But we shall journey away from the haunts of man again, and penetrate the deep dark barrancas and little-known mountain-fastnesses of the western slope of the State of Guerrero. Here are great uninhabited and unexplored stretches of country, rugged and wild, replete with matters of interest, whether for hunter, sportsman, or archaeologist. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a region offering so varied a nature of resource and interest in any part of the world, except possibly in the still less accessible wilds of the Amazonian slopes of the Peruvian Andes. The botanist will find on this Pacific side of Mexico an unstudied flora, and the ethnologist and the antiquarian a number of native races, speaking strange separate languages; and the ruins of thousands of the habitations of prehistoric man. The climate in these rugged regions ranges from the heat of the fierce tropical sun to the bitter cold of the mountain summits. Abundant bosques or forests of oak cover the higher regions, and the wild and broken nature of the country renders it difficult to traverse, and calls for the adventurous spirit of the pioneer and explorer, without which the traveller will but meet with discomfort and danger.

Yet the true traveller finds pleasure in these matters. The impressive grandeur of the mountain landscape, the endless forests, the profound ravines do but serve to divert his mind from the peril and discomfort of the trail. Here he may revel in Nature's untamed handiwork of mountain, forest, and flood, as day after day he journeys onward in the saddle towards the Pacific Ocean. Here are the imposing barrancas of Jalisco which he traverses, and marks how they are buried in the profuse vegetation which presses up to the very border of the lava of smoking Ceboruco. Thence the myrtle forests of Tepic are penetrated. On the tropic lakes thousands of log-like alligators lie, gloomily awaiting their prey. From the verge, which rich forests fringe, and where brilliant water-weeds encircle the shoals, dainty pink and white herons rise, and below the blue surface gleams the sheen of myriad fish. Far to the southwards the fitful volcanic flames of Colima light up the landscape at night. A day's journey more across the coastal plains, and our reconnaissance is finished. The long-drawn surf beats upon the shore of the vast western ocean, for we have crossed the continent; and the sun's glowing disc dips to the blood-red waves—sunset in the Pacific.



CHAPTER II THE DAWN OF MEXICO: TOLTECS AND AZTECS

Lake Texcoco—Valley of Anahuac—Seat of the Aztec civilisation— Snow-capped peaks—Pyramids of Teotihuacan—Toltecs—The first Aztecs—The eagle, cactus, and serpent—Aztec oracle and wanderings— Tenochtitlan—Prehistoric American civilisations—Maya, Incas—Quito and Peru—The dawn of history—The Toltec empire—Rise, regime, fall—Quetzalcoatl—Otomies—Chichemecas—Nezahualcoyotl—Astlan—The seven tribes and their wanderings—Mexican war-god—The Teocallis— Human sacrifices—Prehistoric City of Mexico—The Causeways—Aztec arts, kings, and civilisation—Montezuma—Guatemoc—Impressions of the Spaniards—The golden age of Texcoco—Vandalism of Spanish archbishop—The poet-king and his religion—Temple to the Unknown God—Aztecs and Incas compared—The Tlascalans—The Otomies—Cholula— Mexican tribes—Aztec buildings—Prehistoric art—Origin of American prehistoric civilisation—Biblical analogies—Supposed Asiatic and Egyptian origins—Aboriginal theory.

Like the misty cloud-streaks of the early dawn, the beginning of the story of the strange empire of prehistoric Mexico unfolds from fable and fact as we look back upon it. We are to imagine ourselves upon the shores of Lake Texcoco, in the high valley-plateau of Anahuac, "the land amid the waters." It is the year 1300, or a little later, of the Christian era. The borders of the lake are marshy and sedgy, the surrounding plain is bare and open, and there is no vestige of man and his habitation. Far away, east, west, and north, faint mountain ranges rise, shimmering to the view in the sun's rays through the clear upland air, whilst to the south two beautiful gleaming snow-capped peaks are seen,[3] and over all is the deep blue vault of the tropic highland sky.

[Footnote 3: Ixtaccihuatl and Popocatepetl.]

We have said that there are no vestiges of man or his structures to be seen, yet upon gazing penetratingly towards the north-east there might be observed the tops of two high ruined pyramids,[4] the vestiges of the civilisation of the shadowy Toltecs. But we are not for the moment concerned with these ruined structures, for, as we watch, a band of dusky warriors, strangely clad, comes over the plain. They come like men on some set purpose, glancing about them, at the shores of the lake, at the horizon, expectantly, yet with a certain vague wistfulness as of deferred hope. Suddenly their leader halts and utters an ejaculation; and with one hand shading the sun's rays from his eyes he points with outstretched arm towards the water's edge. His companions gaze intently in the direction indicated, and then run forward with joyous shouts and gesticulations. What is it that has aroused their emotions? Near the lake-shore a rock arises, overgrown with a thorny nopal, or prickly-pear cactus, and perched upon this is an eagle with a serpent in its beak.

[Footnote 4: Teotihuacan: pyramids of the sun and moon.]

Who are these men and whence have they come? They are the first Aztecs, and they have come "from the north"; and for centuries they have been wandering from place to place, seeking a promised land which their deity had offered them, a land where they should found a city and an empire. The hoped-for oracle is before them, the promised symbol which they had been bidden to seek, by which they should know the destined spot—an eagle perched upon a nopal with a serpent in its beak: and their wanderings are at an end. Here they pitched their camp, and here as time went on the wonderful city of Tenochtitlan arose, the centre of the strange Aztec civilisation. Thus, fable records, was first established the site of Mexico City; prehistoric, despotic, barbaric, first; mediaeval, dark, romantic, later; handsome and interesting to-day.



But whence came these men? That, indeed, who shall say? Whence came the strange civilisation of the American races—Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Inca? To Mexico and Yucatan and Guatemala, to Quito and Peru, whence came the peoples who built stone temples, pyramids, halls, tombs, inscribed hieroglyphics, and wrought cunning arts, such as by their ruins, relics, and traditions arouse our admiration even to-day. History does not say, yet what glimmerings of history and legend there are serve to take us farther back in time, although scarcely to a fixed starting-point, for the thread of the tale of wanderings and developments of these people of Mexico—a thread which seems traceable among the ruined structures of Anahuac.

The first glimmerings of this history-legend refer to an unknown country "in the north." About the middle of the third century of the Christian era there proceeded thence the people known as the Mayas, who traversed Mexico and arrived in Yucatan; and they are the reputed originators of the singular and beautiful temples encountered there, and the teachers of the stone-shaping art whose results arouse the admiration of the archaeologist and traveller of to-day, in that part of Mexico. The descendants of the Mayas are among the most intelligent of the native tribes inhabiting the Republic, doubtless due to the influence of the polity and work of their ancestors. Time went on. About the middle of the sixth century A.D. another people came "out of the north"—the famous Toltecs, and in their southward migration they founded successive cities, ultimately remaining at Tollan, or Tula, and to them are attributed the remarkable pyramids of Teotihuacan, Cholula, and other structures. Tula is some fifty miles to the north of the modern city of Mexico, and it formed the centre of the powerful empire and civilisation of this cultured people. Eleven monarchs reigned, but the Toltec Empire was overthrown; the people dispersed, and they mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of the twelfth century A.D., after some 450 years of existence. None of these dates, however, can be looked upon as really belonging to the realm of exact history.



Tradition also has it that the Toltecs were dispersed by reason of a great famine due to drought, followed by pestilence, only a few people surviving. Banished from the scene of their civilisation by these disasters, the few remaining inhabitants made their way to Yucatan and Central America; and their names and traditions seem to be stamped there. Beyond this little is known of the Toltecs. Possibly some of them found their way still further south to Ecuador and Peru, and influenced the Inca civilisations of the South American continent. To the Toltecs is ascribed the most refined civilisation of prehistoric America, a culture which was indeed the source of the far inferior one of the Aztecs, which we shall presently observe. The Toltecs wrought cleverly in gold and silver, and in cotton fabrics; whilst the remarkable character of their buildings and structures is shown by the ruins of these to-day, as at Cholula and Teotihuacan. The art of picture-writing is attributed to them; and the famous Calendar stone of Mexico has also been ascribed to these people. From amid the shadowy history of the Toltecs the traditions of the deity which so largely influenced prehistoric Mexican religion arose: the mystic Quetzalcoatl, the "god of the air," "the feathered serpent." This strange personage was impressed upon the people's mind as a white man of a foreign race, with noble features, long beard, and flowing garments; and he taught them a sane religion, in which virtue and austerity were dominant, and the sacrifice of human beings and animals forbidden. This singular personage, runs the fable, disappeared after twenty years' sojourn among them, in the direction of the rising sun, having promised to return. When the Spaniards came out of the East their coming was hailed as the return of Quetzalcoatl, and the reverence and superstition surrounding these supposed "children of the sun" protected the Spaniards and permitted their advance into the country, and indeed, was at length conducive to the downfall of Montezuma and the Aztec Empire.

So pass the cultured, shadowy Toltecs from our vision. They had been preceded in their southward migration by the Otomies, in the seventh century A.D., an exceedingly numerous and primitive people who almost annihilated the Spaniards during the Conquest, and whose descendants to-day occupy a vast region, and still largely speak their own language, rather than Spanish. The Toltecs were succeeded by yet another tribe "from the north," the Chichemecas, who came down and occupied their civilisation of Tula. These people, warlike and inferior in culture to the Toltecs, allied themselves with the neighbouring Nahua tribes, and an empire came into being, with its capital at Texcoco, on the shore of the great lake. The famous Nezahualcoyotl, the poet-king of this empire, who ascended the throne of Texcoco in 1431, was one of the most remarkable figures of prehistoric Anahuac, and his genius and fortunes recall the history of Alfred of England, to the student's mind. He built a splendid palace at Texcotzinco, and ruins of its walls and aqueducts remain to this day. His life is sketched in these pages subsequently, and something of the beauty of his philosophy set forth.

