapidity with which they are diffused among distant nations. Another cause is, that in the first ages of the discovery men are more occupied with availing themselves of it than with recording its history; until time turns history into fiction. Instances are familiar to every school-boy.

[458] [And in this connection also the reader may do well to consider these words of the distinguished Americanist, D. G. Brinton, uttered in the International Congress of Anthropology in 1893: “Up to the present time there has not been shown a single dialect, not an art or an institution, not a myth or a religious rite, not a domesticated plant or animal, not a tool, weapon, game, or symbol, in use in America at the time of the discovery, which had been previously imported from Asia, or from any other continent of the Old World.”--M.]

[459] [The grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella was not Charles the Fifth when the sceptre of Spain was thrust into his hands because his mother Joanna was unfit to rule. Charles called himself king when he made his triumphal entry into Valladolid in 1517. But it was only with the greatest difficulty that the Cortes of Castile was induced to accept him as titular sovereign _in conjunction with his mother_. Her name was to take precedence of his in all royal documents. Until her death in 1555, the year before her son’s abdication, Joanna was the rightful sovereign of Spain. Charles was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1519, only two years after he had assumed the control of Spanish affairs. It is not remarkable, therefore, that he should be known to most people only by the more important title. Charles was born in Ghent, February 24, 1500. His father was Philip the Fair, the heir of the German possessions of the house of Hapsburg, and the territories of the house of Burgundy. When the marriage of Philip and Joanna was arranged no one dreamed that their son would succeed to the crown of Spain, for Joanna’s elder brother and elder sister were both alive. Charles scarcely knew his parents. When Isabella of Castile died his father and mother went to Spain to take possession of the kingdom she had left to her daughter. This was in 1506, and from that time until 1517 Charles did not see his mother. His character was slow in forming. Only in athletic sports did he early achieve success. In 1517 the Papal legate Campeggi declared him more fit to be governed than to govern. He was never a good scholar, and was a singularly bad linguist. French was the language he first learned to speak. His native tongue, Flemish, he did not begin to learn until he was thirteen. When he went to Spain he knew so little Spanish that one of the first demands made by the Cortes of Castile was that he should learn that language. He never thoroughly mastered German.--M.]

[460] The following passage--one among many--from that faithful mirror of the times, Peter Martyr’s correspondence, does ample justice to the intemperance, avarice, and intolerable arrogance of the Flemings. The testimony is worth the more, as coming from one who, though resident in Spain, was not a Spaniard. “Crumenas auro fulcire inhiant; huic uni studio invigilant. Nec detrectat juvenis Rex. Farcit quacunque posse datur; non satiat tamen. Quæ qualisve sit gens hæc, depingere adhuc nescio. Insufflat vulgus hic in omne genus hominum non arctoum. Minores faciunt Hispanos, quam si nati essent inter eorum cloacas. Rugiunt jam Hispani, labra mordent, submurmurant taciti, fatorum vices tales esse conqueruntur, quod ipsi domitores regnorum ita floccifiant ab his, quorum Deus unicus (sub rege temperato) Bacchus est cum Citherea.” Opus Epistolarum (Amstelodami, 1610), ep. 608.

[461] Yet the nobles were not all backward in manifesting their disgust. When Charles would have conferred the famous Burgundian order of the Golden Fleece on the Count of Benavente, that lord refused it, proudly telling him, “I am a Castilian. I desire no honors but those of my own country, in my opinion quite as good as--indeed, better than--those of any other.” Sandoval, Historia de la Vida y Hechos del Emperador Cárlos V. (Ambéres, 1681), tom. i. p. 103.

[462] [The tone of the preceding paragraphs is that of the Spanish chroniclers of the seventeenth century, and shows how the author, despite his natural candor and impartiality of mind, had acquired insensibly the habit of considering questions that affected Spain from the national point of view of the class of writers with whom his studies had made him most familiar. Spain is called the “native country” of Charles V., and the “land of his fathers,” although, as hardly any reader will need to be reminded, he was born in the Netherlands and was of Spanish descent only on the maternal side. The term “foreigner” is applied to him as if it indicated some vicious trait in his nature; and the training which he had received as the heir to the Austro-Burgundian dominions is spoken of as erroneous, merely because it had not fitted him for a different position. His manners are contrasted with those of native Spanish sovereigns, as if wanting in graciousness and affability; yet the Spaniards, who alone ever made this complaint, recognized their own ideal of royal demeanor in that of the taciturn and phlegmatic Philip II. In like manner, Charles is supposed to have made his first acquaintance with free institutions on his arrival in Spain; whereas he had been brought up in a country where the power of the sovereign was perhaps more closely restricted by the chartered rights and immunities of the subject than was the case in any other part of Europe. That the union of Spain and the Netherlands was a most incongruous one, disastrous to the freedom, the independence, and the development of both countries, is undeniable; but it was not Charles’s early partiality for the one, but his successor’s far stronger partiality for the other, which rendered the incompatibility apparent and led to a rupture of the connection.--K.]

