Chapter I [1521]
ARRANGEMENTS AT TEZCOCO- SACK OF IZTAPALAPAN- ADVANTAGES OF THE
SPANIARDS- WISE POLICY OF CORTES- TRANSPORTATION OF THE BRIGANTINES
THE city of Tezcoco was the best position, probably, which Cortes could
have chosen for the head-quarters of the army. It supplied all the
accommodation for lodging a numerous body of troops, and all the
facilities for subsistence, incident to a large and populous town. It
furnished, moreover, a multitude of artisans and labourers for the uses
of the army. Its territories, bordering on the Tlascalan, afforded a
ready means of intercourse with the country of his allies, while its
vicinity to Mexico enabled the general, without much difficulty, to
ascertain the movements in that capital. Its central situation, in
short, opened facilities for communication with all parts of the valley,
and made it an excellent Point d'appui for his future operations. The
first care of Cortes was to strengthen himself in the palace assigned to
him, and to place his quarters in a state of defence, which might
secure them against surprise, not only from the Mexicans, but from the
Tezcucans themselves. Since the election of their new ruler, a large
part of the population had returned to their homes, assured of
protection in person and property. But the Spanish general,
notwithstanding their show of submission, very much distrusted its
sincerity; for he knew that many of them were united too intimately with
the Aztecs, by marriage and other social relations, not to have their
sympathies engaged in their behalf. The young monarch, however, seemed
wholly in his interest; and, to secure him more effectually, Cortes
placed several Spaniards near his person, whose ostensible province it
was to instruct him in their language and religion, but who were in
reality to watch over his conduct, and prevent his correspondence with
those who might be unfriendly to the Spanish interests. Tezcuco stood
about half a league from the lake. It would be necessary to open a
communication with it, so that the brigantines, when put together in the
capital, might be launched upon its waters. It was proposed, therefore,
to dig a canal, reaching from the gardens of Nezahualcoyotl, as they
were called from the old monarch who planned them, to the edge of the
basin. A little stream or rivulet, which flowed in that direction, was
to be deepened sufficiently for the purpose; and eight thousand Indian
labourers were forthwith employed on this great work, under the
direction of the young Ixtlilxochitl. Meanwhile Cortes received messages
from several places in the neighbourhood, intimating their desire to
become the vassals of his sovereign, and to be taken under his
protection. The Spanish commander required, in return, that they should
deliver up every Mexican who should set foot in their territories. Some
noble Aztecs, who had been sent on a mission to these towns, were
consequently delivered into his hands. He availed himself of it to
employ them as bearers of a message to their master, the emperor. In it
he deprecated the necessity of the present hostilities. Those who had
most injured him, he said, were no longer among the living. He was
willing to forget the past; and invited the Mexicans, by a timely
submission, to save their capital from the horrors of a siege. Cortes
had no expectation of producing any immediate result by this appeal. But
he thought it might lie in the minds of the Mexicans, and that, if
there was a party among them disposed to treat with him, it might afford
them encouragement, as showing his own willingness to co-operate with
their views. At this time, however, there was no division of opinion in
the capital. The whole population seemed animated by a spirit of
resistance, as one man. In a former page I have mentioned that it was
the plan of Cortes, on entering the valley, to commence operations by
reducing the subordinate cities before striking at the capital itself,
which, like some goodly tree, whose roots had been severed one after
another, would be thus left without support against the fury of the
tempest. The first point of attack which he selected was the ancient
city of Iztapalapan; a place containing fifty thousand inhabitants,
according to his own account, and situated about six leagues distant, on
the narrow tongue of land which divides the waters of the great salt
lake from those of the fresh. It was the private domain of the last
sovereign of Mexico; where, as the reader may remember, he entertained
the white men the night before their entrance into the capital, and
astonished them by the display of his princely gardens. To this monarch
they owed no good will, for he had conducted the operations on the noche
triste. He was, indeed, no more; but the people of his city entered
heartily into his hatred of the strangers, and were now the most loyal
vassals of the Mexican crown. In a week after his arrival at his new
quarters, Cortes, leaving the command of the garrison to Sandoval,
marched against this Indian city, at the head of two hundred Spanish
foot, eighteen horse, and between three and four thousand Tlascalans.
Within two leagues of their point of destination, they were encountered
by a strong Aztec force, drawn up to dispute their progress. Cortes
instantly gave them battle. The barbarians showed their usual courage;
but, after some hard fighting, were compelled to give way before the
steady valour of the Spanish infantry, backed by the desperate fury of
the Tlascalans, whom the sight of an Aztec seemed to inflame almost to
madness. The enemy retreated in disorder, closely followed by the
Spaniards. When they had arrived within half a league of Iztapalapan,
they observed a number of canoes filled with Indians, who appeared to be
labouring on the mole which hemmed in the waters of the salt lake.
Swept along in the tide of pursuit, they gave little heed to it, but,
following up the chase, entered pell-mell with the fugitives into the
city. The houses stood some of them on dry ground, some on piles in the
water. The former were deserted by the inhabitants, most of whom had
escaped in canoes across the lake, leaving, in their haste, their
effects behind them. The Tlascalans poured at once into the vacant
dwellings and loaded themselves with booty; while the enemy, making the
best of their way through this part of the town, sought shelter in the
buildings erected over the water, or among the reeds which sprung from
its shallow bottom. In the houses were many of the citizens also, who
still lingered with their wives and children, unable to find the means
of transporting themselves from the scene of danger. Cortes, supported
by his own men, and by such of the allies as could be brought to obey
his orders, attacked the enemy in this last place of their retreat. Both
parties fought up to their girdles in the water. A desperate struggle
ensued, as the Aztec fought with the fury of a tiger driven to bay by
the huntsmen. It was all in vain. The enemy was overpowered in every
quarter. The citizen shared the fate of the soldier, and a pitiless
massacre succeeded, without regard to sex or age. Cortes endeavoured to
stop it. But it would have been as easy to call away the starving wolf
from the carcass he was devouring, as the Tlascalan who had once tasted
the blood of an enemy. More than six thousand, including women and
children, according to the Conqueror's own statement, perished in the
conflict. Darkness meanwhile had set in; but it was dispelled in some
measure by the light of the burning houses, which the troops had set on
fire in different parts of the town. Their insulated position, it is
true, prevented the flames from spreading from one building to another,
but the solitary masses threw a strong and lurid glare over their own
neighbourhood, which gave additional horror to the scene. As resistance
was now at an end, the soldiers abandoned themselves to pillage, and
soon stripped the dwellings of every portable article of any value.
While engaged in this work of devastation, a murmuring sound was heard
as of the hoarse rippling of waters, and a cry soon arose among the
Indians that the dikes were broken! Cortes now comprehended the business
of the men whom he had seen in the canoes at work on the mole which
fenced in the great basin of Lake Tezcuco. It had been pierced by the
desperate Indians, who thus laid the country under an inundation, by
suffering the waters of the salt lake to spread themselves over the
lower level, through the opening. Greatly alarmed, the general called
his men together, and made all haste to evacuate the city. Had they
remained three hours longer, he says, not a soul could have escaped.
They came staggering under the weight of booty, wading with difficulty
through the water, which was fast gaining upon them. For some distance
their path was illumined by the glare of the burning buildings. But, as
the light faded away in distance, they wandered with uncertain steps,
sometimes up to their knees, at others up to their waists, in the water,
through which they floundered on with the greatest difficulty. As they
reached the opening in the dike, the stream became deeper, and flowed
out with such a current that the men were unable to maintain their
footing. The Spaniards, breasting the flood, forced their way through;
but many of the Indians, unable to swim, were borne down by the waters.
All the plunder was lost. The powder was spoiled; the arms and clothes
of the soldiers were saturated with the brine, and the cold night wind,
as it blew over them, benumbed their weary limbs till they could
scarcely drag them along. At dawn they beheld the lake swarming with
canoes, full of Indians, who had anticipated their disaster, and who now
saluted them with showers of stones, arrows, and other deadly missiles.
Bodies of light troops, hovering in the distance, disquieted the flanks
of the army in like manner. The Spaniards had no desire to close with
the enemy. They only wished to regain their comfortable quarters in
Tezcuco, where they arrived on the same day, more disconsolate and
fatigued than after many a long march and hard-fought battle. The close
of the expedition, so different from its brilliant commencement, greatly
disappointed Cortes. His numerical loss had, indeed, not been great;
but this affair convinced him how much he had to apprehend from the
resolution of a people, who were prepared to bury their country under
water rather than to submit. Still, the enemy had little cause for
congratulation, since, independently of the number of slain, they had
seen one of their most flourishing cities sacked, and in part, at least,
laid in ruins,- one of those, too, which in its public works displayed
the nearest approach to civilisation. Such are the triumphs of war! The
expedition of Cortes, notwithstanding the disasters which chequered it,
was favourable to the Spanish cause. The fate of Iztapalapan struck a
terror throughout the valley. The consequences were soon apparent in the
deputations sent by the different places eager to offer their
submission. Its influence was visible, indeed, beyond the mountains.
Among others, the people of Otumba, the town near which the Spaniards
had gained their famous victory, sent to tender their allegiance, and to
request the protection of the powerful strangers. They excused
themselves, as usual, for the part they had taken in the late
hostilities, by throwing the blame on the Aztecs. But the place of most
importance which thus claimed their protection, was Chalco, situated on
the eastern extremity of the lake of that name. It was an ancient city,
people by a kindred tribe of the Aztecs, and once their formidable
rival. The Mexican emperor, distrusting their loyalty, had placed a
garrison within their walls to hold them in check. The rulers of the
city now sent a message secretly to Cortes, proposing to put themselves
under his protection, if he would enable them to expel the garrison. The
Spanish commander did not hesitate; but instantly detached a
considerable force under Sandoval for this object. On the march his
rear-guard, composed of Tlascalans, was roughly handled by some light
troops of the Mexicans. But he took his revenge in a pitched battle,
which took place with the main body of the enemy at no great distance
from Chalco. They were drawn up on a level ground, covered with green
crops of maize and maguey. Sandoval, charging the enemy at the head of
his cavalry, threw them into disorder. But they quickly rallied, formed
again, and renewed the battle with greater spirit than ever. In a second
attempt he was more fortunate; and, breaking through their lines by a
desperate onset, the brave cavalier succeeded, after a warm but
ineffectual struggle on their part, in completely routing and driving
them from the field. The conquering army continued its march to Chalco,
which the Mexican garrison had already evacuated, and was received in
triumph by the assembled citizens, who seemed eager to testify their
gratitude for their deliverance from the Aztec yoke. After taking such
measures as he could for the permanent security of the place, Sandoval
returned to Tezcuco, accompanied by the two young lords of the city,
sons of the late cacique. They were courteously received by Cortes; and
they informed him that their father had died full of years, a short time
before. With his last breath he had expressed his regret that he should
not have lived to see Malinche. He believed that the white men were the
beings predicted by the oracles, as one day to come from the East and
take possession of the land; and he enjoined it on his children, should
the strangers return to the valley, to render them their homage and
allegiance. The young caciques expressed their readiness to do so; but,
as this must bring on them the vengeance of the Aztecs, they implored
the general to furnish a sufficient force for their protection. Cortes
received a similar application from various other towns, which were
disposed, could they do so with safety, to throw off the Mexican yoke.
But he was in no situation to comply with their request. He now felt,
more sensibly than ever, the incompetency of his means to his
undertaking. "I assure your Majesty," he writes in his letter to the
emperor, "the greatest uneasiness which I feel after all my labours and
fatigues, is from my inability to succour and support our Indian
friends, your Majesty's loyal vassals." Far from having a force
competent to this, he had scarcely enough for his own protection. His
vigilant enemy had an eye on all his movements, and, should he cripple
his strength by sending away too many detachments, or by employing them
at too great a distance, would be prompt to take advantage of it. His
only expeditions, hitherto, had been in the neighbourhood, where the
troops, after striking some sudden and decisive blow, might speedily
regain their quarters. The utmost watchfulness was maintained there, and
the Spaniards lived in as constant preparation for an assault, as if
their camp was pitched under the walls of Mexico. On two occasions the
general had sallied forth and engaged the enemy in the environs of
Tezcuco. At one time a thousand canoes, filled with Aztecs, crossed the
lake to gather in a large crop of Indian corn nearly ripe, on its
borders. Cortes thought it important to secure this for himself. He
accordingly marched out and gave battle to the enemy, drove them from
the field, and swept away the rich harvest to the granaries of Tezcuco.
Another time a strong body of Mexicans had established themselves in
some neighbouring towns friendly to their interests. Cortes, again
sallying, dislodged them from their quarters, beat them in several
skirmishes, and reduced the places to obedience. But these enterprises
demanded all his resources, and left him nothing to spare for his
allies. In this exigency, his fruitful genius suggested an expedient for
supplying the deficiency of his means. Some of the friendly cities
without the valley, observing the numerous beacon-fires on the
mountains, inferred that the Mexicans were mustering in great strength,
and that the Spaniards must be hard pressed in their new quarters. They
sent messengers to Tezcuco, expressing their apprehension, and offering
reinforcements, which the general, when he set out on his march, had
declined. He returned many thanks for the proffered aid; but, while he
declined it for himself, as unnecessary, he indicated in what manner
their services might be effectual for the defence of Chalco and the
other places which had invoked his protection. But his Indian allies
were in deadly feud with these places, whose inhabitants had too often
fought under the Aztec banner not to have been engaged in repeated wars
with the people beyond the mountains. Cortes set himself earnestly to
reconcile these differences. He told the hostile parties that they
should be willing to forget their mutual wrongs, since they bad entered
into new relations. They were now vassals of the same sovereign, engaged
in a common enterprise against a formidable foe who had so long trodden
them in the dust. Singly they could do little, but united they might
protect each other's weakness, and hold their enemy at bay till the
Spaniards could come to their assistance. These arguments finally
prevailed; and the politic general had the satisfaction to see the
high-spirited and hostile tribes forego their long-cherished rivalry,
and, resigning the pleasures of revenge, so dear to the barbarian,
embrace one another as friends and champions in a common cause. To this
wise policy the Spanish commander owed quite as much of his subsequent
successes, as to his arms. Thus the foundations of the Mexican empire
were hourly loosening, as the great vassals around the capital, on whom
it most relied, fell off one after another from their allegiance. The
Aztecs, properly so called, formed but a small part of the population of
the valley. This was principally composed of cognate tribes, members of
the same great family of the Nahuatlacs, who had come upon the plateau
at nearly the same time. They were mutual rivals, and were reduced one
after another by the more warlike Mexican, who held them in subjection,
often by open force, always by fear. Fear was the great principle of
cohesion which bound together the discordant members of the monarchy,
and this was now fast dissolving before the influence of a power more
mighty than that of the Aztec. This, it is true, was not the first time
that the conquered races had attempted to recover their independence;
but all such attempts had failed for want of concert. It was reserved
for the commanding genius of Cortes to extinguish their old hereditary
feuds, and, combining their scattered energies, to animate them with a
common principle of action. Encouraged by this state of things, the
Spanish general thought it a favourable moment to press his negotiations
with the capital. He availed himself of the presence of some noble
Mexicans, taken in the late action with Sandoval, to send another
message to their master. It was in substance a repetition of the first
with a renewed assurance, that, if the city would return to its
allegiance to the Spanish crown, the authority of Guatemozin should be
confirmed, and the persons and property of his subjects be respected. To
this communication no reply was made. The young Indian emperor had a
spirit as dauntless as that of Cortes himself. On his head descended the
full effects of that vicious system of government bequeathed to him by
his ancestors. But, as he saw his empire crumbling beneath him, he
sought to uphold it by his own energy and resources. He anticipated the
defection of some vassals by establishing garrisons within their walls.
Others he conciliated by exempting them from tributes, or greatly
lightening their burdens, or by advancing them to posts of honour and
authority in the state. He showed, at the same time, his implacable
animosity towards the Christians, by commanding that every one taken
within his dominions should be sent to the capital, where he was
sacrificed with all the barbarous ceremonies prescribed by the Aztec
ritual. While these occurrences were passing, Cortes received the
welcome intelligence, that the brigantines were completed and waiting to
be transported to Tezcuco. He detached a body for the service,
consisting of two hundred Spanish foot and fifteen horse, which he
placed under the command of Sandoval. This cavalier had been rising
daily in the estimation both of the general and of the army. Though one of
the youngest officers in the service, he possessed a cool head and a
ripe judgment, which fitted him for the most delicate and difficult
undertakings. Sandoval was a native Of Medellin, the birth-place of
Cortes himself. He was warmly attached to his commander, and had on all
occasions proved himself worthy of his confidence. He was a man of few
words, showing his worth rather by what he did, than what he said. His
honest, soldier-like deportment made him a favourite with the troops,
and had its influence even on his enemies. He unfortunately died in the
flower of his age. But he discovered talents and military skill, which,
had he lived to later life, would undoubtedly have placed his name on
the roll with those of the greatest captains of his nation. Sandoval's
route was to lead him by Zoltepec, a city where the massacre of the
forty-five Spaniards, already noticed, had been perpetrated. The
cavalier received orders to find out the guilty parties, if possible,
and to punish them for their share in the transaction. When the
Spaniards arrived at the spot, they found that the inhabitants, who had
previous notice of their approach, had all fled. In the deserted temples
they discovered abundant traces of the fate of their countrymen; for,
besides their arms and clothing, and the hides of their horses, the
heads of several soldiers, prepared in such a way that they could be
well preserved, were found suspended as trophies of the victory. In a
neighbouring building, traced with charcoal on the walls, they found the
following inscription in Castilian: "In this place the unfortunate Juan
Juste, with many others of his company, was imprisoned." This hidalgo
was one of the followers of Narvaez, and had come with him into the
country in quest of gold, but had found, instead, an obscure and
inglorious death. The eyes of the soldiers were suffused with tears, as
they gazed on the gloomy record, and their bosoms swelled with
indignation, as they thought of the horrible fate of the captives.
Fortunately the inhabitants were not then before them. Some few, who
subsequently fell into their hands, were branded as slaves. But the
greater part of the population, who threw themselves, in the most abject
manner, on the mercy of the Conquerors, imputing the blame of the
affair to the Aztecs, the Spanish commander spared, from pity, or
contempt. He now resumed his march on Tlascala; but scarcely had he
crossed the borders of the republic, when he descried the flaunting
banners of the convoy which transported the brigantines, as it was
threading its way through the defiles of the mountains. Great was his
satisfaction at the spectacle, for he had feared a detention of some
days at Tlascala, before the preparations for the march could be
completed. There were thirteen vessels in all, of different sizes. They
had been constructed under the direction of the experienced shipbuilder,
Martin Lopez, aided by three of four Spanish carpenters and the
friendly natives, some of whom showed no mean degree of imitative skill.
The brigantines, when completed, had been fairly tried on the waters of
the Zahuapan. They were then taken to pieces, and, as Lopez was
impatient of delay, the several parts, the timbers, anchors, iron-work,
sails, and cordage were placed on the shoulders of the tamanes, and,
under a numerous military escort, were thus far advanced on the way to
Tezcuco. Sandoval dismissed a part of the Indian convoy, as superfluous.
Twenty thousand warriors he retained, dividing them into two equal
bodies for the protection of the tamanes in the centre. His own little
body of Spaniards be distributed in like manner. The Tlascalans in the
van marched under the command of a chief who gloried in the name of
Chichemecatl. For some reason Sandoval afterwards changed the order of
march, and placed this division in the rear,- an arrangement which gave
great umbrage to the doughty warrior that led it, who asserted his right
to the front, the place which he and his ancestors had always occupied,
as the post of danger. He was somewhat appeased by Sandoval's assurance
that it was for that very reason he had been transferred to the rear,
the quarter most likely to be assailed by the enemy. But even then he
was greatly dissatisfied, on finding that the Spanish commander was to
march by his side, grudging, it would seem, that any other should share
the laurel with himself. Slowly and painfully, encumbered with their
heavy burden, the troops worked their way over steep eminences, and
rough mountainpasses, presenting, one might suppose in their long line
of march, many a vulnerable point to an enemy. But, although small
parties of warriors were seen hovering at times on their flanks and
rear, they kept at a respectful distance, not caring to encounter so
formidable a foe. On the fourth day the warlike caravan arrived in
safety before Tezcuco. Their approach was beheld with joy by Cortes and
the soldiers, who hailed it as a signal of a speedy termination of the
war. The general, attended by his officers, all dressed in their richest
attire, came out to welcome the convoy. It extended over a space of two
leagues, and so slow was its progress that six hours elapsed before the
closing files had entered the city. The Tlascalan chiefs displayed
their wonted bravery of apparel, and the whole array, composed of the
flower of their warriors, made a brilliant appearance. They marched by
the sound of atabal and comet, and, as they traversed the streets of the
capital amidst the acclamations of the soldiery, they made the city
ring with the shouts of "Castile and Tlascala, long live our sovereign,
the emperor." "It was a marvellous thing," exclaims the Conqueror, in
his letters, "that few have seen, or even heard of,- this transportation
of thirteen vessels of war on the shoulders of men, for nearly twenty
leagues across the mountains!" It was, indeed, a stupendous achievement,
and not easily matched in ancient or modern story; one which only a
genius like that of Cortes could have devised, or a daring spirit like
his have so successfully executed. Little did he foresee, when he
ordered the destruction of the fleet which first brought him to the
country, and with his usual forecast commanded the preservation of the
iron-work and rigging,- little did he foresee the important uses for
which they were to be reserved. So important, that on their preservation
may be said to have depended the successful issue of his great
enterprise.
