Now all is changed. She is still a goddess, but her glory is eclipsed. She, like many a virgin in social life, neglected to make her market while all knees were bowing to her, and now, in the sear and yellow leaf, she is a virgin still. Her temple is dilapidated, her garlands are faded, her gilding is tarnished, the buildings about her Court are falling to decay, while the bleak hill which her temple crowns looks tenfold more uninviting than if it never had been occupied. When I entered this neglected temple of a neglected image, an old, superannuated priest was saying mass, and three or four old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed the revolution of Iguala. Not only was her hated rival of Guadalupe elevated from her long obscurity to be the national saint, but the animosity against this dilapidated image of Remedies was carried to that extreme of cruelty that, when the Spaniards were expelled from Mexico, the passports of the "Lady of Remedios" were made out, and she was ordered to leave the country. Poor thing!

The porter's eye glistened at the now unwonted sight of a silver dollar, and he soon had me through the most secret recesses of the sanctuary. The only things I saw worthy of admiration were some pictures, made from down or the feathers of the humming-bird, by which a richness of color was imparted to the pictures that could not be obtained from paints.

At last we came to the back of the great altar, and the curtain of damask silk being drawn up by a little string, we saw sitting in a metallic maguey plant a bright new Paris doll, dressed in the gaudy odds and ends of silk that make such a thing an attractive Christmas present for the nursery. Paste supplied the place of jewels, and a constellation of false pearls were at the back of her shoulders. The man kept his gravity, and did reverence to the poor doll, while I burned with indignation at being imposed upon by a counterfeit "universal remedy for all diseases." I had often read in the apothecaries' advertisements cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection, and I always noticed, from these printed evidences, that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the worthlessness of the genuine article, and that medicine which was utterly valueless itself suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was with the Lady of Remedios; after she had fallen below the dignity of a humbug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited away to the Cathedral of the city of Mexico, in order to save her three jeweled petticoats from being stolen, and a child's doll, covered with paste jewels, now personified the great patron saint of the vice-kingdom of New Spain.

AZTEC AND ROMISH IMAGES.

I again mounted my horse, angry at being cheated. Though the day was a most lovely one, I rode home in fit humor to contrast the system of paganism which Cortez introduced with the more poetical system which preceded it, and to compare these cast-off child's dolls with the allegorical images of the Aztecs. My landlord had two boxes of such images, collected when they were cleaning out one of the old city canals. By way of parlor ornaments, we had an Aztec god of baked earth. He was sitting in a chair; around his navel was coiled a serpent; his right hand rested upon the head of another serpent. This, according to the laws of interpreting allegories, we should understand to signify that the god had been renowned for his wisdom; that with the wisdom of the serpent he had executed judgment; and that his meditations were the profundity of wisdom. And yet this allegorical worship, defective as it may have been, was forcibly superseded by the adoration of a child's doll—one that had very possibly been worn out and thrown from a nursery, and perhaps picked up by some passing monk, was made the goddess of New Spain, and clothed with three petticoats, one adorned with pearls, one with rubies, and one with diamonds, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. Which was the least objectionable superstition?

We have been taught to look upon the worship of the Aztecs as monstrous; but the witnesses against them were themselves monsters, who were seeking for a pretense to excuse their own brutality in reducing the Indians to the most debasing slavery, while they appropriated to their own use the best looking of the squaws, and kept such swarms of supernumerary wives that each Spaniard had to brand them with a red-hot iron in order to know his own family. The fathers of the present mixed-breed population of Mexico tell us that the Aztecs offered human sacrifices, and feasted upon human flesh. They hope, by dwelling upon the enormities of the Indians, to excuse their own still more detestable crimes. For three centuries their stories were uncontradicted, and they have been received as historical verities. But the character of the witnesses warrants us in receiving their statements with some incredulity.

[36] Bernal Diaz, vol. i. p. 338.

[37] Bernal Diaz, vol. i. p. 31, 32.



CHAPTER XX.

The Paseo at Evening.—Ride to Chapultepec.—The old Cypresses of Chapultepec.—The Capture of Chapultepec.—Molina del Rey.—Tacubaya.—Don Manuel Escandon.—The Tobacco Monopoly.—The Palace of Escandon.—The "Desierto."—Hermits.—Monks in the Conflict with Satan.—Our Lady of Carmel.

My residence was near the Paseo Nuevo, and at evening, while the sun had yet an hour of his daily task to finish, I habitually sauntered forth for a walk up and down the Paseo, to look at the crowd of coaches, with tops thrown back, so that the bare-headed ladies, in full dress for dinner, might enjoy the evening air, acquire an appetite, and salute their friends by presenting the backs of their hands, while they twirled their fingers at them with a hearty smile. Gentlemen on richly-caparisoned horses dashed along between the rows of advancing and returning carriages, stopping now and then by the side of a well-known carriage to exchange salutations, or, by an exhibition of a well-timed embarrassment, proclaim the favored object of their evening's ride. Crowds of foot-passengers sauntered along the road-side, looking at the rich display made by the aristocracy and nobility of the republic. At the entrance of the Paseo, in front of the amphitheatre, where on Sundays bulls are tortured to death as a popular amusement, is the equestrian bronze statue of Carlos IV., the work of Tolsa, who, as artist and architect, has won for himself undying renown at Mexico. The garden of Tolsa, the College of Mines, and the bronze horse, testify to the greatness of his genius. Half way down the Paseo is a fountain, around which two semicircles of coaches place themselves for a little time, to look on the passing current of carriages and horsemen. They soon disappear as the sun shows symptoms of descending behind the mountains. On Sundays the scene is more animated, and then the President, with his body-guard of lancers, and attendants in scarlet livery, is seen to dash into the Paseo, ride down and return through the Alameda, among whose trees and fountains the Sabbath crowds most do congregate.

One morning when all was quiet in this place of display, I rode down the street of San Francisco, and turned up the Paseo between the prison of the Acordado and the bronze horse. There was nothing to disturb the monotony that now reigned but cabs or omnibuses on their way to or returning from Tacubaya. Passing through the open gate of Belin, I rode along at the side of the aqueduct to the rock of Chapultepec.

CYPRESSES OF CHAPULTEPEC.

It calls up singular reflections to look upon a living thing that has existed for a thousand years, though it be only a tree. Though so many centuries have rolled over the venerable cypresses of Chapultepec, yet they still are sound and vigorous. The extensive springs of pure water that issue from beneath this immense rock have kept them flourishing in the midst of a tequisquite valley. Long gray threads of Spanish moss hang pendent from the extremity of their limbs and cover the lower leaves. These trees are the only living links that unite modern and ancient American civilization; for they were in being while that mysterious race, the Toltecs, were still upon the table-lands of Mexico—a race that has left behind, not only at Teotihuacan, but in the hot country, the imperishable memorials of a civilization like that of Egypt; and from them the Aztecs acquired an imperfect knowledge of a few simple arts.[38]

These trees had long been standing, when a body of Aztecs, wandering away from their tribe in search of game, fixed themselves upon the islands of this marsh, first about the rock of Chapultepec, then at Mexicalzingo and Iztapalapan, and finally at Mexico. These trees were undisturbed by the Spaniards when Cortez took the city, and the Americans respected their great antiquity, so that during all the wars and battles that have taken place around and above them, they have passed unharmed.

Not only unnumbered generations, but whole races have appeared and disappeared, while these trees have quietly flourished amid the strife of the elements and the contentions of men, taking no heed of the passing events of which they were spectators. The Toltecs, of whom we must speak more fully hereafter, were the first of these races that disappeared from the table-land—the victims of wars, and of that plague of the Indian races, the matlazhuatl. As the Aztecs rose into importance by their success in war and by the multitude of their captives, Indian princes made the springs near Chapultepec their favorite bathing-place, and spread their mats under these trees, and in their shadow enjoyed their noontide slumbers. Then the pale-faces came, and peopled the valley with a race of mixed blood, and vice-kings occupied the place that had been the sacred retreat of the Aztec chiefs.

These trees had added many rings to their already enlarged circumference before the vice-kings disappeared, and an emperor sat in the shade which had been their favorite retreat; and the Aztec eagle floated again upon the standard that waved over Chapultepec; but it was only the galvanized corpse of that brave bird, and the emperor was only a victim prepared for the sacrifice. Since that time much bad gunpowder has been burned over the heads of the trees, and the roots have been shaken by the discharge of the cannon of the castle at every change of rulers, as one ephemeral government succeeded another, but these cypresses still remain unharmed, and may outlive many other dynasties.



CHAPULTEPEC AND MOLINA DEL REY.

The Americans captured Chapultepec by a coup de main. Having made several breaches through the stone wall behind the cypresses, they rushed through under those trees and up the side of the hill next to them, not allowing themselves to be delayed by the turnings of the road. The general in command, the late General Bravo, was a man of tried courage, and not deficient in military sagacity. He sent most urgent requests to Santa Anna for reinforcements, urging that General Scott was too prudent a soldier to attack the city before carrying the castle, and that the garrison was inadequate for its defense. But Santa Anna was completely paralyzed, as Scott designed he should be, by the large force, under General Smith, which was threatening the south front of the city. When it was too late, Santa Anna discovered that this was only a feint.