[463] I will take the liberty to refer the reader who is desirous of being more minutely acquainted with the Spanish colonial administration and the state of discovery previous to Charles V., to the “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella” (Part 2, ch. 9, 26), where the subject is treated _in extenso_.{*}

{*} [All the documents relative to the commission sent out by Ximenes, including many reports from the commissioners, have been printed in the Col. de Doc. inéd. relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y Colonizacion de las Posesiones españolas en América y Oceanía, tom. i.--K.]

[464] See the curious document attesting this, and drawn up by order of Columbus, ap. Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y de Descubrimientos (Madrid, 1825), tom. ii. Col. Dip., No. 76.

[465] [Now Haiti and Santo Domingo.--M.]

[466] The island was originally called by Columbus Juana, in honor of Prince John, heir to the Castilian crown. After his death it received the name of Fernandina, at the king’s desire. The Indian name has survived both. Herrera, Hist. general, Descrip., cap. 6.

[467] “Erat Didacus, ut hoc in loco de eo semel tantum dicamus, veteranus miles, rei militaris gnarus, quippe qui septem et decem annos in Hispania militiam exercitus fuerat, homo probus, opibus, genere et fama clarus, honoris cupidus, pecuniæ aliquanto cupidior.” De Rebus gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, MS.

[468] The story is told by Las Casas in his appalling record of the cruelties of his countrymen in the New World, which charity--and common sense--may excuse us for believing the good father has greatly overcharged. Brevíssima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias (Venetia, 1643), p. 28.

[469] [Santiago de Cuba.--M.]

[470] Among the most ancient of these establishments we find the Havana, Puerto del Príncipe, Trinidad, St. Salvador, and Matanzas, or _the Slaughter_, so called from a massacre of the Spaniards there by the Indians. Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 8.

[471] [This statement is erroneous. Prescott did not know that the Havana, or San Cristobal, whence Cordova sailed, was on the south side of Cuba. All authorities agree that the expedition sailed directly westward, that the storm did not occur until Cape San Antonio had been passed, and that the fleet sailed westward by the will of its commander. See Bancroft’s Mexico, vol. i. p. 7.--M.]

[472] Gomara, Historia de las Indias, cap. 52, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Bernal Diaz says the word came from the vegetable _yuca_, and _tale_ the name for a hillock in which it is planted. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 6.) M. Waldeck finds a much more plausible derivation in the Indian word _Ouyouckatan_, “listen to what they say.” Voyage pittoresque, p. 25.

[473] Two navigators, Solís and Pinzon, had descried the coast as far back as 1506, according to Herrera, though they had not taken possession of it. (Hist. general, dec. 1, lib. 6, cap. 17.) It is, indeed, remarkable it should so long have eluded discovery, considering that it is but two degrees distant from Cuba.

[474] Oviedo, General y natural Historia de las Indias, MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.--De Rebus gestis, MS.--Carta del Cabildo de Vera Cruz (July 10, 1519), MS.--Bernal Diaz denies that the original object of the expedition, in which he took part, was to procure slaves, though Velasquez had proposed it. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 2.) But he is contradicted in this by the other contemporary records above cited.

[475] Itinerario de la Isola de Iuchathan, novamente ritrovata per il Signor Joan de Grijalva, per il suo Capellano, MS.--The chaplain’s word may be taken for the date, which is usually put at the eighth of April.

[476] [The fleet left Santiago, April 8, 1518, and Cape San Antonio, May 1.--M.]

[477] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Itinerario del Capellano, MS.

[478] According to the Spanish authorities, the cacique was sent with these presents from the Mexican sovereign, who had received previous tidings of the approach of the Spaniards. I have followed Sahagun, who obtained his intelligence directly from the natives. Historia de la Conquista, MS., cap. 2.

[479] Gomara has given the _per_ and _contra_ of this negotiation, in which gold and jewels of the value of fifteen or twenty thousand _pesos de oro_ were exchanged for glass beads, pins, scissors, and other trinkets common in an assorted cargo for savages. Crónica, cap. 6.

[480] Itinerario del Capellano, MS.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.

[481] “Hombre de terrible condicion,” says Herrera, citing the good Bishop of Chiapa, “para los que le servian, i aiudaban, i que facilmente se indignaba contra aquellos.” Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 10.