Chapter II [1521]
CORTES RECONNOITRES THE CAPITAL- OCCUPIES TACUBA- SKIRMISHES WITH THE
ENEMY- EXPEDITION OF SANDOVAL- ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS
IN the course of three or four days, the Spanish general furnished the
Tlascalans with the opportunity so much coveted, and allowed their
boiling spirits to effervesce in active operations. He had, for some
time, meditated an expedition to reconnoitre the capital and its
environs, and to chastise, on the way, certain places which had sent him
insulting messages of defiance, and which were particularly active in
their hostilities. He disclosed his design to a few only of his
principal officers, from his distrust of the Tezcucans, whom he
suspected to be in correspondence with the enemy. Early in the spring,
he left Tezcuco, at the head of three hundred and fifty Spaniards and
the whole strength of his allies. He took with him Alvarado and Olid,
and intrusted the charge of the garrison to Sandoval. Cortes had
practical acquaintance with the incompetence of the first of these
cavaliers for so delicate a post, during his short, but disastrous, rule
in Mexico. But all his precautions had not availed to shroud his
designs from the vigilant foe, whose eye was on all his movements; who
seemed even to divine his thoughts, and to be prepared to thwart their
execution. He had advanced but a few leagues, when he was met by a
considerable body of Mexicans, drawn up to dispute his progress. A sharp
skirmish took place, in which the enemy were driven from the ground,
and the way was left open to the Christians. They held a circuitous
route to the north, and their first point of attack was the insular town
of Xaltocan, situated on the northern extremity of the lake of that
name, now called San Christobal. The town was entirely surrounded by
water, and communicated with the main land by means of causeways, in the
same manner as the Mexican capital. Cortes, riding at the head of his
cavalry, advanced along the dike, till he was brought to a stand by
finding a wide opening in it, through which the waters poured so as to
be altogether impracticable, not only for horse, but for infantry. The
lake was covered with canoes, filled with Aztec warriors, who,
anticipating the movement of the Spaniards, had come to the aid of the
city. They now began a furious discharge of stones and arrows on the
assailants, while they were themselves tolerably well protected from the
musketry of their enemy by the light bulwarks, with which, for that
purpose, they had fortified their canoes. The severe volleys of the
Mexicans did some injury to the Spaniards and their allies, and began to
throw them into disorder, crowded as they were on the narrow causeway,
without the means of advancing, when Cortes ordered a retreat. This was
followed by renewed tempests of missiles, accompanied by taunts and
fierce yells of defiance. The battle-cry of the Aztec, like the
war-whoop of the North American Indian, was an appalling note, according
to the Conqueror's own acknowledgment, in the ears of the Spaniards. At
this juncture, the general fortunately obtained information from a
deserter, one of the Mexican allies, of a ford, by which the army might
traverse the shallow lake, and penetrate the place. He instantly
detached the greater part of the infantry on the service, posting
himself with the remainder, and with the horse, at the entrance of the
passage, to cover the attack and prevent any interruption in the rear.
The soldiers, under the direction of the Indian guide, forded the lake
without much difficulty, though in some places the water came above
their girdles. During the passage, they were annoyed by the enemy's
missiles; but when they had gained the dry level, they took ample
revenge, and speedily put all who resisted to the sword. The greater
part, together with the townsmen, made their escape in the boats. The
place was now abandoned to pillage. The troops found in it many women,
who had been left to their fate; and these, together with a considerable
quantity of cotton stuffs, gold, and articles of food, fell into the
hands of the victors, who, setting fire to the deserted city, returned
in triumph to their comrades. Continuing his circuitous route, Cortes
presented himself successively before three other places, each of which
had been deserted by the inhabitants in anticipation of his arrival. The
principal of these, Azcapotzalco, had once been the capital of an
independent state. It was now the great slave-market of the Aztecs,
where their unfortunate captives were brought, and disposed of at public
sale. It was also the quarter occupied by the jewellers; and the place
whence the Spaniards obtained the goldsmiths who melted down the rich
treasures received from Montezuma. But they found there only a small
supply of the precious metals, or, indeed, of anything else of value, as
the people had been careful to remove their effects. They spared the
buildings, however, in consideration of their having met with no
resistance. During the nights, the troops bivouacked in the open fields,
maintaining the strictest watch, for the country was all in arms, and
beacons were flaming on every hill-top, while dark masses of the enemy
were occasionally descried in the distance. The Spaniards were now
traversing the most opulent region of Anahuac. Cities and villages were
scattered over hill and valley, all giving token of a dense and
industrious population. It was the general's purpose to march at once on
Tacuba, and establish his quarters in that ancient capital for the
present. He found a strong force encamped under its walls, prepared to
dispute his entrance. Without waiting for their advance, he rode at full
gallop against them with his little body of horse. The arquebuses and
crossbows opened a lively volley on their extended wings, and the
infantry, armed with their swords and copper-headed lances, and
supported by the Indian battalions, followed up the attack of the horse
with an alacrity which soon put the enemy to flight. Cortes led his
troops without further opposition into the suburbs of Tacuba, the
ancient Tlacopan, where he established himself for the night. On the
following morning, he found the indefatigable Aztecs again under arms,
and, on the open ground before the city, prepared to give him battle. He
marched out against them, and, after an action hotly contested, though
of no long duration, again routed them. They fled towards the town, but
were driven through the streets at the point of the lance, and were
compelled, together with the inhabitants, to evacuate the place. The
city was then delivered over to pillage; and the Indian allies, not
content with plundering the houses of everything portable within them,
set them on fire, and in a short time a quarter of the town- the poorer
dwellings, probably, built of light, combustible materials- was in
flames. Cortes proposed to remain in his present quarters for some days,
during which time he established his own residence in the ancient
palace of the lords of Tlacopan. It was a long range of low buildings,
like most of the royal residences in the country, and offered good
accommodations for the Spanish forces. During his halt here, there was
not a day on which the army was not engaged in one or more rencontres
with the enemy. They terminated almost uniformly in favour of the
Spaniards, though with more or less injury to them and to their allies.
One encounter, indeed, had nearly been attended with more fatal
consequences. The Spanish general, in the heat of pursuit, had allowed
himself to be decoyed upon the great causeway,- the same which had once
been so fatal to his army. He followed the flying foe, until he had
gained the further side of the nearest bridge, which had been repaired
since the disastrous action of the noche triste. When thus far advanced,
the Aztecs, with the rapidity of lightning, turned on him, and he
beheld a large reinforcement in their rear, all fresh on the field,
prepared to support their countrymen. At the same time, swarms of boats,
unobserved in the eagerness of the chase, seemed to start up as if by
magic, covering the waters around. The Spaniards were now exposed to a
perfect hailstorm of missiles, both from the causeway and the lake; but
they stood unmoved amidst the tempest, when Cortes, too late perceiving
his error, gave orders for the retreat. Slowly, and with admirable
coolness, his men receded, step by step, offering a resolute front to
the enemy. The Mexicans came on with their usual vociferation, making
the shores echo to their war-cries, and striking at the Spaniards with
their long pikes, and with poles, to which the swords taken from the
Christians had been fastened. A cavalier, named Volante, bearing the
standard of Cortes, was felled by one of their weapons, and, tumbling
into the lake, was picked up by the Mexican boats. He was a man of a
muscular frame, and, as the enemy were dragging him off, he succeeded in
extricating himself from their grasp, and clenching his colours in his
hand, with a desperate effort sprang back upon the causeway. At length,
after some hard fighting, in which many of the Spaniards were wounded,
and many of their allies slain, the troops regained the land, where
Cortes, with a full heart, returned thanks to Heaven for what he might
well regard as a providential deliverance. It was a salutary lesson;
though he should scarcely have needed one, so soon after the affair of
Iztapalapan, to warn him of the wily tactics of his enemy. It had been
one of Cortes' principal objects in this expedition to obtain an
interview, if possible, with the Aztec emperor, or with some of the
great lords at his court, and to try if some means for an accommodation
could not be found, by which he might avoid the appeal to arms. An
occasion for such a parley presented itself, when his forces were one
day confronted with those of the enemy, with a broken bridge interposed
between them. Cortes, riding in advance of his people, intimated by
signs his peaceful intent, and that he wished to confer with the Aztecs.
They respected the signal, and, with the aid of his interpreter, he
requested, that, if there were any great chief among them, he would come
forward and hold a parley with him. The Mexicans replied, in derision,
they were all chiefs, and bade him speak openly whatever he had to tell
them. As the general returned no answer, they asked, why he did not make
another visit to the capital, and tauntingly added, "Perhaps Malinche
does not expect to find there another Montezuma, as obedient to his
command as the former." Some of them complimented the Tlascalans with
the epithet of women, who, they said, would never have ventured so near
the capital, but for the protection of the white men. The animosity of
the two nations was not confined to these harmless, though bitter jests,
but showed itself in regular cartels of defiance, which daily passed
between the principal chieftains. These were followed by combats, in
which one or more champions fought on a side, to vindicate the honour of
their respective countries. A fair field of fight was given to the
warriors, who conducted those combats, a l'outrance, with the punctilio
of a European tourney; displaying a valour worthy of the two boldest of
the races of Anahuac, and a skill in the management of their weapons,
which drew forth the admiration of the Spaniards. Cortes had now been
six days in Tacuba. There was nothing further to detain him, as he had
accomplished the chief objects of his expedition. He had humbled several
of the places which had been most active in their hostility; and he had
revived the credit of the Castilian arms, which had been much tarnished
by their former reverses in this quarter of the valley. He had also
made himself acquainted with the condition of the capital, which he
found in a better posture of defence than he had imagined. All the
ravages of the preceding year seemed to be repaired, and there was no
evidence, even to his experienced eye, that the wasting hand of war had
so lately swept over the land. The Aztec troops, which swarmed through
the valley, seemed to be well appointed, and showed an invincible
spirit, as if prepared to resist to the last. It is true, they had been
beaten in every encounter. In the open field they were no match for the
Spaniards, whose cavalry they could never comprehend, and whose firearms
easily penetrated the cotton mail, which formed the stoutest defence of
the Indian warrior. But, entangled in the long streets and narrow lanes
of the metropolis, where every house was a citadel, the Spaniards, as
experience had shown, would lose much of their superiority. With the
Mexican emperor, confident in the strength of his preparations, the
general saw there was no probability of effecting an accommodation. He
saw, too, the necessity of the most careful preparations on his own
part- indeed, that he must strain his resources to the utmost, before he
could safely venture to rouse the lion in his lair. The Spaniards
returned by the same route by which they had come. Their retreat was
interpreted into a flight by the natives, who hung on the rear of the
army, uttering vainglorious vaunts, and saluting the troops with showers
of arrows, which did some mischief. Cortes resorted to one of their own
stratagems to rid himself of this annoyance. He divided his cavalry
into two or three small parties, and concealed them among some thick
shrubbery, which fringed both sides of the road. The rest of the army
continued its march. The Mexicans followed, unsuspicious of the
ambuscade, when the horse, suddenly darting from their place of
concealment, threw the enemy's flanks into confusion, and the retreating
columns of infantry, facing about suddenly, commenced a brisk attack,
which completed their consternation. It was a broad and level plain,
over which the panic-struck Mexicans made the best of their way, without
attempting resistance; while the cavalry, riding them down and piercing
the fugitives with their lances, followed up the chase for several
miles, in what Cortes calls a truly beautiful style. The army experienced
no further annoyance from the enemy. On their arrival at Tezcuco, they
were greeted with joy by their comrades, who had received no tidings of
them during the fortnight which had elapsed since their departure. The
Tlascalans, immediately on their return, requested the general's
permission to carry back to their own country the valuable booty which
they had gathered in their foray,- a request which, however
unapalatable, he could not refuse. The troops had not been in quarters
more than two or three days, when an embassy arrived from Chalco, again
soliciting the protection of the Spaniards against the Mexicans, who
menaced them from several points in their neighbourhood. But the
soldiers were so much exhausted by unintermitted vigils, forced marches,
battles, and wounds, that Cortes wished to give them a breathing-time
to recruit, before engaging in a new expedition. He answered the
application of the Chalcans, by sending his missives to the allied
cities, calling on them to march to the assistance of their confederate.
It is not to be supposed that they could comprehend the import of his
despatches. But the paper, with its mysterious characters, served for a
warrant to the officer who bore it, as the interpreter of the general's
commands. But, although these were implicitly obeyed, the Chalcans felt
the danger so pressing, that they soon repeated their petition for the
Spaniards to come in person to their relief. Cortes no longer hesitated;
for he was well aware of the importance of Chalco, not merely on its
own account, but from its position, which commanded one of the great
avenues to Tlascala, and to Vera-Cruz, the intercourse with which should
run no risk of interruption. Without further loss of time, therefore,
he detached a body of three hundred Spanish foot and twenty horse, under
the command of Sandoval, for the protection of the city. That active
officer soon presented himself before Chalco, and, strengthened by the
reinforcement of its own troops and those of the confederate towns,
directed his first operations against Huaxtepec, a place of some
importance, lying two leagues or more to the south among the mountains.
It was held by a strong Mexican force, watching their opportunity to
make a descent upon Chalco. The Spaniards found the enemy drawn up at a
distance from the town, prepared to receive them. The ground was broken
and tangled with bushes, unfavourable to the cavalry, which in
consequence soon fell into disorder; and Sandoval, finding himself
embarrassed by their movements, ordered them, after sustaining some
loss, from the field. In their place he brought up his musketeers and
crossbowmen, who poured a rapid fire into the thick columns of the
Indians. The rest of the infantry, with sword and pike, charged the
flanks of the enemy, who, bewildered by the shock, after sustaining
considerable slaughter, fell back in an irregular manner, leaving the
field of battle to the Spaniards. The victors proposed to bivouac there
for the night. But, while engaged in preparations for their evening
meal, they were aroused by the cry of "To arms, to arms! the enemy is
upon us!" In an instant the trooper was in his saddle, the soldier
grasped his musket or his good toledo, and the action was renewed with
greater fury than before. The Mexicans had received a reinforcement from
the city. But their second attempt was not more fortunate than their
first; and the victorious Spaniards, driving their antagonists before
them, entered and took possession of the town itself, which had already
been evacuated by the inhabitants. Sandoval took up his quarters in the
dwelling of the lord of the place, surrounded by gardens, which rivalled
those of Iztapalapan in magnificence, and surpassed them in extent.
They are said to have been two leagues in circumference, having
pleasure-houses, and numerous tanks stocked with various kinds of fish;
and they were embellished with trees, shrubs, and plants, native and
exotic, some selected for their beauty and fragrance, others for their
medicinal properties. They were scientifically arranged; and the whole
establishment displayed a degree of horticultural taste and knowledge,
of which it would not have been easy to find a counterpart, at that day,
in the more civilised communities of Europe. Such is the testimony not
only of the rude Conquerors, but of men of science, who visited these
beautiful repositories in the day of their glory. After halting two days
to refresh his forces in this agreeable spot, Sandoval marched on
Jacapichtla, about six miles to the eastward. It was a town, or rather
fortress, perched on a rocky eminence, almost inaccessible from its
steepness. It was garrisoned by a Mexican force, who rolled down on the
assailants, as they attempted to scale the heights, huge fragments of
rock, which, thundering over the sides of the precipice, carried ruin
and desolation in their path. The Indian confederates fell back in
dismay from the attempt. But Sandoval, indignant that any achievement should
be too difficult for a Spaniard, commanded his cavaliers to dismount,
and, declaring that he "would carry the place or die in the attempt,"
led on his men with the cheering cry of "St. Iago." With renewed
courage, they now followed their gallant leader up the ascent, under a
storm of lighter missiles, mingled with huge masses of stone, which,
breaking into splinters, overturned the assailants, and made fearful
havoc in their ranks. Sandoval, who had been wounded on the preceding
day, received a severe contusion on the head, while more than one of his
brave comrades were struck down by his side. Still they clambered up,
sustaining themselves by the bushes or projecting pieces of rock, and
seemed to force themselves onward as much by the energy of their wills,
as by the strength of their bodies. After incredible toil, they stood on
the summit, face to face with the astonished garrison. For a moment
they paused to recover breath, then sprang furiously on their foes. The
struggle was short but desperate. Most of the Aztecs were put to the
sword. Some were thrown headlong over the battlements, and others,
letting themselves down the precipice, were killed on the borders of a
little stream that wound round its base, the waters of which were so
polluted with blood, that the victors were unable to slake their thirst
with them for a full hour! Sandoval, having now accomplished the object
of his expedition, by reducing the strongholds which had so long held
the Chalcans in awe, returned in triumph to Tezcuco. Meanwhile, the
Aztec emperor, whose vigilant eye had been attentive to all that had
passed, thought that the absence of so many of its warriors afforded a
favourable opportunity for recovering Chalco. He sent a fleet of boats
for this purpose across the lake, with a numerous force under the
command of some of his most valiant chiefs. Fortunately the absent
Chalcans reached their city before the arrival of the enemy; but, though
supported by their Indian allies, they were so much alarmed by the
magnitude of the hostile array, that they sent again to the Spaniards,
invoking their aid. The messengers arrived at the same time with
Sandoval and his army. Cortes was much puzzled by the contradictory
accounts. He suspected some negligence in his lieutenant, and,
displeased with his precipitate return in this unsettled state of the
affair, ordered him back at once, with such of his forces as were in
fighting condition. Sandoval felt deeply injured by this proceeding, but
he made no attempt at exculpation, and, obeying his commander in
silence, put himself at the head of his troops, and made a rapid
countermarch on the Indian city. Before he reached it, a battle had been
fought between the Mexicans and the confederates, in which the latter,
who had acquired unwonted confidence from their recent successes, were
victorious. A number of Aztec nobles fell into their hands in the
engagement, whom they delivered to Sandoval to be carried off as
prisoners to Tezcuco. On his arrival there, the cavalier, wounded by the
unworthy treatment he had received, retired to his own quarters without
presenting himself before his chief. During his absence, the inquiries
of Cortes had satisfied him of his own precipitate conduct, and of the
great injustice he had done his lieutenant. There was no man in the army
on whose services he set so high a value, as the responsible situations
in which he had placed him plainly showed; and there was none for whom
he seems to have entertained a greater personal regard. On Sandoval's
return, therefore, Cortes instantly sent to request his attendance;
when, with a soldier's frankness, he made such an explanation as soothed
the irritated spirit of the cavalier,- a matter of no great difficulty,
as the latter had too generous a nature, and too earnest a devotion to
his commander and the cause in which they were embarked, to harbour a
petty feeling of resentment in his bosom. During the occurrence of these
events, the work was going forward actively on the canal, and the
brigantines were within a fortnight of their completion. The greatest
vigilance was required, in the mean time, to prevent their destruction
by the enemy, who had already made three ineffectual attempts to burn
them on the stocks. The precautions which Cortes thought it necessary to
take against the Tezcucans themselves, added not a little to his
embarrassment. At this time he received embassies from different Indian
states, some of them on the remote shores of the Mexican Gulf, tendering
their allegiance and soliciting his protection. For this he was partly
indebted to the good offices of Ixtlilxochitl, who, in consequence of
his brother's death, was now advanced to the sovereignty of Tezcuco.
This important position greatly increased his consideration and
authority through the country, of which he freely availed himself to
bring the natives under the dominion of the Spaniards. The general
received also at this time the welcome intelligence of the arrival of
three vessels at Villa Rica, with two hundred men on board, well
provided with arms and ammunition, and with seventy or eighty horses. It
was a most seasonable reinforcement. From what quarter it came is
uncertain; most probably, from Hispaniola. Cortes, it may be remembered,
had sent for supplies to that place; and the authorities of the island,
who had general jurisdiction over the affairs of the colonies, had
shown themselves, on more than one occasion, well inclined towards him,
probably considering him, under all circumstances, as better fitted than
any other man to achieve the conquest of the country. The new recruits
soon found their way to Tezcuco; as the communications with the port
were now open and unobstructed. Among them were several cavaliers of
consideration, one of whom, Julian de Alderete, the royal treasurer,
came over to superintend the interests of the crown.