The King's Mill (Molina del Rey) is an old powder-mill, standing on elevated ground in the rear of Chapultepec. It has nothing about it to give it notoriety except the slaughter of the American troops that here took place from a masked battery, manned by a body of volunteers from the work-shops of the city. The whole affair was a military mistake. Its capture was not necessary to insure the capture of Chapultepec, for, as soon as that fortress, which commanded the mill, should be in our power, the mill would be untenable. But repeated successes had made the American officers imprudent, so that without first battering down its walls, the division of General Worth rushed up, regardless of a flank fire of the castle, to carry this old building by assault. After the sacrifice of about 700 lives, cannon were brought out and the breach made, and then the difficulty was at an end.

A mile or so by the road leading south and west from Chapultepec is Tacubaya, where are the suburban residences of the Archbishop, the President, and of divers city bankers; and where the English banker, Mr. Jimmerson, has introduced English gardening, and, in a Mexican climate, enjoys the pleasure of an English country residence.

DON MANUEL ESCANDON.

The most attractive establishment of Tacubaya is the new palace of Don Manuel Escandon, a native-born, self-made Mexican millionaire; a man whose capital has so enormously accumulated before he has even reached middle life, that he was able to propose to discount a bill for $7,000,000 as an ordinary business transaction, though ultimately government divided the bid with another house. This most remarkable instance of accumulation of wealth in modern times is deserving of a passing notice, which I give on the authority of my landlord, who had a personal knowledge of his history.

Don Manuel enjoyed, in addition to an intimate knowledge of his own countrymen, the advantages of a foreign education, which had extended to an examination of those arts and improvements that elevate Europeans above the semi-barbarous people of Spanish America. The first enterprise that brought him prominently forward was the establishment of that vast and most perfect system of stage-coaches, of which I have already spoken, on an original capital of $250,000. The wretched condition of the roads, and the heavy losses that at first always attend enterprises of that magnitude, disheartened his partners, who were glad to sell out to him $150,000 of the capital stock at a discount of 50 per cent. Afterward the late Zurutusa bought into the scheme, and ultimately became the owner of all the property, having, before his death, more than realized the highest anticipations of himself or Escandon. A hundred thousand dollars, or thereabouts, were the profits to Escandon by this establishment of a series of hotels and stages quite across the continent. By the successful running of a blockade of the coast, he realized nearly another hundred thousand dollars. The numerous enterprises open to men of superior sagacity, who fully understand the wants of a country in a state of chaos, and are familiar with the improvements of other countries, were readily embraced by him, until he found himself possessed of sufficient capital to become the principal purchaser of the extensive silver mines of Real del Monte, of which the salt-works of Tezcuco are but an outside appendage.

The tobacco monopoly had yielded to the King of Spain an average return of nearly a million annually. Under the Republic the consumption of the weed had greatly increased, but, from the prevalence of disorder in every branch of the administration, this important branch of the revenue was almost entirely absorbed by the officials through whose hands it passed, so that the sum realized by government in the most unproductive year fell off to $25,000, but finally reached $45,000, the amount at which it was farmed out by Escandon and Company. Since that time the return to government has gone on increasing, until it was advertised to be let the last year at the round sum of $1,200,000. How much more the partners realized during the years that they held the contract is, of course, known only to themselves.

The new house which Don Manuel has built at Tacubaya is decidedly the finest palace in the republic. The position is well chosen, and the sum of $300,000 has been laid out upon the house and grounds. It is a combination of an Italian villa, with the comforts and conveniences of English life. London, Paris, and New York have alike contributed to its furniture. I was told that $50,000 was invested in pictures alone. When I looked at the perfection to which the house, the grounds, and the ornamental works had been carried, my only wonder was that $300,000 could have paid for such a combination of elegance and good taste. The family, which consists only of Don Manuel and his widowed sisters, had left on account of the cholera then prevailing in Tacubaya, but the steward readily opened every door to my companion; and thus, without intruding upon the privacy of a family, or even having the honor of their acquaintance, I obtained access to one of the finest private residences that I have ever yet seen, either in this country or any other. In this house it was that the Gadsden treaty was proposed, at a dinner-party at which Mr. Gadsden and Santa Anna were present.

THE DESIERTO.

There was nothing to detain me longer at Tacubaya; but a ride upon the Tacubaya road is not well finished without being extended to the Desierto, a place now as attractive in its ruins as it was in its prosperity.

A description of what it once was I copy from old Thomas Gage: "But more north [south] westward, three leagues from Mexico, is the pleasantest place of all that are about Mexico, called the Solidad, or Desierto, 'the Solitary Place' or 'Wilderness.' Were all wildernesses like it, to live in a wilderness would be better than to live in a city. This hath been a device of bare-footed Carmelites, to make show of their apparent godliness, and who would be thought to live like hermits, retired from the world, that they may draw the world unto them. They have built them a stately cloister, which, being upon a hill and among rocks, makes it to be most admired. About the cloister they have fashioned out many holes and caves, in, under, and among the rocks, like hermits' lodgings, with a room to lie in, and an oratory to pray in, with pictures, and images, and rare devices for self-mortification, as scourges of wire, rods of iron, haircloth girdles with sharp wire points, to gird about their bare flesh, and many such like toys, which hang about their oratories, to make people admire their mortified and holy lives.

"All these hermits' holes and caves, which are some ten in all, are within the bounds and compass of the cloister, and among orchards and gardens, which are full of fruits and flowers, which may take two miles in compass; and here among the rocks are many springs of water, which, with the shade of the plantain and other trees, are most cool and pleasant to the hermits. They have also the sweet smell of the rose and the jessamine, which is a little flower, but the sweetest of all others; and there is not any flower to be found that is rare and exquisite in that country which is not in that wilderness, to delight the senses of those mortified hermits.

"They are weekly changed from the cloister, and when their week is ended others are sent, and they return into their cloisters; they carry with them their bottles of wine, sweetmeats, and other provisions. As for fruits, the trees do drop them into their mouths. It is wonderful to see the strange devices of fountains of water which are about the gardens; but much more strange and wonderful to see the resort thither of coaches, and gallants, and ladies, and citizens from Mexico, to walk and make merry in those desert pleasures, and to see those hypocrites, whom they look upon as living saints, and so think nothing too good for them to cherish them in their desert conflicts with Satan.

"None goes to them but carries some sweetmeats or some other dainty dish to nourish and feed them withal, whose prayers they likewise earnestly solicit, leaving them great alms of money for their masses; and, above all, offering to a picture in their church, called our Lady of Carmel, treasures of diamonds, pearls, golden chains, and crowns, and gowns of cloth of gold and silver. Before this picture did hang, in my time, twenty lamps of silver, the poorest of them being worth a hundred pounds. Truly Satan hath given them what he offered unto Christ in the desert.

"All the dainties and all the riches of America hath he given unto them in that desert, because they daily fall down and worship him. In the way to this place is another town, called Tacubaya, where is a rich cloister of Franciscans, and also many gardens and orchards; but it is, above all, much resorted to for the music in that church, wherein the friars have made the Indians so skillful that they dare compare with the Cathedral Church of Mexico."

[38] "The Toltecs appeared first in the year 648, the Chicimecs in 1170, the Nahualtecs 1178, the Atolhues and Aztecs in 1196. The Toltecs introduced the cultivation of maize and cotton; they built cities, made roads, and constructed those great pyramids which are yet admired, and of which the faces are very accurately laid out. They knew the use of hieroglyphical paintings; they could work metals, and cut the hardest stones; and they had a solar year more perfect than that of the Greeks and Romans. The form of their government indicated that they were the descendants of a people who had experienced great vicissitudes in their social state. But where is the source of that cultivation? Where is the country from which the Toltecs and Mexicans issued?"—HUMBOLDT, Essay Politique, vol. i. p. 100.



CHAPTER XXI.

Walk to Guadalupe.—Our Embassador kneeling to the Host.—An Embassador with, and one without Lace.—First sight of Santa Anna.—Indian Dance in Church.—Juan Diego not Saint Thomas.—The Miracle proved at Rome.—The Story of Juan Diego.—The holy Well of Guadalupe.—The Temple of the Virgin.—Public Worship interdicted by the Archbishop.—Refuses to revoke his Interdict.—He fled to Guadalupe and took Sanctuary.—Refused to leave the Altar.—The Arrest at the Altar.

"Placuit pinturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur vel adoratur, in parietibus pingatur—Pictures ought not to be in the churches, nor should any that are reverenced or adored be painted upon the walls." So say the canons of the Council of Toledo.

I was one of a vast crowd that, on a Sunday of December, 1853, were hurrying out of the city by the old gate and causeway of Tepeac to the suburban village of Guadalupe Hidalgo, once Tepeac, but now consecrated to the Virgin Mary, who, tradition says, appeared there in a bodily form to an Indian peon. Juan Diego was the name of the Indian, and 1531 is the date assigned to the incident. I shall hereafter take occasion to relate the story as given by the veracious Juan, and duly attested by authority which ought to be competent to settle the question, if any thing can do so. I hope that my readers will do their best to believe it. If they honestly endeavor to do so, and do not succeed, I trust they will not suffer on account of their lack of faith.