[482] At least, such is the testimony of Las Casas, who knew both the

## parties well, and had often conversed with Grijalva upon his voyage.

Historia general de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.

[483] Itinerario del Capellano, MS.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.--The most circumstantial account of Grijalva’s expedition is to be found in the _Itinerary_ of his chaplain above quoted. The original is lost, but an indifferent Italian version was published at Venice in 1522. A copy, which belonged to Ferdinand Columbus, is still extant in the library of the great church of Seville. The book had become so exceedingly rare, however, that the historiographer Muñoz made a transcript of it with his own hand; and from his manuscript that in my possession was taken.{*}

{*} [Several editions of the Itinerario have been published. The most easily accessible may be found in the _Coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mexico, etc._, tom. i.--M.]

[484] [The house in which he was born, in the Calle de la Feria, was preserved until the present century, and many a traveller has lodged there, desirous, says Alaman, of sleeping in the mansion where the hero was born. In the year 1809 the building was destroyed by the French, and only a few fragments of wall now remain to commemorate the birthplace of the Conqueror. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. p. 2.]

[485] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 1.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 203. I find no more precise notice of the date of his birth, except, indeed, by Pizarro y Orellana, who tells us that “Cortés came into the world the same day that that _infernal beast, the false heretic Luther_, entered it,--by way of compensation, no doubt, since the labors of the one to pull down the true faith were counterbalanced by those of the other to maintain and extend it”! (Varones ilustres del Nuevo-Mundo (Madrid, 1639), p. 66.) But this statement of the good cavalier, which places the birth of our hero in 1483, looks rather more like a zeal for “the true faith” than for historic.

[486] Argensola, in particular, has bestowed great pains on the _prosapia_ of the house of Cortés; which he traces up, nothing doubting, to Narnes Cortés, king of Lombardy and Tuscany. Anales de Aragon (Zaragoza, 1630), pp. 621-625.--Also, Caro de Torres, Historia de las Ordenes militares (Madrid, 1629), fol. 103.

[487] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Las Casas, who knew the father, bears stronger testimony to his poverty than to his noble birth. “Un escudero,” he says of him, “que yo conocí harto pobre y humilde, aunque cristiano, viejo _y dizen que hidalgo_.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27.

[488] [His parents had cast lots to decide which of the apostles should be chosen as his patron saint. The lot fell upon Peter, which explains the especial devotion which Cortés professed, through his whole life, to that saint, to whose watchful care he attributed the improvement in his health. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. p. 4.]

[489] Argensola, Anales, p. 220.--Las Casas and Bernal Diaz both state that he was Bachelor of Laws at Salamanca. (Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.--Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 203.) The degree was given probably in later life, when the University might feel a pride in claiming him among her sons.

[490] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 1.

[491] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Ibid.--Argensola states the cause of his detention concisely enough: “Suspendió el viaje, _por enamorado y por quartanario_.” Anales, p. 621.

[492] Some thought it was the Holy Ghost in the form of this dove. “Sanctum esse Spiritum, qui, in illius alitis specie, ut mœstos et afflictos solaretur, venire erat dignatus” (De Rebus gestis, MS.); a conjecture which seems very reasonable to Pizarro y Orellana, since the expedition was to “redound so much to the spread of the Catholic faith, and the Castilian monarchy”! Varones ilustres, p. 70.

[493] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 2.

[494] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 203.

[495] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 3, 4.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27.

[496] Hist. de las Indias, MS., loc. cit.--“Res omnes arduas difficilesque per Cortesium, quem in dies magis magisque amplectebatur, Velasquius agit. Ex eo ducis favore et gratia magna Cortesio invidia est orta.” De Rebus gestis, MS.

[497] Solís has found a patent of nobility for this lady also,--“doncella noble y recatada.” (Historia de la Conquista de Méjico (Paris, 1838), lib. 1, cap. 9.) Las Casas treats her with less ceremony: “Una hermana de _un_ Juan Xuarez, _gente pobre_.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 5, cap. 17.

[498] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.--De Rebus gestis, MS.--Memorial de Benito Martinez, Capellan de D. Velasquez, contra H. Cortés, MS.

[499] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.

[500] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., loc. cit.--Memorial de Martinez, MS.

[501] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.--Herrera tells a silly story of his being unable to swim, and throwing himself on a plank, which, after being carried out to sea, was washed ashore with him at flood tide. Hist. general, dec. 1, lib. 9, cap. 8.

[502] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.--“Cœnat cubatque Cortesius cum Velasquio eodem in lecto. Qui postero die fugæ Cortesii nuntius venerat, Velasquium et Cortesium juxta accubantes intuitus, miratur.” De Rebus gestis, MS.