And thus history has brought us again to the Aztecs, the founders of Tenochtitlan by the lake-shore, on the spot indicated by their oracle. They had come "from the north," one of seven tribes or families, all of which spoke the Nahuatl or Mexican tongue. This unknown country, called Astlan, or "the land of the herons," was the home of these seven tribes—the Mexicas, or Aztecs, the Tlascalans, Xochimilcas, Tepanecas, Colhuas, Chalcas and Tlahincas—and has been varyingly assigned a locality in California, and in Sinaloa. Why the Aztecs left their northern home is not known, even in legend, but they were instigated to their wanderings, tradition says, by their fabled war-god, Huitzilopochtli, or Mexitl, from whom came the name "Mexica" or "Azteca," by which these people called themselves. From the beginning of the tenth to the beginning of the thirteenth century A.D. this tribe journeyed and sojourned on its southward way, from valley to valley, from lake to lake, from Chapala to Patzcuaro, and thence to Tula, the old Toltec capital. Once more dispersed, they wandered on, and, guided by their oracle, reached their final resting-place at Tenochtitlan. This name, by which they designated their capital, was derived either from that of Tenoch, their venerated high priest, or from the Aztec words meaning "stone-serpent," in reference to the emblem they had followed.

The first work of the people was to raise a great temple to their god—the bloodthirsty Huitzilopochtli—who had led them on. It was begun at once, and around it grew the habitations of the people, the huts made of reeds and mud called xacali, such as indeed to-day form the habitations of a large part of Mexican people under the name of jacales.[5] This great Teocalli, or "house of god," at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, was a structure pyramidal in form, built of earth and pebbles and faced with cut stone, square at base, its sides—300 to 400 feet long—facing the cardinal points of the heavens. Flights of steps on the outside, winding round the truncated pyramid, gave access to the summit. Here in the sanctuary was the colossal image of the Aztec war-god—the abominable conception of a barbaric people—and the stone of sacrifice upon which the sacrificial captives were laid. Upon its convex surface the unhappy wretches were successively bound, their breasts cut open with obsidian knives, and the still beating hearts, torn forth by the hand of the priest, were flung smoking before the deity!

[Footnote 5: X and j are often interchangeable in Spanish.]

Upon the marshy borders of this lake, set in the beautiful and fertile valley of Anahuac, the city rose to elegance and splendour. The jacales gave place to buildings of brick and stone, founded in many cases upon piles, and between them were streets and canals, giving access to the city from the lake. Centre of all was the great Teocalli.

The position of the city was peculiar. It was founded upon an island, and was subject to inundations from the salt waters of the lake; for the Valley of Mexico had at that time no outlet for its streams. It formed a hydrographic entity; and in this connection it reminds the traveller of the birthplace of that other strange, prehistoric American civilisation, three thousand miles away to the south-east—Lake Titicaca and the cradle of the Incas. To protect the city from these inundations embankments were made, and other works which attest the engineering capabilities of the people. Four great causeways gave access to the marshy island upon which the capital was situated—structures of stones and mortar, the longest being some four or five miles in length. To-day one of these forms part of a modern street, and the waters of the lake have retired more than two miles from the city.



The habitations of the principal people were built of stone, and the interior of polished marbles and rare woods. Painting and sculpture embellished these interiors and exteriors, although these were generally crude and barbaric in their execution and representation. Around the city and upon the shores of the lakes, numerous villages arose, surrounded by luxurious gardens and orchards, and the singular chinampas, or floating gardens, were made, with their wealth of flowers, such as the early Mexicans both loved and demanded for sacrificial ceremonies.

Naturally, all this development took time. Yet the rise of this civilisation must be considered rapid—probably it was largely inherited in principle. The first Aztec government was the theocratic and military regime established in the fourteenth century under Tenoch, a military priest and leader who died in 1343. Less than two hundred years afterwards the city of Tenochtitlan was in the zenith of power and culture at the moment when it fell before the Spaniards. Ten kings followed Tenoch, the first being Itzcoatl, who may be considered the real founder of the empire. He was followed by the first Montezuma, who greatly extended its sway, dying in 1469. Then came Axayacatl, who is considered to be the constructor of the famous Mexican Calendar stone. Tizoc, his successor, hoped to win the favour of the war-god by the reconstruction of the great Teocalli, whose service was inaugurated by the infamous Ahuizotl in 1487 and at whose dedication an appalling number of human sacrifices were made. Then at the beginning of 1500 the throne was ascended by Montezuma the Second, who further extended the beauty and power of the Aztec capital, but who, vacillating and weighed down by the fear of destiny, lived but to witness the beginning of the fall of Mexico before the Spaniards in 1519. The brave Guatemoc, the last of his line, strove vainly to uphold the dynasty against the invaders.

There is no doubt that the Aztecs created a remarkable centre of semi-barbaric civilisation, and the descriptions given by the Spanish historians—whether those who accompanied Cortes, as Bernal Diaz, or those who drew their colouring from these accounts—are such as to arouse the interest and enthusiasm even of the reader of to-day. In this connection, of course, it is to be recollected that Cortes and his followers were not all men of education or trained knowledge of the great cities of the civilised world, and there is no doubt that they lacked somewhat the faculty of comparison, and over-estimated what they beheld. Let us translate from Clavijero, a Spanish historian and Jesuit who wrote later, and who describes the scene which the Spaniards beheld from the summit of the great Teocalli as "many beautiful buildings, gleaming, whitened, and burnished; the tall minarets of the temples scattered over the various quarters of the city; the canals; verdant plantations and gardens—all forming a beautiful whole which the Spaniards never ceased to admire, especially observing it from the summits of the great temples which dominated not only the city immediately below, but its environs and the large towns beyond. No less marvellous were the royal palaces and the infinite variety of plants and animals kept there; but nothing caused them greater admiration than the great market plaza." "Not a Spaniard of them," according to Bernal Diaz, the soldier-historian of the Conquest, who was there and saw it all, although he wrote about it long afterwards, "but held it in high praise, and some of them who had journeyed among European cities swore they had never seen so vast a concourse of merchants and merchandise."

Returning to our history, it is not to be supposed that this powerful Aztec nation, with their fine capital of Tenochtitlan, were the only people inhabiting the land of Anahuac at that time. Several other peoples held sway there. On the eastern side of Lake Texcoco, a few leagues away, lived the Texcocans, already mentioned; one of the tribes who also had come "from the north" in early days and who had settled there. They also had developed or inherited a civilisation akin to that of the Toltecs, far more refined and important than that of their neighbours and kindred, the Aztecs. It was about the end of the twelfth century when the Texcocans established themselves, building a splendid capital and developing an extensive empire. But misfortune fell upon them as the centuries went on. Soon after the beginning of the fifteenth century they were attacked and overwhelmed by the Tepanecas, another of the seven kindred tribes: their city reduced and their monarch assassinated. But there arose a picturesque figure, the saviour of his country—Prince Nezahualcoyotl, son of the dead king. The prince passed years in disguise, as a fugitive, but at length was permitted to return to the capital, where he led a life of study. But his talents aroused the jealousy of the Tepanec usurper, who saw a danger of the people acclaiming him as their rightful lord and throwing off the yoke of the strangers. Nezahualcoyotl again became a fugitive, having escaped with his life by a stratagem, disappearing through a cloud of incense into a secret passage. But as the years went on the Texcocans, goaded to revolt by grievous taxation, arose: and seizing the moment, the outlawed prince put himself at the head of his people and regained his rightful position, largely with the assistance of the neighbouring Mexicans of Tenochtitlan.

Then followed what has been termed the golden age of Texcoco. Its art, poets, and historians became renowned throughout Anahuac, and its collected literature was the centre of historical lore. Indeed, this it was that was so perversely destroyed by the first Archbishop of Mexico, Zumarraga, after the Conquest—an irremediable loss. The prince or emperor was a philosopher and a poet, and he has left some remarkable examples of his philosophical prayers to the "Unknown God," in whom he believed, abhorring the human sacrifices of his neighbours the Aztecs. He has been termed the "Solomon of Anahuac," although the severe code of laws he instituted have earned him a harsher name in addition.

Under this regime agriculture prospered exceedingly, and a large population cultivated all the available ground, just as under the Incas of Peru the Andine slopes were terraced and cultivated. Splendid buildings were erected, and a style of luxurious living inaugurated somewhat after the fashion of Oriental history, and the descriptions of the magnificence of the royal appurtenances fill pages of the historians' accounts. Most of this history was written by the famous Ixtlilxochitl, son of this great emperor, who occupied the throne at the time of the Conquest and became an ally of the Spaniards against the Aztec. It is upon the writings of this prince-historian that much of the material of the later writers of the history of Mexico and the Conquest is founded.

In the construction of his palaces and buildings Nezahualcoyotl employed vast bodies of natives, after the manner of an Egyptian potentate of old. Baths, hanging-gardens, groves of cedar, harems, villas, temples formed the beautiful and luxurious Texcotzinco, the prince's residence, as described by its historian. To-day the mounds and debris of sculptured stone which formed the place scarcely arrest the traveller's attention. In the midst of his luxury the emperor fell a prey to a passion for the betrothed of one of his subjects, a beautiful maiden. The unhappy individual who had thus become his monarch's rival—he was a veteran chief in the army—was needlessly sent on a military expedition, where he fell, and the hand of his promised bride was free for the monarch's taking. So was enacted upon these high regions of Anahuac a tragic episode, as of David and Uriah, to the blemish of an otherwise noble name and of a mind above the superstitions of his time.

"Truly, the gods which I adore; idols of stone and wood: speak not, nor feel, neither could they fashion the beauty of the heavens—the sun, the moon, and the stars ... nor yet the earth and the streams, the trees and the plants which beautify it. Some powerful, hidden, and unknown God must be the Creator of the universe, and he alone can console me in my affliction or still the bitter anguish of this heart."[6] So spake Nezahualcoyotl.

[Footnote 6: I have translated this from the Spanish of Ixtlilxochitl as quoted by Prescott.—C. R. E.]