Chapter III [1521]
SECOND RECONNOITRING EXPEDITION- THE CAPTURE OF CUERNAVACA- BATTLES AT
XOCHIMILCO- NARROW ESCAPE OF CORTES- HE ENTERS TACUBA
NOTWITHSTANDING the relief which had been afforded to the people of
Chalco, it was so ineffectual, that envoys from that city again arrived
at Tezcuco, bearing a hieroglyphical chart, on which were depicted
several strong places in their neighbourhood, garrisoned by the Aztecs,
from which they expected annoyance. Cortes determined this time to take
the affair into his own hands, and to scour the country so effectually,
as to place Chalco, if possible, in a state of security. He did not
confine himself to this object, but proposed, before his return, to pass
quite round the great lakes, and reconnoitre the country to the south
of them, in the same manner as he had before done to the west. In the
course of his march, he would direct his arms against some of the strong
places from which the Mexicans might expect support in the siege. Two
or three weeks must elapse before the completion of the brigantines;
and, if no other good resulted from the expedition, it would give active
occupation to his troops, whose turbulent spirits might fester into
discontent in the monotonous existence of a camp. He selected for the
expedition thirty horse and three hundred Spanish infantry, with a
considerable body of Tlascalan and Tezcucan warriors. The remaining
garrison he left in charge of the trusty Sandoval, who, with the
friendly lord of the capital, would watch over the construction of the
brigantines, and protect them from the assaults of the Aztecs. On the
fifth of April he began his march, and on the following day arrived at
Chalco, where he was met by a number of the confederate chiefs. With the
aid of his faithful interpreters, Dona Marina and Aguilar, he explained
to them the objects of his present expedition; stated his purpose soon
to enforce the blockade of Mexico, and required their co-operation with
the whole strength of their levies. To this they readily assented; and
he soon received a sufficient proof of their friendly disposition in the
forces which joined him on the march, amounting, according to one of
the army, to more than had ever before followed his banner. Taking a
southerly direction, the troops, after leaving Chalco, struck into the
recesses of the wild sierra, which, with its bristling peaks, serves as a
formidable palisade to fence round the beautiful valley; while, within
its rugged arms, it shuts up many a green and fruitful pasture of its
own. As the Spaniards passed through its deep gorges, they occasionally
wound round the base of some huge cliff or rocky eminence, on which the
inhabitants had built their town in the same manner as was done by the
people of Europe in the feudal ages; a position which, however
favourable to the picturesque, intimates a sense of insecurity as the
cause of it, which may reconcile us to the absence of this striking
appendage of the landscape in our own more fortunate country. The
occupants of these airy pinnacles took advantage of their situation to
shower down stones and arrows on the troops, as they defiled through the
narrow passes of the sierra. Though greatly annoyed by their incessant
hostilities, Cortes held on his way, till, winding round the base of a
castellated cliff, occupied by a strong garrison of Indians, he was so
severely pressed, that he felt to pass on without chastising the
aggressors would imply a want of strength, which must disparage him in
the eyes of his allies. Halting in the valley, therefore, he detached a
small body of light troops to scale the heights, while he remained with
the main body of the army below, to guard against surprise from the
enemy. The lower region of the rocky eminence was so steep, that the
soldiers found it no easy matter to ascend, scrambling, as well as they
could, with hand and knee. But, as they came into the more exposed view
of the garrison, the latter rolled down huge masses of rock, which,
bounding along the declivity, and breaking into fragments, crushed the
foremost assailants, and mangled their limbs in a frightful manner.
Still they strove to work their way upward, now taking advantage of some
gulley, worn by the winter torrent, now sheltering themselves behind a
projecting cliff, or some straggling tree, anchored among the crevices
of the mountain. It was all in vain. For no sooner did they emerge again
into open view, than the rocky avalanche thundered on their heads with a
fury against which steel helm and cuirass were as little defence as
gossamer. All the party were more or less wounded. Eight of the number
were killed on the spot,- a loss the little band could ill afford,- and
the gallant ensign Corral, who led the advance, saw the banner in his
hand torn into shreds. Cortes, at length convinced of the
impracticability of the attempt, at least without a more severe loss
than he was disposed to incur, commanded a retreat. It was high time;
for a large body of the enemy were on full march across the valley to
attack him. He did not wait for their approach, but gathering his broken
files together, headed his cavalry, and spurred boldly against them. On
the level plain, the Spaniards were on their own ground. The Indians,
unable to sustain the furious onset, broke, and fell back before it. The
fight soon became a rout, and the fiery cavaliers, dashing over them at
full gallop, or running them through with their lances, took some
revenge for their late discomfiture. The pursuit continued for some
miles, till the nimble foe made their escape into the rugged fastnesses
of the sierra, where the Spaniards did not care to follow. The weather
was sultry, and, as the country was nearly destitute of water, the men
and horses suffered extremely. Before evening they reached a spot
overshadowed by a grove of wild mulberry trees, in which some scanty
springs afforded a miserable supply to the army. Near the place rose
another rocky summit of the sierra, garrisoned by a stronger force than
the one which they had encountered in the former part of the day; and at
no great distance stood a second fortress at a still greater height,
though considerably smaller than its neighbour. This was also tenanted
by a body of warriors, who, as well as those of the adjoining cliff,
soon made active demonstration of their hostility by pouring down
missiles on the troops below. Cortes, anxious to retrieve the disgrace
of the morning, ordered an assault on the larger, and, as it seemed,
more practicable eminence. But, though two attempts were made with great
resolution, they were repulsed with loss to the assailants. The rocky
sides of the hill had been artificially cut and smoothed, so as greatly
to increase the natural difficulties of the ascent.- The shades of
evening now closed around; and Cortes drew off his men to the mulberry
grove, where he took up his bivouac for the night, deeply chagrined at
having been twice foiled by the enemy on the same day. During the night,
the Indian force, which occupied the adjoining height, passed over to
their brethren, to aid them in the encounter, which they foresaw would
be renewed on the following morning. No sooner did the Spanish general,
at the break of day, become aware of this manoeuvre, than, with his
usual quickness, he took advantage of it. He detached a body of
musketeers and crossbowmen to occupy the deserted eminence, purposing,
as soon as this was done, to lead the assault in person against the
other. It was not long before the Castilian banner was seen streaming
from the rocky pinnacle, when the general instantly led up his men to
the attack. And, while the garrison were meeting them resolutely on that
quarter, the detachment on the neighbouring heights poured into the
Place a well-directed fire, which so much distressed the enemy, that, in
a very short time, they signified their willingness to capitulate. On
entering the place, the Spaniards found that a plain of some extent ran
along the crest of the sierra, and that it was tenanted, not only by
men, but by women and their families, with their effects. No violence
was offered by the victors to the property or persons of the vanquished,
and the knowledge of his lenity induced the Indian garrison, who had
made so stout a resistance on the morning of the preceding day, to
tender their submission. After a halt of two days in this sequestered
region, the army resumed its march in a south-westerly direction on
Huaxtepec, the same city which had surrendered to Sandoval. Here they
were kindly received by the cacique, and entertained in his magnificent
gardens, which Cortes and his officers, who had not before seen them,
compared with the best in Castile. Still threading the wild mountain
mazes, the army passed through Jauhtepec and several other places, which
were abandoned at their approach. As the inhabitants, however, hung in
armed bodies on their flanks and rear, doing them occasionally some
mischief, the Spaniards took their revenge by burning the deserted
towns. Thus holding on their fiery track, they descended the bold slope
of the Cordilleras, which, on the south, are far more precipitous than
on the Atlantic side. Indeed, a single day's journey is sufficient to
place the traveller on a level several thousand feet lower than that
occupied by him in the morning; thus conveying him in a few hours
through the climates of many degrees of latitude. On the ninth day of
their march, the troops arrived before the strong city of Quauhnahuac,
or Cuernavaca, as since called by the Spaniards. It was the ancient
capital of the Tlahuicas, and the most considerable place for wealth and
population in this part of the country. It was tributary to the Aztecs,
and a garrison of this nation was quartered within its walls. The town
was singularly situated, on a projecting piece of land, encompassed by
barrancas, or formidable ravines, except on one side, which opened on a
rich and well cultivated country. For, though the place stood at an
elevation of between five and six thousand feet above the level of the
sea, it had a southern exposure so sheltered by the mountain barrier on
the north, that its climate was as soft and genial as that of a much
lower region. The Spaniards, on arriving before this city, the limit of
their southerly progress, found themselves separated from it by one of
the vast barrancas before noticed, which resembled one of those
frightful rents not unfrequent in the Mexican Andes, the result, no
doubt, of some terrible convulsion in earlier ages. The rocky sides of
the ravine sunk perpendicularly down, and so bare as scarcely to exhibit
even a vestige of the cactus or of the other hardy plants with which
Nature in these fruitful regions so gracefully covers up her
deformities. At the bottom of the ravine was seen a little stream,
which, oozing from the stony bowels of the sierra, tumbled along its
narrow channel, and contributed by its perpetual moisture to the
exuberant fertility of the valley. This rivulet, which at certain
seasons of the year was swollen to a torrent, was traversed at some
distance below the town, where the sloping sides of the barranca
afforded a more practicable passage, by two rude bridges, both of which
had been broken in anticipation of the coming of the Spaniards. The
latter had now arrived on the brink of the chasm. It was, as has been
remarked, of no great width, and the army drawn up on its borders was
directly exposed to the archery of the garrison, on whom its own fire
made little impression, protected as they were by their defences. The
general, annoyed by his position, sent a detachment to seek a passage
lower down, by which the troops might be landed on the other side. But
although the banks of the ravine became less formidable as they
descended, they found no means of crossing the river, till a path
unexpectedly presented itself, on which, probably, no one before hid
ever been daring enough to venture. From the cliffs on the opposite
sides of the barranca, two huge trees shot up to an enormous height,
and, inclining towards each other, interlaced their boughs so as to form
a sort of natural bridge. Across this avenue, in mid air, a Tlascalan
conceived it would not be difficult to pass to the opposite bank. The
bold mountaineer succeeded in the attempt, and was soon followed by
several others of his countrymen, trained to feats of agility and
strength among their native hills. The Spaniards imitated their example.
It was a perilous effort for an armed man to make his way over this
aerial causeway, swayed to and fro by the wind, where the brain might
become giddy, and where a single false movement of hand or foot would
plunge him into the abyss below. Three of the soldiers lost their hold
and fell. The rest, consisting of some twenty or thirty Spaniards, and a
considerable number of Tlascalans, alighted in safety on the other
bank. There hastily forming, they marched with all speed on the city.
The enemy, engaged in their contest with the Castilians on the opposite
brink of the ravine, were taken by surprise,- which, indeed, could
scarcely have been exceeded if they had seen their foe drop from the
clouds on the field of battle. They made a brave resistance, however,
when fortunately the Spaniards succeeded in repairing one of the
dilapidated bridges in such a manner as to enable both cavalry and foot
to cross the river, though with much delay. The horse under and Andres
de Tapia, instantly rode up to the succour of their countrymen. They
were soon followed by Cortes at the head of the remaining battalions;
and the enemy, driven from one point to another, were compelled to
evacuate the city, and to take refuge among the mountains. The buildings
in one quarter of the town were speedily wrapt in flames. The place was
abandoned to pillage, and, as it was one of the most opulent marts in
the country, it amply compensated the victors for the toil and danger
they had encountered. The trembling caciques, returning soon after to
the city, appeared before Cortes, and deprecating his resentment by
charging the blame, as usual, on the Mexicans, threw themselves on his
mercy. Satisfied with their submission, he allowed no further violence
to the inhabitants. Having thus accomplished the great object of his
expedition across the mountains, the Spanish commander turned his face
northwards, to recross the formidable barrier which divided him from the
valley. The ascent, steep and laborious, was rendered still more
difficult by fragments of rock and loose stones which encumbered the
passes. The weather was sultry, and, as the stony soil was nearly
destitute of water, the troops suffered severely from thirst. Several of
them, indeed, fainted on the road, and a few of the Indian allies
perished from exhaustion. The line of march must have taken the army
across the eastern shoulder of the mountain, called the Cruz del
Marques, or Cross of the Marquess, from a huge stone cross, erected
there to indicate the boundary of the territories granted by the crown
to Cortes, as Marquess of the Valley. Much, indeed, of the route lately
traversed by the troops lay across the princely domain subsequently
assigned to the Conqueror. The point of attack selected by the general
was Xochimilco, or the "field of flowers," as its name implies, from the
floating gardens which rode at anchor, as it were, on the neighbouring
waters. It was one of the most potent and wealthy cities in the Mexican
valley, and a staunch vassal of the Aztec crown. It stood, like the
capital itself, partly in the water, and was approached in that quarter
by causeways of no great length. The town was composed of houses like
those of most other places of like magnitude in the country, mostly of
cottages or huts made of clay and the light bamboo, mingled with
aspiring teocallis, and edifices of stone, belonging to the more opulent
classes. As the Spaniards advanced, they were met by skirmishing
parties of the enemy, who, after dismissing a light volley of arrows,
rapidly retreated before them. As they took the direction of Xochimilco,
Cortes inferred that they were prepared to resist him in considerable
force. It exceeded his expectations. On traversing the principal
causeway, he found it occupied, at the further extremity, by a numerous
body of warriors, who, stationed on the opposite sides of a bridge,
which had been broken, were prepared to dispute his passage. They had
constructed a temporary barrier of palisades, which screened them from
the fire of the musketry. But the water in its neighbourhood was very
shallow. and the cavaliers and infantry, plunging into it, soon made
their way, swimming or wading, as they could, in face of a storm of
missiles, to the landing, near the town. Here they closed with the
enemy, and, hand to hand, after a sharp struggle, drove them back on the
city; a few, however, taking the direction of the open country, were
followed up by the cavalry. The great mass hotly pursued by the
infantry, were driven through street and lane, without much further
resistance. Cortes, with a few followers, disengaging himself from the
tumult, remained near the entrance of the city. He had not been there
long, when he was assailed by a fresh body of Indians, who suddenly
poured into the place from a neighbouring dike. The general, with his
usual fearlessness, threw himself into the midst, in hopes to check
their advance. But his own followers were too few to support him, and he
was overwhelmed by the crowd of combatants. His horse lost his footing
and fell; and Cortes, who received a severe blow on the head before he
could rise, was seized and dragged off in triumph by the Indians. At
this critical moment, a Tlascalan, who perceived the general's
extremity, sprang, like one of the wild ocelots of his own forests, into
the midst of the assailants, and endeavoured to tear him from their
grasp. Two of the general's servants also speedily came to the rescue,
and Cortes, with their aid and that of the brave Tlascalan, succeeded in
regaining his feet and shaking off his enemies. To vault into the
saddle and brandish his good lance was but the work of a moment. Others
of his men quickly came up, and the clash of arms reaching the ears of
the Spaniards who had gone in pursuit, they returned, and, after a
desperate conflict, forced the enemy from the city. Their retreat,
however, was intercepted by the cavalry returning from the country, and,
thus hemmed in between the opposite columns, they were cut to pieces,
or saved themselves only by plunging into the lake. This was the
greatest personal danger which Cortes had yet encountered. His life was
in the power of the barbarians, and, had it not been for their eagerness
to take him prisoner, he must undoubtedly have lost it. To the same
cause may be frequently attributed the preservation of the Spaniards in
these engagements. It was not yet dusk when Cortes and his followers
re-entered the city; and the general's first act was to ascend a
neighbouring teocalli and reconnoitre the surrounding country. He there
beheld a sight which might have troubled a bolder spirit than his. The
surface of the salt lake was darkened with canoes, and the causeway, for
many a mile, with Indian squadrons, apparently on their march towards
the Christian camp. In fact, no sooner had Guatemozin been apprised of
the arrival of the white men at Xochimilco, than he mustered his levies
in great force to relieve the city. They were now on their march, and,
as the capital was but four leagues distant, would arrive soon after
nightfall. Cortes made active preparations for the defence of his
quarters. He stationed a corps of pikemen along the landing where the
Aztecs would be likely to disembark. He doubled the sentinels, and, with
his principal officers, made the rounds repeatedly in the course of the
night. In addition to other causes for watchfulness, the bolts of the
crossbowmen were nearly exhausted, and the archers were busily employed
in preparing and adjusting shafts to the copper heads, of which great
store bad been provided for the army. There was little sleep in the camp
that night. It passed away, however, without molestation from the
enemy. Though not stormy, it was exceedingly dark. But, although the
Spaniards on duty could see nothing, they distinctly heard the sound of
many oars in the water, at no great distance from the shore. Yet those
on board the canoes made no attempt to land, distrusting, or advised, it
may be, of the preparations made for their reception. With early dawn,
they were under arms, and, without waiting for movement of the
Spaniards, poured into the city and attacked them in their own quarters.
The Spaniards, who were gathered in the area round one of the
teocallis, were taken at disadvantage in the town, where the narrow
lanes and streets, many of them covered with a smooth and slippery
cement, offered obvious impediments to the manoeuvres of cavalry. But
Cortes hastily formed his muskeeters and crossbowmen, and poured such a
lively, well directed fire into the enemy's ranks, as threw him into
disorder, and compelled him to recoil. The infantry, with their long
pikes, followed up the blow; and the horse, charging at full speed, as
the retreating Aztecs emerged from the city, drove them several miles
along the main land. At some distance, however, they were met by a
strong reinforcement of their countrymen, and rallying, the tide of
battle turned, and the cavaliers, swept along by it, gave the rein to
their steeds, and rode back at full gallop towards the town. They had
not proceeded very far, when they came upon the main body of the army,
advancing rapidly to their support. Thus strengthened, they once more
returned to the charge, and the rival hosts met together in full career,
with the shock of an earthquake. For a time, victory seemed to hang in
the balance, as the mighty press reeled to and fro under the opposite
impulse, and a confused shout rose up towards heaven, in which the
war-whoop of the savage was mingled with the battle-cry of the
Christian,- a still stranger sound on these sequestered shores. But, in
the end, Castilian valour, or rather Castilian arms and discipline,
proved triumphant. The enemy faltered, gave way, and recoiling step by
step, the retreat soon terminated in a rout, and the Spaniards,
following up the flying foe, drove them from the field with such
dreadful slaughter, that they made no further attempt to renew the
battle. The victors were now undisputed masters of the city. It was a
wealthy place, well stored with Indian fabrics, cotton, gold,
feather-work, and other articles of luxury and use, affording a rich
booty to the soldiers. While engaged in the work of plunder, a party of
the enemy, landing from their canoes, fell on some of the stragglers
laden with merchandise, and made four of them prisoners. It created a
greater sensation among the troops than if ten times that number had
fallen on the field. Indeed, it was rare that a Spaniard allowed himself
to be taken alive. In the present instance the unfortunate men were
taken by surprise. They were hurried to the capital, and soon after
sacrificed; when their arms and legs were cut off, by the command of the
ferocious young chief of the Aztecs, and sent round to the different
cities, with the assurance, that this should be the fate of the enemies
of Mexico! From the prisoners taken in the late engagement, Cortes
learned that the forces already sent by Guatemozin formed but a small
part of his levies; that his policy was to send detachment after
detachment, until the Spaniards, however victorious they might come off
from the contest with each individually, would, in the end, succumb from
mere exhaustion, and thus be vanquished, as it were, by their own
victories. The soldiers having now sacked the city, Cortes did not care
to await further assaults from the enemy in his present quarters. On the
fourth morning after his arrival, he mustered his forces on a
neighbouring plain. They came many of them reeling under the weight of
their plunder. The general saw this with uneasiness. They were to march,
he said, through a populous country, all in arms to dispute their
passage. To secure their safety, they should move as light and
unencumbered as possible. The sight of so much spoil would sharpen the
appetite of their enemies, and draw them on, like a flock of famished
eagles after their prey. But his eloquence was lost on his men; who
plainly told him they had a right to the fruit of their victories, and
that what they had won with their swords, they knew well enough how to
defend with them. Seeing them thus bent on their purpose, the general
did not care to baulk their inclinations. He ordered the baggage to the
centre, and placed a few of the cavalry over it; dividing the remainder
between the front and rear, in which latter post, as that most exposed
to attack, he also stationed his arquebusiers and crossbowmen. Thus
prepared, he resumed his march; but first set fire to the combustible
buildings of Xochimilco, in retaliation for the resistance he had met
there. The light of the burning city streamed high into the air, sending
its ominous glare far and wide across the waters, and telling the
inhabitants on their margin, that the fatal strangers so long predicted
by their oracles had descended like a consuming flame upon their
borders. Small bodies of the enemy were seen occasionally at a distance,
but they did not venture to attack the army on its march, which before
noon brought them to Cojohuacan, a large town about two leagues distant
from Xochimilco. One could scarcely travel that distance in this
populous quarter of the valley without meeting with a place of
considerable size, oftentimes the capital of what had formerly been an
independent state. The inhabitants, members of different tribes, and
speaking dialects somewhat different, belonged to the same great family
of nations who had come from the real or imaginary region of Aztlan, in
the far north-west. Gathered round the shores of their Alpine sea, these
petty communities continued, after their incorporation with the Aztec
monarchy, to maintain a spirit of rivalry in their intercourse with one
another, which- as with the cities on the Mediterranean, in the feudal
ages- quickened their mental energies, and raised the Mexican Valley
higher in the scale of civilisation than most other quarters of Anahuac.