[503] Las Casas, who remembered Cortés at this time “so poor and lowly that he would have gladly received any favor from the least of Velasquez’ attendants,” treats the story of the bravado with contempt. “Por lo qual si él [Velasquez] sintiera de Cortés una puncta de alfiler de cerviguillo ó presuncion, ó lo ahorcara ó á lo menos lo echara de la tierra y lo sumiera en ella sin que alzara cabeza en su vida.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27.

[504] “Pecuariam primus quoque habuit, in insulamque induxit, omni pecorum genere ex Hispania petito.” De Rebus gestis, MS.

[505] “Los que por sacarle el oro muriéron Dios abrá tenido mejor cuenta que yo.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27. The text is a free translation.

[506] “Estando conmigo, me lo dixo que estava tan contento con ella como si fuera hija de una Duquessa.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.

[507] The treasurer used to boast he had passed some two-and-twenty years in the wars of Italy. He was a shrewd personage, and Las Casas, thinking that country a slippery school for morals, warned the governor, he says, more than once “to beware of the twenty-two years in Italy.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.

[508] “Si él no fuera por Capitan, que no fuera la tercera parte de la gente que con él fué.” Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS. (Coruña, 30 de Abril, 1520).

[509] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 19.--De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 7.--Las Casas, Hist. general de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.

[510] Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Probanza en la Villa Segura, MS. (4 de Oct., 1520).

[511] The letter from the Municipality of Vera Cruz, after stating that Velasquez bore only one-third of the original expense, adds, “Y sepan Vras. Magestades que la mayor parte de la dicha tercia parte que el dicho Diego Velasquez gastó en hacer la dicha armada fué emplear sus dineros en vinos y en ropas, y en otras cosas de poco valor para nos lo vender acá en mucha mas cantidad de lo que á él le costó, por manera que podemos decir que entre nosotros los Españoles vasallos de Vras. Reales Altezas ha hecho Diego Velasquez su rescate y granosea de sus dineros cobrandolos muy bien.” (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.) Puertocarrero and Montejo, also, in their depositions taken in Spain, both speak of Cortés’ having furnished two-thirds of the cost of the flotilla. (Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS.--Declaracion de Montejo, MS. (29 de Abril, 1520).) The letter from Vera Cruz, however, was prepared under the eye of Cortés; and the last two were his confidential officers.

[512] The instrument, in the original Castilian, will be found in Appendix, No. 5. It is often referred to by writers who never saw it, as the Agreement between Cortés and Velasquez. It is, in fact, only the instructions given by this latter to his officer, who was no party to it.

[513] Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 7.--Velasquez soon after obtained from the crown authority to colonize the new countries, with the title of _adelantado_ over them. The instrument was dated at Barcelona, Nov. 13th, 1518. (Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 8.) Empty privileges! Las Casas gives a caustic etymology of the title of _adelantado_, so often granted to the Spanish discoverers. “Adelantados porque se adelantaran en hazer males y daños tan gravísimos á gentes pacíficas.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 117.

[514] “Deterrebat,” says the anonymous biographer, “eum Cortesii natura imperii avida, fiducia sui ingens, et nimius sumptus in classe parandâ. Timere itaque Velasquius cœpit, si Cortesius cum eâ classe iret, nihil ad se vel honoris vel lucri rediturum.” De Rebus gestis, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 19.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.

[515] “Cortés no avia menester mas para entendello de mirar el gesto á Diego Velasquez segun su astuta viveza y mundana sabiduría.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.

[516] Las Casas had the story from Cortés’ own mouth. Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 7.--De Rebus gestis, MS.

[517] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 12.--Solís, who follows Bernal Diaz in saying that Cortés parted openly and amicably from Velasquez, seems to consider it a great slander on the character of the former to suppose that he wanted to break with the governor so soon, when he had received so little provocation. (Conquista, lib. 1, cap. 10.) But it is not necessary to suppose that Cortés intended a rupture with his employer by this clandestine movement, but only to secure himself in the command. At all events, the text conforms in every particular to the statement of Las Casas, who, as he knew both the parties well, and resided on the island at the time, had ample means of information.{*}

{*} [Las Casas was not residing in Cuba, as Prescott supposes, when Cortés sailed. The weight of authority seems to indicate that the departure of Cortés was hasty but not clandestine. Velasquez in his report to the Emperor does not say the Conqueror of Mexico stole away.--M.]

[518] Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.

[519] [Juan Sedeño was the richest man in the fleet. His possessions included a ship, a mare, a negro, and some cazabi bread and bacon. Bernal Diaz very properly gives a list of the horses belonging to the expedition, remarking that neither horses nor negroes could be had without great expense. (See Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 23.) A horse cost from four to five hundred _pesos de oro_.--M.]