Urged probably by the feelings of the philosopher (whose ponderings on the infinite may occasion him more anguish perhaps than the ordinary vicissitudes of life), the monarch raised up a temple to the "Unknown God," in which neither images nor sacrifices were permitted.

After somewhat more than half a century of his reign, and at a time calculated as the beginning of the last quarter of the fifteenth century, this remarkable philosopher-king died, and was succeeded by his son Nezahualpilli, who in a measure followed in his father's footsteps. But he also passed away, his life having been overshadowed to some extent by the singular belief or prediction of the fall of his people in the coming of the white man from the East—a belief which influenced both the Texcocans and the Aztecs. His son Ixtlilxochitl, the historian above named, was in power at the time of the conquest by the Spaniards, but he hated the Aztecs with a bitter hatred in consequence of their influence upon his people, and the installing by the machinations of Montezuma of an elder brother upon the throne, which had plunged the kingdom into civil war. This was in the second decade of the sixteenth century.

The Texcocans, in conjunction with yet another and smaller people living on the west side of the lake at Tlacopan, formed with the Aztecs a confederation or triple alliance of three republics, by which they agreed to stand together against all comers, and to divide all territory and results of conquest in agreed proportion. They carried on war and annexation around them for a considerable period, extending their sway far beyond the Valley of Mexico, or Anahuac, which formed their home, passing the Sierra Madre mountains to the east, until about the middle of the fifteenth century—under Montezuma—the land and tribes acknowledging their sway reached to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. To the south their arms and influence penetrated into what are now Guatemala and Nicaragua, whilst to the west they exercised sovereignty to the shores of the Pacific.



These conquered territories were not necessarily of easy subjugation. On the contrary, they were plentifully inhabited by races of warrior-peoples, many of them with strong and semi-civilised social and military organisations. The analogy between this confederation of the Aztecs and the extending area of their dominion and civilisation, and the Incas of the Titicaca plateau of Peru, surrounded on all sides by savage warlike tribes, presents itself to the observer in this as in other respects. Like the Incas, the Aztec emperors[7] returned from campaign after campaign loaded with trophies and embarrassed with strings of captives from the vanquished peoples who had dared oppose this powerful confederation. The rich tropical regions of both the eastern and western slopes of the tableland of Anahuac thus paid tribute to the Aztecs, as well as the boundless resources of the south.

[Footnote 7: Both these nations have been likened to the Romans in this respect.]

But not all the nations of Anahuac fell under the dominion of the Aztecs. Far from it. The spirits of the people of Tlascala would rise from their graves and protest against such an assertion! Tlascala was a brave and warlike little republic of mountaineers—a kind of Switzerland—who inhabited the western slopes of the Eastern Sierra Madre and the eastern part of the plateau of Anahuac, under the shadow of the mighty Malinche, whose snow-crowned head arises on the eastern confines of the tableland. Tlascala, indeed, was a thorn in the side of Montezuma and the Aztecs. The latter had demanded that the little republic pay homage and tribute, and acknowledge the hegemony of the dominant nation, to which the Tlascalans made reply, "Neither our ancestors nor ourselves ever have or will pay tribute to any one. Invade us if you can. We beat you once and may do it again!" or words to that effect, as recorded by the historians. For in the past history of the Tlascalans—who were of the same original migratory family as the Aztecs—a great conflict had been recorded, in which they had vanquished their arrogant kindred.

Deadly strife and hatred followed this, but Tlascala withstood all attacks from without, and, moreover, was strengthened by an alliance with the Otomies, a warlike race inhabiting part of the great mesa or central tableland north of Anahuac. These were the people who so grievously harassed the Spaniards after the Noche Triste and against whom the heroic battle of Otumba was fought. Except to the east, whence approach was easy from the coast, the territory of Tlascala was surrounded by mountains, and this natural defence was continued by the building of an extraordinary wall or fortification at the pregnable point. Through this the Spaniards passed on their journey of invasion, and, indeed, its ruins remained until the seventeenth century. The name of the Tlascalans well deserves to be written on the pages of the history of primitive Mexico, for it was largely due to their alliance with the Spaniards that the conquest of Mexico by Cortes and his band was rendered possible.

In addition to these various and petty powers and independent republics upon the tableland of Anahuac and its slopes, must be mentioned that of Cholula, a state to the south of Tenochtitlan, in what now is the State of Puebla. This region, which contains the remarkable mound or pyramid bearing its name—Cholula—the construction of which is ascribed to the Toltecs, was, with its people, dominated by and under tribute to the Aztecs. So was the nation of the Cempoallas, upon the Vera Cruz coast, who rendered assistance to the landing Conquistadores; and, indeed, almost all the natives of that vast region acknowledged the sway and lived in awe of the empire of Montezuma.

It is seen that Mexico, in prehispanic times, was fairly well populated—comparatively speaking, of course. Indeed, at the present time there are ten times as many Indians in that part of North America which forms modern Mexico, as ever existed in the whole of the much vaster area which forms the United States. The inhabitants of Mexico were divided into two main classes—those living under a civilised or semi-civilised organisation, such as the Aztecs and others already enumerated, and those which may be looked upon as savages. These latter were exceedingly numerous, and at the present day something like 220 different tribal names have been enumerated. This serves to show the wide range of peoples who inhabited the land before the Conquest, principally as clans, or gentiles, as in South America also.

Having seen, thus, what were the anthropo-geographical conditions of primitive Mexico, we may cast a brief glance at the arts and institutions of these semi-civilised peoples. Their buildings—most indelible records of these civilisations—cover a considerable range of territory, as has been observed: yet the antiquities of less important nature cover one very much greater. The true stone edifices, the real mural remains, are, however confined to certain limits—between the 16th and 22nd parallel of north latitude—that is to say, the southern half of Mexico. Roughly, these buildings may be divided into three classes—adobe, or sun-dried earthen brick, unshaped stone and mortar, and cut and carved stone. In some cases a combination of these was used in the same structure. The best elements of construction do not seem to have been used. Domes and arches were not known to these builders, although they had a system of corbelling-out over openings, which, in the case of the Maya "arch," approximates thereto. They also used lintels of stone and wood, and these last were the weak points, and their decaying has sometimes brought down part of the facade. The work of the sculptor is crude, like that of the Incas of Peru, of which it reminds the traveller in some cases, but shows signs of evolving power and a sense of the beautiful, as has been averred by the most learned antiquarians who have studied it. It is held that there were several schools of architecture represented.

The various kinds of structures and relics found throughout the country include pyramids, temples, tombs, causeways, statues, fortifications, terraced hills, rock-sculpture, idols, painted caves, calendar stones, sacrificial stones, habitations, canals, pottery, mummies, cenotes, or wells, &c. The northernmost point where any monument in stone is encountered is at Quemada, in the State of Zacatecas, which seems to mark the limit of the stronger civilisation of Southern Mexico, in contrast to the less virile civilisation which seems to be indicated by the clay and adobe structures of the northern part of Mexico and of the adjoining territory embodied at the present day in Arizona, California, and New Mexico, beyond the Rio Grande.



But once more we ask, "Where did these people come from originally?" It has been said that the origin of the people of a continent belongs not to the realm of history but of philosophy. Well may it be so, but we are not content. What was the origin of the first peoples of the Americas, and where did the principle of their barbaric civilisation come from? There were the fables of the lost continent of Atlantis—of which, geologically, part of North America is a portion—to be considered: and perchance, so thought the earlier thinkers, these peoples, remnants of its population. But the generally accepted theory assigns Eastern Asia as the source, and analogies are adduced in architecture, customs, religions, physiognomy, and a multitude of conditions. As to language, careful study has shown, on the other hand, that none of the numerous indigenous tongues of the present-day Mexican aborigines bear any resemblance whatever to Asiatic tongues, except that some likeness between Otomie and Chinese is traced: whilst some points of similarity are adduced with the speech of the Esquimaux. Last century an Englishman—Lord Kingsborough—spent a fortune in endeavouring to prove the theory, which had been advanced a hundred years earlier, that these emigrating tribes of the Mexican plateau were those lost ten of Israel! And he published a magnificent work, reproducing the best examples of their picture-writing, to this end. Indeed, in earlier times, analogies have run riot in attempts to prove a common origin for fables and for real incidents, with those of Biblical narrative. Among the prehistoric civilisations of the Americas—Mexico and Peru—some of these analogies are remarkable, and might well give rise to such speculation; among them being the stories of the Deluge, and of a virgin birth for a leader or redeemer of men.

Further similarities are adduced in matters relating to the system of chronology—that used by the Aztecs having analogy to that of the Mongol family, and to some extent of the Persians and Egyptians. Indeed, in the architecture of these prehistoric American ruins resemblance is traced to Egypt, as well as similarity in other matters; and this more strongly perhaps in Peru than in Mexico. In general terms it may be said that many points of prehistoric Mexican civilisation suggest analogy with Egypt and with Hindustan, and it has been said that, from his head-dress to his sandalled feet, the native Mexican is Hispano-Egyptian. But be it as it may, their civilisation seems to have come from the West, not from the East. These aboriginal people and their attributes have nothing in common with Europeans or negroes, whilst they are not unlike Asiatics. I have often been surprised by the strong "Japanese" or Mongol character in the Mexican face. How and when such prehistoric immigrants came, whether by the approaching shores of Behring Straits, whether in that geological time when land connection between North America and Asia was intact, is buried in oblivion. Beyond these theories there still remains that of an autochthonous origin; and who shall yet affirm that both the people and their civilisation may not have sprung and evolved upon the soil of the world which we call new? Time and advancing knowledge may yet reveal these secrets.



