Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican Part 2

As this mighty prince approached, Cortez halted his men, and, advancing with a few of his princ.i.p.al retainers, was most courteously welcomed by Montezuma, who, adroitly concealing his chagrin, diplomatically expressed the uncommon delight he experienced at this unexpected visit of the strangers to his capital. Our hero thanked him for his friendly welcome and bounteous gifts,--and hung around his neck a chain set with colored crystal. Montezuma then opened his gates to the Spaniards and appointed his brother to conduct the General with his troops, to the city.

Here he found a s.p.a.cious edifice, surrounded by a wall, a.s.signed for his future residence; and, having stationed sentinels, and placed his cannon on the battlements so as to command all the important avenues to his palace, he proceeded to examine the city and to acquaint himself with the character, occupations, and temper of the people.[4]

[Footnote 2: Between nine and ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, at this point of the road.]

[Footnote 3: Prescott.]

[Footnote 4: "The province which const.i.tutes the princ.i.p.al territory of Montezuma," (says Cortez in his letter to Charles the V.,) "is circular, and entirely surrounded by lofty and rugged mountains, and the circ.u.mference of it is full seventy leagues. In this plain there are two lakes which nearly occupy the whole of it, as the people use canoes for more than fifty leagues round. One of these lakes is of fresh water, and the other, which is larger, is of salt water. They are divided, on one side, by a small collection of high hills, which stand in the centre of the plain, and they unite in a level strait formed between these hills and the high mountains, which strait is a gun-shot wide, and the people of the cities and other settlements which are in these lakes, communicate together in their canoes by water, without the necessity of going by land. And as this great salt lake ebbs and flows with the tide, as the sea does, in every flood the water flows from it into the other fresh lake as impetuously as if it were a large river, and consequently at the ebb, the fresh lake flows into the salt.

"This great city of Temixt.i.tlan, (meaning Tenocht.i.tlan, Mexico,) is founded in this salt lake; and from terra firma to the body of the city, the distance is two leagues on whichever side they please to enter it.

"It has four entrances, or causeways, made by the hand of man, as wide as two hors.e.m.e.n's lances.

"The city is as large as Seville and Cordova. The streets (I mean the princ.i.p.al ones,) are very wide, and others very narrow; and some of the latter and all the others are one-half land and the other half water, along which the inhabitants go in their canoes; and all the streets, at given distances, are open, so that the water pa.s.ses from one to the other; and in all their openings, some of which are very wide, there are very wide bridges, made of ma.s.sive beams joined together and well wrought; and so wide that ten hors.e.m.e.n may pa.s.s abreast over many of them."--_Letters of Cortez to Charles V._]

CHAPTER IV.

1519-1520.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF TENOCHt.i.tLAN.--MONTEZUMA'S WAY OF LIFE--MARKET-PLACE.--CORTeZ AT THE GREAT TEMPLE--DESCRIPTION OF IT.--PLACE OF SACRIFICE--SANCTUARIES--HUITZILOPOTCHTLI.-- TEZCATLIPOCA--DANGER OF CORTeZ--MONTEZUMA SEIZED.--MONTEZUMA A PRISONER--HIS SUBMISSIVENESS.--ARRIVAL OF NARVAEZ--CORTeZ'S DIPLOMACY.--CORTeZ OVERCOMES NARVAEZ, AND RECRUITS HIS FORCES.