The occasion that was drawing the multitude together was the consecration of the bishop-elect of Michoican, which was to be celebrated with great pomp at this most sacred shrine of the patron goddess of the Republic. The State and the Church were duly represented upon the platform by the President, the nuncio, and the archbishop. Beneath the platform, and within the silver railing, were the official representatives of foreign nations, who were easily distinguished by a strip of gold or silver lace upon the collars and lapels of their coats. To this uniformity of dress there was a single exception in the person of the new American embassador, Mr. Gadsden, whose plain black dress and clerical appearance would have conveyed the impression that he was a Methodist preacher, had he not been engaged, with all the awkwardness of a novice, upon his knees, in crossing himself.

This was the first occasion on which I had ever seen Santa Anna. If looks have any weight determining a man's character, then truly he was entitled to his position, for he was, by all odds, the most imposing in appearance of any person in that assemblage, or any other I have yet seen in Mexico. His part in the performance was that of godfather to the bishop. Surrounded by kneeling aids-de-camp, he alone stood up, in the rich uniform of a general of division, seeming the perfection of military elegance and dignity. Each badge of prelatical rank, before it was put upon the new bishop, was handed to Santa Anna, who kissed it, and then returned it. He stood without apparent fatigue during the whole of that long ceremony. I have often seen Santa Anna since that time, but never have I seen him appear to such advantage as upon this occasion.

THE BIBLE IN MEXICO.

On the next Sabbath I attended the Indian celebration of the appearance of the most blessed Virgin. During the Christmas holidays in the country of the Pintos, I had seen Indians dressed up in whimsical attire, enacting plays, and singing and dancing; but this was the first time that I had ever seen, in a house dedicated to the worship of God, or, rather, in a temple consecrated to the adoration of the Virgin, fantastic dances performed by Indians under the supervision of priests and bishops. When I found out what the entertainment was, I was heartily vexed that I should be at such a place on the Sabbath day. The dancing and singing was bad enough, but the climax was reached when the priest came down from the altar, with an array of attendants having immense candles, to the side door, where the procession stopped to witness the discharge, at mid-day, of a large amount of fire-works in honor of the most blessed Virgin Mary.

I hurried home from this profanation of the Lord's day, and sat down and contemplated the old Aztec god, who had been deified for his wisdom, and could not but regret the change that had been imposed upon these imbecile Indians. The next Sabbath after this was the national anniversary of the miraculous apparition; but, having seen enough of this sort of thing, I concluded that my Sabbaths would be better spent in staying at home and reading a Spanish Testament, which had been brought into the country in violation of the law. When I was first at the city of Mexico, Governor Letcher related to me the stratagem by which he contrived to smuggle an American Bible agent out of the country when the police were after him, on an accusation of selling prohibited books! for in such a country as this, the Word of God is a prohibited book.

Juan Diego, upon whose veracity rests the story of the miraculous appearance of the Virgin, was an Indian peon; and though, like the rest of his race, he probably was an habitual liar, yet when he bears testimony to a miracle he is presumed to speak the truth. He lived in a mud hut somewhere about the barren hill now consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The attempt to make out that it was Saint Thomas, or the Wandering Jew who here had an interview with the Virgin Mary, and that the old rag on which the picture is painted is really a part of the cloak of Saint Thomas, is, by a very verbose proclamation of the Archbishop of Mexico, dated 25th March, 1795, pronounced a damnable heresy. I have in my possession a copy of this precious document, bearing the signature of Don Alonzo Nunez de Haro y Peralto.

As I learn from the said proclamation that "the adoration of this holy image" [picture] exists not only in Mexico, but in South America and Spain, and that it has propagated itself in Italy, Flanders, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Poland, Ireland, and Transylvania, I shall be excused for giving the substance of this miraculous apparition, since it is now an article of belief of all good Catholics, having been proved before the Congregation of Rites at Rome to have been a miraculous appearance of the Mother of God upon earth, in the year and at the place aforesaid. And the proclamation farther informs us that his holiness, Benedict XIV., was so fully persuaded of the truth of the tradition, that he made "cordial devotion to our Lady of Guadalupe, and conceded the proper mass and ritual of devotion. He also made mention of it in the lesson of the second nocturnal..., declaring from the high throne of the Vatican that Mary, most holy, non fecit taliter omni nationi."

STORY OF JUAN DIEGO.

Juan Diego had a sick father, and, like a good and pious son, he started for the medicine-man. He was stopped by the Virgin at the spot where the round house on the extreme right of the picture is situated. She reproached him with the slowness of the Indians in embracing the new religion, and at the same time she announced to him the important fact that she was to be the patron of the Indians, and also charged him to go and report the same to Zumarraga, who then enjoyed the lucrative office of Bishop of Mexico. Juan obeyed the heavenly messenger, but found himself turned out of doors as a lying Indian. The second time he went for the medicine-man he took another path, but was again stopped on the way at the spot where the second round house now stands. She now required him to go a second time to the bishop, and, in order to convince him of the truth of the story, she directed the Indian to climb to the top of the rock, where he would find a bunch of roses growing out of the smooth porphyry. The Indian did as he was commanded, and finding the roses in the place named, he gathered them in his tilma, and carried them to the bishop. The spot is marked by a small chapel. On opening his tilma before the bishop and a company of gentlemen assembled for that purpose, it was found that the roses had imprinted themselves around a very coarse picture of the Virgin. This is the story of the miraculous appearance of our Lady of Guadalupe.



The bishop was hard to convince at first, but when he considered that the Indian could not himself paint, and had no money with which to pay an artist, and, above all, as there was a fair chance of making money by the transaction, he finally yielded to conviction. His example was soon followed by the whole nation; and then the several buildings, one after another, began to make their appearance. There was some difficulty at first in identifying the place of the first appearance of the Virgin, but this difficulty was removed by the Virgin herself, for she again appeared and stamped her foot upon the spot, whereupon there gushed forth a spring of mineral water.[39] This has proved an infallible cure for all diseases of body and mind, and to it the Indians resort to drink, and wash, and drink again, until it would seem that they must soon exhaust the fountain, so great is the multitude that resort to this spring of the Virgin.

The Collegiate Church—for there can not be two Cathedrals in one diocese—is the principal building in the picture. It is not large, but it surpasses any thing I have yet seen for its immense accumulation of treasure, excepting always the Cathedral. A railing formed of plates of pure silver incloses both the choir and the altar of the Virgin. These are joined together by a passageway, which is inclosed by a portion of the same precious railing. The golden candlesticks, the golden shields, and other ornaments of gold, dazzle the eyes of the beholder, while the three rows of jewels, one of pearls, one of emeralds, and one of diamonds, encircling "the holy image," produce an impression not easily erased. The contrast that is presented between these hoards of wealth and the extreme poverty of the multitude that here congregate is most striking.

The religion of Mexico is a religion of priestly miracles, and when the ordinary rules of evidence are applied to them, they and the religion that rests upon them fall together; hence the necessity of exacting at the start a blind submission to authority, and an abnegation of the reasoning faculties the moment the subject of religion is approached. We have applied the ordinary rules of evidence to the romance of the Conquest, and we find that it will not stand the test of an examination. But if we doubt the history of the Conquest, we must doubt the history of all the miracles of the Church, for all of them rest on the like untenable grounds. I did not wonder at finding the country abounding in unbelief. Now that the fires of the Inquisition have ceased to burn, the priesthood are made the butt and laughing-stock of those who are educated. Still, the national mind does not run toward the pure Gospel, which is here unknown and prohibited, but to infidelity and socialism. A sincere Protestant can have no sympathy with either side.

AN INTERDICT.

The following is Thomas Gage's account of an affair that took place in this temple in his time:

"Don Alonzo de Zerna, the archbishop, who had always opposed Don Pedro Mexia and the Virey, to please the people, granted to them to excommunicate Don Pedro, and so sent out bills of excommunication, to be fixed upon all the church doors, against Don Pedro, who, not regarding the excommunication, and keeping close at home, and still selling his wheat at a higher price than before, the archbishop raised his censure higher against him, by adding to it a bill of cessatio a divinis, that is, a cessation of all divine service. This censure is so great with them that it is never used except for some great man's sake, who is contumacious and stubborn in his ways, contemning the power of the Church. Then are all the church doors shut up, let the city be never so great; no masses are said; no prayers are used; no preaching permitted; no meetings allowed for any public devotion; no calling upon God. The Church mourns, as it were, and makes no show of spiritual joy and comfort, nor of any communion of prayers one with another, so long as the party remains stubborn and rebellious in his sin and scandal, and in not yielding to the Church's censure.

"And whereas, by this cessation a divinis, many churches, especially cloisters, suffer in the means of their livelihood, who live upon what is daily given for the masses they say, and in a cloister where thirty or forty priests say mass, so many pieces of eight [dollars] do daily come in, therefore this censure is inflicted upon the whole Church, that the party offending or scandalizing, for whose sake this curse is laid upon all, is bound to satisfy all priests and cloisters, which, in the way aforesaid, suffer, and to allow them so much out of his means as they might have daily got by selling away their masses for so many dollars for their daily livelihood. To this would the archbishop have brought Don Pedro, to have emptied out his purse, nearly a thousand dollars daily, toward the maintenance of about a thousand priests, so many there may be in Mexico, who from the altar sell away their bread god [sacrament][40] to satisfy with bread and food their hungry stomachs. And secondly, by the people suffering in their spiritual comfort, and in their communion of prayers and worship, thought to make Don Pedro odious to the people. Don Pedro, perceiving the spiteful intent of the archbishop, and hearing the outcries of the people against him, and their cries for the use of their churches, secretly retired to the palace of the Virey, begging his favor and protection, for whose sake he suffered.