[520] [Bancroft (Mexico, i. p. 66) thinks Prescott has made a slight mistake as to these ships, and that Sedeño was the commander of the second vessel. Bancroft also will have it that the standard of Cortés was made of “taffeta,” not _velvet_.--M.]

[521] Las Casas had this, also, from the lips of Cortés in later life. “Todo esto me dixo el mismo Cortés, con otras cosas cerca dello despues de Marques; ... reindo y mofando é con estas formales palabras, _Á la mi fée andube por allí como un gentil cosario_.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.

[522] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 8.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114, 115.

[523] [But not across the island. There was no need for Cortés to sail round the westerly point of Cuba with his squadron. Havana, or San Cristóbal de la Habana, was then upon the south side of the island. The town where the Havana of to-day stands was not founded until 1519. Many writers besides Prescott, knowing nothing of this fact, have fallen into this same error. From Trinidad to the new Habana would have been a long and difficult march for Alvarado and his party, and a long and unnecessary voyage for the fleet of Cortés.--M.]

[524] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 24.--De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 8.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.--The legend on the standard was, doubtless, suggested by that on the _labarum_,--the sacred banner of Constantine.

[525] The most minute notices of the person and habits of Cortés are to be gathered from the narrative of the old cavalier Bernal Diaz, who served so long under him, and from Gomara, the general’s chaplain. See in particular the last chapter of Gomara’s Crónica, and cap. 203 of the Hist. de la Conquista.

[526] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.

[527] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 24.

[528] Ibid., loc. cit.

[529] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 26.--There is some discrepancy among authorities in regard to the numbers of the army. The Letter from Vera Cruz, which should have been exact, speaks in round terms of only four hundred soldiers. (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.) Velasquez himself, in a communication to the Chief Judge of Hispaniola, states the number at six hundred. (Carta de Diego Velasquez al Lic. Figueroa, MS.) I have adopted the estimates of Bernal Diaz, who, in his long service, seems to have become intimately acquainted with every one of his comrades, their persons, and private history.

[530] Incredibly dear indeed, since, from the statements contained in the depositions at Villa Segura, it appears that the cost of the horses for the expedition was from four to five hundred _pesos de oro_ each! “Si saben que de caballos que el dicho Señor Capitan General Hernando Cortés ha comprado para servir en la dicha Conquista, que son diez é ocho, que le han costado á quatrocientos cinquenta é á quinientos pesos ha pagado, é que deve mas de ocho mil pesos de oro dellos.” (Probanza en Villa Segura, MS.) The estimation of these horses is sufficiently shown by the minute information Bernal Diaz has thought proper to give of every one of them; minute enough for the pages of a sporting calendar. See Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 23.

[531] “Io vos propongo grandes premios, mas embueltos en grandes trabajos; pero la virtud no quiere ociosidad.” (Gomara, Crónica, cap. 9.) It is the thought so finely expressed by Thomson:

“For sluggard’s brow the laurel never grows; Renown is not the child of indolent repose.”

[532] The text is a very condensed abridgment of the original speech of Cortés,--or of his chaplain, as the case may be. See it, in Gomara, Crónica, cap. 9.

[533] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 10.--De ebus gestis, MS.--“Tantus fuit armorum apparatus,” exclaims the author of the last work, “quo alterum terrarum orbem bellis Cortesius concutit; ex tam parvis opibus tantum imperium Carolo facit; aperitque omnium primus Hispanæ genti Hispaniam novam!” The author of this work is unknown. It seems to have been part of a great compilation “De Orbe Novo,” written, probably, on the plan of a series of biographical sketches, as the introduction speaks of a life of Columbus preceding this of Cortés. It was composed, as it states, while many of the old Conquerors were still surviving, and is addressed to the son of Cortés. The historian, therefore, had ample means of verifying the truth of his own statements, although they too often betray, in his partiality for his hero, the influence of the patronage under which the work was produced. It runs into a prolixity of detail which, however tedious, has its uses in a contemporary document. Unluckily, only the first book was finished, or, at least, has survived; terminating with the events of this chapter. It is written in Latin, in a pure and perspicuous style, and is conjectured with some plausibility to be the work of Calvet de Estrella, Chronicler of the Indies. The original exists in the Archives of Simancas, where it was discovered and transcribed by Muñoz, from whose copy that in my library was taken.

[534] See _ante_, p. 241, note 27.