CHAPTER III THE STRANGE CITIES OF EARLY MEXICO

Principal prehistoric monuments—Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan— Pyramids of Teotihuacan—Toltec sun-god—Pyramid of Cholula—Pyramids of Monte Alban—Ruins of Mitla—Remarkable monoliths and sculpture— Beautiful prehistoric stone-masonry—Ruins of Palenque—Temple of the Sun, and others—Stone vault construction—Tropical vegetation—Ruins of Yucatan—Maya temples—Architectural skill—Temples of Chichen-Ytza—Barbaric sculpture—Effect of geology on building—The Aztec civilisation—Land and social laws—Slavery—Taxes, products, roads, couriers—Analogy with Peru—Aztec homes and industries—War, human sacrifice, cannibalism—History, hieroglyphics, picture-writing— Irrigation, agriculture, products—Mining, sculpture, pottery—Currency and commerce—Social system—Advent of the white man.

The most remarkable of the remaining monuments in stone of the peoples who successively or contemporaneously inhabited Mexico, are those well-defined and fairly well-known groups of ruins scattered at wide distances apart in the southern and south-eastern part of Mexican territory. The principal of these are: Teotihuacan, at Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico; Cholula, in the State of Puebla; Monte Alban and Mitla, in the State of Oaxaca; Palenque, in the State of Chiapas; Uxmal and Chichen-Ytza, in the peninsula of Yucatan.

Of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, but little of antiquity remains, as, according to the historian of the Conquest, the place was almost entirely razed to the ground by Cortes. It is probable, however, that enduring stone edifices formed a much less considerable part of this city than has been supposed. Nevertheless, modern excavations continually lay bare portions of Aztec masonry, as well as sculptured monoliths. A short time ago a sculptured tiger, weighing eight tons, was unearthed and deposited in the museum in the capital. The principal building of the Aztec city was the great Teocalli, upon whose site the existing cathedral was built. This huge truncated pyramid has been described already. It was surrounded by a great wall, upon the cornice of which huge carved stone serpents and tigers were the emblematic ornaments. From this wall four gates opened on to the four main streets, which radiated away towards the cardinal points of the compass. Its dimensions are given as 365 feet long by 300 feet wide at the base, whilst the summit-platform was raised more than 150 feet above the level of the streets and square. Here was set the great image of the Aztec war-god, the idol of the abominable Huitzilopochtli which Cortes and his men, after their frightful hand-to-hand struggle with the Aztecs on this giddy platform, tumbled down the face of the pyramid into the streets below, among the astonished Indians. The grandeur, architecturally, of the ancient City of Mexico has probably been somewhat exaggerated by the Conquistadores and subsequent chroniclers, whose enthusiasm sometimes ran riot.

The ruins of Teotihuacan are situated in the north-eastern part of the valley of Mexico, some miles from the shores of Lake Texcoco and twenty-five miles from the modern City of Mexico. They are generally ascribed to the Toltecs, or, at any rate, to a civilised nation greatly previous to the Aztecs; for the ruins were abandoned and their origin unknown when these people arrived. Cortes and his Spaniards, defeated and fleeing after the terrible struggle of the Noche Triste, passed near to the great earth pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, which are the main structures of Teotihuacan; but even at that time they were—as they are to-day—mere mounds of earth, in which the pyramidal form has been partly obliterated by the action of time.



The very extensive mounds and remains which constitute Teotihuacan are of numerous pyramids, and some ruined walls which have been excavated of recent years. All of these are formed of adobe and irregular pieces of the lava of which the adjoining hills are composed. Rude carved monoliths of deities have, however, been recovered from the debris. The main features of the ruins are, first, the "Pyramid of the Sun," a huge mound which forms the most colossal structure of prehistoric man in America. It measures, approximately, at its base—for its outlines are so indefined that no exact form can be adduced—some 700 feet on each side, rising upwards in the form of a truncated pyramid rather less than 200 feet above the level of the plain. Next, the "Pyramid of the Moon," a similar but smaller structure—about 500 feet at base—distant from the first some thousands of yards along a strange road or path across the plain, known as Micoatl, or the "Path of the Dead," some two miles in length. From the summit of the "Pyramid of the Moon" the beholder looks down into the great courtyard of an adjoining group of ruins; thence his eye travels along this pathway to where the huge "Pyramid of the Sun" arises, far off, on its left-hand side. Between these and indeed beyond them, and bordering on the "Path of the Dead"—probably so called in relation to human sacrifice—are numerous other mounds, which were formerly pyramids of similar character, but of much less magnitude. Probably, in ages past, they were all crowned by temples, and ascended by staircases and terraces—evidences of which, indeed, still remain—whilst the slopes were probably covered with stone and stucco. It is stated that upon the high summit of the great pyramid—that dedicated to Tonatiuh, the sun—a huge stone statue of this deity was placed, and that a plate of polished gold upon its front reflected back the first rays of the rising sun. The name Teotihuacan signifies the "house of the gods." Doubtless it was, in unknown centuries past, the centre of a thriving civilisation and busy and extensive agricultural population. To-day the great pyramid casts its shadow toward a small village of jacales, upon a semi-arid plain.

The pyramid of Cholula is of truncated form, like most of these numerous structures. Its height is 200 feet and its base measures 1,440 feet, which is greater than that of the pyramid of Cheops, and it forms the oldest and largest teocalli in Mexico. The presiding deity of this "house of God" was the mysterious Quetzalcoatl. In company with Teotihuacan at Texcoco, and Papantla, in the State of Vera Cruz, Cholula is ascribed to the Toltecs. The elevation above sea-level of the site of this structure is 7,500 feet, and at the time of Cortes the surrounding town is said to have contained a population of 150,000 inhabitants. Its summit is more than an acre in extension, and although partly obliterated and overgrown, the pyramid is crowned to-day with a Roman Catholic church of Spanish-American type. As has been described, these Teocallis were for purposes of religious rite and sacrifice, and upon their upper platforms were the sanctuaries, idols, and never-extinguished sacred fire, all reached by exterior staircases up the slope of the structure.

The State of Oaxaca—and part of the adjoining State of Guerrero—is remarkable for the numerous ruins of prehistoric inhabitants scattered upon its ridges and mountain crests. Terraces, pyramids, and walls crown the summits and extend down the slopes, actually clashing in some cases with the natural profiles of the hills, and causing the natural and artificial to mingle in a strange, and at first glance, scarcely distinguishable blend. These numerous ruins, and the small cultivated terraced patches on the almost inaccessible hill slopes, bring to mind the similar constructions of the old ruins and the singular "andenes" of the Andes of Peru.[8] They point to a busy and numerous population in former times, and in some cases the topography of whole mountain slopes has been remodelled by the hand of prehistoric man. No place was too inaccessible, and terrace and temple crown the Andine summits in Peru at more than 16,000 feet elevation above sea-level, and in Mexico in similar or greater profusion, but at less altitude.

[Footnote 8: See my book, "The Andes and the Amazon."]

Among the remarkable ruins of this nature, in Oaxaca, are those of Monte Alban, near the capital city of Oaxaca. Here are entire crests of mountains, cut away into terraces, quadrangles, and courts, and their great extent and strange environment create a sense of awe and amazement in the beholder. The utter abandonment and sense of solitude; the high ridges, thousands of feet above the valley, which, dim and distant through the atmospheric haze, glimmers below; the vast expanse of sky and landscape, without a sound or touch of life, invests the remains of those seemingly unreal or fairy cities of prehistoric man with a sense of mystery and unfathomed time. Pyramid after pyramid, terrace after terrace, the latter from 500 to 1,000 feet in length, extend along the ridge of the Alban hill—the numerous truncated pyramids rising, like the playthings of some prehistoric giant, from the levelled places. The beholder may imagine the chain of Teocallis which crowned them, lighted up at night by the glare of the never-extinguished sacred fires, as the thronging multitude of the great population of those barbaric peoples of pre-Columbian Mexico pressed along the streets below. He may fill in, in his mind's eye, the picture, fanciful and unreal, as if borrowed from the pages of some Eastern romance, were it not that the actual vestiges of that time are before him. Vast labour—probably directed by autocratic mandate without heed of native life, and working throughout generations—must have been employed to collect and raise up in place the stone, and earth, and adobe material of these pyramids, and to make the great levellings and excavations upon these inaccessible summits. They were cities, as well as mere places of religious ceremony, and a large number of people must have dwelt in these "mansions in the skies."



In the same State of Oaxaca are the famous ruins of Mitla, pride of the archaeology of Mexico, situated some thirty miles from the state capital of Oaxaca. These famous ruins of Mitla are of a different character to the pyramidal structures of Monte Alban, although they have a low pyramidal base and were built mainly for religious purposes, it is probable, like most of these prehistoric monuments. They are situated in an inhabited valley, and the ruins consist of five main groups, some of which are exceedingly well preserved. Indeed, whilst the ruins of Mitla are by no means so extensive as others described, they are in the best state of preservation of any in the country. And this is due both to their method of construction and to their environment; for, unlike the low, tropical regions of Chiapas and Yucatan, this district is at a considerable altitude above sea-level. The great "palaces" or halls which these groups form, occupy an area of about 1,800 feet from north to south, by 1,200 feet from east to west. The principal groups are known as the "Hall of the Monoliths or Columns," the "Catholic group," and the "Arroyo group." Like some of the pyramids throughout Mexico, these are oriented, in this case the variation being but a few degrees from the cardinal points of the compass. The remarkable Hall of the Monoliths is a building some 125 feet long by 25 feet wide, with a row of great stone columns running down the centre. These columns are cut from a single piece of trachyte, 15 feet in height, and 3 feet in diameter at the base, tapering somewhat upwards, but of almost cylindrical form, without pedestal or capital. Whilst these columns are intact, the roof, which was doubtless supported on beams resting on the column, is gone. The weight of these monoliths is calculated at five or six tons, and they were cut from quarries in the trachyte rock of the mountains some five miles away, and more than 1,000 feet above the site of Mitla. In this quarry half-cut blocks for columns and lintels are still in place. Food for thought, even for the modern engineer, is this work.