"The viceroy immediately sent out his orders commanding the bills of excommunication and cessatio a divinis to be pulled down from the church doors; and to all the superiors of the cloisters to set open their churches, and to celebrate their services and masses as formerly they had done. But they disobeyed the vice-king through blind obedience to their archbishop. The viceroy commanded the arch-prelate to revoke his censures; but his answer was, that what he had done had been justly done against a public offender and great oppressor of the poor, whose cries had moved him to commiserate their suffering condition, and that the offender's contempt of his first excommunication had deserved the rigor of the second censure, neither of which he would nor could revoke until Don Pedro Mexia had submitted himself to the Church and to a public absolution, and had satisfied the priests and the cloisters who suffered for him, and had disclaimed that unlawful and unconscionable monopoly wherewith he wronged the whole commonwealth, and especially the poorer sort therein.

ARREST OF AN ARCHBISHOP.

"The viceroy, not brooking this saucy answer from a priest, commanded him presently to be apprehended, and to be taken under guard to San Juan de Ulua, and then to be shipped to Spain. The archbishop, having notice of this resolution of the viceroy, retired to Guadalupe, with many of his priests and prebends, leaving a bill of excommunication against the viceroy himself upon the church doors, intending privately to fly to Spain, there to give an account of his carriage and behavior. But he could not escape the care and vigilance of the viceroy, who, with his sergeant and officers, pursued him to Guadalupe, which the archbishop understanding, he betook himself to the sanctuary of the church, and there caused the candles to be lighted upon the altar, and the sacrament of his bread god to be taken out of the tabernacle, and attiring himself with his pontifical vestments, with his mitre on his head, his crosier in one hand, in the other he took his god of bread, and thus, with his train of priests about him at the altar, he waited for the coming of the sergeant and officers, whom he thought, with his god in his hand, and with a Here I am, to astonish and amaze, and to make them, as did Christ the Jews in the garden, to fall backward, and disable them from laying hands on him.

BANISHMENT OF THE ARCHBISHOP.

"The officers, coming into the church, went toward the altar where the bishop stood, and, kneeling down first to worship their god, made short prayers; which being ended, they propounded unto the bishop, with courteous and fair words, the cause of their coming to that place, requiring him to lay down the sacrament [the consecrated wafer], and to come out of the church, and to hear the notification of what orders they brought unto him in the king's name. To whom the archbishop replied, that whereas their master the viceroy was excommunicated, he looked upon him as one out of the pale of the Church, and one without any power or authority to command him in the house of God, and so required them, as they regarded the good of their souls, to depart peaceably, and not to infringe the privileges and immunities of the Church by exercising in it any legal act of secular power and command; and that he would not go out of the church unless they durst take him and the sacrament together. With this the head officer, named Tiroll, stood up and notified unto him an order, in the king's name, to apprehend his person in what place soever he should find him, and to guard him to the port of San Juan de Ulua, and there to deliver him to whom by farther order he should be directed thereto, to be shipped to Spain as a traitor to the king's crown, a troubler of the common peace, and an author and mover of sedition in the commonwealth.

"The archbishop, smiling to Tiroll, answered him, 'Thy master useth too high terms and words, which do better agree unto himself, for I know no mutiny or sedition like to trouble the commonwealth, unless it be by his and Don Pedro Mexia his oppressing of the poor. And as for thy guarding me to San Juan de Ulua, I conjure thee by Jesus Christ, whom thou knowest I hold in my hands, not to use here any violence in God's house, from whose altar I am resolved not to depart; take heed God punish you not, as he did Jeroboam for stretching forth his hand at the altar against the prophet; let his withered hand remind thee of thy duty.' But Tiroll suffered him not to squander away the time and ravel it out with farther preaching, but called to the altar a priest, whom he had brought for the purpose, and commanded him, in the king's name, to take the sacrament [wafer] out of the archbishop's hand; which the priest doing, the archbishop, unvesting himself of his pontificals, yielded himself unto Tiroll; and, taking his leave of all his prebends, requiring them to be witnesses of what had been done, he went prisoner to San Juan de Ulua, where he was delivered to the custody of the governor of the castle, and, not many days after, was sent in a ship prepared for that purpose to Spain, to the king in council, with a full charge of all his carriages and misdemeanors."

[39] This water is impregnated with carbonic acid, sulphate of lime, and soda.

[40] It is difficult to convey to Protestant readers the idea which the Spaniards attach to the sacramental bread or wafer after the priest has pronounced the words of consecration. They call it both God and Jesus Christ, and claim for it divine worship.



CHAPTER XXII.

The old Indian City of Mexico.—The Mosques.—Probable Extent of Civilization.—Aztecs acquired Arts of the Toltecs.—Toltec Civilization, ancient and original.—The Pyramid of Papantla.—The Plunder of Civilization.—Mexico as described by Cortez.—Montezuma's Court.—The eight Months that Cortez held Montezuma.—What happened for the next ten Months.—The Siege of Mexico by Cortez.—Aztecs conquered by Famine and Thirst.—Heroes on Paper and Victories without Bloodshed.—Cortez and Morgan.

As we have carefully surveyed the suburbs, and all the valley of Mexico, it is time to take a survey of the city itself, and examine its condition at different periods of its history.

THE MEXICO OF THE AZTECS.

The Aztec city of Mexico perished with its conquest by the Spaniards. Day by day, as the siege went on, the Indians that followed the soldiers pulled the houses down, when the latter had passed, and threw the rubbish into the canals; so that, on the day on which the conquest was effected, the city ceased to exist. Many times has that old city been restored, in the imagination of enthusiasts, with its forty pyramids (teocallis) and unnumbered palaces, adorned with all the luxury and magnificence of the most refined civilization, united with barbaric grandeur and inhumanity in so strange a combination as to distract our feelings between hate and admiration.

It was easy to build an Indian city that would present a most imposing appearance, for the climate was well fitted for drying mud thoroughly. Besides, there was an inexhaustible supply of pumice-stone (tepetate), and an exceedingly soft, gray quarry stone, for caps and lintels, with an excellent quality of cement, and material for "fresco painting" of the walls, abundant and cheap. All these articles are combined in the building of the modern city, and give it its present appearance of elegance and great durability. But in the old city, one-story palaces of dried mud, plastered and frescoed, with large interior courts like that I have described at Tezcuco, must have been among the most imposing structures. If tepetate was employed in the construction of the royal palaces, it would not have added materially to the weight resting upon the earthy foundations; for when the water in the ditches occupied half the street,[41] the foundations must have been so much softer than at present, that structures of the lightest material only could be borne.

In his anxiety to keep up a resemblance between his conquests and that of Granada, Cortez calls the teocallis, or Indian mounds which he found, mosques, and speaks of "forty towers, the largest of which has fifty steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal church in Seville."[42] Bernal Diaz says there were "115 steps to the summit."[43] I must reduce the size of this great pyramid to the size of the isolated rock that the Cathedral is said to occupy. The difficulty of getting rid of the earth that composed these forty artificial mountains does not seem to have troubled historians so much as it would a contractor. I have often thought that those hillocks of earth on the north side of the town were once small artificial mounds on which the Indians offered their worship, for in the canal near by was found that collection of clay divinities of which I have already spoken.

The difficulty in the way of forming a correct idea of that old city, is owing to the defective character of our witnesses. The one confesses to the habitual practice of falsehood for the purpose of deceiving the Indians; the other acknowledges practices that render the character of both infamous, and would make their testimony of no weight in a court of justice unless corroborated. We must therefore feel our way as best we can.

With the rude implements of the Indians, houses of the driest blocks of mud, though covered with cement and painted with colored wash, could easily have been thrown down; but gunpowder or iron bars would have been necessary to overturn a wall composed either of stone or tepetate and cement. Villages built of dried mud are often imposing in their appearance, and are yet most perishable; for the first overflow of waters, that shall cover but a few inches of the walls of the houses, will in a few hours reduce a whole village to a mass of ruins. Again, the dry wall that has fallen becomes saturated, and dissolves itself into soft mud. My hypothesis is, therefore, not without its difficulty, for at every inundation of the city in the times of the Aztecs we have to suppose it totally destroyed; an evil that could not be remedied until the water had entirely subsided, and new mud had been formed into blocks and dried in the sun, and a new village or city built every twenty-five years.

To sum up my theory of Aztec civilization: they had earthen gods, earthen cooking utensils, and earthen aqueducts; their temples were small buildings, upon moderately-sized Indian burial mounds, and their palaces and sacred inclosures were of dried mud, and of a single story in height.

THE TOLTECS.