[535] Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 25, et seq.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 10, 15.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 115.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 4, cap. 6.--Martyr, De Insulis nuper inventis (Coloniæ, 1574), p. 344.--While these pages were passing through the press, but not till two years after they were written, Mr. Stephens’s important and interesting volumes appeared, containing the account of his second expedition to Yucatan. In the latter part of the work he describes his visit to Cozumel, now an uninhabited island covered with impenetrable forests. Near the shore he saw the remains of ancient Indian structures, which he conceives may possibly have been the same that met the eyes of Grijalva and Cortés, and which suggest to him some important inferences. He is led into further reflections on the existence of the cross as a symbol of worship among the islanders. (Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (New York, 1843), vol. ii. chap. 20.) As the discussion of these matters would lead me too far from the track of our narrative, I shall take occasion to return to them hereafter, when I treat of the architectural remains of the country.{*}{**}

{*} [In the passages here referred to, the author has noticed various proofs of the existence of the cross as a symbol of worship among pagan nations both in the Old World and the New. The fact has been deemed a very puzzling one; yet the explanation, as traced by Dr. Brinton, is sufficiently simple: “The arms of the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent the four winds,--the rain-bringers.” Hence the name given to it in the Mexican language, signifying “Tree of our Life,”--a term well calculated to increase the wonderment of the Spanish discoverers. Myths of the New World, p. 96, et al.--K.]

{**} _Ante_, p. 239.

[536] See the biographical sketch of the good bishop Las Casas, the “Protector of the Indians,” in the Postscript at the close of the present Book.

[537] “It may have been that the devil appeared to them as he is, and left these forms stamped on their imagination, so that the imitative power of the artist reveals itself in the ugliness of the image.” Solís, Conquista, p. 39.

[538] Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 13.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 4, cap. 7.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 78.--Las Casas, whose enlightened views in religion would have done honor to the present age, insists on the futility of these forced conversions, by which it was proposed in a few days to wean men from the idolatry which they had been taught to reverence from the cradle. “The only way of doing this,” he says, “is by long, assiduous, and faithful preaching, until the heathen shall gather some ideas of the true nature of the Deity and of the doctrines they are to embrace. Above all, the lives of the Christians should be such as to exemplify the truth of these doctrines, that, seeing this, the poor Indian may glorify the Father, and acknowledge him, who has such worshippers, for the true and only God.” See the original remarks, which I quote _in extenso_, as a good specimen of the bishop’s style when kindled by his subject into eloquence, in Appendix, No. 6.

[539] “Muy gran misterio y milagro de Dios.” Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.

[540] [Not long ago, a history of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan, written in the Maya language, but in Roman letters, by a native chief, Nakuk Pech, about the year 1562, was brought to light. This account, the “Chronicle of Chicxulub,” was translated by Dr. Brinton, and was published by him in the “Maya Chronicles,” Philadelphia, 1882, pp. 187-259. This chronicle, from the pen of one who was almost contemporary with the Conquest, corroborates the accounts given by the Spanish historians in most particulars. It refers to Chichen Itza and Izamal as inhabited when the Spaniards descended upon the country. It is sometimes inaccurate as to details, as in this reference to Aguilar: “Thus the land was discovered by Aguilar, who was eaten by Ah Naum Ah Pat at Cuzamil in the year 1517.” We know, of course, that it was another Spaniard who was eaten by Ah Naum Ah Pat. The matter is of small consequence to us, though undoubtedly important to Aguilar.--M.]

[541] They are enumerated by Herrera with a minuteness which may claim at least the merit of giving a much higher notion of Aguilar’s virtue than the barren generalities of the text. (Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 4, cap. 6-8.) The story is prettily told by Washington Irving, Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (London, 1833), p. 263, et seq.

[542] Camargo, Historia de Tlascala, MS.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 347.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 29.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 115, 116.

[543] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 31.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 18.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 118.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 348.--There are some discrepancies between the statements of Bernal Diaz and the Letter from Vera Cruz; both by parties who were present.

[544] Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 31.

[545] “See,” exclaims the Bishop of Chiapa, in his caustic vein, “the reasonableness of this ‘requisition,’ or, to speak more correctly, the folly and insensibility of the Royal Council, who could find, in the refusal of the Indians to receive it, a good pretext for war.” (Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 118.) In another place he pronounces an animated invective against the iniquity of those who covered up hostilities under this empty form of words, the import of which was utterly incomprehensible to the barbarians. (Ibid., lib. 3, cap. 57.) The famous formula, used by the Spanish Conquerors on this occasion, was drawn up by Dr. Palacios Reubios, a man of letters, and a member of the King’s council. “But I laugh at him and his letters,” exclaims Oviedo, “if he thought a word of it could be comprehended by the untutored Indians!” (Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 29, cap. 7.) The regular Manifesto, _requirimiento_, may be found translated in the concluding pages of Irving’s “Voyages of the Companions of Columbus.”