But the monolithic columns here are by no means the only remarkable features of the masonry of Mitla. The interior and exterior of these great halls are carved with a beautifully executed geometrical design—the Greek pattern enclosed in a quadrilateral, the blocks upon which they are cut being exactly fitted and adjusted in their places with scarcely visible joints. Indeed, at Mitla, as in other places in the Americas—Huanuco[9] and Cuzco, in Peru, for example—it seems to have been deemed an essential and peculiar art to adjust great blocks of stone with so great a nicety that no mortar was necessary and the joints almost invisible. This, of course, necessitated infinite time and patience—both of which were at the disposal of these prehistoric builders. It is to be recollected, in this connection, that each stone was generally an individual and not a counterpart, and so often had to be fitted to its fellows in the wall, by the laborious method of continually placing and removing. The remarkable and intricate nature of the mosaics and carved blocks at Mitla call forth the admiration of the observer. A vast number of separate stones have been employed, each requiring its respective forming, shaping, and placing, and one of the halls alone shows more than 13,000 such stones in its walls. The stone doorways to these halls are chaste, massive, and effective. The stone lintels in some cases are more than 12 feet long, and nearly 4 feet thick. Indeed, there exist at Mitla nearly a hundred examples of great monoliths, whether columns, lintels, or roof stones, some weighing as much as 15 tons, and up to 20 feet in length.

[Footnote 9: See the "Andes and the Amazon."]

The earliest account of the ruins of Mitla, by Francisco de Burgoa, a priest of Oaxaca, who visited them in 1674, states that these beautiful halls were the scene, in prehistoric times, of the most diabolical rites. To-day the ruins are surrounded by a rude native population, most of whom dwell in wretched jacales, in a waterless and sun-beat valley—an environment in striking contrast to the antique splendour of these halls of the earlier occupiers of the land.

The ruins of Palenque, in the State of Chiapas, are situated at the base of the picturesque foothills of Tumbala, which border upon Guatemala, in a true tropical environment of luxuriant forest and brimming streams. From this setting the ruined temples and pyramids stand forth like a vision of a charmed or fabled story. Dense tropical undergrowth covers them, and grows again as soon as explorers, who have removed portions of Nature's persistent covering, leave the place. The main structures take the form of great truncated pyramids built up of earth, stones, and masonry, with temples and palaces of masonry upon their summits. Twelve of these pyramids have been discovered so far, and eight are crowned by buildings, the principal of which are known respectively as, the "Temple of the Sun," the "Temple of the Cross," "Temple of the Inscriptions," and the extensive group of ruins termed "The Palace." These temples and palaces consist of massive masonry walls, partly of roughly-shaped blocks, and partly of cut-and-carved stone, and stucco sculpture, with numerous doorways or openings on to the platform of the pyramid-summit. The interior of the buildings is a singular vault-like construction, covered with roofs of masonry carried by the vaulting. These vaults, however, do not embody the principle of the arch, but rather of the off-set, or lean-to, and are very high in proportion to their width. From the palace group arises a square tower of four storeys, about 40 feet in height, forming the centre of the group of extensive courts, buildings, and facades which surround it, all built upon the summit of a pyramid some 200 feet square. As in the Yucatan structures, the lintels over the doorway-openings in the walls were of wood, and their decay has largely been the cause of the facades having fallen into ruins, in many places. There are various interior staircases to these buildings, and the huge and unique reliefs of human figures are a remarkable feature of the interior. The beautiful figure known as the Beau Relief is compared to the relief sculptures of Babylon and Egypt. The material of construction was limestone, generally in unshaped blocks, not laid in regular courses, but with large quantities of mortar and stucco. The walls were lavishly painted and coloured. Indeed, the nature of the building has doubtless obeyed the character of the stone, which does not lend itself to careful cutting and carving like the easily-worked trachyte of Mitla. A very noteworthy structure of this prehistoric city, is the subterranean passage-way for the stream, which passes down the valley upon whose slopes the ruins of Palenque are situated. This, of stone-vaulted construction, after the manner before described, is somewhat less than 1,000 feet long, and the stream still flows through a portion of it. On every hand the extraordinary vigour of the tropical forest is evident, and the dense growth of trees, vines, and herbs which cover valley, pyramid, walls, and roofs, attest the power of the vegetable world.

The prehistoric structures of Yucatan—among the principal of which are those of Uxmal and Chichen-Ytza—are exceedingly numerous. Indeed, the traveller in this territory of the Mayas is rarely out of sight of crumbling pyramid or temple, as he traverses the dense forests of these curious flat and streamless limestone regions. Whilst most of these edifices were for purposes of religious ceremonial, the object of many of them can scarcely be conjectured. Their builders appear to have been people of a peaceful nature, and their dwellings do not generally bear evidence of defensive design. The architectural skill of the Mayas must have been of a very high order. Among the buildings which exist some are nearly perfect units of design, and seem almost to argue the use of "working drawings," as the plan and detail must have been perfected as a whole before the building was begun. This architectural skill of conception, however, has been common in many countries. Some of the buildings were in use when Cortes landed and fought on the shores of Yucatan, nearly four hundred years ago; nevertheless, they are in a remarkable state of preservation, notwithstanding the ravages both of Nature and of man, tending towards their destruction; for on the one hand, the roots of trees and profuse vegetation of a tropical region are efficient levers in the throwing down of the masonry, and on the other, the vandal ignorance of the surrounding inhabitants of the modern towns of the region permits them to make use of the stones in their own walls.

The ruins of Chichen-Ytza, the prehistoric city in the northern part of Yucatan, are among the most important and best preserved of any of the stone structures of the Americas. The ruins are grouped around two great natural wells, the cenotes, famous in this remarkable peninsula. Indeed, the derivation of the name of the old city is from Maya words meaning the "Mouth of the Well," and it serves to show the value in which these singular water-supplies were held in this riverless region of Yucatan. Among the most interesting of the structures of Chichen and Uxmal is that of the buildings known as El Foloc, or "the Church." Another is that known as the "House of the Nuns," and yet another the "Temple of the Tigers," which latter shows a sculptured procession of tigers or lynxes. Again, "the Castle" is remarkable, set upon a pyramid rising more than 100 feet above the plain. The "Governor's Palace," the "House of the Pigeons," and "House of the Turtles," are others of these remarkable structures.

The profuse and extraordinary, yet barbaric-appearing sculpture of the facades and interiors of these buildings arrests the observer's attention, and, indeed, fills him with amazement, as does their construction in general. What instruments of precision did a rude people possess who could raise such walls, angles, monoliths, true and plumb as the work of the mason of to-day?

It would be beyond the scope of this work to enter more fully into the details of these ruins. They have been minutely examined and described by famous archaeologists, who have devoted much time thereto, and the student may be referred to their works. The foregoing is but a sketch, barely touching upon the extensive and beautiful handwork in stone of the ancient dwellers of this land. Indeed, the traveller may behold them for himself, without great risk or difficulty. He will observe them with admiration. Pyramids rising from the plains or forest-seas which surround them; strange halls where unknown people dwelt; great cities where busy races lived. The character of the various groups of ruins throughout the land shows the effect that the geology of the respective regions has had upon the stone-masonry of these prehistoric builders. As has been shown, the beautiful trachyte of Mitla, which, whilst it is tough and enduring, is soft, and lends itself readily to the chisel. The result has been handed down in the beautiful and exact sculpture of the blocks and grecques of the facades of these palaces: work which could not have been performed in a more refractory stone. Not a great distance away are the Monte Alban ruins, as described, which, although extensive and remarkable, show nothing of exact and intricate work in stone-shaping. The hard or silicious rocks which form the immediate region, and the quartzite and crystalline limestone, did not lend themselves, either in the quarry or under the chisel, to such work. In Chiapas, the unshaped and uncoursed masonry of Palenque is formed of a hard, brittle limestone, scarcely capable of being worked to faces. No invisible joints, such as are the beauty of some of the ancient stone structures of the Americas—North and South—were possible, and mortar and stucco were freely employed. Very different, however, was the limestone used in Yucatan. It was easily quarried from its bed, and was of such a texture as lent itself to the profuse and beautiful sculpture of those Maya cities of long ago. Again, the great pyramidal structures of Teotihuacan and surrounding ruins of the Toltec civilisation, had little for their composition but lavas of basaltic nature, which did not possess a character adaptable for exact stone-shaping. Thus it is seen how largely the existence, or non-existence, of freestone influenced the character of these prehistoric structures.



Of exceeding interest are these old buildings of the early Mexicans, whether upon the open plains of the uplands, or buried in the glades of the tropical forests. There they arise, great palace walls where sculptured tigers and serpents, and strange designs, run in barbaric riot around their ruined facades, above grim vaults, subterranean passages, and chambers of inexplicable purpose. There they stand, chapters in stone of the history of a people whose destiny it seems to have been to have formed no link in the purpose and evolution of man; a people who seem to have been upon the threshold of a true civilisation.

The form of government of the principal peoples of Anahuac, the Aztecs and Texcocans, was an uncommon one—that of an elected monarchy. The king or emperor was chosen, however, from among members of the royal family, whether brothers or nephews of the preceding sovereign, by the four appointed electors. He was installed with barbaric splendour, a main feature of the event being the great sacrifice of human beings in the Teocalli—that diabolical custom which ever robs the Aztec regime of the dignity of any appellation beyond that of semi-civilisation. Otherwise the Aztec regime may be considered as a military democracy. The land was held, to some extent, by great chiefs under a species of feudal system which carried with it certain obligations as to military service, but it was also assigned to the use of the people. The monarchy became of a despotic character, and legislative power lay with the sovereign, although a system of judicial tribunals administered justice throughout the cities of the Empire, and the Aztec civilisation had at least advanced far enough to acknowledge and uphold, by legal machinery, the rights and security of individuals and of property. Like the customs of the Incas of Peru, heavy penalties—generally of death—were meted out for bribery or corruption of the officers of justice.