With this solution, the difficulty that occurred to Humboldt is in part removed, viz., that the allotted time—one hundred and seventy years—was too short a period in which to transform a tribe of North American Indians into a settled community. The remainder of the difficulty is explained by an event taking place in our own days. It is hardly thirty years since the Apache Indians began the systematic plunder of the northern states of Mexico, and now even these nomades begin to show the first glimmerings of civilization. Their captives teach them the use of much of the plunder they have brought to their own villages. Though their treatment of female captives is inhuman, yet it is not an uncommon thing for a captive to become a wife, and to introduce into her wigwam, and to inculcate upon the minds of her children, a few of the primary ideas of civilization. It is the commonly received notion that the Toltecs abandoned the table-land about the time of the arrival of the Aztecs, but continued to flourish in the region of the Gulf coast and in other parts of the hot country; that the vast ruins which abound in those regions were inhabited cities till within a few generations of the coming of the Spaniards; and that in Yucatan, the part most distant from Mexico, that civilization continued quite down to that period; that for a great portion of the one hundred and seventy years of their national existence, the Aztecs kept up predatory excursions into the Toltec region, and out of its dense population derived an inexhaustible supply of slaves and the plunder of civilization, included in which may have been the best wrought of the stone idols that are still preserved. So that the Aztec civilization resolves itself into the very ancient civilization of the Toltecs.

PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.

We have removed to a greater antiquity, but have not got rid of the question of the origin of Mexican civilization. The year 600, named by Humboldt, may be considered as the time of their appearance on the table-land; out many of the ruins in the hot country might claim a thousand years earlier antiquity. These massive remains must have stood, abandoned as they are now, in the midst of the forest, for a long time before the Conquest, as their very existence was unknown to the Spaniards until near the close of the last century. The close resemblance between the apparently most ancient of these works, and those of the Egyptianss and other Eastern civilizations, does not involve the idea of a common origin or of intercourse, but only leads to the suggestion that the human race, in its progress, naturally follows the same path, whether upon the eastern or western continent, and that it is separated by a cycle of thousands of years from the civilization of our day. As a specimen of the works of the Toltecs, I insert a sketch of the pyramid of Papantla.



"The pyramid of Papantla," says Humboldt,[44] "is not constructed like the pyramids of Cholula and Mexico. The only materials employed are immense stones. Mortar is distinguished in the seams. The edifice, however, is not so remarkable for its size as for its symmetry, the polish of the stones, and the great regularity of their cut. The base of the pyramid is an exact square, each side being eighty-two feet in length. The perpendicular height appears not to be more than from fifty-two to sixty-five feet. This monument, like all the Mexican teocallis, is composed of several stages. Six are still distinguishable, and a seventh appears to be concealed by the vegetation with which the sides of the pyramid are covered. A great stairway of fifty-seven steps conducts to the truncated top of the teocalli, where the human victims were sacrificed. On each side of the great stairs is a flight of small stairs. The facing of the stories is adorned with hieroglyphics, in which serpents and crocodiles, carved in relievo, are discernible. Each story contains a great number of square niches, symmetrically distributed. In the first story we reckon twenty-four on each side, in the second twenty, and in the third sixteen. The number of these niches in the body of the pyramid is three hundred and sixty-six, and there are twelve in the stairs toward the east. The Abbe Marquez supposes that this number of three hundred and seventy-eight niches has some allusion to a calendar of the Mexicans, and he even believes that in each of them one of the twenty figures was repeated, which, in the hieroglyphical language of the Toltecs, served as a symbol for marking the days of the common year, and the intercalated days at the end of the cycles. The year being composed of eighteen months of twenty days, there would then be three hundred and sixty days, to which, agreeable to the Egyptian practice, five complementary days were added.... This pyramid was visited by M. Dupe, a captain in the service of the King of Spain. He possesses the bust, in basalt, of a Mexican, which I employed M. Massard to engrave, and which bears great resemblance to the calautica of the heads of Isis."

I prefer in this way to copy from an author of unquestionable authority an important historical fact, rather than to search for less accessible sources of evidence on which I rest the theory, that what of this kind we have seen at the city of Mexico are but fragments from the wreck that befell the American civilization of antiquity, which had succumbed before the inroads of northern savages. This is sufficient inquiry into antiquities till we come to the museum.

MEXICO ACCORDING TO CORTEZ.

It is but justice to add the substance of Cortez's account of this ancient city, which is embodied in the following paragraphs:

"This noble city contains many fine and magnificent houses, which may be accounted for from the fact that all the nobility of the country, who are the vassals of Montezuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part of the year; and, besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens who also possess fine houses. All these persons, in addition to the large and spacious apartments for ordinary purposes, have others, both upper and lower, that contain conservatories of flowers. Along one of the causeways [the Chapultepec] that lead into the city are laid two [water] pipes, constructed of masonry, each of which is two paces in width, and about five feet in height.... The inhabitants of this city pay greater regard to the style of their mode of living, and are more attentive to elegance of dress and politeness of manners than those of other provinces and cities, since, as the cacique Montezuma has his residence in the capital, and all the nobility, his vassals, are in the constant habit of meeting there, a general courtesy of demeanor necessarily prevails.... For, as I have already stated, what can be more wonderful than that a barbarous monarch, as he is, should have every object found in his dominions imitated in gold, silver, precious stones, and feathers, the gold and silver being wrought so naturally as not to be surpassed by any smith in the world, the stone-work executed with such perfection that it is difficult to conceive what instruments could have been used, and the feather-work superior to the finest production in wax and embroidery?... He possessed out of the city as well as within numerous villas, each of which had its peculiar sources of amusement, and all were constructed in the best possible manner for the use of a great prince or lord. Within the city, his palaces were so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent. I can only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them. There was one palace somewhat inferior to the rest, attached to which was a beautiful garden, with balconies extending over it, supported by marble columns, and having a floor formed of jasper elegantly inlaid. There were apartments in this palace sufficient to lodge two princes of the highest rank with their retinues.... The emperor has another beautiful palace, with a large court-yard paved with handsome flags in the style of a chess-board.

"Every day, as soon as it was light, six hundred nobles and men of rank were in attendance at the palace, who either sat or walked about the halls and galleries, and passed their time in conversation, but without entering the apartments where his person was.... Daily his larder and wine-cellar[45] were open to all who wished to eat and drink. The meals were served by three hundred youths, who brought on an infinite variety of dishes; indeed, whenever he dined or supped, the table was loaded with every kind of flesh, fish, and vegetables that the country produced. The meals were served in a large hall, in which Montezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats, and kept very clean. He sat on a small cushion curiously wrought of leather.[46] He is also dressed four times every day in four different suits entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of the caciques who enter his palace have their feet covered, and when those for whom he sends enter his presence, they incline their heads and look down, bending their bodies; and when they address him, they do not look him in the face; this arises from excessive modesty and reverence....[47] No sultan or other infidel lord, of whom any knowledge now exists, ever had so much ceremonial in his court."

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SPANIARDS.

It was in the spring of 1519 that Cortez and his company had landed at Vera Cruz. From that point they had marched toward Mexico without opposition, except the skirmishes with the Tlascalans, and without opposition they had entered the city of Mexico on the 5th of November, 1519. Here they had been received with every mark of hospitality and treated with every kindness. But this did not prevent their treacherously seizing the person of their host, and making him a prisoner in their quarters. In his name they had governed his tribe, and ransacked his dominions in search of the treasures collected by the gold-washers, and had even interfered in the religious worship of a superstitious people, and murdered, in cold blood, a party of their chiefs celebrating an Indian feast. Still there had been no war, until Ordaz was sent, with his four hundred men, to recapture the concubines of Cortez, who had been rescued, as already mentioned. This was in July of the following year, eight months after their first entry into Mexico, and on the 10th of July, 1520, the licentious rule of the Spaniards at Mexico was terminated by the events of the triste noche.

The mere handful that had at first entered the city had been increased by the army of Narvaez, so that when the news reached Cortez that Alvarado and the eighty odd men that had been left with him in the city were threatened with difficulty, he marched a well-appointed army of fourteen hundred men, besides two hundred Tlascalans, to his relief. Their retreat to Tlascala has already been described, the character of the brigantines has been discussed, as well as the absurd story of his having dug a slip or launching canal at Tezcuco, twelve feet broad and twelve feet deep. We have seen that the towns and villages said to have been built in the lake, and the still greater number of large towns on the main land, could only have been petty Indian hamlets, and that the central portions of the valley of Mexico would not have been habitable if the lakes of Mexico had been any thing more than evaporation ponds. And, lest I should venture too far, I will conclude this remark by adverting to the testimony of Diaz, which concedes that when his book was written the face of the country was substantially as it now is, and as I have already described it to be. But he endeavors to save the story of the Conquest by the shallow pretense that, during the few years that intervened between that event and the date of his history, the whole face of the country had completely changed.[48]

The great mystery is why so large a body of Spaniards, if they really amounted to the number claimed by Cortez, should have retreated from the city at all, as they do not complain of being short of provisions. They had the great teocalli for a fortress, on which they might have planted their cannon, and leveled the city in a few days, if not in a few hours, and the great Plaza in which to manoeuvre their cavalry and protect the Indians while leveling the rubbish of the broken walls. But a panic having seized them, and having escaped from the city by a badly-managed night retreat, ten months elapsed before the Spaniards, on the 13th of May, 1521, laid siege to the city. And with varying success the siege was continued just three months, until Guatemozin was taken prisoner, on the 13th of August, 1521, so that the siege was carried on in the midst of the rainy season, when the flats must have been covered with water, and the ditches well filled. No difficulty was experienced in bringing up his flat-boats to the sides of the muddy causeways, or in cutting off the supplies of provisions by water, or in breaking down the earthen aqueduct of Chapultepec, so that the Indians were finally subdued by the combined forces of hunger and thirst. When, the Aztecs were so enfeebled by want that they could no longer offer resistance, the Spaniards rushed into the town, seized the unresisting Guatemozin, and shouted victory.