The city of Mexico, or Tenocht.i.tlan, was, as we have already said, encompa.s.sed by the lake of Tezcoco, over which three solid causeways formed the only approaches. This inland sea was, indeed, "an archipelago of wandering islands." The whole city was penetrated throughout its entire length by a princ.i.p.al street, which was intersected by numerous ca.n.a.ls, crossed by drawbridges; and, wherever the eye could reach, long vistas of low stone buildings rose on every side among beautiful gardens or luxuriant foliage. The quadrangular palaces of the n.o.bles who Montezuma encouraged to reside at his court, were spread over a wide extent of ground, embellished with beautiful fountains which shot their spray amid porticoes and columns of polished porphyry. The palace of Montezuma was so vast a pile, that one of the conquerors alleges its terraced roof afforded ample room for thirty knights to tilt in tournament. A royal armory was filled with curious and dangerous weapons, and adorned with an ample store of military dresses, equipments and armor. Huge granaries contained the tributary supplies which were brought to the Prince by the provinces for the maintenance of the royal family, and there was an aviary in which three hundred attendants fed and reared birds of the sweetest voice or rarest plumage; whilst, near it, rose a menagerie, filled with specimens of all the native beasts, together with a museum, in which, with an oddity of taste unparalleled in history, there had been collected a vast number of human monsters, cripples, dwarfs, Albinos and other freaks and caprices of nature. The royal gardens are described by eye-witnesses as spots of unsurpa.s.sed elegance, adorned with rare shrubs, medicinal plants, and ponds, supplied by aqueducts and fountains, wherein, amid beautiful flowers, the finest fish and aquatic birds were seen forever floating in undisturbed quiet. The interior of the palace was equally attractive for its comfort and elegance. s.p.a.cious halls were covered with ceilings of odoriferous wood, while the lofty walls were hung with richly tinted fabrics of cotton, the skins of animals, or feather work wrought in mosaic imitation of birds, reptiles, insects and flowers. Nor was the Emperor alone amid the splendid wastes of his palace. A thousand women thronged these royal chambers, ministering to the tastes and pa.s.sions of the elegant voluptuary. The rarest viands, from far and near, supplied his table, the service of which was performed by numerous attendants on utensils and equipage of the choicest material and shape. Four times, daily, the Emperor changed his apparel, and never put on again the dress he once had worn, or defiled his lips twice with the same vessels from which he fed.

Such was the sovereign's palace and way of life, nor can we suppose that this refinement of luxury was to be found alone in the dwelling of Montezuma and his n.o.bles. It is to be regretted that we are not more fully informed of the condition of property, wealth and labor among the ma.s.ses of this singular empire. The conquerors did not trouble themselves with acquiring accurate statistical information, nor do they seem to have counted numbers carefully, except when they had enemies to conquer or spoil to divide. In all primitive nations, however, the best idea of a people is to be attained from visiting the market-place,--or rather the fair,--in which it is their custom to sell or barter the products of their industry; and, to this rendezvous of the Aztecs, Cortez, with the astuteness that never forsook him during his perilous enterprise, soon betook himself after his arrival in the city.

The market of Tenocht.i.tlan was a scene of commercial activity as well as of humble thrift. It was devoted to all kinds of native traffic. In the centre of the city the conqueror found a magnificent square surrounded by porticoes, in which, it is alleged, that sixty thousand traders were engaged in buying and selling every species of merchandize produced in the realm; jewels, goldware, toys, curious imitations of natural objects, wrought with the utmost skill of deception; weapons of copper alloyed with tin, pottery of all degrees of fineness, carved vases, bales of richly dyed cotton; beautifully woven feather-work, wild and tame animals, grain, fish, vegetables, all the necessaries of life and all its luxuries, together with restaurateurs and shops for the sale of medical drugs, confectionery, or stimulating drinks. It was, in fact, an immense bazaar, which, at a glance, gave an insight into the tastes, wants and productive industry of the nation.

Satisfied with this inspection of the people and their talents, the next visit of the General was, doubtless, made with the double object of becoming acquainted with that cla.s.s of men, who in all countries so powerfully influence public opinion, whilst, from the top of their tall temple, situated on their lofty central Teocalli or pyramid, he might, with a military eye, scan the general topography of the city.

This pyramidal structure, or Great Temple, as it is generally called, was perhaps rather the base of a religious structure, than the religious edifice itself. We possess no accurate drawing of it among the contemporary or early relics of the conquest, that have descended to us; but it is known to have been pyramidal in shape, over one hundred and twenty feet in alt.i.tude, with a base of three hundred and twenty. It stood in a large area, surrounded by a wall eight feet high, sculptured with the figures of serpents in relief. From one end of the base of this structure, a flight of steps rose to a terrace at the base of the second story of the pyramid. Around this terrace, a person, in ascending, was obliged to pa.s.s until he came to the corner immediately above the first flight, where he encountered another set of steps, up which he pa.s.sed to the second terrace, and so on, continuously, to the third and fourth terraces, until, by a fifth flight, he attained the summit platform of the Teocalli. These s.p.a.ces or terraces, at each story, are represented to have been about six feet in width, so that three or four persons could easily ascend abreast. It will be perceived that in attaining the top of the edifice it was necessary to pa.s.s round it entirely four times and to ascend five stairways. Within the enclosure, built of stone and crowned with battlements, a village of five hundred houses might have been built.

Its area was paved with smooth and polished stones, and the pyramid that rose in its centre seems to have been constructed as well for military as religious purposes, inasmuch as its architecture made it fully capable of resistance as a citadel; and we may properly a.s.sume this opinion as a fact, from the circ.u.mstance that the enclosing walls were entered by four gates, facing the cardinal points, while over each portal was erected a military a.r.s.enal filled with immense stores of warlike equipments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESTORATION OF GREAT TEMPLE.]

