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

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

[428] Ante, pp. 196-199.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[435] Ante, p. 155

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[452] Ante, p. 200.

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

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

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

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

[457] Ante, p. 155.

Thus Lucretius:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[469] [Santiago de Cuba.—M.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[482] At least, such is the testimony of Las Casas, who knew both the parties well, and had often conversed with Grijalva upon his voyage. Historia general de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[493] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 2.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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