INDIAN WARFARE.

It requires a familiarity with Spanish character, and the Moorish, Oriental origin of their literature, in order to read Spanish-American military annals understandingly, as much so as it does a knowledge of Indian character in order to sift out the truth from accounts of Indian wars. The superstitious dread which the Aztecs at all times evinced for the Spanish horses and horsemen is common to all savages.[49] The appearance of two or three horses, kept ready for that purpose, was sufficient to restore the battle after the Spaniards had taken to their heels. And while the facts of the siege amount to little more than keeping possession of the narrow causeways, by aid of superior implements of war, until famine and thirst had done their work, yet the Spanish histories of the Conquest make it to surpass in interest, and in the magnitude of forces engaged, almost any siege on record. And so plausibly is the narrative written, that the reader drinks it in with breathless anxiety, without once stopping to ask himself how so many hundreds of thousands of Indians could be fed in a salt valley, inclosed by high mountains, without the aid of a regularly organized commissariat department, or how such masses of undisciplined Indians could be manoeuvred upon a narrow causeway, where numbers add no strength, but only tend to augment the confusion—where, as in this case, there had to be a daily advance and retreat in presence of an active enemy.

IMPROBABILITY OF CORTEZ'S ACCOUNT.

The interesting note which we have copied describes an event within the memory of the present generation. And it is well recollected what trepidation was caused in that colony of the British Empire by the approach to the frontier of a nation of barbarians who despised fear, whose religion was war, and who knew no sin like that of turning the back to any enemy. Yet a hundred horsemen, with firearms, from a missionary village, unaccustomed to war, were sufficient to turn back this mighty host of brave savages. It can not be claimed that the Aztecs were superior to these Mantatees, or that the force of Cortez was inferior in equipment to the hundred unwarlike Griquas whose "thunder and lightning" (as they termed the musketry) drove them back. The missionary was a Protestant, a man of truth, and had no glory to win, and therefore told only the simple truth. Cortez, out of a much inferior affair, has fabricated a romance, with such verisimilitude that he has astonished the world by an account of achievements which he never performed. To write well is nine tenths of a hero; and in the time of Cortez, as it is even now at Mexico, it was the easiest thing imaginable to manufacture an astonishing victory out of the very smallest amount of material. If no lives were lost in the battle, so much more astounding is the victory. This practice of sacrificing human life is only a modification of cannibalism, and the very mission on which the Spaniards came to Mexico was to extinguish that crime, so that they would jeopardize their title to the country should they presume to shed the blood of each other in their interminable wars. And so long as only women, and children, and Indians are the sufferers, they do no violence to the rules of warfare which Cortez and the Conquistadors introduced. The armies of Mexico have never been deficient in good writers; a specimen of the capacity of one of them I have already given in the chapter on Texas; so that their stately and dignified histories of the national squabbles of the last thirty years are equal to Cortez in gross exaggeration, and not a whit behind him in elegance of composition.

MORGAN AND CORTEZ.

A hundred years after the conquest of Mexico, there sailed out of the harbor of Port Royal, now Kingston, in Jamaica, an unlawful military enterprise, about equal in force to that with which Cortez first landed at Vera Cruz, but immensely inferior to the panic-stricken host that fled by night from the city of Mexico. The fitting out of this unlawful expedition, like that of Cortez, had the connivance of the local authorities. The difference between the two was, that Morgan did not understand the Spanish Oriental style of proclaiming his own heroism, and furthermore, his expedition was not directed against a miserably-armed rabble of Indians, but against the fortified city of Panama, held by a garrison of royal troops.

Mooring his little fleet in the harbor of Chagres, Morgan marched his small force across the Isthmus, which then presented greater difficulties to his passage with cannon and munitions of war than Cortez encountered in his march to Mexico. Like Cortez in his first expedition, Morgan met with no opposition in his first visit to Panama, but, with his men, lived at free quarters in rioting and debauchery, committing those atrocities that pirates alone can commit, until, their appetites and their passions being satiated, they returned to the Gulf coast, taking with them the plunder of a city which was then the depository of the treasures drawn from South America. They returned a second time to Panama, as Cortez did to Mexico. This time they met with resistance, but they carried the town by assault, and devoted it to utter destruction. Their efforts were seconded by a terrible earthquake, from which the people fled, and built a new city at a distance of a few miles from the ruins.

For more than two hundred years the rank vegetation of a tropical forest has been driving its massive roots beneath its foundations, and yet the ruins of Panama still bear the marks of having once been a city of much magnificence. Two massive stone bridges, a pavement, diverse broken walls, and a solid tower standing up above the tops of the tall forest-trees, proclaim the incontrovertible fact that the traces of a large city can not be altogether blotted out in the course of a few centuries.

Morgan has never gratified the world with a narrative of his adventures, nor has any of his gang enlightened us with a history of the conquest of Panama, nor has any Saxon bishop Lorenzana yet been found so lost to all moral sense as to commend the piety of such infamous men. And yet, in the boldness of his enterprise, in the courage of its execution, in the amount of plunder realized, in military talent and prowess, Morgan the pirate was incalculably superior to Cortez the hero.

[41] CORTEZ, Letters, p. 111.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Diaz, p. 247.

[44] Essai Politique, vol. ii. p. 172.

[45] This is a little too strong a statement, considering that there never was and never could be a cellar at Mexico.

[46] The naked negro alcalde mentioned in Chapter XII. was also seated on a leather cushion.

[47] This is not all fancy. No people in the world show more profound reverence to the aged or deference to their chiefs than the North American Indians.

[48] "Iztapalapan was at that time a town of considerable magnitude, built half in the water and half on dry land. The spot where it stood is at present all dry land; and where vessels once sailed up and down, seeds are sown and harvests gathered. In fact, the whole face of the country is so completely changed, that he who had not seen these parts previously would scarcely believe that waves had ever rolled over the spot where now fertile corn-plantations extend themselves to all sides, so wonderfully have all things changed here in a short space of time."—BERNAL DIAZ, vol. i. p. 220.

[49] Moffatt's Southern Africa, page 242, furnishes the following complete illustration of the effect produced by horsemen and fire-arms upon savage warriors. "The commando approached within 150 yards with a view to beckon some one to come out. On this, the enemy commenced their terrible howl, and at once discharged their clubs and javelins. Their black, dismal appearance and savage fury, with their hoarse and stentorian voices, were calculated to daunt; and the Griquas [horsemen], on their first attack, wisely retreated to a short distance, and then drew up. Waterboer, the chief, commenced firing, and leveled one of their warriors to the ground; several more instantly shared the same fate. It was confidently expected that their courage would be daunted when they saw their warriors fall by an invisible weapon, and it was hoped they would be humbled and alarmed, that thus further bloodshed might be prevented. Though they beheld with astonishment the dead and the stricken warriors writhing in the dust, they looked with lion-like fierceness at the horsemen, and yelled vengeance, violently wrenching the weapons from the hands of their dying companions to supply the place of those they had discharged at their antagonists. Sufficient intervals were afforded, and every encouragement held out for them to make proposals, but all was ineffectual. They sallied forth with increased vigor, so as to oblige the Griquas to retreat, though only to a short distance, for they never attempted to pursue above 200 yards from their camp. The firing, though without any order, was very destructive, as each took a steady aim. Many of their chief men fell victims to their own temerity, after manifesting undaunted spirit. Again and again the chiefs and Mr. Melville met to deliberate on how to act to prevent bloodshed among a people who determined to die rather than flee, which they could easily have done.