[546] “Halláronlas llenas de maiz é gallinas y otros vastimentos, oro ninguno, de lo que ellos no resciviéron mucho plazer.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.

[547] Peter Martyr gives a glowing picture of this Indian capital. “Ad fluminis ripam protentum dicunt esse oppidum, quantum non ausim dicere: mille quingentorum passuum, ait Alaminus nauclerus, et domorum quinque ac viginti millium: stringunt alij, ingens tamen fatentur et celebre. Hortis intersecantur domus, quæ sunt _egregiè lapidibus et calce fabrefactæ, maximâ industriâ et architectorum arte_.” (De Insulis, p. 349.) With his usual inquisitive spirit, he gleaned all the particulars from the old pilot Alaminos, and from two of the officers of Cortés who revisited Spain in the course of that year. Tabasco was in the neighborhood of those ruined cities of Yucatan which have lately been the theme of so much speculation. The encomiums of Martyr are not so remarkable as the apathy of other contemporary chroniclers.

[548] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 31, 32.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 18.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 118, 119.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 78, 79.

[549] According to Solís, who quotes the address of Cortés on the occasion, he summoned a council of his captains to advise him as to the course he should pursue. (Conquista, cap. 19.) It is possible, but I find no warrant for it anywhere.

[550] Las Casas, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 19, 20.--Herrera, Hist. gen., dec. 2, lib. 4, cap. 11.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 350.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 33, 36.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.

[551] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--“Cortés supposed it was his own tutelar saint, St. Peter,” says Pizarro y Orellana; “but the common and indubitable opinion is that it was our glorious apostle St. James, the bulwark and safeguard of our nation.” (Varones ilustres, p. 73.) “Sinner that I am,” exclaims honest Bernal Diaz, in a more skeptical vein, “it was not permitted to me to see either the one or the other of the Apostles on this occasion.” Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 34.{*}

{*} [The remark of Bernal Diaz is not to be taken as ironical. His faith in the same vision on subsequent occasions is expressed without demur. In the present case he recognized the rider of the gray horse as a Spanish cavalier, Francisco de Morla. It appears from the account of Andrés de Tápia, another companion of Cortés, whose narrative has been recently published, that owing to canals and other impediments, the cavalry was unable to effect the intended détour, and it therefore returned and joined the infantry. The latter, meanwhile, having seen a cavalier on a gray horse charging the Indians in their rear, supposed that the cavalry had penetrated to that quarter. Cortés, on hearing this, exclaimed, “Adelante, compañeros, que Dios es con nosotros.” (Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc. para la Hist. de México, tom. i.) Tápia says nothing about St. James or St. Peter, and perhaps suspected that the incident was a ruse contrived by Cortés. Generally, however, such legends seem to be sufficiently explained by the religious belief and excited imagination of the narrators. See the remarks, on this point, of Macaulay, who notices the account of Diaz, in the introduction to his lay of the Battle of the Lake Regillus.--K.{**}

{**} [The apparition of St. James is not infrequent in the history of Spain. The apostle first appeared as a leader of the Spanish hosts in the battle of Clavijo, 846. He rode upon a white charger, and carried in his left hand a snow-white banner. In his right hand was a flashing sword. Because of his wondrous aid sixty thousand Moslems were vanquished that day by the soldiers of King Ramiro. Mariana, Book vii, chap, xiii, tells the story, and many writers accepted the legend. Unfortunately, however, careful investigation has shown that the battle itself was apocryphal.

In the tenth century he appeared again when Ramiro II defeated the great Abderahman, and as a result pilgrims innumerable flocked to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella.

Again his white horse led the Spanish cavalry when Fernando was besieging Coimbra in 1058, or thereabout, as one may read in Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid.

At Xeres, in 1237, Alfonso of Castile, with fifteen hundred men, defeated a force seven times larger than his own because all men saw plainly the glorious vision. The Moors fled panic-stricken at the sight. “They could not fight against God.” The instances might be multiplied.--M.]

[552] It was the order--as the reader may remember--given by Cæsar to his followers in his battle with Pompey:

“Adversosque jubet ferro confundere vultus.” LUCAN, Pharsalia, lib. 7, v. 575.

[553] “Equites,” says Paolo Giovio, “unum integrum Centaurorum specie animal esse existimarent.” Elogia Virorum Illustrium (Basil, 1696), lib. 6, p. 229.

[554] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. p. 11.