The town at which the army had now arrived was deserted by its
inhabitants; and Cortes halted two days there to restore his troops, and
give the needful attention to the wounded. He made use of the time to
reconnoitre the neighbouring ground, and taking with him a strong
detachment, descended on the causeway which led from Cojohuacan to the
great avenue Iztapalapan. At the point of intersection, called Xoloc, he
found a strong barrier or fortification, behind which a Mexican force
was intrenched. Their archery did some mischief to the Spaniards, as
they came within bow-shot. But the latter, marching intrepidly forward
in face of the arrowy shower, stormed the works, and, after an obstinate
struggle, drove the enemy from their position. Cortes then advanced
some way on the great causeway of Iztapalapan; but he beheld the further
extremity darkened by a numerous array of warriors, and as he did not
care to engage in unnecessary hostilities, especially as his ammunition
was nearly exhausted, he fell back and retreated to his own quarters.
The following day, the army continued its march, taking the road to
Tacuba, but a few miles distant. On the way it experienced much
annoyance from straggling parties of the enemy, who, furious at the
sight of the booty which the invaders were bearing away, made repeated
attacks on their flanks and rear. Cortes retaliated, as on the former
expedition, by one of their own stratagems, but with less success than
before; for, pursuing the retreating enemy too hotly, he fell with his
cavalry into an ambuscade, which they had prepared for him in their
turn. He was not yet a match for their wily tactics. The Spanish
cavaliers were enveloped in a moment by their subtle foe, and separated
from the rest of the army. But, spurring on their good steeds, and
charging in a solid column together, they succeeded in breaking through
the Indian array, and in making their escape, except two individuals,
who fell into the enemy's hands. They were the general's own servants,
who had followed him faithfully through the whole campaign, and he was
deeply affected by their loss; rendered the more distressing by the
consideration of the dismal fate that awaited them. When the little band
rejoined the army, which had halted in some anxiety at their absence,
under the walls of Tacuba, the soldiers were astonished at the dejected
mien of their commander, which too visibly betrayed his emotion. The sun
was still high in the heavens, when they entered the ancient capital of
the Tepanecs. The first care of Cortes was to ascend the principal
teocalli, and survey the surrounding country. It was an admirable point
of view, commanding the capital, which lay but little more than a league
distant, and its immediate environs. Cortes was accompanied by
Alderete, the treasurer, and some other cavaliers, who had lately joined
his banner. The spectacle was still new to them; and, as they gazed on
the stately city, with its broad lake covered with boats and barges
hurrying to and fro, some laden with merchandise, or fruits and
vegetables, for the markets of Tenochtitlan, others crowded with
warriors, they could not withhold their admiration at the life and
activity of the scene, declaring that nothing but the hand of Providence
could have led their countrymen safe through the heart of this powerful
empire. Tacuba was the point which Cortes had reached on his former
expedition round the northern side of the valley. He had now, therefore,
made the entire circuit of the great lake; had reconnoitred the several
approaches to the capital, and inspected with his own eyes the
dispositions made on the opposite quarters for its defence. He had no
occasion to prolong his stay in Tacuba, the vicinity of which to Mexico
must soon bring on him its whole warlike population. Early on the
following morning, he resumed his march, taking the route pursued in the
former expedition, north of the small lakes. He met with less annoyance
from the enemy than on the preceding days; a circumstance owing in some
degree, perhaps, to the state of the weather, which was exceedingly
tempestuous. The soldiers, with their garments heavy with moisture,
ploughed their way with difficulty through the miry roads flooded by the
torrents. On one occasion, as their military chronicler informs us, the
officers neglected to go the rounds of the camp at night, and the
sentinels to mount guard, trusting to the violence of the storm for
their protection. Yet the fate of Narvaez might have taught them not to
put their faith in the elements. At Acolman, in the Acolhuan territory,
they were met by Sandoval, with the friendly cacique of Tezcuco, and
several cavaliers, among whom were some recently arrived from the
islands. They cordially greeted their countrymen, and communicated the
tidings that the canal was completed, and that the brigantines, rigged
and equipped, were ready to be launched on the bosom of the lake. There
seemed to be no reason, therefore, for longer postponing operations
against Mexico.- With this welcome intelligence, Cortes and his
victorious legions made their entry for the last time into the Acolhuan
capital, having consumed just three weeks in completing the circuit of
the valley.
Chapter IV [1521]
CONSPIRACY IN THE ARMY- BRIGANTINES LAUNCHED- MUSTER OF FORCES-
EXECUTION OF XICOTENCATL- MARCH OF THE ARMY- BEGINNING OF THE SIEGE
AT the very time when Cortes was occupied with reconnoitring the valley,
preparatory to his siege of the capital, a busy faction in Castile was
labouring to subvert his authority and defeat his plans of conquest
altogether. The fame of his brilliant exploits had spread not only
through the isles, but to Spain and many parts of Europe, where a
general admiration was felt for the invincible energy of the man, who
with his single arm as it were, could so long maintain a contest with
the powerful Indian empire. The absence of the Spanish monarch from his
dominions, and the troubles of the country, can alone explain the supine
indifference shown by the government to the prosecution of this great
enterprise. To the same causes it may be ascribed, that no action was
had in regard to the suits of Velasquez and Narvaez, backed as they were
by so potent an advocate as Bishop Fonseca, president of the Council of
the Indies. The reins of government had fallen into the hands of Adrian
of Utrecht, Charles' preceptor, and afterwards Pope,- a man of
learning, and not without sagacity, but slow and timid in his policy,
and altogether incapable of that decisive action which suited the bold
genius of his predecessor, Cardinal Ximenes. In the spring of 1521,
however, a number of ordinances passed the Council of the Indies, which
threatened an important innovation in the affairs of New Spain. It was
decreed, that the Royal Audience of Hispaniola should abandon the
proceedings already instituted against Narvaez, for his treatment of the
commissioner Ayllon; that that unfortunate commander should be released
from his confinement at Vera Cruz; and that an arbitrator should be
sent to Mexico, with authority to investigate the affairs- and conduct
of Cortes, and to render ample justice to the governor of Cuba. There
were not wanting persons at court, who looked with dissatisfaction, on
these proceedings, as an unworthy requital of the services of Cortes,
and who thought the present moment, at any rate, not the most suitable
for taking measures which might discourage the general, and, perhaps,
render him desperate. But the arrogant temper of the Bishop of Burgos
overruled all objections; and the ordinances having been approved by the
Regency, were signed by that body, April 11, 1521. A person named
Tapia, one of the functionaries of the Audience of St. Domingo, was
selected as the new commissioner to be despatched to Vera Cruz.
Fortunately circumstances occurred which postponed the execution of the
design for the present, and permitted Cortes to go forward unmolested in
his career of conquest. But, while thus allowed to remain, for the
present at least, in possession of authority, he was assailed by a
danger nearer home, which menaced not only his authority, but his life.
This was a conspiracy in the army, of a more dark and dangerous
character than any hitherto formed there. It was set on foot by a common
soldier, named Antonio Villafana, a native of Old Castile, of whom
nothing is known but his share in this transaction. He was one of the
troop of Narvaez,- that leaven of disaffection, which had remained with
the army, swelling with discontent on every light occasion, and ready at
all times to rise into mutiny. They had voluntarily continued in the
service after the secession of their comrades at Tlascala; but it was
from the same mercenary hopes with which they had originally embarked in
the expedition,- and in these they were destined still to be
disappointed. They had little of the true spirit of adventure, which
distinguished the old companions of Cortes; and they found the barren
laurels of victory but a sorry recompense for all their toils and
sufferings. With these men were joined others, who had causes of
personal disgust with the general; and others, again, who looked with
disgust on the result of the war. The gloomy fate of their countrymen,
who had fallen into the enemy's hands, filled them with dismay. They
felt themselves the victims of a chimerical spirit in their leader, who,
with such inadequate means, was urging to extremity so ferocious and
formidable a foe; and they shrunk with something like apprehension from
thus pursuing the enemy into his own haunts, where he would gather
tenfold energy from despair. These men would have willingly abandoned
the enterprise, and returned to Cuba; but how could they do it? Cortes
had control over the whole route from the city to the sea-coast; and not
a vessel could leave its ports without his warrant. Even if he were put
out of the way, there were others, his principal officers, ready to
step into his place, and avenge the death of their commander. It was
necessary to embrace these, also, in the scheme of destruction; and it
was proposed, therefore, together with Cortes, to assassinate Sandoval,
Olid, Alvarado, and two or three others most devoted to his interests.
The conspirators would then raise the cry of liberty, and doubted not
that they should be joined by the greater part of the army, or enough,
at least, to enable them to work their own pleasure. They proposed to
offer the command, on Cortes' death, to Francisco Verdugo, a
brother-in-law of Velasquez. He was an honourable cavalier, and not
privy to their design. But they had little doubt that he would acquiesce
in the command, thus, in a manner, forced upon him, and this would
secure them the protection of the governor of Cuba, who, indeed, from
his own hatred of Cortes, would be disposed to look with a lenient eye
on their proceedings. The conspirators even went so far as to appoint
the subordinate officers, an alguacil mayor, in place of Sandoval, a
quarter-master-general to succeed Olid, and some others. The time fixed
for the execution of the plot was soon after the return of Cortes from
his expedition. A parcel, pretended to have come by a fresh arrival from
Castile, was to be presented to him while at table, and, when he was
engaged in breaking open the letters, the conspirators were to fall on
him and his officers, and despatch them with their poniards. Such was
the iniquitous scheme devised for the destruction of Cortes and the
expedition. But a conspiracy, to be successful, especially when numbers
are concerned, should allow but little time to elapse between its
conception and its execution. On the day previous to that appointed for
the perpetration of the deed, one, of the party, feeling a natural
compunction at the commission of the crime, went to the general's
quarters, and solicited a private interview with him. He threw himself
at his commander's feet, and revealed all the particulars relating to
the conspiracy, adding, that in Villafana's possession a paper would be
found, containing the names of his accomplices. Cortes, thunderstruck at
the disclosure, lost not a moment in profiting by it. He sent for
Alvarado, Sandoval, and other officers marked out by the conspirator,
and, after communicating the affair to them, went at once with them to
Villafana's quarters, attended by four alguacils. They found him in
conference with three or four friends, who were instantly taken from the
apartment, and placed in custody. Villafana, confounded at this sudden
apparition of his commander, had barely time to snatch a paper,
containing the signatures of the confederates, from his bosom, and
attempt to swallow it. But Cortes arrested his arm, and seized the
paper. As he glanced his eye rapidly over the fatal list, he was much
moved at finding there the names of more than one who had some claim to
consideration in the army. He tore the scroll in pieces, and ordered
Villafana, to be taken into custody. He was immediately tried by a
military court hastily got together, at which the general himself presided.
There seems to have been no doubt of the man's guilt. He was condemned
to death, and, after allowing him time for confession and absolution,
the sentence was executed by hanging him from the window of his own
quarters. Those ignorant of the affair were astonished at the spectacle;
and the remaining conspirators were filled with consternation when they
saw that their plot was detected, and anticipated a similar fate for
themselves. But they were mistaken. Cortes pursued the matter no
further. A little reflection convinced him, that to do so would involve
him in the most disagreeable, and even dangerous, perplexities. And,
however much the parties implicated in so foul a deed might deserve
death, he could ill afford the loss even of the guilty, with his present
limited numbers. He resolved, therefore, to content himself with the
punishment of the ringleader. He called his troops together, and briefly
explained to them the nature of the crime for which Villafana had
suffered. He had made no confession, he said, and the guilty secret had
perished with him. He then expressed his sorrow, that any should have
been found in their ranks capable of so base an act, and stated his own
unconsciousness of having wronged any individual among them; but, if he
had done so, he invited them frankly to declare it, as he was most
anxious to afford them all the redress in his power. But there was no
one of his audience, whatever might be his grievances, who cared to
enter his complaint at such a moment; least of all were the conspirators
willing to do so, for they were too happy at having, as they fancied,
escaped detection, to stand forward now in the ranks of the malcontents.
The affair passed off, therefore, without further consequences. As was
stated at the close of the last chapter, the Spaniards, on their return
to quarters, found the construction of the brigantines completed, and
that they were fully rigged, equipped, and ready for service. The canal,
also, after having occupied eight thousand men for nearly two months,
was finished. It was a work of great labour; for it extended half a
league in length, was twelve feet wide, and as many deep. The sides were
strengthened by palisades of wood, or solid masonry. At intervals dams
and locks were constructed, and part of the opening was through the hard
rock. By this avenue the brigantines might now be safely introduced on
the lake. Cortes was resolved that so auspicious an event should be
celebrated with due solemnity. On the 28th of April, the troops were
drawn up under arms, and the whole population of Tezcuco assembled to
witness the ceremony. Mass was performed, and every man in the army,
together with the general, confessed and received the sacrament. Prayers
were offered up by Father Olmedo, and a benediction invoked on the
little navy, the first worthy of the name ever launched on American
waters. The signal was given by the firing of a cannon, when the
vessels, dropping down the canal one after another, reached the lake in
good order; and as they emerged on its ample bosom, with music sounding,
and the royal ensign of Castile proudly floating from their masts, a
shout of admiration arose from the countless multitudes of spectators,
which mingled with the roar of artillery and musketry from the vessels
and the shore! It was a novel spectacle to the simple natives; and they
gazed with wonder on the gallant ships, which, fluttering like sea-birds
on their snowy pinions, bounded lightly over the waters, as if
rejoicing in their element. It touched the stern hearts of the
Conquerors with a glow of rapture, and, as they felt that Heaven had
blessed their undertaking, they broke forth, by general accord, into the
noble anthem of the Te Deum. But there was no one of that vast
multitude for whom the sight had deeper interest than their commander.
For he looked on it as the work, in a manner, of his own hands; and his
bosom swelled with exultation, as he felt he was now possessed of a
power strong enough to command the lake, and to shake the haughty towers
of Tenochtitlan. The general's next step was to muster his forces in
the great square of the capital. He found they amounted to eighty-seven
horse, and eight hundred and eighteen foot, of which one hundred and
eighteen were arquebusiers and crossbowmen. He had three large
field-pieces of iron, and fifteen lighter guns or falconets of brass.
The heavier cannon had been transported from Vera Cruz to Tezcuco, a
little while before, by the faithful Tlascalans. He was well supplied
with shot and balls, with about ten hundredweight of powder, and fifty
thousand copper-headed arrows, made after a pattern furnished by him to
the natives. The number and appointments of the army much exceeded what
they had been at any time since the flight from Mexico, and showed the
good effects of the late arrivals from the Islands. Indeed, taking the
fleet into the account, Cortes had never before been in so good a
condition for carrying on his operations. Three hundred of the men were
sent to man the vessels, thirteen, or rather twelve, in number, one of
the smallest having been found, on trial, too dull a sailer to be of
service. Half of the crews were required to navigate the ships. There
was some difficulty in finding hands for this, as the men were averse to
the employment. Cortes selected those who came from Palos, Moguer, and
other maritime towns, and notwithstanding their frequent claims of
exemption, as hidalgos, from this menial occupation, he pressed them
into the service. Each vessel mounted a piece of heavy ordnance, and was
placed under an officer of respectability, to whom Cortes gave a
general code of instructions for the government of the little navy, of
which he proposed to take the command in person. He had already sent to
his Indian confederates, announcing his purpose of immediately laying
siege to Mexico, and called on them to furnish their promised levies
within the space of ten days at furthest. The Tlascalans he ordered to
join him at Tezcuco; the others were to assemble at Chalco, a more
convenient place of rendezvous for the operations in the southern
quarter of the valley. The Tlascalans arrived within the time
prescribed, led by the younger Xicotencatl, supported by Chichemecatl,
the same doughty warrior who had convoyed the brigantines to Tezcuco.
They came fifty thousand strong, according to Cortes, making a brilliant
show with their military finery, and marching proudly forward under the
great national banner, emblazoned with a spread eagle, the arms of the
republic. With as blithe and manly a step as if they were going to the
battle-ground, they defiled through the gates of the capital, making its
walls ring with the friendly shouts of "Castile and Tlascala." The
observations which Cortes had made in his late tour of reconnaissance
had determined him to begin the siege by distributing his forces into
three separate camps, which he proposed to establish at the extremities
of the principal causeways. By this arrangement the troops would be
enabled to move in concert on the capital, and be in the best position
to intercept its supplies from the surrounding country. The first of
these points was Tacuba, commanding the fatal causeway of the noche
triste. This was assigned to Pedro de Alvarado, with a force consisting,
according to Cortes' own statement, of thirty horse, one hundred and
sixty-eight Spanish infantry, and five and twenty thousand Tlascalans.
Christoval de Olid had command of the second army, of much the same magnitude,
which was to take up its position at Cojohuacan, the city, it will be
remembered, overlooking the short causeway connected with that of
Iztapalapan. Gonzalo de Sandoval had charge of the third division, of
equal strength with each of the two preceding, but which was to draw its
Indian levies from the forces assembled at Chalco. This officer was to
march on Iztapalapan, and complete the destruction of that city, begun
by Cortes soon after his entrance into the valley. It was too formidable
a post to remain in the rear of the army. The general intended to
support the attack with his brigantines, after which the subsequent
movements of Sandoval would be determined by circumstances. Having
announced his intended dispositions to his officers, the Spanish
commander called his troops together, and made one of those brief and
stirring harangues with which he was wont on great occasions to kindle
the hearts of his soldiery. "I have taken the last step," he said; "I
have brought you to the goal for which you have so long panted. A few
days will place you before the gates of Mexico,- the capital from which
you were driven with so much ignominy. But we now go forward under the
smiles of Providence. Does any one doubt it? Let him but compare our
present condition with that in which we found ourselves not twelve
months since, when, broken and dispirited, we sought shelter within the
walls of Tlascala; nay, with that in which we were but a few months
since, when we took up our quarters in Tezcuco. Since that time our
strength has been nearly doubled. We are fighting the battles of the
Faith, fighting for our honour, for riches, for revenge. I have brought
you face to face with your foe. It is for you to do the rest." The
address of the bold chief was answered by the thundering acclamations of
his followers, who declared that every man would do his duty under such
a leader; and they only asked to be led against the enemy. Cortes then
caused the regulations for the army, published at Tlascala, to be read
again to the troops, with the assurance that they should be enforced to
the letter. It was arranged that the Indian forces should precede the
Spanish by a day's march, and should halt for their confederates on the
borders of the Tezcucan territory. A circumstance occurred soon after
their departure, which gave bad augury for the future. A quarrel had
arisen in the camp at Tezcuco between a Spanish soldier and a Tlascalan
chief, in which the latter was badly hurt. He was sent back to Tlascala,
and the matter was hushed up, that it might not reach the ears of the
general, who, it was known, would not pass it over lightly. Xicotencatl
was a near relative of the injured party, and on the first day's halt,
he took the opportunity to leave the army, with a number of his
followers, and set off for Tlascala. Other causes are assigned for his
desertion. It is certain that, from the first, he looked on the
expedition with an evil eye, and had predicted that no good would come
of it. He came into it with reluctance, as, indeed, he detested the
Spaniards in his heart. His partner in the command instantly sent
information of the affair to the Spanish general, still encamped at
Tezcuco. Cortes, who saw at once the mischievous consequences of this
defection at such a time, detached a party of Tlascalan and Tezcucan
Indians after the fugitive, with instructions to prevail on him, if
possible, to return to his duty. They overtook him on the road, and
remonstrated with him on his conduct, contrasting it with that of his
countrymen generally, and of his own father in particular, the steady
friend of the white men. "So much the worse," replied the chieftain; "if
they had taken my counsel, they would never have become the dupes of
the perfidious strangers." Finding their remonstrances received only
with anger or contemptuous taunts, the emissaries returned without
accomplishing their object. Cortes did not hesitate on the course he was
to pursue. "Xicotencatl," he said, "had always been the enemy of the
Spaniards, first in the field, and since in the council-chamber; openly,
or in secret, still the same,- their implacable enemy. There was no use
in parleying with the false-hearted Indian." He instantly despatched a
small body of horse with an alguacil to arrest the chief, wherever he
might be found, even though it were in the streets of Tlascala, and to
bring him back to Tezcuco. At the same time he sent information of
Xicotencatl's proceedings to the Tlascalan senate, adding, that
desertion among the Spaniards was punished with death. The emissaries of
Cortes punctually fulfilled his orders. They arrested the fugitive
chief,- whether in Tlascala or in its neighbourhood is uncertain,- and
brought him a prisoner to Tezcuco, where a high gallows, erected in the
great square, was prepared for his reception. He was instantly led to
the place of execution; his sentence and the cause for which he suffered
were publicly proclaimed, and the unfortunate cacique expiated his
offence by the vile death of a malefactor. His ample property,
consisting of lands, slaves, and some gold, was all confiscated to the
Castilian crown. Thus perished Xicotencatl, in the flower of his age,-
as dauntless a warrior as ever led an Indian army to battle. He was the
first chief who successfully resisted the arms of the invaders; and, had
the natives of Anahuac generally been animated with a spirit like his,
Cortes would probably never have set foot in the capital of Montezuma.