"Soon after the battle commenced, the Bechuanas came up, and united in playing on the enemy with poisoned arrows, but they were soon driven back; half a dozen of the fierce Mantatees [the enemy] made the whole body scamper off in wild disorder. After two hours and a half's combat, the Griquas, finding their ammunition fast diminishing, at the almost certain risk of loss of life, began to storm [charge], when the enemy gave way, taking a westerly direction. The horsemen, however, intercepted them, when they immediately descended toward the ravine, as if determined not to return by the way they came, which they crossed, but were again intercepted. On turning round they seemed desperate, but were again soon repulsed. Great confusion now prevailed, the ground being very stony, which rendered it difficult to manage the horses. At this moment an awful scene was presented to the view. The undulating country around was covered with warriors all in motion, so that it was difficult to say who were enemies or who were friends. Clouds of dust were rising from the immense masses, who appeared flying with terror or pursuing with fear. To the alarming confusion was added the bellowing of oxen, the vociferations of the yet unvanquished warriors, mingled with the groans of the dying, and the widows' piercing wail, and the cries from infant voices. The enemy again directed their course toward a town which was in possession of a tribe of the same people still more numerous. Here again another desperate struggle ensued, when they appeared determined to inclose the horsemen within the smoke and flames of the houses, through which they were slowly passing, giving the enemy time to escape. At last, seized with despair, they fled precipitately. It had been observed during the fight that some women went backward and forward to the town, only about half a mile distant, apparently with the most perfect indifference to their fearful situation. While the commando was struggling between hope and despair of being able to rout the enemy, information was brought that the half of the enemy, under Choane, were reposing in the town, within sound of the guns, perfectly regardless of the fate of the other division, under the command of Karagauye. It was supposed they possessed entire confidence in the yet invincible army of the latter, being the more warlike of the two. Humanly speaking, had both parties been together, the day would have been lost, when they would with perfect ease have carried devastation into the centre of the colony [of the Cape]. When both parties were united, they set fire to all parts of the town, and appeared to be taking their departure, proceeding in an immense body toward the north. If their number may be calculated by the space of ground occupied by the entire body, it must have amounted to upward of 40,000. The Griquas pursued them about eight miles; and though they continued desperate, they seemed filled with terror at the enemies by whom they had been overcome.... As fighting was not my province, I avoided discharging a single shot, though, at the request of Mr. Melville and the chiefs, I remained with the commando as the only means of safety. Seeing the savage ferocity of the Bechuanas in killing the inoffensive women and children for the sake of a few paltry rings, or to boast that they had killed some of the Mantatees, I turned my attention to these objects of pity, who were flying in consternation in all directions. By my galloping in among them, many of the Bechuanas were deterred from their barbarous purpose. Shortly after they began to retreat, the women, seeing that mercy was shown them, instead of flying, generally sat down, and, baring their bosoms, exclaimed, 'I am a woman. I am a woman.' It seemed impossible for the men to yield. There were several instances of wounded men being surrounded by fifty Bechuanas, but it was not till life was almost extinct that a single one would allow himself to be conquered. I saw more than one instance of a man fighting boldly with ten or twelve spears or arrows fixed in his body.... The men, struggling with death, would raise themselves from the ground, and discharge their weapons at any one of our number within their reach: their hostile and revengeful spirit only ceased when life was extinct. Contemplating this deadly conflict, we could not but admire the mercy of God that not one of our number was killed, and only one slightly wounded. One Bechuana lost his life while too eagerly seeking for plunder. The slain of the enemy was between four and five hundred.

"The Mantatees are a tall, robust people, in features resembling the Bechuanas; the dress, consisting of prepared ox-hides, hanging doubly over their shoulders. The men, during the engagement, were nearly naked, having on their heads a round cockade of black ostrich feathers. Their ornaments were large copper rings, sometimes eight in number, worn round their necks, with numerous arm, leg, and ear rings of the same material. Their weapons were war-axes of various shapes, and clubs. Into many of their knob-sticks were inserted pieces of iron resembling a sickle, but more curved, sometimes to a circle, and sharp on the outside. They appeared more rude and barbarous than the tribes around us, the natural consequences of the warlike life they had led. They were suffering dreadfully from want; even in the heat of battle, the poorest class seized pieces of meat and devoured them raw."



CHAPTER XXIII.

The new City of Mexico.—The Discoveries of Gold.—Ruins at Mexico.—The Monks, and what Cortez gained by his Piety.—The City of Mexico again rebuilt.—The City under Ravillagigedo.—The National Palace.—The Cathedral.—A whole Museum turned Saints.—All kneel together.—The San Carlos Academy of Arts.—Reign of Carlos III—The Mineria.

The city of Mexico, as rebuilt by Cortez, was but an humble affair. The small amount of plunder realized from the city destroyed; the necessity for large remittances to secure peace at the Spanish court; the general poverty and destitution of the Indians inhabiting the surrounding villages, and the narrow limits of the Aztec empire, were great impediments in the way of erecting a magnificent city. On a small scale, he resembled Santa Anna in the activity with which he could organize an army after defeat, or resuscitate affairs when apparently irretrievable. He knew how to improve the most slender means to the accomplishment of ulterior purposes. Perseverance is not one of the leading characteristics of the Spanish race, yet it is surprising to see how much they will often accomplish with what would appear to us totally inadequate means. Such was eminently the talent of Cortez. Surrounded by disappointed men, who had been lured to the country by magnificent pictures of its resources, he still went on extending his conquests among the surrounding tribes.

Fortunately, the most precious of all metals is obtained by the most simple process, and the gold-washings of the Mescala and other parts of the south, which the Indians had but partially wrought, received more attention as soon as they learned how readily the precious metal could be exchanged for the gewgaws of the Europeans. Gold dust was greedily exchanged for its weight in bright silver coins, and an ounce of gold was not unfrequently given for a bright-colored handkerchief. In a few months the means for the organization of a community were obtained from the gold-diggings. Nothing tends so much to elevate the lowly as the discovery of gold-washings, in which individual effort, and not machinery, is the ruling power, and the producer of wealth. But even a gold country has its evils; for nowhere have I ever seen so many disappointed men as at the very place where an abundance of gold could be had for simply washing it out of the mud; and nowhere have I seen so large a proportion of unemployed men as on the spot where the wages of labor were fabulously high. Still, with all these drawbacks, the city of Cortez rapidly progressed under the stimulus of gold discoveries, until he found the wildest of his dreams falling short of the reality.

THE MONKS IN MEXICO.

The new city did not occupy the exact position of its Indian predecessor, but was clustered around the still remaining navigable canals, upon the southern border, while the main portion of the old city, which lay toward the northern limits of the island—where to this day such an abundant supply of earthen gods is to be found by digging—was left a mass of ruins. These were not, by any means, the ruins of fallen stone walls, or capitals, or columns, but shapeless masses of earth, which proclaim most unmistakably the kind of magnificence which distinguished the ancient capital of the Aztec empire.

The monks, who scented gold as buzzards scent carrion, began early to discover the growing wealth of this new city, and soon a party of a dozen Franciscans, in sackcloth with downcast visages, approached the city. They came, not as religious teachers, but as spiritual scavengers, who had consecrated their lives for gold to clean out the road to heaven for the vilest sinners. Cortez, who had been the greatest sinner, was now the greatest penitent. The whole city was moved at the coming of these holy men, who carried the cross before them, but forgot not the cards and the dice in their pockets—who daily, in the mass, consecrated spiritual bread for famishing souls, and at night spent the wages of their piety at the gambling-table. To the surprise of his fellow-profligates, and to the astonishment of the Indians, Cortez, walking bare-footed, led the procession that escorted the monks from near the spot where his brigantines had sailed among the corn-fields of Iztapalapan to the little chapel he had partly finished, and which now stands in the yard of the Franciscans.[50] He was so zealous in the performance of his devotions and his penances that he won the affections of the holy fathers to such a degree that he ever found faithful supporters in the powerful order of Saint Francis in all his troubles at the Spanish court. The question of his sincerity mattered little to them. It was the benefit of his public example which they, above all things, desired in their search after golden treasures. To get gold and to gratify their vices was their pious calling. Though they boast of having baptized some 6000 Indians, this argues nothing, except as it tends to show the numbers of the Indian population of the valley; for, as a badge of their subjugation, the Indians received Christian baptism; and truly it has been said of them, "They feared the Lord, but served their graven images."

We have now a sadder tale to tell; one that philanthropists have grieved over so often. Gold-washings are soon exhausted, but they frequently lead to the discovery of silver mines, which become so profitable as to drive away the very memory of the gold-washings. Thus the fact that gold-washings ever existed in Mexico, or even in Brazil, is almost forgotten, and the places where those washings were rests in vague tradition.

But while gold is procured by the most simple process, to extract silver requires science, and an immense expenditure of labor and machinery, in delving to the very bowels of the earth, and in separating the slight percentage of pure silver from the mass of ore. In this exhausting labor, which is often assigned to convicts, Indians were employed until they gave up the ghost. The conquerors had appropriated to themselves the best-looking of the Indian females, while their husbands—for Indians marry very early in life—were consigned to the mines as laborers and carriers in the bowels of the mountain. From this promiscuous intercourse, so early introduced, has arisen the present mixed-blood population of Mexico. The offspring of sin, they are a nation of sinners. The pure Indians are the descendants chiefly of the unenslaved tribes, like the Tlascalans and Tezcucans, who carried on the subsequent wars of Cortez, and the whites are mostly descendants of later immigrations.

In a former chapter we have seen that the evils which California suffered in the first years of its existence afflicted Mexico down to the time of the great inundation of 1629; and from the pen of an eye-witness we have given a picture of the state of society at that time. But during the five years that the water rested on the city, its superabundant wealth disappeared; many of the nobility and gentry withdrew to Puebla, carrying with them their treasures and their vices, while multitudes of the poorer classes perished. So that when the Virgin of Guadalupe, in her great mercy to an afflicted people, caused the earth to open and swallow up the great excess of waters, they had become a sobered and a more moral population. It is from this abating of the waters in the year 1634 that we have to date the origin of the present city of Mexico; for the foundations of all the buildings except those about the Cathedral were so much softened by five years of soaking that they could not be relied on; and a new city grew up upon new foundations. This is the Mexico of the present day; a city more elegant than substantial, and dependent more upon the plaster and colored washings of its walls than solid masonry for its apparent durability.

THE VICEROY RAVILLAGIGEDO.

It was the great Vice-king Ravillagigedo, toward the close of the last century (1789), who gave the finishing strokes to the city, and established its reputation as the finest city on this continent while the vice-kingdom continued. It was then one of the best-lighted cities to be found, while in its paving he expended the large sum of $347,715.[51] We have seen, in our own day and in our own large cities, the popular applause which follows the rigid enforcement of wholesome ordinances; and it may be well supposed that in a city like Mexico, such an unusual proceeding would elevate the fearless magistrate in popular estimation, and make him the subject of all kind of apocryphal anecdotes.