Indeed, the great crimes were in most cases capital offences, as murder, adultery, thieving, as well as the misappropriation of funds, and the removal of land boundaries with intent to defraud. Marriage was a solemn and binding ceremonial, and divorce could be obtained only after a careful judicial inquiry and sanction. Slavery existed in several forms—captives of battles, reserved for the sacrifice; criminals, paupers, and debtors became slaves voluntarily; and children of poor parents who were sold into a species of mild servitude or dependency. No child, however, could be born into the condition of slavery—a somewhat unique proviso among systems of servitude.

The land system was, in some respects, similar to that which obtained amongst the Incas: a just and philosophical distribution of the soil amongst the people who dwelt upon it. Indeed, in the matter of land tenure, both the Incas and the Aztecs—these semi-civilised peoples of prehistoric America—employed a system which the most advanced nations of to-day—Great Britain or the United States—have not yet evolved, although in the case of Britain it seems that such is slowly appearing. The system was that of parcelling out the land among the families of the villages or country-side, and did not permit its absorption by large, individual landholders. The peasant thus had his means of support assured, and it was forbidden to dispose of the land thus allotted, which reverted to the State in the case of extinction of the family. This land system was governed by a careful code of laws, in these American communities. In Peru the individual ownership of land was a very marked feature of the social regime.[10] Lands were nevertheless set apart for the sovereign.

[Footnote 10: See my books "Peru," and the "Andes and the Amazon." These land systems are worthy of study by economists upon the land question to-day.]

Taxes were paid upon agriculture and manufacture, in goods. These included most of the very varied products of the empire—varying as they did with the wide range of climate and topography, just as the products of the Mexico of to-day vary. Gold and copper utensils, pottery, arms, paper, cochineal, timber, cocoa, grains, fruits, gums, animals, and birds, and the beautiful feather-work in which the people excelled, were among these. Spacious warehouses in the capitals existed (as in Peru) for the storing of these, and any embezzlement or maladministration was rigorously punished.

Another institution of the Aztecs which calls to the traveller's mind a similar one among the coeval Incas of Peru, three thousand miles away in South America, was that of their means of communication. Such were maintained by relays of runners or postmen, who journeyed at great speed over roads which connected the distant parts of the empire; and it is stated that two hundred miles were covered in a day by these trained messengers, each of which performed the two leagues—the distance between the post-houses—within an hour. Just as the Inca Emperor of Peru, at Cuzco, beyond the great Cordillera of the Andes, was served with fish brought in fresh from the Pacific Ocean, so Montezuma, the Aztec monarch, also ate it, straight from the Gulf of Mexico, at his capital of Tenochtitlan beyond the maritime Cordillera of Anahuac. Striking and of marked interest to the traveller of to-day, in those vast and rugged regions of Mexico and Peru, is this matter of the native couriers, who journeyed over mountain roads, swollen rivers, desert plains, and ice-crowned summits.

The wealthier people lived in houses of stone, finished and furnished with certain barbaric luxuriance, in which tapestries woven and richly coloured, and secured with fastenings of gold, had their place. A remarkable industry and article of clothing of the early Mexicans was the beautiful feather-work, made of the plumage of the many-coloured birds, for which Mexico is famous. Surtouts of this feather-work were worn outside their military dresses, or armour, of padded cotton.

War was the great mainspring of action of the Aztecs. It is true that they had a long peaceful period after their establishing upon the lake-girt island of the Eagle and the Serpent, and that they developed their civilisation in some security within this natural fortification, but nevertheless, as previously shown, they extended their conquests on all sides. Fear, not regard, kept the subject-nations of Anahuac under their sway, however, and this was one of the elements leading to the downfall of the empire, in the course of time. Military orders were much esteemed and bestowed. The armies were well equipped and drilled, and breaches of discipline were rigorously punished. The hospitals, which were established for the treatment of the sick and wounded, called forth the praise of the Spanish chroniclers. Captives of war were made as abundantly as possible, to be reserved for the sacrificial stone of the war-god, and the Aztecs carried on this appalling practice of human sacrifice to such an extent as has not been equalled by any other nation. But the most atrocious part of the ceremony, as practised on some occasions, was that of the serving up of the body of victims at a repast, where they were eaten!—sheer cannibalism, which is vouched for as their practice as a religious rite.

How was the history of the early Mexicans handed down and perpetuated? It is probable that the ancient civilisations of America were near the dawn of a literature when their culture was destroyed. They had already some phonetic signs in use, from which, in the natural course of time, an alphabet might have evolved; but the picture-writing, or clumsy hieroglyphical representation of things in line and colour to express ideas, was their main method. Yet their laws, State accounts, history, and other matters were so recorded. When the Spaniards set foot on the coast a hieroglyphical representation of them and their ships, delineated on native paper, was in the hands of Montezuma a few hours afterwards—a species of rapid edition of a newspaper indeed! But these written records were supplemented by oral descriptions, and the two methods in conjunction formed the Aztec literature. Paper for such documents were made of skins, or cotton cloth, or of the fibrous leaves of the maguey, and this last, a species of "papyrus," was carefully prepared, and was of a durable nature. Aztec literature of this nature existed in considerable quantities at the beginning of the Hispanic occupation. It was thoroughly destroyed by the execrable act of the first Archbishop of Mexico—Zumarraga, who, looking upon these papers as "devilish scrolls," had them collected, piled up, and burnt! Some few, however, escaped, and were preserved and published in Europe. Some famous Maya documents of this nature, from Yucatan, have also brought to light some details of those people.

The Mexicans' scientific knowledge was simple and primitive. Some arithmetical system had been evolved, but, on the other hand, they had calculated and adopted a chronology—probably it had been inherited from the Toltecs—which displayed a remarkable precision, in that they adjusted the difference of the civil and solar year in a way superior to that of contemporary European nations.

In primitive Mexico—like primitive Peru—agriculture was far advanced as an industry. Land was apportioned, as has been shown, on a philosophical basis for the needs of the inhabitants. In that respect the system was far superior to that of the Republic of Mexico of to-day, where the whole surface of the land is mainly held by large landholders. Irrigation was an advanced art, artificial canals being made to conduct the water from the streams to the arid lands. The main article of diet among the mass of the people—then, as now—was maiz, which grows freely from highlands to lowlands. Bananas, chocolate—indeed, the latter, chocolatl, is an Aztec word—were among their numerous agricultural products. The maguey—the Agave americana—was an invaluable ally of life and civilisation. It afforded them the famous beverage of pulque; they made ropes, mats, paper, and other things from its fibre; and the leaves furnished an article of diet.

Mining was confined to the getting of gold from riverbeds, where it had been concentrated by Nature, and possibly on a small scale by amalgamation with quicksilver. Copper and tin were found and used, and indeed to-day the natives in certain places beat out large copper vessels[11] and offer for sale masses of rude copper matte,[11] from their primitive earthen furnaces. The obsidian mines of Itzala furnished them with tools for the cutting of stone, sculpture, and other purposes, and for their terrible weapons of war.

[Footnote 11: I have used and purchased these articles in the State of Durango.]

Sculpture and painting were very rudimentary, the former being confined chiefly to the representation of repugnant deities, although the carved stone edifices and temples were in some cases singularly beautiful, as elsewhere described. The sculptured figures of Mexican deities, in some cases, remind the traveller strongly of similar representations of the Incas,[12] such as exist in the fastnesses of the Andes of Peru. The famous Mexican Calendar stone, weighing about fifty tons, which was brought for many miles over broken country to the Aztec capital, is one of the most remarkable examples of their sculpture. Numerous smaller examples of prehistoric sculpture exist, some beautiful in design and execution. The feathered serpent is a frequent symbolical device upon these native works of art.

[Footnote 12: The figure of the conventionalised serpent-god on the onyx tablet found in 1895 in the Valley of Mexico and taken to the Museum of Chicago (see Holmes's "Ancient Cities of Mexico") strongly reminds me of the figure on the stone from Chavin in Peru (see "The Andes and the Amazon").]



Pottery was made without the potter's wheel, by modelling; and painting and burning were practised. Musical instruments were also made of clay. Trade was conducted in ancient Mexico in great fairs or marketplaces, not in shops, and indeed this custom is still that preferred by the Mexican natives of the peon class to-day. The currency consisted of quills of gold-dust, small pieces of tin, and stamped copper, and barter was a principal mode of transaction. The merchants were an important class, carrying on extensive operations and expeditions far beyond the borders of the empire, under armed escorts, and they occupied often a position of political, and even diplomatic nature, such as was a peculiar feature of Aztec civilisation.

Social conditions showed much of quiet civilisation and tolerance. The women were never employed in the fields; and they took equal part with the men in social matters. They were modest and not unattractive, traits which remain to this day among the peasant class of Mexico. The menage of Aztec homes, method of feasting, foods, napery, ablutions, and other matters, as recorded by the historians show a marked stage of refinement, except for the abominable practice of cannibalism. Chocolate and pulque were the favourite drinks.

Any survey of the Aztec customs shows a remarkable fact—they seem to have received their civilisation and customs from more than one source. For among the most refined habits and methods the most barbarous and disgusting acts are found. A refined and humane spirit of culture seems, by some method, or at some time, to have been grafted on to a spirit of primitive savagery, and each to have retained its character and practices. But their social system was not an unhappy one for their people. It was an epoch of handiwork, where all were employed and all were fed; and if there were few comforts and enlightenments in their life, there was, at least, little misery, such as is so freely encountered in the life of modern civilisation.

But destiny was now to compass the end of the Aztec regime, for from the shores of the stormy waters of the seas towards the sunrise, came rumours of strange white men. Who were they? asked the Aztec emperor and his advisers, in solemn conclave. Were they not those heralded by the long-expected Quetzalcoatl? If so, of what use was it to defy the fates, which had set forth long ago that the land should be ruled, some day, by a white race coming from the East? And when a fleet of great "water-houses," with white wings, touched at Yucatan, and the swift runners brought the tidings over nigh a thousand miles of forest and mountain in a few days, the credulous ear of Montezuma listened easily. And when the Spaniards landed at Vera Cruz, and won their way up to the fastnesses of Anahuac, it was still the hand of destiny. The time was fulfilled, the arm of civilisation had reached out towards the West, and it fell athwart the Great Plateau of unknown Mexico.