He was gifted with a clearer insight into the future than his
countrymen; for he saw that the European was an enemy far more to be
dreaded than the Aztec. Yet, when he consented to fight under the banner
of the white men, he had no right to desert it, and he incurred the
penalty prescribed by the code of savage as well as of civilised
nations. It is said, indeed, that the Tlascalan senate aided in
apprehending him, having previously answered Cortes, that his crime was
punishable with death by their own laws. It was a bold act, however,
thus to execute him in the midst of his people; for he was a powerful
chief, heir to one of the four seigniories of the republic. His
chivalrous qualities made him popular, especially with the younger part
of his countrymen; and his garments were torn into shreds at his death,
and distributed as sacred relics among them. Still, no resistance was
offered to the execution of the sentence, and no commotion followed it.
He was the only Tlascalan who ever swerved from his loyalty to the
Spaniards. According to the plan of operations settled by Cortes,
Sandoval, with his division, was to take a southern direction; while
Alvarado and Olid would make the northern circuit of the lakes. These
two cavaliers, after getting possession of Tacuba, were to advance to
Chapoltepec, and demolish the great aqueduct there, which supplied
Mexico with water. On the 10th of May, they commenced their march; but
at Acolman, where they halted for the night, a dispute arose between the
soldiers of the two divisions, respecting their quarters. From words
they came to blows, and a defiance was even exchanged between the
leaders, who entered into the angry feelings of their followers.
Intelligence of this was soon communicated to Cortes, who sent at once
to the fiery chiefs, imploring them, by their regard for him and the
common cause, to lay aside their differences, which must end in their
own ruin, and that of the expedition. His remonstrance prevailed, at
least, so far as to establish a show of reconciliation between the
parties. But was not a man to forget, or easily to forgive; and
Alvarado, though frank and liberal, had an impatient temper, much more
easily excited than appeased. They were never afterwards friends. The
Spaniards met with no opposition on their march. The principal towns
were all abandoned by the inhabitants, who had gone to strengthen the
garrison of Mexico, or taken refuge with their families among the
mountains. Tacuba was in like manner deserted, and the troops once more
established themselves in their old quarters in the lordly city of the
Tepanecs. Their first undertaking was, to cut off the pipes that
conducted the water from the royal streams of Chapoltepec to feed the
numerous tanks and fountains which sparkled-in the courtyards of the
capital. The aqueduct, partly constructed of brickwork, and partly of
stone and mortar, was raised on a strong, though narrow, dike, which
transported it across an arm of the lake; and the whole work was one of
the most pleasing monuments of Mexican civilisation. The Indians, well
aware of its importance, had stationed a large body of troops for its
protection. A battle followed, in which both sides suffered
considerably, but the Spaniards were victorious. A part of the aqueduct
was demolished, and during the siege no water found its way again to the
capital through this channel. On the following day the combined forces
descended on the fatal causeway, to make themselves masters, if
possible, of the nearest bridge. They found the dike covered with a
swarm of warriors, as numerous as on the night of their disaster, while
the surface of the lake was dark with the multitude of canoes. The
intrepid Christians strove to advance under a perfect hurricane of
missiles from the water and the land, but they made slow progress.
Barricades thrown across the causeway embarrassed the cavalry, and
rendered it nearly useless. The sides of the Indian boats were fortified
with bulwarks, which shielded the crews from the arquebuses and
crossbows; and, when the warriors on the dike were hard pushed by the
pikemen, they threw themselves fearlessly into the water, as if it were
their native element, and re-appearing along the sides of the dike, shot
off their arrows and javelins with fatal execution. After a long and
obstinate struggle, the Christians were compelled to fall back on their
own quarters with disgrace, and- including the allies- with nearly as
much damage as they had inflicted on the enemy. Olid, disgusted with the
result of the engagement, inveighed against his companion, as having
involved them in it by his wanton temerity, and drew off his forces the
next morning to his own station at Cojohuacan. The camps, separated by
only two leagues, maintained an easy communication with each other. They
found abundant employment in foraging the neighbouring country for
provisions, and in repelling the active sallies of the enemy; on whom
they took their revenge by cutting off his supplies. But their own
position was precarious, and they looked with impatience for the arrival
of the brigantines under Cortes. It was in the latter part of May that
took up his quarters at Cojohuacan; and from that time may be dated the
commencement of the siege of Mexico.
Chapter V [1521]
INDIAN FLOTILLA DEFEATED- THE CAUSEWAYS OCCUPIED- DESPERATE ASSAULTS-
FIRING OF THE PALACES- SPIRIT OF THE BESIEGED- BARRACKS FOR THE TROOPS
NO sooner had Cortes received intelligence that his two officers had
established themselves in their respective posts, than he ordered
Sandoval to march on Iztapalapan. The cavalier's route led him through a
country for the most part friendly; and at Chalco his little body of
Spaniards was swelled by the formidable muster of Indian levies, who
awaited there his approach. After this junction, he continued his march
without opposition till he arrived before the hostile city, under whose
walls he found a large force drawn up to receive him. A battle followed,
and the natives, after maintaining their ground sturdily for some time,
were compelled to give way, and to seek refuge either on the water or
in that part of the town which hung over it. The remainder was speedily
occupied by the Spaniards. Meanwhile Cortes had set sail with his
flotilla, intending to support his lieutenant's attack by water. On
drawing near the southern shore of the lake, he passed under the shadow
of an insulated peak, since named from him the "Rock of the Marquess."
It was held by a body of Indians, who saluted the fleet, as it passed,
with showers of stones and arrows. Cortes, resolving to punish their
audacity, and to clear the lake of his troublesome enemy, instantly
landed with a hundred and fifty of his followers. He placed himself at
their head, scaled the steep ascent, in the face of a driving storm of
missiles, and, reaching the summit, put the garrison to the sword. There
was a number of women and children, also, gathered in the place, whom
he spared. On the top of the eminence was a blazing beacon, serving to
notify to the inhabitants of the capital when the Spanish fleet weighed
anchor. Before Cortes had regained his brigantine, the canoes and
piraguas of the enemy had left the harbours of Mexico, and were seen
darkening the lake for many a rood. There were several hundred of them,
all crowded with warriors, and advancing rapidly by means of their oars
over the calm bosom of the waters. Cortes, who regarded his fleet, to
use his own language, as "the key of the war," felt the importance of
striking a decisive blow in the first encounter with the enemy. It was
with chagrin, therefore, that he found his sails rendered useless by the
want of wind. He calmly waited the approach of the Indian squadron,
which, however, lay on their oars, at something more than musket-shot
distance, as if hesitating to encounter these leviathans of their
waters. At this moment, a light air from land rippled the surface of the
lake; it gradually freshened into a breeze, and Cortes, taking
advantage of the friendly succour, which he may be excused, under all
the circumstances, for regarding as especially sent him by Heaven,
extended his line of battle and bore down, under full press of canvas,
on the enemy. The latter no sooner encountered the bows of their
formidable opponents, than they were overturned and sent to the bottom
by the shock, or so much damaged that they speedily filled and sank. The
water was covered with the wreek of broken canoes, and with the bodies
of men struggling for life in the waves, and vainly imploring their
companions to take them on board their overcrowded vessels. The Spanish
fleet, as it dashed through the mob of boats, sent off its volleys to
the right and left with a terrible effect, completing the discomfiture
of the Aztecs. The latter made no attempt at resistance, scarcely
venturing a single flight of arrows, but strove with all their strength
to regain the port from which they had so lately issued. They were no
match in the chase, any more than in the fight, for their terrible
antagonist, who, borne on the wings of the wind, careered to and fro at
his pleasure, dealing death widely around him, and making the shores
ring with the thunders of his ordnance. A few only of the Indian
flotilla succeeded in recovering the port, and, gliding up the canals,
found a shelter in the bosom of the city, where the heavier burden of
the brigantines made it impossible for them to follow. This victory,
more complete than even the sanguine temper of Cortes had
prognosticated, proved the superiority of the Spaniards, and left them,
henceforth, undisputed masters of the Aztec sea. It was nearly dusk when
the squadron, coasting along the great southern causeway, anchored off
the point of junction, called Xoloc, where the branch from Cojohuacan
meets the principal dike. The avenue widened at this point, so as to
afford room for two towers, or turreted temples, built of stone, and
surrounded by walls of the same material, which presented altogether a
position of some strength, and, at the present moment, was garrisoned by
a body of Aztecs. They were not numerous; and Cortes, landing with his
soldiers, succeeded without much difficulty in dislodging the enemy, and
in getting possession of the works. It seems to have been originally
the general's design to take up his own quarters with at Cojohuacan.
But, if so, he now changed his purpose, and wisely fixed on this spot,
as the best position for his encampment. It was but half a league
distant from the capital; and, while it commanded its great southern
avenue, had a direct communication with the garrison at Cojohuacan,
through which he might receive supplies from the surrounding country.
Here, then, he determined to establish his head-quarters. He at once
caused his heavy iron cannon to be transferred from the brigantines to
the causeway, and sent orders to to join him with half his force, while
Sandoval was instructed to abandon his present quarters, and advance to
Cojohuacan, whence he was to detach fifty picked men of his infantry to
the camp of Cortes. Having made these arrangements, the general busily
occupied himself with strengthening the works at Xoloc, and putting them
in the best posture of defence. The two principal avenues to Mexico,
those on the south and the west, were now occupied by the Christians.
There still remained a third, the great dike of Tepejacac, on the north,
which, indeed, taking up the principal street, that passed in a direct
line through the heart of the city, might be regarded as a continuation
of the dike of Iztapalapan. By this northern route a means of escape was
still left open to the besieged, and they availed themselves of it, at
present, to maintain their communications with the country, and to
supply themselves with provisions. Alvarado, who observed this from his
station at Tacuba, advised his commander of it, and the latter
instructed Sandoval to take up his position on the causeway. That
officer, though suffering at the time from a severe wound received from a
lance in one of the late skirmishes, hastened to obey; and thus, by
shutting up its only communication with the surrounding country,
completed the blockade of the capital. But Cortes was not content to
wait patiently the effects of a dilatory blockade, which might exhaust
the patience of his allies, and his own resources. He determined to
support it by such active assaults on the city as should still further
distress the besieged, and hasten the hour of surrender. For this
purpose he ordered a simultaneous attack, by the two commanders at the
other stations, on the quarters nearest their encampments. On the day
appointed, his forces were under arms with the dawn. Mass, as usual, was
performed; and the Indian confederates, as they listened with grave
attention to the stately and imposing service, regarded with undisguised
admiration the devotional reverence shown by the Christians, whom, in
their simplicity, they looked upon as little less than divinities
themselves. The Spanish infantry marched in the van, led on by Cortes,
attended by a number of cavaliers, dismounted like himself. They had not
moved far upon the causeway, when they were brought to a stand by one
of the open breaches, that had formerly been traversed by a bridge. On
the further side a solid rampart of stone and lime had been erected, and
behind this a strong body of Aztecs were posted, who discharged on the
Spaniards, as they advanced, a thick volley of arrows. The latter vainly
endeavoured to dislodge them with their firearms and crossbows; they
were too well secured behind their defences. Cortes then ordered two of
the brigantines, which had kept along, one on each side of the causeway,
in order to co-operate with the army, to station themselves so as to
enfilade the position occupied by the enemy. Thus placed between two
well-directed fires, the Indians were compelled to recede. The soldiers
on board the vessels, springing to land, bounded like deer up the sides
of the dike. They were soon followed by their countrymen under Cortes,
who, throwing themselves into the water, swam the undefended chasm, and
joined in pursuit of the enemy. The Mexicans fell back, however, in
something like order, till they reached another opening in the dike,
like the former, dismantled of its bridge, and fortified in the same
manner by a bulwark of stone, behind which the retreating Aztecs,
swimming across the chasm, and reinforced by fresh bodies of their
countrymen, again took shelter. They made good their post till, again
assailed by the cannonade from the brigantines, they were compelled to
give way. In this manner breach after breach was carried, and, at every
fresh instance of success, a shout went up from the crews of the
vessels, which, answered by the long files of the Spaniards and their
confederates on the causeway, made the valley echo to its borders.
Cortes had now reached the end of the great avenue, where it entered the
suburbs. There he halted to give time for the rearguard to come up with
him. It was detained by the labour of filling up the breaches in such a
manner as to make a practicable passage for the artillery and horse,
and to secure one for the rest of the army on its retreat. This
important duty was intrusted to the allies, who executed it by tearing
down the ramparts on the margins, and throwing them into the chasms,
and, when this was not sufficient,- for the water was deep around the
southern causeway,- by dislodging the great stones and rubbish from the
dike itself, which was broad enough to admit of it, and adding them to
the pile, until it was raised above the level of the water. The street
on which the Spaniards now entered, was the great avenue that
intersected the town from north to south, and the same by which they had
first visited the capital. It was broad and perfectly straight, and, in
the distance, dark masses of warriors might be seen gathering to the
support of their countrymen, who were prepared to dispute the further
progress of the Spaniards. The sides were lined with buildings, the
terraced roofs of which were also crowded with combatants, who, as the
army advanced, poured down a pitiless storm of missiles on their heads,
which glanced harmless, indeed, from the coat of mail, but too often
found their way through the more common escaupil of the soldier, already
gaping with many a ghastly rent. Cortes, to rid himself of this
annoyance for the future, ordered his Indian pioneers to level the
principal buildings, as they advanced; in which work of demolition, no
less than in the repair of the breaches, they proved of inestimable
service. The Spaniards, meanwhile, were steadily, but slowly, advancing,
as the enemy recoiled before the rolling fire of musketry, though
turning at intervals to discharge their javelins and arrows against
their pursuers. In this way they kept along the great street, until
their course was interrupted by a wide ditch or canal, once traversed by
a bridge, of which only a few planks now remained. These were broken by
the Indians the moment they had crossed, and a formidable array of
spears were instantly seen bristling over the summit of a solid rampart
of stone, which protected the opposite side of the canal. Cortes was no
longer supported by his brigantines, which the shallowness of the canals
prevented from penetrating into the suburbs. He brought forward his
arquebusiers, who, protected by the targets of their comrades, opened a
fire on the enemy. But the balls fell harmless from the bulwarks of
stone; while the assailants presented but too easy a mark to their
opponents. The general then caused the heavy guns to be brought up, and
opened a lively cannonade, which soon cleared a breach in the works,
through which the musketeers and crossbowmen poured in their volleys
thick as hail. The Indians now gave way in disorder after having held
their antagonists at bay for two hours. The latter, jumping into the
shallow water, scaled the opposite bank without further resistance, and
drove the enemy along the street towards the square, where the sacred
pyramid reared its colossal bulk high over the other edifices of the
city. It was a spot too familiar to the Spaniards. On one side stood the
palace of Axacayatl, their old quarters, the scene to many of them of
so much suffering. Opposite was the pile of low, irregular, buildings,
once the residence of the unfortunate Montezuma; while the third side of
the square was flanked by the Coatepantli, or Wall of Serpents, which
encompassed the great teocalli with its little city of holy edifices.
The Spaniards halted at the entrance of the square, as if oppressed, and
for a moment overpowered, by the bitter recollections that crowded on
their minds. But their intrepid leader, impatient at their hesitation,
loudly called on them to advance before the Aztecs had time to rally;
and grasping his target in one hand, and waving his sword high above his
head with the other, he cried his war-cry of "St. Jago," and led them
at once against the enemy. The Mexicans, intimidated by the presence of
their detested foe, who, in spite of all their efforts had again forced
his way into the heart of their city, made no further resistance, but
retreated, or rather fled, for refuge into the sacred inclosure of the
teocalli, where the numerous buildings scattered over its ample area
afforded many good points of defence. A few priests, clad in their usual
wild and blood-stained vestments, were to be seen lingering on the
terraces which wound round the stately sides of the pyramid, chanting
hymns in honour of their god, and encouraging the warriors below to
battle bravely for his altars. The Spaniards poured through the open
gates into the area, and a small party rushed up the winding corridors
to its summit. No vestige now remained there of the Cross, or of any
other symbol of the pure faith to which it had been dedicated. A new
effigy of the Aztec war-god had taken the place of the one demolished by
the Christians, and raised its fantastic and hideous form in the same
niche which had been occupied by its predecessor. The Spaniards soon
tore away its golden mask and the rich jewels with which it was
bedizened, and hurling the struggling priests down the sides of the
pyramid, made the best of their way to their comrades in the area. It
was full time. The Aztecs, indignant at the sacrilegious outrage
perpetrated before their eyes, and gathering courage from the
inspiration of the place, under the very presence of their deities,
raised a yell of horror and vindictive fury, as, throwing themselves
into something like order, they sprang by a common impulse on the
Spaniards. The latter, who had halted near the entrance, though taken by
surprise, made an effort to maintain their position at the gateway. But
in vain; for the headlong rush of the assailants drove them at once
into the square, where they were attacked by other bodies of Indians,
pouring in from the neighbouring streets. Broken, and losing their
presence of mind, the troops made no attempt to rally, but, crossing the
square, and abandoning the cannon planted there to the enemy, they
hurried down the great street of Iztapalapan. Here they were soon
mingled with the allies, who choked up the way, and who, catching the
panic of the Spaniards, increased the confusion, while the eyes of the
fugitives, blinded by the missiles that rained on them from the azoteas,
were scarcely capable of distinguishing friend from foe. In vain Cortes
endeavoured to stay the torrent, and to restore order. His voice was
drowned in the wild uproar, as he was swept away, like driftwood, by the
fury of the current. All seemed to be lost;- when suddenly sounds were
heard in an adjoining street, like the distant tramp of horses galloping
rapidly over the pavement. They drew nearer and nearer, and a body of
cavalry soon emerged on the great square. Though but a handful in
number, they plunged boldly into the thick of the enemy. We have often
had occasion to notice the superstitious dread entertained by the
Indians of the horse and his rider. And, although the long residence of
the cavalry in the capital had familiarised the natives, in some
measure, with their presence, so long a time had now elapsed since they
had beheld them, that all their former mysterious terrors revived in
full force; and, when thus suddenly assailed in flank by the formidable
apparition, they were seized with a panic, and fell into confusion. It
soon spread to the leading files, and Cortes, perceiving his advantage,
turned with the rapidity of lightning, and, at this time supported by
his followers, succeeded in driving the enemy with some loss back into
the inclosure. It was now the hour of vespers, and, as night must soon
overtake them, he made no further attempt to pursue his advantage.
Ordering the trumpets, therefore, to sound a retreat, he drew off his
forces in good order, taking with him the artillery which had been
abandoned in the square. The allies first went off the ground, followed
by the Spanish infantry, while the rear was protected by the horse, thus
reversing the order of march on their entrance. The Aztecs hung on the
closing files, and though driven back by frequent charges of the
cavalry, still followed in the distance, shooting off their ineffectual
missiles, and filling the air with wild cries and howling, like a herd
of ravenous wolves disappointed of their prey. It was late before the
army reached its quarters at Xoloc. Cortes had been well supported by
Alvarado and Sandoval in this assault on the city; though neither of
these commanders had penetrated the suburbs, deterred, perhaps, by the
difficulties of the passage, which, in Alvarado's case, were greater
than those presented to Cortes, from the greater number of breaches with
which the dike in his quarter was intersected. Something was owing,
too, to the want of brigantines, until Cortes supplied the deficiency by
detaching half of his little navy to the support of his officers.
Without their co-operation, however, the general himself could not have
advanced so far, nor, perhaps, have succeeded at all in setting foot
within the city. The success of this assault spread consternation, not
only among the Mexicans, but their vassals, as they saw that the
formidable preparations for defence were to avail little against the
white man, who had so soon, in spite of them, forced his way into the
very heart of the capital. Several of the neighbouring places, in
consequence, now showed a willingness to shake off their allegiance, and
claimed the protection of the Spaniards. Among these, were the
territory of Xochimilco, so roughly treated by the invaders, and some
tribes of Otomies, a rude but valiant people, who dwelt on the western
confines of the valley. Their support was valuable, not so much from the
additional reinforcement which it brought, as from the greater security
it gave to the army, whose outposts were perpetually menaced by these
warlike barbarians. Thus strengthened, Cortes prepared to make another
attack upon the capital, and that before it should have time to recover
from the former. Orders were given to his lieutenants on the other
causeways, to march at the same time, and co-operate with him, as
before, in the assault. It was conducted in precisely the same manner as
on the previous entry, the infantry taking the van, and the allies and
cavalry following. But, to the great dismay of the Spaniards, they found
two-thirds of the breaches restored to their former state, and the
stones and other materials, with which they had been stopped, removed by
the indefatigable enemy. They were again obliged to bring up the
cannon, the brigantines ran alongside, and the enemy was dislodged, and
driven from post to post, in the same manner as on the preceding attack.