The best of the anecdotes illustrating his sternness in enforcing city ordinances is the following: A police officer once reported to him the case of the occupants of a house who had neglected sweeping in front of their premises. He informed him that the family had consisted of a widowed mother and two daughters, but that the mother had died during the previous night, and that, instead of sweeping the street as usual, the daughters sat at the door weeping, and soliciting money of passers-by to bury the dead body. "Return," said the viceroy sternly to the officer, "and stand at the door until there are twelve shillings (a dollar and a half) in the plate, and then take it, and bring it and the offenders to me." The officer did as directed. "Deliver the money to the municipal treasurer, in payment of the fine for violating the city ordinance," said the vice-king to the officer, "and then return to your duty." He then turned to the orphans: "I hear that your mother is dead, and that you wish to obtain the means of burying her. Here is an order on your parish priest, who will bury your mother, and here is a trifle for yourselves," he said, handing to each of them a gold ounce. They went their way, blessing the man that had succored them in their necessity. This early example of the rigid enforcement of city ordinances has never been forgotten in Mexico, where, considering its limited means, for its revenue[52] does not exceed $400,000, including its landed rents, its government is well sustained, and its laws better enforced than in many of our own cities. Its police consists of a military patrol,[53] who, oddly enough, perform the duties of lamplighters.

THE NATIONAL PALACE.

The National Palace is an immense structure, which occupies the eastern front of the Grand Plaza, and is sometimes foolishly called the Halls of the Montezumas. It contains within itself all the offices of government, besides the barracks of the President's guard. Besides being the city residence of the President himself, it contains the two halls that were formerly occupied by the two legislative bodies, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, while such a burlesque of our free institutions existed in Mexico. In this palace also was the National Mint, so long as any body would trust the nation with his silver bars to coin; but, now that the mint is farmed out, it is removed to a private establishment. In this building are all the archives of the vice-kingdom and the republic, and he who would study the history of the past must diligently labor here.

The Cathedral is upon the northern side of the Grand Plaza, and is said to occupy the site of the great teocalli, and to have a rocky foundation. Whether this last assertion is really true, I have no means of verifying, but there must be something unusual about its foundations, as its towers are the only ones that I know of in the city that do not lean a little. Ninety years was this vast edifice, or, rather, pile of edifices, in building, and the amount of treasure expended in its construction seems to a stranger to be fabulous. The best of its many fine views, or, rather, the one I admire the most, is the one from the entrance to the National Palace, though the one most commonly given is that from the front of the Municipality building, which occupies the entire south front of the Plaza.

IMAGES IN THE CATHEDRAL.

The interior of the Cathedral is certainly imposing, but I had so early in life attached the idea of the Gothic architecture to every thing magnificent in the way of churches, that this Moro-Spanish style fails to produce an effect commensurate with the merits of the building. Again, images are not associated with my early ideas of divine worship; and when, passing from side altar to side altar, I feel that I am only looking at wax figures, they produce no solemnity in me. And when I afterward learned, or thought I learned, that the showman of the strolling museum got his "wax figures" at the same shop, or from the same moulds in which were cast the images of the saints, they call up the idea of Punch and Judy.

Before these images I have seen hundreds of worshipers prostrate, repeating their prayers with the most profound reverence, while the sight of the image filled me with boyish glee that I could hardly suppress. The identical image that was labeled Bluebeard in the museum is now Saint Peter. The "Disconsolate Widow" is now "the Weeping Virgin." Charlotte Temple, and the baby that never knew its father, is now Mary and the infant Christ. Macbeth, looking as though he had the toothache, is Saint Francis. Othello is here a saint; and the sleeping Desdemona is now the sleeping Virgin. The monster that poisoned six husbands, and sits meditating the death of a seventh, is now dressed in the latest Paris finery, and is a saint. The old miser, who laid up such hoards while he starved himself to death, is here placed among saints; the clothes are different, but there is the same forbidding visage. Here, too, are the Queen of Sheba, the Babes in the Wood, the Belle of the West, the Terrible Brigand, and Sir William Wallace—all transformed into images of saints, before whom the people bow down with the most profound reverence, and to whose intercession they commit the salvation of their souls.

I do not know whether the showman or the priests are to blame for my irreverence, or whether it is the fault of the system itself. The argument in favor of the adoration of images is that they make impressions on the senses which aid devotion; but, if the impressions made on my senses are to be considered, the whole tendency is to debase the immortal Maker of heaven and earth below the level of humanity, "and to change the image of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." There was abundant proof of this in the tabernacle of our Lady of Remedies above the great altar of the Cathedral. There sits enthroned this cast-off bauble of some nursery, emblazoned with jewels enough to supply the means to educate the whole population of Mexico. To this piece of dilapidated wood and plaster of Paris are conceded attributes of God Almighty: to grant rain in times of drought; health in times of pestilence; a safe delivery to women in peril of childbirth; and before it, in times of public calamity, the highest dignitaries walk in solemn procession.

Nothing disgusts an Anglo-Saxon more than to witness the mental degradation of the descendants of the Castilians, the slaves of superstition, craft, and imposture. From generation to generation they have lived in constant fear of the secret agents of the Inquisition, and of the evil spirits that are ever plotting against the peace of good Christians. The permanency of the laws of Nature, the very foundation of all self-reliance and courage, is believed to be at the caprice of every one of a legion of saints, each of whom has been canonized on proof of working a miracle. Truth, and honesty, and chastity are subordinate virtues, and only a slavish devotion to his conscience-keeper can sustain a believer in the hour of greatest necessity.

There are important truths to be learned in Mexico, and even in this immense pile of buildings devoted to superstition. Among these is the perfect equality that should exist in a place of worship. Here the rich and the poor meet together upon a level; the well-dressed lady and the market-woman are here kneeling together before the same image. The distinctions of wealth and rank are for the moment forgotten. While I was looking on and admiring this state of things, I saw a market-man on his return homeward with an empty hen-coop on his back. He walked boldly up, and knelt among the body of worshipers, told his beads, and then started up and trudged on his homeward journey. This equality is only for an hour, and hardly so long; yet it is an hour daily, and must have its effect in this country of inequalities in reminding the most humble that this inequality is only for this world, and that at the termination of life all will stand upon a common level.

THE SAN CARLOS.

The San Carlos, or Academy of Arts, is now in a flourishing condition, on account of the success of the lottery that supports it. The number of students here gratuitously instructed in different branches of art is quite large. Here, too, it is refreshing to see equality triumphant; the child of the peon and of the prince sit side by side, and on the days of public exhibition, the crowds that throng its halls are admitted gratuitously, and are of as miscellaneous a character as are its pupils. The pictures of Pangre are the present great attraction, and every new production of his genius gains him additional applause. The works that Humboldt so much admired are still here, but since his time there have been added several marbles of considerable merit.

This Academy of San Carlos is one of the many monuments of that greatest of the kings of Spain since the Conquest, Don Carlos III., though not brought into full operation until the reign of his imbecile successor, Carlos IV. All the monuments of which Mexico can boast at this day are traceable to the reign of the only enlightened Spanish prince of whom Spain can boast in a period of 300 years. Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since the foundation of this academy, and it has not yet produced a man of the first class either in painting or sculpture.

The College of Mines, the finest building in this city, is another exhibition of the liberal spirit which governed in the reign of Don Carlos. Under this prince a new code of mining laws had been digested, strikingly resembling the present miner's rules in California. Their immediate effect was almost to double the production of silver, while the Mineria was both a school to impart scientific knowledge in relation to mining, and a bank to advance money to develop new mineral enterprises. Its support now rests upon the tax it is authorized to levy of one shilling upon every mark ($8) of silver produced.

[50] As it is an unimportant question whether Cortez first built a chapel for the Franciscans back of the Cathedral, or the one in the yard of the Franciscans, I here repeat the popular tradition.

[51] HUMBOLDT, Essai Politique.

[52] As my readers may be a little curious to know how the city government is sustained, I translate the statement of city revenue of 1851.

There were in that year 379 licensed pulque-shops, yielding a revenue of $65,297 538 retail grocer shops in which liquor is sold by the gill 25,609 8 breweries pay a city tax of 1,697 132 cafes, fondas, and eating-houses pay 4,418 Tax on grain and bread consumed in the city 53,762 Public diversions, $3103; permitted plays (not gambling), $3221 6,324 Tax on canals, $6798; tax on coaches, $20,157; markets, $56,130 83,085 Donation of the proceeds of a bull-fight 830 Gifts, in bread and meat, to the prisons 4,561 A tax of one dollar on the slaughtering of 21,984 beef-cattle 21,984 16,404 calves were slaughtered, paying six shillings tax 12,303 145,040 sheep, at one shilling and sixpence 27,194 9394 pigs paid five shillings tax, or 5,870 42,734 swine, full grown, paid six shillings 32,055 7750 goats and kids, at one shilling and sixpence 1,453 Tax on property entering the city gates 1,878 Licenses to slaughter to individuals 136 The water rents of $20,000 were consumed in repairs. The tax on fish yielded $390 The balance of the revenue consists of certain city properties.