When Cortez arrived in front of this truncated pyramid, two priests and several caciques were in attendance, by order of Montezuma, to bear him in their arms to its summit. But the hardy conqueror declined this effeminate means of transportation, and marched up slowly at the head of his soldiers. On the paved and level area at the top, they found a large block of jasper, the peculiar shape of which showed it was the stone on which the bodies of the unhappy victims were stretched for sacrifice. Its convex surface, rising breast high, enabled the priest to perform more easily his diabolical task of removing the heart. Besides this, there were two sanctuaries erected on the level surface of the _Teocalli_; two altars, glowing with a fire that was never extinguished; and a large circular drum, which was struck only on occasions of great public concern.

Such was the _Teocalli_ or _House of G.o.d_. There were other edifices, having the name of _Teopan_, or _Places of G.o.d_. Some writers allege that there were two towers erected on the great Teocalli of Tenocht.i.tlan; but it may be safely a.s.serted that there was at least one of these, which rose to the height of about fifty-six feet, and was divided into three stories, the lower being of stone, while the others were constructed of wrought and painted wood. In the bas.e.m.e.nt of these towers were the sanctuaries, where two splendid altars had been erected to Huitzilopotchtli and Tezcatlipoca, over which the idol representatives of these divinities were placed in state.

Within the enclosure of the Teocalli there were forty other temples dedicated to various Aztec G.o.ds. Besides these, there were colleges or residences and seminaries of the priests, together with a splendid house of entertainment, devoted to the accommodation of eminent strangers who visited the temple and the court. All these sumptuous ecclesiastical establishments were grouped around the pyramid, protected by the quadrangular wall, and built amid gardens and groves.

Cortez asked leave of the Emperor, who accompanied him on his visit, to enter the sanctuaries of the Aztec deities. In a s.p.a.cious stuccoed saloon, roofed with carved and gilt timber, stood the gigantic idol of Huitzilopotchtli, the Mexican Mars. His countenance was harsh and menacing. In his hands he grasped a bow and golden arrows. He was girt with the folds of a serpent, formed of precious materials, whilst his left foot was feathered with the plumage of the humming-bird, from which he took his name. Around his throat hung suspended a ma.s.sive necklace of alternate gold and silver hearts; and on the altar before him, three human hearts which had recently been torn from living b.r.e.a.s.t.s, were still quivering and bleeding, fresh from the immolated victims.

In the other chamber, or sanctuary, were the milder emblems of Tezcatlipoca, who "created the world and watched it with providential care." The lineaments of this idol were those of a youth, whose image, carved in black and polished stone, was adorned with discs of burnished gold, and embellished with a brilliant shield. Nevertheless, the worship of this more benign deity was stained with homicide, for on its altar, in a plate of gold, the conqueror found five human hearts; and, in these dens of inhumanity, Bernal Diaz tells us, that the "stench was more intolerable than in the slaughter houses of Castile!"

Such is a brief summary of the observations made by the Spaniards during a week's residence in the city. They found themselves in the heart of a rich and populous empire, whose civilization, however, was, by a strange contradiction for which we shall hereafter endeavor to account, stained with the most shocking barbarity under the name of religion. The unscrupulous murder, which was dignified with the a.s.sociations and practice of national worship, was by no means consolatory to the minds of men who were really in the power of semi-civilized rulers and b.l.o.o.d.y priests. They discovered, from their own experience, that the sovereign was both fickle and feeble, and that a caprice, a hope, or a fear, might suffice to make him free his country from a handful of dangerous guests by offering them as sacrifices to his G.o.ds. The Tlascalans were already looked upon with no kind feelings by their hereditary foes. A spark might kindle a fatal flame. It was a moment for bold and unscrupulous action, and it was needful to obtain some signal advantage by which the Spaniards could, at least, effect their retreat, if not ensure an ultimate victory.

News just then was brought to Cortez that four of his countrymen, whom he left behind at Cempoalla, had been treacherously slain by one of the tributary caciques of Montezuma; and this at once gave him a motive, or at least a pretext, for seizing the Emperor himself, as a hostage for the good faith of his nation. Accordingly, he visited Montezuma with a band of his most reliable followers, who charged the monarch with the treachery of his subordinate, and demanded the apprehension of the cacique to answer for the slaughter of their inoffensive countrymen.