[555] “Crean Vras. Reales Altezas por cierto, que esta batalla fué vencida mas por voluntad de Dios que por nras. fuerzas, porque para con quarenta mil hombres de guerra, poca defensa fuera quatrozientos que nosotros eramos.” (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 20.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 35.) It is Las Casas who, regulating his mathematics, as usual, by his feelings, rates the Indian loss at the exorbitant amount cited in the text. “This,” he concludes, dryly, “was the first preaching of the gospel by Cortés in New Spain!” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.

[556] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 21, 22.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 351.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.

[557]

“Cata Francia, Montesinos, Cata Paris la ciudad, Cata las aguas de Duero Do an á dar en la mar.”

They are the words of the popular old ballad, first published, I believe, in the Romancero de Ambéres, and lately by Duran, Romances caballerescos é históricos, Parte I, p. 82.

[558] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 37.

[559] Las Casas notices the significance of the Indian gestures as implying a most active imagination: “Señas é meneos con que los Yndios mucho mas que otras generaciones entienden y se dan á entender, por tener muy bivos los sentidos exteriores y tambien los interiores, mayormente que es admirable su imaginacion.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.

[560] “Hermosa como Diosa,” _beautiful as a goddess_, says Camargo of her. (Hist. de Tlascala, MS.) A modern poet pays her charms the following not inelegant tribute:

“Admira tan lúcida cabalgada Y espectáculo tal Doña Marina, India noble al caudillo presentada, De fortuna y belleza peregrina.

* * * * *

Con despejado espíritu y viveza Gira la vista en el concurso mudo; Rico manto de extrema sutileza Con chapas de oro autorizarla pudo, Prendido con bizarra gentileza Sobre los pechos en ayroso nudo; Reyna parece de la Indiana Zona, Varonil y hermosísima Amazona.” MORATIN, Las Naves de Cortés destruidas.

[561] [“Malinche” is a corruption of the Aztec word “Malintzin,” which is itself a corruption of the Spanish name “Marina.” The Aztecs, having no _r_ in their alphabet, substituted _l_ for it, while the termination _tzin_ was added in token of respect, so that the name was equivalent to Doña or Lady Marina. Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega, anotada por D. Lúcas Alaman), tom. ii. pp. 17, 269.]

[562] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 25, 26.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. pp. 12-14.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 37, 38.--There is some discordance in the notices of the early life of Marina. I have followed Bernal Diaz,--from his means of observation, the best authority. There is happily no difference in the estimate of her singular merits and services.

[563] The name of the Aztec monarch, like those of most persons and places in New Spain, has been twisted into all possible varieties of orthography. Cortés, in his letters, calls him “Muteczuma.” Modern Spanish historians usually spell his name “Motezuma.” I have preferred to conform to the name by which he is usually known to English readers. It is the one adopted by Bernal Diaz, and by most writers near the time of the Conquest. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. i., apénd. 2.

[564] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. p. 16.--New Vera Cruz, as the present town is called, is distinct, as we shall see hereafter, from that established by Cortés, and was not founded till the close of the sixteenth century, by the Conde de Monterey, Viceroy of Mexico. It received its privileges as a city from Philip III. in 1615. Ibid., tom. iii. p. 30, nota.

[565] The epidemic of the _matlazahuatl_, so fatal to the Aztecs, is shown by M. de Humboldt to have been essentially different from the _vómito_, or bilious fever of our day. Indeed, this disease is not noticed by the early conquerors and colonists, and, Clavigero asserts, was not known in Mexico till 1725. (Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 117, nota.) Humboldt, however, arguing that the same physical causes must have produced similar results, carries the disease back to a much higher antiquity, of which he discerns some traditional and historic vestiges. “Il ne faut pas confondre l’epoque,” he remarks, with his usual penetration, “à laquelle une maladie a été décrite pour la première fois, parce qu’elle a fait de grands ravages dans un court espace de temps, avec l’époque de sa première apparition.” Essai politique, tom. iv. p. 161 et seq., and 179.

[566] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 26.

[567] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.

[568] [According to a curious document published by Icazbalceta (Col. de Doc. para la Hist. de México, tom. ii.), two of the principal caciques present on this occasion communicated secretly with Cortés, and, declaring themselves disaffected subjects of Montezuma, offered to facilitate the advance of the Spaniards by furnishing the general with paintings in which the various features of the country would be correctly delineated. The offer was accepted, and on the next visit the paintings were produced, and proved subsequently of great service to Cortés, who rewarded the donors with certain grants. But the genuineness of this paper, though supported by so distinguished a scholar as Señor Ramirez, is more than questionable.--K.]

[569] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 13.--Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 25, 26.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 38.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 5, cap. 4.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap. 13-15.--Tezozomoc, Crón. Mexicana, MS., cap. 107.