In short, the whole work was to be done over again. It was not till an
hour after noon that the army had won a footing in the suburbs. Here
their progress was not so difficult as before; for the buildings from
the terraces of which they had experienced the most annoyance had been
swept away. Still it was only step by step that they forced a passage in
face of the Mexican militia, who disputed their advance with the same
spirit as before. Cortes, who would willingly have spared the
inhabitants, if he could have brought them to terms, saw them with
regret, as he says, thus desperately bent on a war of extermination. He
conceived that there would be no way more likely to affect their minds,
than by destroying at once some of the principal edifices, which they
were accustomed to venerate as the pride and ornament of the city.
Marching into the great square, he selected, as the first to be
destroyed, the old palace of Axayacatl, his former barracks. The ample
range of low buildings was, it is true, constructed of stone; but the
interior, as well as outworks, its turrets, and roofs, were of wood. The
Spaniards, whose associations with the pile were of so gloomy a
character, sprang to the work of destruction with a satisfaction like
that which the French mob may have felt in the demolition of the
Bastile. Torches and firebrands were thrown about in all directions; the
lower parts of the building were speedily on fire, which, running along
the inflammable bangings and woodwork of the interior, rapidly spread
to the second floor. There the element took freer range, and, before it
was visible from without, sent up from every aperture and crevice a
dense column of vapour, that hung like a funeral pall over the city.
This was dissipated by a bright sheet of flame, which enveloped all the
upper regions of the vast pile, till, the supporters giving way, the
wide range of turreted chambers fell, amidst clouds of dust and ashes,
with an appalling crash, that for a moment stayed the Spaniards in the
work of devastation. The Aztecs gazed with inexpressible horror on this
destruction of the venerable abode of their monarchs, and of the
monuments of their luxury and splendour. Their rage was exasperated
almost to madness, as they beheld their hated foes, the Tlascalans, busy
in the work of desolation, and aided by the Tezcucans, their own
allies, and not unfrequently their kinsmen. They vented their fury in
bitter execrations, especially on the young prince Ixtlilxochitl, who,
marching side by side with Cortes, took his full share in the dangers of
the day. The warriors from the housetops poured the most approbrious
epithets on him as he passed, denouncing him as false-hearted traitor;
false to his country and his blood,- reproaches not altogether
unmerited, as his kinsman, who chronicles the circumstance, candidly
confesses. He gave little heed to their taunts, however, holding on his
way with the dogged resolution of one true to the cause in which he was
embarked; and, when he entered the great square, he grappled with the
leader of the Aztec forces, wrenched a lance from his grasp, won by the
latter from the Christians, and dealt him a blow with his mace, or
maquahuitl, which brought him lifeless to the ground. The Spanish
commander, having accomplished the work of destruction, sounded a
retreat, sending on the Indian allies, who blocked up the way before
him. The Mexicans, maddened by their losses, in wild transports of fury
hung close on his rear, and though driven back by the cavalry, still
returned, throwing themselves desperately under the horses, striving to
tear the riders from their saddles, and content to throw away their own
lives for one blow at their enemy. Fortunately the greater part of their
militia was engaged with the assailants on the opposite quarters of the
city; but, thus crippled, they pushed the Spaniards under Cortes so
vigorously, that few reached the camp that night without bearing on
their bodies some token of the desperate conflict. On the following day,
and, indeed, on several days following, the general repeated his
assaults with as little care for repose, as if he and his men had been
made of iron. On one occasion he advanced some way down the street of
Tacuba, in which he carried three of the bridges, desirous, if possible,
to open a communication with Alvarado, posted on the contiguous
causeway. But the Spaniards in that quarter had not penetrated beyond
the suburbs, still impeded by the severe character of the ground, and
wanting, it may be, somewhat of that fiery impetuosity which the soldier
feels who fights under the eye of his chief. In each of these assaults,
the breaches were found more or less restored to their original state
by the pertinacious Mexicans, and the materials, which had been
deposited in them with so much labour, again removed. It may seem
strange, that Cortes did not take measures to guard against the
repetition of an act which caused so much delay and embarrassment to his
operations. He notices this in his letter to the emperor, in which he
says that to do so would have required, either that he should have
established his quarters in the city itself, which would have surrounded
him with enemies, and cut off his communications with the country; or
that he should have posted a sufficient guard of Spaniards- for the
natives were out of the question- to protect the breaches by night, a
duty altogether beyond the strength of men engaged in so arduous a
service through the day. Yet this was the course adopted by Alvarado;
who stationed, at night, a guard of forty soldiers for the defence of
the opening nearest to the enemy. This was relieved by a similar
detachment in a few hours, and this again by a third, the two former
still lying on their post; so that, on an alarm, a body of one hundred
and twenty soldiers was ready on the spot to repel an attack. Sometimes,
indeed, the whole division took up their bivouac in the neighbourhood
of the breach, resting on their arms, and ready for instant action. But a
life of such incessant toil and vigilance was almost too severe even
for the stubborn constitutions of the Spaniards. "Through the long
night," exclaims Diaz, who served in Alvarado's division, "we kept our
dreary watch; neither wind, nor wet, nor cold availing anything. There
we stood, smarting, as we were, from the wounds we had received in the
fight of the preceding day." It was the rainy season, which continues in
that country from July to September; and the surface of the causeways,
flooded by the storms, and broken up by the constant movement of such
large bodies of men, was converted into a marsh, or rather quagmire,
which added inconceivably to the distresses of the army. The troops
under Cortes were scarcely in a better situation. But few of them could
find shelter in the rude towers that garnished the works of Xoloc. The
greater part were compelled to bivouac in the open air, exposed to all
the inclemency of the weather. Every man, unless his wounds prevented
it, was required by the camp regulations to sleep on his arms; and they
were often roused from their hasty slumbers by the midnight call to
battle. For Guatemozin, contrary to the usual practice of his
countrymen, frequently selected the hours of darkness to aim a blow at
the enemy. "In short," exclaims the veteran soldier above quoted, "so
unintermitting were our engagements, by day and by night, during the
three months in which we lay before the capital, that to recount them
all would but exhaust the reader's patience, and make him to fancy he
was perusing the incredible feats of a knight-errant of romance." The
Aztec emperor conducted his operations on a systematic plan, which
showed some approach to military science. He not unfrequently made
simultanious attacks on the three several divisions of the Spaniards
established on the causeways, and on the garrisons at their extremities.
To accomplish this, he enforced the service not merely of his own
militia of the capital, but of the great towns in the neighbourhood, who
all moved in concert, at the well-known signal of the beacon-fire, or
of the huge. drum struck by the priests on the summit of the temple. One
of these general attacks, it was observed, whether from accident or
design, took place on the eve of St. John the Baptist, the anniversary
of the day on which the Spaniards made their second entry into the
Mexican capital. Notwithstanding the severe drain on his forces by this
incessant warfare, the young monarch contrived to relieve them in some
degree by different detachments, who took the place of one another. This
was apparent from the different uniforms and military badges of the
Indian battalions, who successively came and disappeared from the field.
At night a strict guard was maintained in the Aztec quarters, a thing
not common with the nations of the plateau. The outposts of the hostile
armies were stationed within sight of each other. That of the Mexicans
was usually placed in the neighbourhood of some wide breach, and its
position was marked by a large fire in front. The hours for relieving
guard were intimated by the shrill Aztec whistle, while bodies of men
might be seen moving behind the flame, which threw a still ruddier glow
over the cinnamon-coloured skins of the warriors. While thus active on
land, Guatemozin was not idle on the water. He was too wise, indeed, to
cope with the Spanish navy again in open battle; but he resorted to
stratagem, so much more congenial to Indian warfare. He placed a large
number of canoes in ambuscade among the tall reeds which fringed the
southern shores of the lake, and caused piles, at the same time, to be
driven into the neighbouring shallows. Several piraguas, or boats of a
larger size, then issued forth, and rowed near the spot where the
Spanish brigantines were moored. Two of the smallest vessels, supposing
the Indian barks were conveying provisions to the besieged, instantly
stood after them, as had been foreseen. The Aztec boats fled for shelter
to the reedy thicket, where their companions lay in ambush. The
Spaniards, following, were soon entangled among the palisades under the
water. They were instantly surrounded by the whole swarm of Indian
canoes, most of the men were wounded, several, including the two
commanders, slain, and one of the brigantines fell- a useless prize-
into the hands of the victors. Among the slain was Pedro Barba, captain
of the crossbowmen, a gallant officer, who had highly distinguished
himself in the Conquest. This disaster occasioned much mortification to
Cortes. It was a salutary lesson that stood him in good stead during the
remainder of the war. It may appear extraordinary that Guatemozin
should have been able to provide for the maintenance of the crowded
population now gathered in the metropolis, especially as the avenues
were all in the possession of the besieging army. But, independently of
the preparations made with this view before the siege and of the
loathsome sustenance daily furnished by the victims for sacrifice,
supplies were constantly obtained from the surrounding country across
the lake. This was so conducted, for a time, as in a great measure to
escape observation; and even when the brigantines were commanded to
cruise day and night, and sweep the waters of the boats employed in this
service, many still contrived, under cover of the darkness, to elude
the vigilance of the cruisers, and brought their cargoes into port. It
was not till the great towns in the neighbourhood cast off their
allegiance that the supply began to fall, from the failure of its
sources. The defection was more frequent, as the inhabitants became
convinced that the government, incompetent to its own defence, must be
still more so to theirs: and the Aztec metropolis saw its great vassals
fall off, one after another, as the tree, over which decay is stealing,
parts with its leaves at the first blast of the tempest. The cities,
which now claimed the Spanish general's protection, supplied the camp
with an incredible number of warriors; a number which, if we admit
Cortes' own estimate, one hundred and fifty thousand, could have only
served to embarrass his operations on the long extended causeways. These
levies were distributed among the three garrisons at the terminations
of the causeways; and many found active employment in foraging the
country for provisions, and yet more in carrying on hostilities against
the places still unfriendly to the Spaniards. Cortes found further
occupation for them in the construction of barracks for his troops, who
suffered greatly from exposure to the incessant rains of the season,
which were observed to fall more heavily by night than by day.
Quantities of stone and timber were obtained from the buildings that had
been demolished in the city. They were transported in the brigantines
to the causeway, and from these materials a row of huts or barracks was
constructed, extending on either side of the works of Xoloc. By this
arrangement, ample accommodations were furnished for the Spanish troops
and their Indian attendants, amounting in all to about two thousand. The
great body of the allies, with a small detachment of horse and
infantry, were quartered at the neighbouring post of Cojohuacan, which
served to protect the rear of the encampment, and to maintain its
communications with the country. A similar disposition of forces took
place in the other divisions of the army, under Alvarado and Sandoval,
though the accommodations provided for the shelter of the troops on
their causeways were not so substantial as those for the division of
Cortes. The Spanish camp was supplied with provisions from the friendly
towns in the neighbourhood, and especially from Tezcuco. They consisted
of fish, the fruits of the country, particularly a sort of fig borne by
the tuna (cactus opuntia), and a species of cherry, or something much
resembling it, which grew abundant at this season. But their principal
food was the tortillas, cakes of Indian meal, still common in Mexico,
for which bakehouses were established, under the care of the natives, in
the garrison towns commanding the causeways. The aries, as appears too
probable, reinforced their frugal fare with an occasional banquet of
human flesh, for which the battle-field unhappily afforded them too much
facility, and which, however shocking to the feelings of Cortes, he did
not consider himself in a situation at that moment to prevent. Thus the
tempest, which had been so long mustering, broke at length in all its
fury on the Aztec capital. Its unhappy inmates beheld the hostile
legions encompassing them about with their glittering files stretching
as far as the eye could reach. They saw themselves deserted by their
allies and vassals in their utmost need; the fierce stranger penetrating
into their secret places, violating their temples, plundering their
palaces, wasting the fair city by day, firing its suburbs by night, and
intrenching himself in solid edifices under their walls as if determined
never to withdraw his foot while one stone remained upon another. All
this they saw, yet their spirits were unbroken; and, though famine and
pestilence were beginning to creep over them, they still showed the same
determined front to their enemies. Cortes, who would gladly have spared
the town and its inhabitants, beheld this resolution with astonishment.
He intimated more than once, by means of the prisoners whom he
released, his willingness to grant them fair terms of capitulation. Day
after day, he fully expected his proffers would be accepted. But day
after day he was disappointed. He had yet to learn how tenacious was the
memory of the Aztecs; and that, whatever might be the horrors of their
present situation, and their fears for the future, they were all
forgotten in their hatred of the white man.
Chapter VI [1521]
GENERAL ASSAULT ON THE CITY- DEFEAT OF THE SPANIARDS- THEIR DISASTROUS
CONDITION- SACRIFICE OF THE CAPTIVES- DEFECTION OF THE ALLIES- CONSTANCY
OF THE TROOPS
FAMINE was now gradually working its way into the heart of the
beleaguered city. It seemed certain that, with this strict blockade, the
crowded population must in the end be driven to capitulate, though no
arm should be raised against them. But it required time; and the
Spaniards, though constant and enduring by nature, began to be impatient
of hardships scarcely inferior to those experienced by the besieged. In
some respects their condition was even worse, exposed, as they were, to
the cold, drenching rains, which fen with little intermission,
rendering their situation dreary and disastrous in the extreme. In this
state of things there were many who would willingly have shortened their
sufferings, and taken the chance of carrying the place by a coup de
main. Others thought it would be best to get possession of the great
market of Tlatelolco, which, from its situation in the north-western
part of the city, might afford the means of communication with the camps
of both Alvarado and Sandoval. This place, encompassed by spacious
porticos, would furnish accommodations for a numerous host; and, once
established in the capital, the Spaniards would be in a position to
follow up the blow with far more effect than at a distance. These
arguments were pressed by several of the officers, particularly by
Alderete, the royal treasurer, a person of much consideration, not only
from his rank, but from the capacity and zeal he had shown in the
service. In deference to their wishes, Cortes summoned a council of war,
and laid the matter before it. The treasurer's views were espoused by
most of the high-mettled cavaliers, who looked with eagerness to any
change of their present forlorn and wearisome life; and Cortes, thinking
it probably more prudent to adopt the less expedient course, than to
enforce a cold and reluctant obedience to his own opinion, suffered
himself to be overruled. A day was fixed for the assault, which was to
be made simultaneously by the two divisions under Alvarado and the
commander-in-chief. Sandoval was instructed to draw off the greater part
of his forces from the northern causeway, and to unite himself with
Alvarado, while seventy picked soldiers were to be detached to the
support of Cortes. On the appointed morning, the two armies, after the
usual celebration of mass, advanced along their respective causeways
against the city. They were supported, in addition to the brigantines,
by a numerous fleet of Indian boats, which were to force a passage up
the canals, and by a countless multitude of allies, whose very numbers
served in the end to embarrass their operations. After clearing the
suburbs, three avenues presented themselves, which all terminated in the
square of Tlatelolco. The principal one, being of much greater width
than the other two, might rather be called a causeway than a street,
since it was flanked by deep canals on either side. Cortes divided his
force into three bodies. One of them he placed under Alderete, with
orders to occupy the principal street. A second he gave in charge to
Andres de Tapia and Jorge de Alvarado; the former a cavalier of courage
and capacity, the latter, a younger brother of Don Pedro and possessed
of the intrepid spirit which belonged to that chivalrous family. These
were to penetrate by one of the parallel streets, while the general
himself, at the head of the third division, was to occupy the other. A
small body of cavalry, with two or three field-pieces, was stationed as a
reserve in front of the great street of Tacuba, which was designated as
the rallying point for the different divisions. Cortes gave the most
positive instructions to his captains not to advance a step without
securing the means of retreat, by carefully filling up the ditches, and
the openings in the causeway. The neglect of this precaution by
Alvarado, in an assault which he had made on the city but a few days
before, had been attended with such serious consequences to his army,
that Cortes rode over, himself, to his officer's quarters, for the
purpose of publicly reprimanding him for his disobedience of orders. On
his arrival at the camp, however, he found that his offending captain
had conducted the affair with so much gallantry, that the intended
reprimand- though well deserved- subsided into a mild rebuke. The
arrangements being completed, the three divisions marched at once up the
several streets. Cortes, dismounting, took the van of his own squadron,
at the head of his infantry. The Mexicans fell back as he advanced,
making less resistance than usual. The Spaniards pushed on, carrying one
barricade after another, and carefully filling up the gaps with
rubbish, so as to secure themselves a footing. The canoes supported the
attack, by moving along the canals, and grappling with those of the
enemy; while numbers of the nimble-footed Tlascalans, scaling the
terraces, passed on from one house to another, where they were
connected, hurling the defenders into the streets below. The enemy,
taken apparently by surprise, seemed incapable of withstanding for a
moment the fury of the assault; and the victorious Christians, cheered
on by the shouts of triumph which arose from their companions in the
adjoining streets, were only the more eager to be first at the destined
goal. Indeed, the facility of his success led the general to suspect
that he might be advancing too fast; that it might be a device of the
enemy to draw them into the heart of the city, and then surround or
attack them in the rear. He had some misgivings, moreover, lest his too
ardent officers, in the heat of the chase, should, notwithstanding his
commands, have overlooked the necessary precaution of filling up the
breaches. He accordingly brought his squadron to a halt, prepared to
baffle any insidious movement of his adversary. Meanwhile he received
more than one message from Alderete, informing him that he had nearly
gained the market. This only increased the general's apprehension, that,
in the rapidity of his advance, he might have neglected to secure the
ground. He determined to trust no eyes but his own, and, taking a small
body of troops, proceeded to reconnoitre the route followed by the
treasurer. He had not proceeded far along the great street, or causeway,
when his progress was arrested by an opening ten or twelve paces wide,
and filled with water, at least two fathoms deep, by which a
communication was formed between the canals on the opposite sides. A
feeble attempt had been made to stop the gap with the rubbish of the
causeway, but in too careless a manner to be of the least service; and a
few straggling stones and pieces of timber only showed that the work
had been abandoned almost as soon as begun. To add to his consternation,
the general observed that the sides of the causeway in this
neighbourhood had been pared off, and, as was evident, very recently. He
saw in all this the artifice of the cunning enemy; and had little doubt
that his hot-headed officer had rushed into a snare deliberately laid
for him. Deeply alanned, he set about repairing the mischief as fast as
possible, by ordering his men to fill up the yawning chasm. But they had
scarcely begun their labours, when the hoarse echoes of conflict in the
distance were succeeded by a hideous sound of mingled yells and
war-whoops, that seemed to rend the very heavens. This was followed by a
rushing noise, as of the tread of thronging multitudes, showing that
the tide of battle was turned back from its former course, and was
rolling on towards the spot where Cortes and his little band of
cavaliers were planted. His conjecture proved too true. Alderete had
followed the retreating Aztecs with an eagerness which increased with
every step of his advance. He had carried the barricades, which had
defended the breach, without much difficulty, and, as he swept on, gave
orders. that the opening should be stopped. But the blood of the
high-spirited cavaliers was warmed by the chase, and no one cared to be
detained by the ignoble occupation of filling up the ditches, while he
could gather laurels so easily in the fight; and they all pressed on,
exhorting and cheering one another with the assurance of being the first
to reach the square of Tlatelolco. In this way they suffered themselves
to be decoyed into the heart of the city; when suddenly the horn of
Guatemozin sent forth a long and piercing note from the summit of a
neighbouring teocalli. In an instant, the flying Aztecs, as if maddened
by the blast, wheeled about, and turned on their pursuers. At the same
time, countless swarms of warriors from the adjoining streets and lanes
poured in upon the flanks of the assailants, filling the air with the
fierce, unearthly cries which bad reached the ears of Cortes, and
drowning, for a moment, the wild dissonance which reigned in the other
quarters of the capital. The army, taken by surprise, and shaken by the
fury of the assault, were thrown into the utmost disorder. Friends and
foes, white men and Indians, were mingled together in one promiscuous
mass; spears, swords, and war-clubs were brandished together in the air.
Blows fell at random. In their eagerness to escape, they trod down one
another. Blinded by the missiles, which now rained on them from the
azoteas, they staggered on, scarcely knowing in what direction, or fell,
struck down by hands which they could not see. On they came like a
rushing torrent sweeping along some steep declivity, and rolling in one
confused tide towards the open breach, on the further side of which
stood Cortes and his companions, horror-struck at the sight of the
approaching ruin. The foremost files soon plunged into the gulf,
treading one another under the flood, some striving ineffectually to
swim, others, with more success, to clamber over the heaps of their
suffocated comrades. Many, as they attempted to scale the opposite sides
of the slippery dike, fell into the water, or were hurried off by the
warriors in the canoes, who added to the horrors of the rout by the
fresh storm of darts and javelins which they poured on the fugitives.
Cortes, meanwhile, with his brave followers, kept his station undaunted
on the other side of the breach. "I had made up my mind," he says, "to
die rather than desert my poor followers in their extremity!" With
outstretched hands he endeavoured to rescue as many as he could from the
watery grave, and from the more appalling fate of captivity. He as
vainly tried to restore something like presence of mind and order among
the distracted fugitives. His person was too well known to the Aztecs,
and his position now made him a conspicuous mark for their weapons.