CHAPTER IV CORTES AND THE CONQUEST

Landing of Cortes—Orizaba peak—The dawn of conquest—Discovery of Yucatan—Velasquez and Grijalva—Life and character of Cortes—Cortes selected to head the expedition—Departure from Cuba—Arrival at Yucatan—The coast of Vera Cruz—Marina—Vera Cruz established—Aztec surprise at guns and horses—Montezuma—Dazzling Aztec gifts—Messages to Montezuma—Hostility of the Aztecs—Key to the situation—The Cempoallas—Father Olmedo—Religion and hypocrisy of the Christians— March to Cempoalla—Montezuma's tax-collectors—Duplicity of Cortes— Vacillation of Montezuma—Destruction of Totonac idols—Cortes despatches presents to the King of Spain—Cortes destroys his ships— March towards the Aztec capital—Scenery upon line of march—The fortress of Tlascala—Brusque variations of climate—The Tlascalans— Severe fighting—Capitulation of Tlascala—Faithful allies—Messengers from Montezuma—March to Cholula—Massacre of Cholula—The snow-capped volcanoes—First sight of Tenochtitlan.

"Brightly my star, new hope supplying, Leads on the hour shall all, all repay!"

Such, indeed, might have been the sentiment which inspired the breasts of Hernando Cortes and his Spaniards on that memorable Good Friday, April 21, 1519, as they first set foot upon the Mexican mainland, upon those sandy shores which in the act they christened Vera Cruz.

Before them, far away beyond the sandy desert and the tree-crowned slopes, stretched a high cordillera, a curtain drawn between them and the unknown world of the interior. What lay there? Matters of grave interest and preoccupation! For beyond that far, blue maritime defence of Anahuac—they had that moment learned it—there dwelt a mighty potentate and people, steeped with savage soldier-craft, rendered more terrible by the barbaric civilisation which it upheld. Here were no gentle savages such as they had hunted in the forests of Cuba and Hispaniola; and the mail-clad, helmeted Spaniards listened at first with mixed feelings to the accounts of the friendly Indians who greeted them at the shore, feelings in which the spirit of conquest rose high and dominant.

The ten caravels of Cortes are swinging at anchor in the bay, whose white-capped waters they have just passed. The Spaniards have reconnoitred the beach, and their eyes have followed the rising landscape to where, beyond the forest-clad mountains, and emerging from the clouds which girt them, a single gleaming, snowy point appeared, piercing the blue heavens like the gnomon of a mighty dial. It was Citlaltepetl, the "mountain of the star," the natives told them. It was the lofty Orizaba, the sunlight on its perpetual snow-cap bringing it to deceptive nearness.

Halting thus upon this sunny shore, who were these Spaniards, and what was their mission and character? Let us briefly sketch them. Those were stirring times in "ocean chivalry." The dream of Columbus had been accomplished for twenty-five years; Balboa had crossed the isthmus a few years since and Panama was known. The islands of Cuba and Santa Domingo had been settled and made starting-points for further discoveries, and two years before—in 1517—a Cuban hidalgo, Hernandez de Cordova, blown by a fierce gale, with his three ships, far from his objective point of the Bahamas, landed on an unknown land where the Indians said "Tectecan"—"I do not understand you." What was this land? It was the peninsula now called Yucatan—"tectecan"—part of the Mexico of to-day. And on Cordova's return to Cuba, the governor of that island, Don Diego de Velasquez, bestirred himself right actively, impelled by certain longings for conquest he had long nourished, and by the adventures, and curious things of laboured gold brought back by Cordova. Fitting out four vessels, Velasquez put them under the command of his nephew, Juan de Grijalva, and quickly sent them forth to win him riches and fame in those unknown lands—May, 1518. Grijalva duly touched and coasted upon the islands and shores of Yucatan, and his name remains to-day in the great Grijalva river. Thence he followed the horseshoe curve of the Gulf of Mexico, and arrived and landed at San Juan de Ulua, the same point where we left Cortes and his Spaniards halting. To Grijalva is due the prestige of first landing on the shores of Mexico, and of having intercourse with its people of the Aztecs. But, Grijalva tarrying long, Don Diego de Velasquez had despatched another expedition, commanding his nephew to return, which the latter did and was received coldly by the jealous and ungenerous Governor, as he is painted by his historians. Still bent on greater conquest, Velasquez cast about for men, money, and ships, and his eye fell on the capable Hernando Cortes, the young Spaniard who, born in Estremadura in 1485, had set out, impatient of the old world, to seek his fortunes in the new: and had amassed—"God knows by what methods," as one of his chroniclers says—a small fortune under the Governor's rule. Here was the man, and, incidentally, here was part of the money! For Cortes was popular and daring, and notwithstanding the several occasions on which he had come into collision with the Governor and the law, Velasquez held him in certain favour.

The life of Cortes up to that point—let us touch upon it before accompanying him, and know what manner of man he was—had been urged principally by selfish adventure and amorous intrigues. He had arrived in Hispaniola in 1504, and upon being offered a grant of land and repartimiento of Indians replied that "he had left Spain in search of gold—not to become a land-tilling peasant." In 1511, under Velasquez, who had been appointed to the conquest of Cuba, Cortes found outlet for his adventurous spirit, and in the Indian warfare of the island gave promise of the valour and activity which underlay a jocular and seemingly trivial character. At the same time he became accustomed to the barbarous methods of conquest and cruelty displayed by the Spaniards in those regions, and to the abuse of power and arbitrary jealousies and exactions displayed both to natives and colonials by the petty Imperial authorities. Cortes had soon fallen foul of Velasquez. On two occasions he had been thrown into prison by the Governor's orders, but had escaped, partly by his own activity, and partly—it is held—by connivance of his gaolers. Associated with these episodes was a beautiful Spanish girl, Catalina Juarez, whom he had refused to marry in spite of the representations of her family, due to his relations with her: Velasquez also being interested in the family, in the person of Catalina's sister. However, after a time, Cortes married and lived happily with her upon his estate. Land and Indians were granted him, and he acquired some wealth from agriculture and mining, maintaining good relations with the Governor, Velasquez.

Now it was that Pedro de Alvarado, the future conqueror of Guatemala, who had accompanied Grijalva to Mexico, returned, and now it was that Velasquez cast about for men, money and ships, to push the conquest of Mexico. Choice fell upon Cortes. The long-nourished hopes of the young Spaniard—he was thirty-four or five—were fulfilled. He realised all his resources to subscribe towards the expense, covering indeed the major portion of the cost of ships and stores. The little port of Santiago de Cuba echoed with the bustle of preparation. The vessels, most of which were simply open brigantines, the largest not more than one hundred tons, were rapidly fitted out. Hundreds of men flocked instantly to his leadership. Away to the West their thoughts and enthusiasm carried one and all; gold, adventure, fame—who would not go!

The light and easy character of Cortes changed under the grave import and responsibility of this great mission, in which he seemed to recognise some fulfilment by Providence of his lifelong hopes. Here he was, a relatively humble subject of Spain, of relatively obscure parentage, although conscious of that powerful instinct of being a caballero—a gentleman—singled out for this great enterprise! There was but one fear—that its command should be snatched from him at the last moment! And, indeed, this was averted by a mere hair's breadth, say the chroniclers. For the jealous Velasquez, influenced by other jealous advisers, and fearing that the independent spirit of Cortes would arrogate to himself the glory and profit of the enterprise, once away from his influence, resolved at the last moment to quit him of his command and substitute another. Cortes heard of it. Apprehension lent him a superhuman energy. Once away from Cuba's shores—ah! then he could parley with its Governor. He visited his trusty officers. Butchers, bakers, ammunition-makers were bribed and hurried, the stores were rushed on board, commander and crew embarked at midnight, and when morning dawned the good people of Santiago de Cuba awoke to see the white sails of the squadron rising to meet the breeze, whilst the rattle of the cables of the up-getting moorings fell upon their ears. Down rushed Velasquez from his bed, and galloped to the wharf. "Stop them! Stop them!" But it was too late—who could stop them?

Before his sails filled to the breeze Cortes approached the shore in an armed boat. "Farewell! good Governor," was the burden of his words. "Time is short, and what is to be done 'twere well it were done quickly!" And so he sailed away towards the West, into a sunset-land of conquest-dreams, and left Velasquez fuming on the quay.[13]

[Footnote 13: This story of the departure of Cortes is doubted by some writers, but it appeals to the mind of the adventurous traveller in those regions, even to-day, with too strong a ring of probability to be ignored.]

But the jealous Governor's resources were not quite exhausted. He despatched swift messengers to other Cuban ports where the expedition must touch for further supplies, ill-provisioned as it was by the hasty departure, with orders for the authorities at these points to detain Cortes at all hazards. It was useless. Far from detention, he received supplies and reinforcements. A number of well-known hidalgos joined him, among them Pedro de Alvarado, Cristoval de Olid, Velasquez de Leon, Gonzalo de Sandoval, Hernandez Puertocarrero, Alonzo de Avila, and others who took a valiant part afterwards in the conquest. At his last port of departure Cortes wrote a letter to Velasquez, of a conciliatory nature: reviewed his forces, which amounted to nearly nine hundred Spaniards and two hundred Indians, with ten heavy guns, several falconets, ample ammunition, and sixteen horses, in eleven vessels. Having addressed the forces in words of enthusiasm, dangling before them the glories of conquest, specially pointing out to them that they were carrying the Cross to set before savages, Cortes invoked the patronage of St. Peter, and the squadron set sail for the shores of Yucatan.