Montezuma, of course, immediately disavowed the treason and ordered the arrest of the Governor; but Cortez would not receive an apology or verbal reparation of the injury,--although he professed to believe the exculpation of Montezuma himself,--unless that sovereign would restore the Spaniard's confidence in his fidelity by quitting his palace and changing his residence to the quarters of the invaders!

This was, indeed, an unexpected blow. It was one of those strokes of unparalleled boldness which paralyzed their victim by sheer amazement.

After considerable discussion and useless appeals, the entrapped Emperor tamely submitted to the surprising demand, for he saw, in the resolved faces of his armed and steel-clad foes, that resistance was useless, if he attempted to save his own life, with the small and unprepared forces that were at hand.

For a while the most ceremonious respect was paid by the conqueror and his men to their royal prisoner, who, under strict _surveillance_, maintained his usual courtly pomp, and performed all the functions of Emperor. But Cortez soon became his master. The will of an effeminate king was no match for the indomitable courage, effrontery and genius of the Spanish knight. The offending cacique of Cempoalla was burned alive, either to glut his vengeance or inspire dread; and when the traitor endeavored to compromise Montezuma in his crime, fetters were placed for an hour on the limbs of the imprisoned sovereign. Every day the disgraced Emperor became, more and more, the mere minister of Cortez. He was forced to discountenance publicly those who murmured at his confinement, or to arrest the leading conspirators for his deliverance. He granted a province to the Castilian crown and swore allegiance to it. He collected the tribute and revenue from dependant cities or districts in the name of the Spanish king; and, at last, struck a blow even at his hereditary and superst.i.tious faith by ordering the great Teocalli to be purged of its human gore and the erection of an altar on its summit, on which, before the cross and the images of the Virgin and her Son, the Christian ma.s.s might be celebrated in the presence of the Aztec mult.i.tude.

It was at this moment, when Cortez tried the national nerve most daringly by interfering with the religious superst.i.tions of a dissatisfied town, and when every symptom of a general rebellion was visible, that the conqueror received the startling news of the arrival on the coast of DON PAMPHILO DE NARVAEZ, with eighteen vessels and nine hundred men, who had been sent, by the revengeful Velasquez, to arrest the hero and send him in chains to St. Jago.

A more unfortunate train of circ.u.mstances can scarcely be conceived. In the midst of an enemy's capital, with a handful of men,--menaced by a numerous and outraged nation, on the one hand, and, with a Spanish force sent, in the name of law by authorities to whom he owed loyal respect, to arrest him, on the other,--it is indeed difficult to imagine a situation better calculated to try the soul and task the genius of a general. But it was one of those perilous emergencies which, throughout his whole career, seem to have imparted additional energy, rather than dismay, to the heart of Cortez, and which prove him to have been, like Nelson, a man who never knew the sensation of fear. Nor must it be imagined that difficulty made him rash. Seldom has a hero appeared in history more perfectly free from precipitancy after he undertook his great enterprise;--and, in the period under consideration, this is fully exhibited in the diplomacy with which he approached the hostile Spaniards on the coast who had been despatched to dislodge and disgrace him. He resolved, at once, not to abandon what he had already gained in the capital; but, at the same time, he endeavored to tranquilize or foil Narvaez if he could not win him over to his enterprise; for it was evidently the policy of the newly arrived general to unite in a spoil which was almost ready for division rather than to incur the perils and uncertainty of another conquest.

Accordingly Cortez addressed a letter to Narvaez requesting him not to kindle a spirit of insubordination among the natives by proclaiming his enmity. Yet this failed to affect his jealous countryman. He then desired Narvaez to receive his band as brothers in arms, and to share the treasure and fame of the conquest. But this, also, was rejected; while the loyal tool of Velasquez diligently applied himself to fomenting the Aztec discontent against his countrymen, and proclaimed his design of marching to Mexico to release the Emperor from the grasp of his Spanish oppressor.

There was now no other opening for diplomacy, nor was delay to be longer suffered. Cortez, therefore, leaving the mutinous capital in the hands of Pedro de Alvarado, with a band of but one hundred and fifty men to protect the treasure he had ama.s.sed,--departed for the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf with only seventy soldiers, but was joined, on his way, by one hundred and twenty men who had retreated from the garrison at Vera Cruz. He was not long in traversing the plains and Cordilleras towards the eastern sea; and falling suddenly on the camp of Narvaez, in the dead of night, he turned the captured artillery against his foe, seized the general, received the capitulation of the army of nine hundred well equipped men, and soon healed the factions which of course existed between the conquerors and the conquered. He had acquired the _prestige_ which always attends extraordinary success or capacity; and men preferred the chances of splendid results under such a leader to the certainty of moderate gain under a general who did not possess his matchless genius. Thus it was that the lordly spirit and commanding talents of Cortez enabled him to convert the very elements of disaster into the means of present strength and future success!