Darts, stones, and arrows fell around him as thick as hail, but glanced
harmless from his steel helmet and armour of proof. At length a cry of
"Malinche, Malinche!" arose among the enemy; and six of their number,
strong and athletic warriors, rushing on him at once, made a violent
effort to drag him on board their boat. In the struggle he received a
severe wound in the leg, which, for the time, disabled it. There seemed
to be no hope for him; when a faithful follower, Christoval de Olea,
perceiving his general's extremity, threw himself on the Aztecs, and
with a blow cut off the arm of one savage, and then plunged his sword in
the body of another. He was quickly supported by a comrade named Lerma,
and by a Tlascalan chief, who, fighting over the prostrate body of
Cortes, despatched three more of the assailants, though the heroic Olea
paid dearly for his self-devotion, as he fell mortally wounded by the
side of his general. The report soon spread among the soldiers that
their commander was taken; and Quinones, the captain of his guard, with
several others pouring in to the rescue, succeeded in disentangling
Cortes from the grasp of his enemies who were struggling with him in the
water, and raising him in their arms, placed him again on the causeway.
One of his pages, meanwhile, had advanced some way through the press,
leading a horse for his master to mount. But the youth received a wound
in the throat from a javelin, which prevented him from effecting his
object. Another of his attendants was more successful. It was Guzman,
his chamberlain; but as be held the bridle, while Cortes was assisted
into the saddle, he was snatched away by the Aztecs, and with the
swiftness of thought, hurried off by their canoes. The general still
lingered, unwilling to leave the spot, whilst his presence could be of
the least service. But the faithful Quinones, taking his horse by the
bridle, turned his head from the breach, exclaiming at the same time,
that "his master's life was too important to the army to be thrown away
there." Cortes at length succeeded in regaining the firm ground, and
reaching the open place before the great street of Tacuba. Here, under a
sharp fire of the artillery, he rallied his broken squadrons, and
charging at the head of the little body of horse, which, not having been
brought into action, were still fresh, he beat off the enemy. He then
commanded the retreat of the two other divisions. The scattered forces
again united; and the general, sending forward his Indian confederates,
took the rear with a chosen body of cavalry to cover the retreat of the
army, which was effected with but little additional loss. Andres de
Tapia was despatched to the western causeway to acquaint Alvarado and
Sandoval with the failure of the enterprise. Meanwhile the two captains
had penetrated far into the city. Cheered by the triumphant shouts of
their countrymen in the adjacent streets, they had pushed on with
extraordinary vigour, that they might not be outstripped in the race of
glory. They had almost reached the market-place, which lay nearer to
their quarters than to the general's, when they heard the blast from the
dread horn of Guatemozin, followed by the overpowering yell of the
barbarians, which had so startled the ears of Cortes: till at length the
sounds the receding conflict died away in the distance. The two
captains now understood that the day must have gone hard with their
countrymen. They soon had further proof of it, when the victorious
Aztecs, returning from the pursuit of Cortes, joined their forces to
those engaged with Sandoval and Alvarado, and fell on them with
redoubled fury. At the same time they rolled on the ground two or three
of the bloody heads of the Spaniards, shouting the name of "Malinche."
The captains, struck with horror at the spectacle, though they gave
little credit to the words of the enemy,- instantly ordered a retreat.
The fierce barbarians followed up the Spaniards to their very
intrenchments. But here they were met, first by the cross fire of the
brigantines, which, dashing through the palisades planted to obstruct
their movements, completely enfiladed the causeway, and next by that of
the small battery erected in front of the camp, which, under the
management of a skilful engineer, named Medrano, swept the whole length
of the defile. Thus galled in front and on flank, the shattered columns
of the Aztecs were compelled to give way and take shelter under the
defences of the city. The greatest anxiety now prevailed in the camp,
regarding the fate of Cortes, for Tapia had been detained on the road by
scattered parties of the enemy, whom Guatemozin had stationed there to
interrupt the communications between the camps. He arrived, at length,
however, though bleeding from several wounds. His intelligence, while it
re-assured the Spaniards as to the general's personal safety, was not
calculated to allay their uneasiness in other respects. Sandoval, in
particular, was desirous to acquaint himself with the actual state of
things, and the further intentions of Cortes. Suffering as he was from
three wounds, which he had received in that day's fight, he resolved to
visit in person the quarters of the commander-in-chief. It was mid-day,-
for the busy scenes of the morning had occupied but a few hours, when
Sandoval remounted the good steed, on whose strength and speed he knew
he could rely. On arriving at the camp, he found the troops there much
worn and dispirited by the disaster of the morning. They had good reason
to be so. Besides the killed, and a long file of wounded, sixty-two
Spaniards, with a multitude of allies, had fallen alive into the hands
of the enemy. The loss of two field-pieces and seven horses crowned
their own disgrace and the triumphs of the Aztecs. Cortes, it was
observed, had borne himself throughout this trying day with his usual
intrepidity and coolness. It was with a cheerful countenance, that he
now received his lieutenant; but a shade of sadness was visible through
this outward composure, showing how the catastrophe of the puente
cuidada, "the sorrowful bridge," as he mournfully called it, lay heavy
at his heart. To the cavalier's anxious inquiries, as to the cause of
the disaster, he replied: "It is for my sins that it has befallen me,
son Sandoval"; for such was the affectionate epithet with which Cortes
often addressed his best-beloved and trusty officer. He then explained
to him the immediate cause, in the negligence of the treasurer. Further
conversation followed, in which the general declared his purpose to
forego active hostilities for a few days. "You must take my place,"
continued, "for I am too much crippled at present to discharge my
duties. You must watch over the safety of the camps. Give especial heed
to Alvarado's. He is a gallant soldier, I know it well; but I doubt the
Mexican hounds may, some hour, take him at disadvantage." These few words
showed the general's own estimate of his two lieutenants; both equally
brave and chivalrous; but the one uniting with these qualities the
circumspection so essential to success in perilous enterprises, in which
the other was signally deficient. It was under the training of Cortes
that he learned to be a soldier. The general, having concluded his
instructions, affectionately embraced his lieutenant, and dismissed him
to his quarters. It was late in the afternoon when he reached them; but
the sun was still lingering above the western hills, and poured his
beams wide over the valley, lighting up the old towers and temples of
Tenochtitlan with a mellow radiance that little harmonised with the dark
scenes of strife in which the city had so lately been involved. The
tranquillity of the hour, however, was on a sudden broken by the strange
sounds of the great drum in the temple of the war-god,- sounds which
recalled the noche triste, with all its terrible images, to the minds of
the Spaniards, for that was the only occasion on which they had ever
heard them. They intimated some solemn act of religion within the
unhallowed precincts of the teocalli; and the soldiers, startled by the
mournful vibrations, which might be heard for leagues across the valley,
turned their eyes to the quarter whence they proceeded. They there
beheld a long procession winding up the huge sides of the pyramid; for
the camp of Alvarado was pitched scarcely a mile from the city, and
objects are distinctly visible, at a great distance, in the transparent
atmosphere of the tableland. As the long file of priests and warriors
reached the flat summit of the teocalli, the Spaniards saw the figures
of several men stripped to their waists, some of whom, by the whiteness
of their skins, they recognised as their own countrymen. They were the
victims for sacrifice. Their heads were gaudily decorated with coronals
of plumes, and they carried fans in their hands. They were urged along
by blows, and compelled to take part in the dances in honour of the
Aztec war-god. The unfortunate captives, then stripped of their sad
finery, were stretched one after another on the great stone of
sacrifice. On its convex surface, their breasts were heaved up
conveniently for the diabolical purpose of the priestly executioner, who
cut asunder the ribs by a strong blow with his sharp razor of itztli,
and thrusting his hand into the wound, tore away the heart, which, hot
and reeking, was deposited on the golden censer before the idol. The
body of the slaughtered victim was then hurled down the steep stairs of
the pyramid, which, it may be remembered, were placed at the same angle
of the pile, one flight below another; and the mutilated remains were
gathered up by the savages beneath, who soon prepared with them the
cannibal repast which completed the work of abomination! We may imagine
with what sensations the stupefied Spaniards must have gazed on this
horrid spectacle, so near that they could almost recognise the persons
of their unfortunate friends, see the struggles and writhing of their
bodies, hear- or fancy that they heard- their screams of agony! yet so
far removed that they could render them no assistance. Their limbs
trembled beneath them, as they thought what might one day be their own
fate; and the bravest among them, who had hitherto gone to battle, as
careless and lighthearted, as to the banquet or the ball-room, were
unable, from this time forward, to encounter their ferocious enemy
without a sickening feeling, much akin to fear, coming over them. The
five following days passed away in a state of inaction, except indeed,
so far as was necessary to repel the sorties, made from time to time, by
the militia of the capital. The Mexicans, elated with their success,
meanwhile abandoned themselves to jubilee; singing, dancing and feasting
on the mangled relics of their wretched victims. Guatemozin sent
several heads of the Spaniards, as well as of the horses, round the
country, calling on his old vassals to forsake the banners of the white
men, unless they would share the doom of the enemies of Mexico. The
priests now cheered the young monarch and the people with the
declaration, that the dread Huitzilopochtli, their offended deity,
appeased by the sacrifices offered up on his altars, would again take
the Aztecs under his protection, and deliver their enemies, before the
expiration of eight days, into their hands. This comfortable prediction,
confidently believed by the Mexicans, was thundered in the ears of the
besieging army in tones of exultation and defiance. However it may have
been contemned by the Spaniards, it had a very different effect on their
allies. The latter had begun to be disgusted with a service so full of
peril and suffering, and already protracted far beyond the usual term of
Indian hostilities. They had less confidence than before in the
Spaniards. Experience had shown that they were neither invincible nor
immortal, and their recent reverses made them even distrust the ability
of the Christians to reduce the Aztec metropolis. They recalled to mind
the ominous words of Xicotencatl, that "so sacrilegious a war could come
to no good for the people of Anahuac." They felt that their arm was
raised against the gods of their country. The prediction of the oracle
fell heavy on their hearts. They had little doubt of its fulfilment, and
were only eager to turn away the bolt from their own heads by a timely
secession from the cause. They took advantage, therefore, of the
friendly cover of night to steal away from their quarters. Company after
company deserted in this manner, taking the direction of their
respective homes. Those belonging to the great towns of the valley,
whose allegiance was the most recent, were the first to cast it off.
Their example was followed by the older confederates, the militia of
Cholula, Tepeaca, Tezcuco, and even the faithful Tlascala. There were,
it is true, some exceptions to these, and among them, Ixtlilxochitl, the
younger lord of Tezcuco, and Chichemecatl, the valiant Tlascalan
chieftain, who, with a few of their immediate followers, still remained
true to the banner under which they had. enlisted. But their number was
insignificant. The Spaniards beheld with dismay the mighty array, on
which they relied for support, thus silently melting away before the
breath of superstition. Cortes alone maintained a cheerful countenance.
He treated the prediction with contempt, as an invention of the priests,
and sent his messengers after the retreating squadrons, beseeching them
to postpone their departure, or at least to halt on the road, till the
time, which would soon elapse, should show the falsehood of the
prophecy. The affairs of the Spaniards, at this crisis, must be
confessed to have worn a gloomy aspect. Deserted by their allies, with
their ammunition nearly exhausted, cut off from the customary supplies
from the neighbourhood, harassed by unintermitting vigils and fatigues,
smarting under wounds, of which every man in the army had his share,
with an unfriendly country in their rear, and a mortal foe in front,
they might well be excused for faltering in their enterprise. Night
after night fresh victims were led up to the great altar of sacrifice;
and while the city blazed with the illuminations of a thousand bonfires
on the terraced roofs of the dwellings, and in the areas of the temples,
the dismal pageant was distinctly visible from the camp below. One of
the last of the sufferers was Guzman, the unfortunate chamberlain of
Cortes, who lingered in captivity eighteen days before he met his doom.
Amidst all the distresses and multiplied embarrassments of their
situation, the Spaniards still remained true to their purpose. They
relaxed in no degree the severity of the blockade. Their camps still
occupied the only avenues to the city; and their batteries, sweeping the
long defiles at every fresh assault of the Aztecs, mowed down hundreds
of the assailants. Their brigantines still rode on the waters, cutting
off the communication with the shore. It is true, indeed, the loss of
the auxiliary canoes left a passage open for the occasional introduction
of supplies to the capital. But the whole amount of these supplies was
small; and its crowded population, while exulting in their temporary
advantage, and the delusive assurances of their priests, were beginning
to sink under the withering grasp of an enemy within, more terrible than
the one which lay before their gates.
Chapter VII [1521]
SUCCESS OF THE SPANIARDS- FRUITLESS OFFERS TO GUATEMOZIN- BUILDINGS
RAZED TO THE GROUND- TERRIBLE FAMINE- THE TROOPS GAIN THE MARKET- PLACE
THUS passed away the eight days prescribed by the oracle; and the sun,
which rose upon the ninth, beheld the fair city still beset on every
side by the inexorable foe. It was a great mistake of the Aztec
priests,- one not uncommon with false prophets, anxious to produce a
startling impression on their followers,- to assign so short a term for
the fulfilment of their prediction. The Tezcucan and Tlascalan chiefs
now sent to acquaint their troops with the failure of the prophecy, and
to recall them to the Christian camp. The Tlascalans, who had halted on
the way, returned, ashamed of their credulity, and with ancient feelings
of animosity, heightened by the artifice of which they had been the
dupes. Their example was followed by many of the other confederates. In a
short time the Spanish general found himself at the head of an
auxiliary force, which, if not so numerous as before, was more than
adequate to all his purposes. He received them with politic benignity;
and, while he reminded them that they had been guilty of a great crime
in thus abandoning their commander, he was willing to overlook it in
consideration of their past services. They must be aware that these
services were not necessary to the Spaniards, who had carried on the
siege with the same vigour during their absence as when they were
present. But he was unwilling that those who had shared the dangers of
the war with him, should not also partake of its triumphs, and be
present at the fall of their enemy, which he promised, with a confidence
better founded than that of the priests in their prediction, should not
be long delayed. Yet the menaces and machinations of Guatemozin were
still not without effect in the distant provinces. Before the full
return of the confederates, Cortes received an embassy from Cuernavaca,
ten or twelve leagues distant, and another from some friendly towns of
the Otomies, still further off, imploring his protection against their
formidable neighbours, who menaced them with hostilities as allies of
the Spaniards. As the latter were then situated, they were in a
condition to receive succour much more than to give it. Most of the
officers were accordingly opposed to granting a request, the compliance
with which must still further impair their diminished strength. But
Cortes knew the importance, above all, of not betraying his own
inability to grant it. "The greater our weakness," he said, "the greater
need have we to cover it under a show of strength." He immediately
detached Tapia with a body of about a hundred men in one direction, and
Sandoval with a somewhat larger force in the other, with orders that
their absence should not in any event be prolonged beyond ten days. The
two capitains executed their commission promptly and effectually. They
each met and defeated his adversary in a pitched battle; laid waste the
hostile territories, and returned within the time prescribed. They were
soon followed by ambassadors from the conquered places, soliciting the
alliance of the Spaniards; and the affair terminated by an accession of
new confederates, and, what was more important, a conviction in the old,
that the Spaniards were both willing and competent to protect them.
Fortune, who seldom dispenses her frowns or her favours singlehanded,
further showed her good will to the Spaniards at this time, by sending a
vessel into Vera Cruz laden with ammunition and military stores. It was
part of the fleet destined for the Florida coast by the romantic old
knight, Ponce de Leon. The cargo was immediately taken by the
authorities of the port, and forwarded, without delay, to the camp,
where it arrived most seasonably, as the want of powder, in particular,
had begun to be seriously felt. With strength thus renovated, Cortes
determined to resume active operations, but on a plan widely differing
from that pursued before. In the former deliberations on the subject,
two courses, as we have seen, presented themselves to the general. One
was, to intrench himself in the heart of the capital, and from this
point carry on hostilities; the other was the mode of proceeding
hitherto followed. Both were open to serious objections, which he hoped
would be obviated by the one now adopted. This was, to advance no step
without securing the entire safety of the army, not only on its
immediate retreat, but in its future inroads. Every breach in the
causeway, every canal in the streets, was to be filled up in so solid a
manner, that the work should not be again disturbed. The materials for
this were to be furnished by the buildings, every one of which, as the
army advanced, whether public or private, hut, temple, or palace, was to
be demolished! Not a building in their path was to be spared. They were
all indiscriminately to be levelled, until, in the Conqueror's own
language, "the water should be converted into dry land," and a smooth
and open ground be afforded for the manoeuvres of the cavalry and
artillery. Cortes came to this terrible determination with great
difficulty. He sincerely desired to spare the city, "the most beautiful
thing in the world," as he enthusiastically styles it, and which would
have formed the most glorious trophy of his conquest. But, in a place
where every house was a fortress, and every street was cut up by canals
so embarrassing to his movements, experience proved it was vain to think
of doing so, and becoming master of it. There was as little hope of a
peaceful accommodation with the Aztecs, who, so far from being broken by
all they had hitherto endured, and the long perspective of future woes,
showed a spirit as haughty and implacable as ever. The general's
intentions were learned by the Indian allies with unbounded
satisfaction; and they answered his call for aid by thousands of
pioneers, armed with their coas, or hoes of the country, all testifying
the greatest alacrity in helping on the work of destruction. In a short
time the breaches in the great causeways were filled up so effectually
that they were never again molested. Cortes himself set the example by
carrying stones and timber with. his own hands. The buildings in the
suburbs were then thoroughly levelled, the canals were filled up with
the rubbish, and a wide space around the city was thrown open to the
manoeuvres of the cavalry, who swept over it free and unresisted. The
Mexicans did not look with indifference on these preparations to lay
waste their town, and leave them bare and unprotected against the enemy.
They made incessant efforts to impede the labours of the besiegers, but
the latter, under cover of their guns, which kept up an unintermitting
fire, still advanced in the work of desolation. The gleam of fortune,
which had so lately broken out on the Mexicans, again disappeared; and
the dark mist, after having been raised for a moment, settled on the
doomed capital more heavily than before. Famine, with all her hideous
train of woes, was making rapid strides among its accumulated
population. The stores provided for the siege were exhausted. The casual
supply of human victims, or that obtained by some straggling pirogue
from the neighbouring shores, was too inconsiderable to be widely felt.
Some forced a scanty sustenance from a mucilaginous substance, gathered
in small quantities on the surface of the lake and canals. Others
appeased the cravings of appetite by devouring rats, lizards, and the
like loathsome reptiles, which had not yet deserted the starving city.