How they arrived at the island of Cozumel, fought with the Indians of the mainland, tumbled the gross idols of the savages from their pyramid-temple, and set up an altar to the Virgin; and how they recovered an unfortunate Spaniard who had sojourned eight years, after shipwreck, with the natives of Yucatan; how Alvarado antagonised the natives and Cortes pacified them; and how they sailed thence to the real shores of Mexico, where we left them halting, are fascinating matters of their voyage which we must thus lightly pass over.



Behold a level, sun-beat, wind-swept plain, the drifting sand blown into medanos, or sand-hills, by the hurricanes of the gulf, the perennial norte. Here are the Conquistadores grouped, Cortes and his associates. Among them is the figure of a woman, and her name is worthy to rank in the first verse and chapter of our story. It is Marina, the beautiful Indian girl who had been given to the Spaniards, among other female slaves, at Tabasco, in Yucatan, and who, Cortes had learned, spoke the language of the Mexicans, in addition to her native Yucatec. So Marina was the interpreter through whose medium understanding was had with the natives. This was in conjunction with the Spaniard Aguilar—the rescued castaway, who spoke the language of Marina. But this was only at first, for as Cortes loved her and she loved him, she soon acquired the Castilian of the Conquistador as his mistress.

Thus was parley opened with the natives and their caciques, and knowledge gained of Montezuma, the great Emperor of the Aztecs, and of the power and circumstances of their empire, whose rule extended to the coast whereon they stood. Cortes and his captains made presents to the caciques, and received such in return, and it was decided to establish the colony of Villa Rica de Vera Cruz. A pretty piece of juggling—singular yet not unjustifiable—took place in the inauguration of this, Cortes establishing his captains as its municipality, resigning the commission he had received from the Governor of Cuba into the hands of the body he had called into being himself, and then accepting from it a commission as captain-general, all taking title as officials of the Crown of Spain! This proceeding, solemnly carried out on the edge of the wilderness, and in sound of the roaring waters of the Gulf, is not without a Gilbertian spice.

Rude habitations had been built, guns mounted, and supplies secured from the Indian population which flocked around the Spaniards. And suddenly a new sensation was sprung upon these simple people. The horses were brought on shore, and the cavalry manoeuvred upon the beach; cannons were fired and trumpets sounded, the shot from the guns, purposely directed against the trees, smashing them to splinters. Filled with awe the Aztec chief of the place—the friendly cacique Teuhtile—bade his picture-writers depict it all; and upon the native paper these terrible gachupines[14] and their great "water-houses," and thundering engines, and singular musical instruments, were drawn in lifelike form by these native "newspaper artists," to be despatched by the native postmen over the rocky fastnesses of the Cordilleras to the great Montezuma. Then Cortes announced his mission. He was the ambassador of a mighty Emperor from beyond the seas, come to greet the Emperor of the Aztecs and to carry a present from his monarch, the mightiest in the world. When could he be admitted before Montezuma? The awe in which this potentate was held by his vassals was shown in Teuhtile's reply: "Was it possible that a monarch, the equal of the Aztec king, existed elsewhere? How could the white men ask, at such short notice, to be admitted to the semi-sacred presence?" But he brought forward presents of beautiful feather-work and ornaments of gold for the Spaniards; and Cortes, not to be outdone, produced a richly-carved chair and other things admired by the simple natives, including articles of cut glass, which were held to be gems of great price, as of course the Aztecs had no knowledge of glass. All these matters were carried out with due ceremony, messengers with the presents were sent to Montezuma, and the Spaniards, pending the return of the emissaries of Teuhtile with their greeting, devoted themselves to the perfecting of their dwellings.

[Footnote 14: The Aztec word for centaurs, which was applied to the horsemen.]

Little more than a week elapsed. In that time the swift native carriers had traversed and re-traversed the steep and rugged road from the coast to the valley of Anahuac, a distance of about two hundred miles each way. The substance of their message from Montezuma was "Come not hither; the road is long and dangerous; return to your country with our greetings to your great King." A magnificent present accompanied this somewhat chilling reply—articles of gold and silver, beautifully wrought, among them a huge gold plate, and one of silver, circular in form and "as large as carriage-wheels," twenty-eight spans in circumference, representing respectively the images of the sun and the moon and engraved with figures of animals, doubtless indicative of some chronological symbol—the value of the gold wheel was afterwards estimated at more than 50,000 pounds sterling—other articles of clothing and armour, including a number of beautiful golden shields inlaid and decorated, necklaces of rubies and pearls, and a quantity of the intricate and beautiful feather-work.

What was the result of all this, upon the Spaniards—this wealth of treasure and this unencouraging greeting? "Go back again," was the substance of Cortes's reply to the ambassadors of Montezuma; "tell your monarch the mountain road and its dangers do not appal us—we who have sailed two thousand leagues of troubled ocean to arrive here—and we cannot return to our great sovereign without having personally greeted yours." Again the Spaniards waited the messengers' return, weary of the wind- and sand-swept plains of Vera Cruz; assailed by the calenturas ever encountered upon the American coasts, the bilious malarial disorders which Nature has made the scourge of the tropics, and which the science of modern man has only just begun to investigate. Again the messengers—within ten days—returned. Stripped of its diplomatic covering of ceremony and further presents, the Aztec Emperor's reply may be condensed as "Get thee hence!" And, as if to bear out some royal mandate, the natives disappeared from the vicinity, the supplies were cut off, leaving the Spaniards halting upon this debatable ground, in chagrin and indecision.

But not for long. The stern design of the Spaniards had been forced, and was growing. "I vowed to your Royal Highness that I would have Montezuma prisoner, or dead, or subject to your Majesty," wrote Cortes to Carlos V. of Spain, from Vera Cruz; and "Think you we were such Spaniards as to lie there idly?" wrote Bernal Diaz, the soldier-penman, afterwards. Yet there was some disaffection in the camp, a portion of the men, wearied of inaction and fearful of dangers, desiring to return to Cuba. Here Cortes's diplomacy came to the rescue. "On board, all of you!" he exclaimed. "Back to Cuba and its Governor, and see what happens!" The threat and sneer had the effect he expected. Scarcely a man would return, but on the contrary they clamoured for the establishment of a colony and for a march on Montezuma and his capital, whilst the few who remained disaffected were clapped in irons, among them the hidalgo Velasquez, a relative of the Governor of Cuba.

And now it was that the key to the situation was put into the hands of Cortes. An embassy from a semi-civilised, powerful nation to the north, upon the gulf-shores—the Totonacs, of Cempoalla, as they announced themselves—suddenly arrived in the colony of the Christians. They brought an invitation from their chief for the Spaniards to visit him, with the information—and here was the circumstance which should make conquest possible—that the Totonacs were weary of the Aztec yoke, and yearned for independence. "Ha!" thought Cortes and his hidalgo associates, "they are delivered into our hands! They are divided, and so they will fall." Father Olmedo, the wise and pious confessor of the forces, to whose prudence the security of the Spaniards owed much, and who was the representative of the great Church which became so potent in those lands, blessed his comrades' conclaves, and celebrated solemn Masses. Indeed, every move of the Spaniards was accomplished under such auspices, and was always referred by Cortes to the influence of the desire to carry the Cross of Christ and all it embodied, to those heathen peoples; and in a spirited address to the soldiers he declared that "without this motive their expedition was but one of oppression and robbery." The true proportions of piety and hypocrisy contained in these expressions and acts must be left to the knowledge of human nature of the reader. Suffice to say that the Spaniards did, to a large extent, look upon themselves as Crusaders, and that a militant religious fervour animated them, in conjunction with a spirit of avarice and cruelty.

And so they marched on Cempoalla, along the sandy shores of the gulf, passing through villages, with temples devoted to the abominable sacrificial rites which they had seen in Yucatan. Thence they encountered the fringe of the tropical forests, and at length entered the strange town of Cempoalla, with its numerous inhabitants, and streets, and houses, and excellent surrounding cultivation. Here they remained some days, the Spaniards delighted with the fertile region and the hospitable natives. The great Cacique had received them in his residence—a building of stone upon a pyramid, after the fashion of the structures of that country, and, the fair Marina interpreting, Cortes stated his mission—"to redress abuses and punish oppressors, and to establish the true faith." The substance of the chief's reply was that, though weary of the oppressive yoke of the Aztecs: Montezuma was a terrible monarch, who could pour down his warriors upon them. But Cortes gathered encouragement from his attitude, and in the meantime a juncture had been effected with the ships upon the coast a few leagues distant, at a port discovered by Montejo. Further deliberations took place during the ensuing days, when a momentous event occurred in the arrival of special emissaries from Montezuma to the Cacique, setting forth the anger of the Emperor, and demanding instant reparation and tribute for the disloyalty of the Totonacs in having entertained the invaders. The fearful and hesitating Totonacs—it was but natural—would have appeased their anger; but under the instigation of Cortes these Aztec tax-collectors were seized and imprisoned. Characteristic of the Spaniard of those days was the act of double-dealing then performed by Cortes. He secretly released the prisoners at night, soothed their feelings, sent them on board a ship, and bid them report his goodwill to Montezuma!

The Totonacs were now too deeply compromised to do aught but become the sworn allies of the Spaniards. The cherished dream of the return of Quetzalcoatl had not been fulfilled, but here were these valiant strangers, who had defied the omnipotent Montezuma! The Spaniards then established a colony upon the coast near at hand, aided by the natives, and a town soon arose which was a centre of operations and general point of distribution for the subsequent operations. Engaged upon the work was Cortes, when new emissaries arrived from the outraged Montezuma. The Totonacs were only to be spared out of deference for the white men who had liberated the tax-collectors! Montezuma was debating much within himself and with his advisers at this time. "Surely these terrible white strangers, who had come out of the East, were the long-expected Quetzalcoatl and his people? It was necessary to placate or temporise with them, for what destiny had written concerning the passing of his empire must come to pass." So had pondered the great Aztec chief, and it was this fear of destiny which had dictated his attitude, vacillating as it was, towards the strangers. But the emissaries returned to the lord of Anahuac with the same message as before—that the white men would visit him in person.