CHAPTER V.

1520.

CORTeZ RETURNS TO THE CAPITAL--CAUSES OF THE REVOLT AGAINST THE SPANIARDS.--CORTeZ CONDEMNS ALVARADO--HIS CONDUCT TO MONTEZUMA.--BATTLE IN THE CITY--MONTEZUMA MEDIATES.--FIGHT ON THE GREAT TEMPLE OR TEOCALLI.--RETREAT OF THE SPANIARDS--NOCHE TRISTE.--FLIGHT OF THE SPANIARDS TO TACUBA.

Whilst Cortez was beset with the difficulties recounted in our last chapter, and engaged in overcoming Narvaez on the coast, the news reached him of an insurrection in the capital, towards which he immediately turned his steps. On approaching the city, intelligence was brought that the active hostilities of the natives had been changed, for the last fortnight, into a blockade, and that the garrison had suffered dreadfully during his absence. Montezuma, too, despatched an envoy who was instructed to impress the conqueror with the Emperor's continued fidelity, and to exculpate him from all blame in the movement against Alvarado.

On the 24th June, 1520, Cortez reached the capital. On all sides he saw the melancholy evidences of war. There were neither greeting crowds on the causeways, nor boats on the lake; bridges were broken down; the brigantines or boats he had constructed to secure a retreat over the waters of these inland seas, were destroyed; the whole population seemed to have vanished, and silence brooded over the melancholy scene.

The revolt against the lieutenant Alvarado was generally attributed to his fiery impetuosity, and to the inhuman and motiveless slaughter committed by the Spanish troops, under his authority, during the celebration of a solemn Aztec festival, called the "incensing of Huitzilopotchtli." Six hundred victims, were, on that occasion, slain by the Spaniards, in cold blood, in the neighborhood of the Great Temple; nor was a single native, engaged in the mysterious rites, left alive to tell the tale of the sudden and brutal a.s.sault.

Alvarado, it is true, pretended that his spies had satisfactorily proved the existence of a well founded conspiracy, which was designed to explode upon this occasion; but the evidence is not sufficient to justify the disgraceful and horrid deed that must forever tarnish his fame. It is far more probable that rapacity was the true cause of the onslaught, and that the reckless companion of the conqueror, who had been entrusted with brief authority during his absence, miscalculated the power of his Indian foe, and confounded the warlike Mexican of the valley with the weaker soldiers, dwelling in more emasculating climates, whom he had so rapidly confounded and overthrown in his march to the capital.

It may well be supposed that this slaughter, combined with the other causes of discontent already existing among the Aztecs, served to kindle the outraged national feeling with intense hatred of the invaders. The city rose in arms, and the Spaniards were hemmed within their defences. Montezuma himself addressed the people from the battlements, and stayed their active a.s.sault upon the works of Alvarado; but they strictly blockaded the enemy in his castle, cut off all supplies, and entrenched themselves in hastily constructed barricades thrown up around the habitation of the Spaniards, resolved to rest behind these works until despair and famine would finally and surely throw the helpless victims into their power. Here the invaders, with scant provisions and brackish water, awaited the approach of Cortez, who received the explanations of Alvarado with manifest disgust:--"You have been false to your trust," said he, "you have done badly, indeed, and your conduct has been that of a madman!"

Yet this was not a moment to break entirely with Alvarado, whose qualities, and perhaps, even, whose conduct, rendered him popular with a large cla.s.s of the Spanish adventurers. The newly recruited forces of Cortez gave the conqueror additional strength, for he was now at the head of no less than twelve hundred and fifty Spaniards, and eight thousand auxiliaries, chiefly Tlascalans. Yet, under the untoward circ.u.mstances, the increase of his forces augmented the difficulties of their support. Montezuma hastened to greet him. But the Spaniard was in no mood to trust the Emperor; and, as his Mexican subjects made no sign of reconciliation or submission, he refused the proferred interview:--"What have I," exclaimed he, haughtily, "to do with this dog of a king who suffers us to starve before his eyes!" He would receive no apology from his countrymen who sought to exculpate the sovereign, or from the mediating n.o.bles of the court:--"Go tell your master," was his reply, "to open the markets, or we will do it for him, at his cost!"