Its days seemed to be already numbered. But the page of history has many
an example, to show that there are no limits to the endurance of which
humanity is capable, when animated by hatred and despair. With the sword
thus suspended over it, the Spanish commander, desirous to make one
more effort to save the capital, persuaded three Aztec nobles, taken in
one of the late actions, to bear a message from him to Guatemozin;
though they undertook it with reluctance, for fear of the consequences
to themselves. Cortes told the emperor, that all had now been done that
brave men could do in defence of their country. There remained no hope,
no chance of escape for the Mexicans. Their provisions were exhausted;
their communications were cut off; their vassals had deserted them; even
their gods had betrayed them. They stood alone, with the nations of
Anahuac banded against them. There was no hope, but in immediate
surrender. He besought the young monarch to take compassion on his brave
subjects, who were daily perishing before his eyes; and on the fair
city, whose stately buildings were fast crumbling into ruins. "Return to
the allegiance," he concludes, "which you once proffered to the
sovereign of Castile. The past shall be forgotten. The persons and
property- in short, all the rights of the Aztecs shall be respected. You
shall be confirmed in your authority, and Spain will once more take
your city under her protection." The eye of the young monarch kindled,
and his dark cheek flushed with sudden anger, as he listened to
proposals so humiliating. But, though his bosom glowed with the fiery
temper of the Indian, he had the qualities of a "gentle cavalier," says
one of his enemies, who knew him well. He did no harm to the envoys;
but, after the heat of the moment had passed off, he gave the matter a
calm consideration, and called a council of his wise men and warriors to
deliberate upon it. Some were for accepting the proposals, as offering
the only chance of preservation. But the priests took a different view
of the matter. They knew that the ruin of their own order must follow
the triumph of Christianity. "Peace was good," they said, "but not with
the white men." They reminded Guatemozin of the fate of his uncle
Montezuma, and the requital he had met with for all his hospitality: of
the seizure and imprisonment of Cacama, the cacique of Tezcuco; of the
massacre of the nobles by Alvarado; of the insatiable avarice of the
invaders, which had stripped the country of its treasures; of their
profanation of the temples; of the injuries and insults which they had
heaped without measure on the people and their religion. "Better," they
said, "to trust in the promises of their own gods, who had so long
watched over the nation. Better, if need be, give up our lives at once
for our country, than drag them out in slavery and suffering among the
false strangers." The eloquence of the priests, artfully touching the
various wrongs of his people, roused the hot blood of Guatemozin. "Since
it is so," he abruptly exclaimed, "let us think only of supplying the
wants of the people. Let no man, henceforth, who values his life, talk
of surrender. We can at least die like warriors." The Spaniards waited
two days for the answer to their embassy. At length, it came in a
general sortie of the Mexicans, who, pouring through every gate of the
capital, like a river that has burst its banks, swept on, wave upon
wave, to the very intrenchments of the besiegers, threatening to
overwhelm them by their numbers! Fortunately, the position of the latter
on the dikes secured their flanks, and the narrowness of the defile
gave their small battery of guns all the advantages of a larger one. The
fire of artillery and musketry blazed without intermission along the
several causeways, belching forth volumes of sulphurous smoke, that,
rolling heavily over the waters, settled dark around the Indian city,
and hid it from the surrounding country. The brigantines thundered, at
the same time. on the flanks of the columns, which, after some
ineffectual efforts to maintain themselves, rolled back in wild
confusion, till their impotent fury died away in sullen murmurs within
the capital. Cortes now steadily pursued the plan he had laid down for
the devastation of the city. Day after day the several armies entered by
their respective quarters; Sandoval probably directing his operations
against the north-eastern district. The buildings made of the porous
tetzontli, though generally low, were so massy and extensive, and the
canals were so numerous, that their progress was necessarily slow. They,
however, gathered fresh accessions of strength every day from the
numbers who flocked to the camp from the surrounding country, and who
joined in the work of destruction with a hearty good will, which showed
their eagerness to break the detested yoke of the Aztecs. The latter
raged with impotent anger as they beheld their lordly edifices, their
temples, all they had been accustomed to venerate, thus ruthlessly swept
away; their canals, constructed with so much labour, and what to them
seemed science, filled up with rubbish; their flourishing city, in
short, turned into a desert, over which the insulting foe now rode
triumphant. They heaped many a taunt on the Indian allies. "Go on," they
said, bitterly; "the more you destroy, the more you will have to build
up again hereafter. If we conquer, you shall build for us; and if your
white friends conquer, they will make you do as much for them." The
event justified the prediction. The division of Cortes had now worked
its way as far north as the great street of Tacuba, which opened a
communication with Alvarado's camp, and near which stood the palace of
Guatemozin. It was a spacious stone pile, that might well be called a
fortress. Though deserted by its royal master, it was held by a strong
body of Aztecs, who made a temporary defence, but of little avail
against the battering enginery of the besiegers. It was soon set on
fire, and its crumbling walls were levelled in the dust, like those
other stately edifices of the capital, the boast and admiration of the
Aztecs, and some of the fairest fruits of their civilisation. "It was a
sad thing to witness their destruction," exclaims Cortes; "but it was
part of our plan of operations, and we had no alternative." These
operations had consumed several weeks, so that it was now drawing
towards the latter part of July. During this time, the blockade had been
maintained with the utmost rigour, and the wretched inhabitants were
suffering all the extremities of famine. Some few stragglers were taken,
from time to time, in the neighbourhood of the Christian camp, whither
they had wandered in search of food. They were kindly treated by command
of Cortes, who was in hopes to induce others to follow their example,
and thus to afford a means of conciliating the inhabitants, which might
open the way to their submission. But few were found willing to leave
the shelter of the capital, and they preferred to take their chance with
their suffering countrymen, rather than trust themselves to the mercies
of the besiegers. From these few stragglers, however, the Spaniards
heard a dismal tale of woe, respecting the crowded population in the
interior of the city. All the ordinary means of sustenance had long
since failed, and they now supported life as they could, by means of
such roots as they could dig from the earth, by gnawing the bark of
trees, by feeding on the grass,- on anything, in short, however
loathsome, that could allay the craving of appetite. Their only drink
was the brackish water of the soil, saturated with the salt lake. Under
this unwholesome diet, and the diseases engendered by it, the population
was gradually wasting away. Men sickened and died every day, in all the
excruciating torments produced by hunger, and the wan and emaciated
survivors seemed only to be waiting for their time. The Spaniards had
visible confirmation of all this, as they penetrated deeper into the
city, and approached the district of Tlatelolco now occupied by the
besieged. They found the ground turned up in quest of roots and weeds,
the trees stripped of their green stems, their foliage, and their bark.
Troops of famished Indians flitted in the distance, gliding like ghosts
among the scenes of their former residence. Dead bodies lay unburied in
the streets and courtyards, or filled up the canals. It was a sure sign
of the extremity of the Aztecs; for they held the burial of the dead as a
solemn and imperative duty. In the early part of the siege, they had
religiously attended to it. In its later stages, they were still careful
to withdraw the dead from the public eye, by bringing their remains
within the houses. But the number of these, and their own sufferings,
had now so fearfully increased, that they had grown indifferent to this,
and they suffered their friends and their kinsmen to lie and moulder on
the spot where they drew their last breath! As the invaders entered the
dwellings, a more appalling spectacle presented itself;- the floors
covered with the prostrate forms of the miserable inmates, some in the
agonies of death, others festering in their corruption; men, women, and
children, inhaling the poisonous atmosphere, and mingling promiscuously
together; mothers, with their infants in their arms perishing of hunger
before their eyes, while they were unable to afford them the nourishment
of nature; men crippled by their wounds, with their bodies frightfully
mangled, vainly attempting to crawl away, as the enemy entered. Yet,
even in this state, they scorned to ask for mercy, and glared on the
invaders with the sullen ferocity of the wounded tiger, that the
huntsmen have tracked to his forest cave. The Spanish commander issued
strict orders that mercy should be shown to these poor and disabled
victims. But the Indian allies made no distinction. An Aztec, under
whatever circumstances, was an enemy; and, with hideous shouts of
triumph, they pulled down the burning buildings on their heads,
consuming the living and the dead in one common funeral pile! Yet the
sufferings of the Aztecs, terrible as they were, did not incline them to
submission. There were many, indeed, who, from greater strength of
constitution, or from the more favourable circumstances in which they
were placed, still showed all their wonted energy of body and mind, and
maintained the same undaunted and resolute demeanour as before. They
fiercely rejected all the overtures of Cortes, declaring they would
rather die than surrender, and, adding with a bitter tone of exultation,
that the invaders would be at least disappointed in their expectations
of treasure, for it was buried where they could never find it! Cortes
had now entered one of the great avenues leading to the market-place of
Tlatelolco, the quarter towards which the movements of Alvarado were
also directed. A single canal only lay in his way, but this was of great
width and stoutly defended by the Mexican archery. At this crisis, the
army one evening, while in their intrenchments on the causeway, were
surprised by an uncommon light, that arose from the huge teocalli in
that part of the city, which, being at the north, was the most distant
from their own position. This temple, dedicated to the dread war-god,
was inferior only to the pyramid in the great square; and on it the
Spaniards had more than once seen their unhappy countrymen led to
slaughter. They now supposed that the enemy were employed in some of
their diabolical ceremonies, when the flame, mounting higher and higher,
showed that the sanctuaries themselves were on fire. A shout of
exultation at the sight broke forth from the assembled soldiers, as they
assured one another that their countrymen under Alvarado had got
possession of the building. It was indeed true. That gallant officer,
whose position on the western causeway placed him near the district of
Tlatelolco, had obeyed his commander's instructions to the letter,
razing every building to the ground in his progress, and filling up the
ditches with their ruins. He, at length, found himself before the great
teocalli in the neighbourhood of the market. He ordered a company, under
a cavalier named Gutierre de Badajoz, to storm the place, which was
defended by a body of warriors, mingled with priests, still more wild
and ferocious than the soldiery. The garrison, rushing down the winding
terraces, fell on the assailants with such fury, as compelled them to
retreat in confusion, and with some loss. Alvarado ordered another
detachment to their support. This last was engaged, at the moment, with a
body of Aztecs, who hung on its rear as it wound up the galleries of
the teocalli. Thus hemmed in between two enemies, above and below, the
position of the Spaniards was critical. With sword and buckler, they
plunged desperately on the ascending Mexicans, and drove them into the
courtyard below, where Alvarado plied them with such lively volleys of
musketry, as soon threw them into disorder and compelled them to abandon
the ground. Being thus rid of annoyance in the rear, the Spaniards
returned to the charge. They drove the enemy up the heights of the
pyramid, and, reaching the broad summit, a fierce encounter followed in
mid-air,- such an encounter as takes place where death is the certain
consequence of defeat. It ended as usual, in the discomfiture of the
Aztecs, who were either slaughtered on the spot still wet with the blood
of their own victims, or pitched headlong down the sides of the
pyramid. The Spaniards completed their work by firing the sanctuaries,
that the place might be no more polluted by these abominable rites. The
flame crept slowly up the lofty pinnacles, in which stone was mingled
with wood, till, at length, bursting into one bright blaze, it shot up
its spiral volume to such a height, that it was seen from the most
distant quarters of the valley. It was this which had been hailed by the
soldiers of Cortes. The commander-in-chief and his division, animated by
the spectacle, made, in their entrance on the following day, more
determined efforts to place themselves alongside of their companions
under Alvarado. The broad canal, above noticed as the only impediment
now lying in his way, was to be traversed; and on the further side, the
emaciated figures of the Aztec warriors were gathered in numbers to
dispute the passage. They poured down a storm of missiles on the heads
of the Indian labourers, while occupied with filling up the wide gap
with the ruins of the surrounding buildings. Still they toiled on in
defiance of the arrowy shower, fresh numbers taking the place of those
who fell. And when at length the work was completed, the cavalry rode
over the rough plain at full charge against the enemy, followed by the
deep array of spearmen, who bore down all opposition with their
invincible phalanx. The Spaniards now found themselves on the same
ground with Alvarado's division. Soon afterwards that chief, attended by
several of his staff, rode into their lines, and cordially embraced his
countrymen and companions in arms, for the first time since the
beginning of the siege. They were now in the neighbourhood of the
market. Cortes, taking with him a few of his cavaliers, galloped into
it. It was a vast inclosure, as the reader has already seen, covering
many an acre. The flat roofs of the piazzas were now covered with crowds
of men and women, who gazed in silent dismay on the steel-clad
horsemen, that profaned these precincts with their presence for the
first time since their expulsion from the capital. The multitude,
composed for the most part, probably, of unarmed citizens, seemed taken
by surprise; at least, they made no show of resistance; and the general,
after leisurely viewing the ground, was permitted to ride back
unmolested to the army. On arriving there, he ascended the teocalli,
from which the standard of Castile, supplanting the memorials of Aztec
superstition, was now triumphantly floating. The Conqueror, as he strode
among the smoking embers on the summit, calmly surveyed the scene of
desolation below. The palaces, the temples, the busy marts of industry
and trade, the glittering canals, covered with their rich freights from
the surrounding country, the royal pomp of groves and gardens, all the
splendours of the imperial city, the capital of the Western World, for
ever gone,- and in their place a barren wilderness! How different the
spectacle which the year before had met his eye, as it wandered over the
scenes from the heights of the neighbouring teocalli, with Montezuma at
his side! Seven-eighths of the city were laid in ruins, with the
occasional exception, perhaps, of some colossal temple. The remaining
eighth, comprehending the district of Tlatelolco, was all that now
remained to the Aztecs, whose population- still large after all its
losses- was crowded into a compass that would hardly have afforded
accommodation for a third of their numbers.
Chapter VIII [1521]
DREADFUL SUFFERINGS OF THE BESIEGED- SPIRIT OF GUATEMOZIN- MURDEROUS
ASSAULT- CAPTURE OF GUATEMOZIN- TERMINATION OF THE SIEGE- REFLECTIONS
THERE was no occasion to resort to artificial means to precipitate the
ruin of the Azecs. It was accelerated every hour by causes more potent
than those arising from mere human agency. There they were,- pent up in
their close and suffocating quarters, nobles, commoners, and slaves,
men, women, and children, some in houses, more frequently in hovels,-
for this part of the city was not the best,- others in the open air in
canoes, or in the streets, shivering in the cold rains of night, and
scorched by the burning heat of day. The ordinary means of sustaining
life were long since gone. They wandered about in search of anything,
however unwholesome or revolting, that might mitigate the fierce
gnawings of hunger. Some hunted for insects and worms on the borders of
the lake, or gathered the salt weeds and moss from its bottom, while at
times they might be seen casting a wistful look at the hills beyond,
which many of them had left to share the fate of their brethren in the
capital. To their credit, it is said by the Spanish writers, that they
were not driven in their extremity to violate the laws of nature by
feeding on one another. But unhappily this is contradicted by the Indian
authorities, who state that many a mother, in her agony, devoured the
offspring which she had no longer the means of supporting. This is
recorded of more than one siege in history; and it is the more probable
here, where the sensibilities must have been blunted by familiarity with
the brutal practices of the national superstition. But all was not
sufficient, and hundreds of famished wretches died every day from
extremity of suffering. Some dragged themselves into the houses, and
drew their last breath alone, and in silence. Others sank down in the
public streets. Wherever they died, there they were left. There was no
one to bury or to remove them. Familiarity with the spectacle made men
indifferent to it. They looked on in dumb despair, waiting for their own
turn. There was no complaint, no lamentation, but deep, unutterable
woe. If in other quarters of the town the corpses might be seen
scattered over the streets, here they were gathered in heaps. "They lay
so thick," says Bernal Diaz, "that one could not tread except among the
bodies." "A man could not set his foot down," says Cortes, yet more
strongly, "unless on the corpse of an Indian!" They were piled one upon
another, the living mingled with the dead. They stretched themselves on
the bodies of their friends, and lay down to sleep there. Death was
everywhere. The city was a vast charnel-house, in which all was
hastening to decay and decomposition. A poisonous steam arose from the
mass of putrefaction, under the action of alternate rain and heat, which
so tainted the whole atmosphere, that the Spaniards, including the
general himself, in their brief visits to the quarter, were made ill by
it, and it bred a pestilence that swept off even greater numbers than
the famine. In the midst of these awful scenes, the young emperor of the
Aztecs remained, according to all accounts, calm and courageous. With
his fair capital laid in ruins before his eyes, his nobles and faithful
subjects dying around him, his territory rent away, foot by foot, till
scarce enough remained for him to stand on, he rejected every invitation
to capitulate, and showed the same indomitable spirit as at the
commencement of the siege. When Cortes, in the hope that the extremities
of the besieged would incline them to listen to an accommodation,
persuaded a noble prisoner to bear to Guatemozin his proposals to that
effect, the fierce young monarch, according to the general, ordered him
at once to be sacrificed. It is a Spaniard, we must remember, who tells
the story. Cortes, who had suspended hostilities for several days, in
the vain hope that the distresses of the Mexicans would bend them to
submission, now determined to drive them to it by a general assault.
Cooped up, as they were, within a narrow quarter of the city, their
position favoured such an attempt. He commanded Alvarado to hold himself
in readiness, and directed Sandoval-who, besides the causeway, had
charge of the fleet, which lay off the Tlatelolcan district,- to support
the attack by a cannonade on the houses near the water. He then led his
forces into the city, or rather across the horrid waste that now
encircled it. On entering the Indian precincts, he was met by several of
the chiefs, who, stretching forth their emaciated arms, exclaimed, "You
are the children of the Sun. But the Sun is swift in his course. Why
are you, then, so tardy? Why do you delay so long to put an end to our
miseries? Rather kill us at once, that we may go to our god
Huitzilopochtli, who waits for us in heaven to give us rest from our
sufferings!" Cortes was moved by their piteous appeal, and answered,
that he desired not their death, but their submission. "Why does your
master refuse to treat with me," he said, "when a single hour will
suffice for me to crush him and all his people?" He then urged them to
request Guatemozin to confer with him, with the assurance that he might
do it in safety, as his person should not be molested. The nobles, after
some persuasion, undertook the mission; and it was received by the
young monarch in a manner which showed- if the anecdote before related
of him be true- that misfortune had, at length, asserted some power over
his haughty spirit. He consented to the interview, though not to have
it take place on that day, but the following, in the great square of
Tlatelolco. Cortes, well satisfied, immediately withdrew from the city,
and resumed his position on the causeway. The next morning he presented
himself at the place appointed, having previously stationed Alvarado
there with a strong corps of infantry to guard against treachery. The
stone platform in the centre of the square was covered with mats and
carpets, and a banquet was prepared to refresh the famished monarch and
his nobles. Having made these arrangements, he awaited the hour of the
interview. But Guatemozin, instead of appearing himself, sent his
nobles, the same who had brought to him the general's invitation, and
who now excused their master's absence on the plea of illness. Cortes,
though disappointed, gave a courteous reception to the envoys,
considering that it might still afford the means of opening a
communication with the emperor. He persuaded them without much entreaty
to partake of the good cheer spread before them, which they did with a
voracity that told how severe had been their abstinence. He then
dismissed them with a seasonable supply of provisions for their master,
pressing him to consent to an interview, without which it was impossible
their differences could be adjusted. The Indian envoys returned in a
short time, bearing with them a present of fine cotton fabrics, of no
great value, from Guatemozin, who still declined to meet the Spanish
general. Cortes, though deeply chagrined, was unwilling to give up the
point. "He will surely come," he said to the envoys, "when he sees that I
suffer you to go and come unharmed, you who have been my steady
enemies, no less than himself, throughout the war. He has nothing to
fear from me." He again parted with them, promising to receive their
answer the following day. On the next morning, the Aztec chiefs,
entering the Christian quarters, announced to Cortes that Guatemozin
would confer with him at noon in the market-place. The general was
punctual at the hour; but without success. Neither monarch nor ministers
appeared there. It was plain that the Indian prince did not care to
trust the promises of his enemy. A thought of Montezuma may have passed
across his mind. After he had waited three hours, the general's patience
was exhausted, and, as he learned that the Mexicans were busy in
preparations for defence, he made immediate dispositions for the
assault. The confederates had been left without the walls, for he did
not care to bring them in sight of the quarry, before he was ready to
slip the leash. He now ordered them to join him; and, supported by
Alvarado's division, marched at once into the enemy's quarters. He found
them prepared to receive him. Their most able-bodied warriors were
thrown into the van, covering their feeble and crippled comrades. Women
were seen occasionally mingling in the ranks, and, as well as children,
thronged the azoteas, where, with famine-stricken visages and haggard
eyes, they scowled defiance and hatred on their invaders. As the
Spaniards advanced, the Mexicans set up a fierce war-cry, and sent off
clouds of arrows with their accustomed spirit, while the women and boys
rained down darts and stones from their elevated position on the
terraces. But the missiles were sent by hands too feeble to do much
damage; and, when the squadrons closed, the loss of strength became
still more sensible in the Aztecs. Their blows fell feebly and with
doubtful aim; though some, it is true, of stronger constitution, or
gathering strength from despair, maintained to the last a desperate
fight. The arquebusiers now poured in a deadly fire. The brigantines
replied by successive volleys in the opposite quarter. The besieged,
hemmed in, like deer surrounded by the huntsmen, were brought down on
every side. The carnage was horrible. The ground was heaped up with
slain, until the maddened combatants were obliged to climb over the
human mounds to get at one another. The miry soil was saturated with
blood, which ran off like water, and dyed the canals themselves with
crimson. All was uproar and terrible confusion. The hideous yells of the
barbarians; the oaths and execrations of the Spaniards; the cries of
the wounded; the shrieks of women and children; the heavy blows of the
Conquerors; the deathstruggle of their victims; the rapid, reverberating
echoes of musketry; the hissing of innumerable missiles; the crash and
crackling of blazing buildings, crushing hundreds in their ruins; the
blinding volumes of dust and sulphurous smoke shrouding all in their
gloomy canopy,- made a scene appalling even to the soldiers of Cortes,
steeled as they were by many a rough passage of war, and by long
familiarity with blood and violence. "The piteous cries of the women and
children, in particular," says the general, "were enough to break one's
heart." He commanded that they should be spared, and that all, who
asked it, should receive quarter. He particularly urged this on the
confederates, and placed men among them to restrain their violence. But
he had set an engine in motion too terrible to be controlled. It were as
easy to curb the hurricane in its fury, as the passions of an
infuriated horde of savages. "Never did I see so pitiless a race," he
exclaims, "or any thing wearing the form of man so destitute of
humanity." They made no distinction of sex or age, and in this hour of
vengeance seemed to be requiting the hoarded wrongs of a century. At
length, sated with slaughter, the Spanish commander sounded a retreat.
It was full time, if, according to his own statement,- we may hope it is
an exaggeration,- forty thousand souls had perished! Yet their fate was
to be envied, in comparison with that of those who survived. Through
the long night which followed, no movement was perceptible in the Aztec
quarter. No light was seen there, no sound was heard, save the low
moaning of some wounded or dying wretch, writhing in his agony. All was
dark and silent,- the darkness of the grave. The last blow seemed to
have completely stunned them. They had parted with hope, and sat in
sullen despair, like men waiting in silence the stroke of the
executioner. Yet, for all this, they showed no disposition to submit.
Every new injury had sunk deeper into their souls, and filled them with a
deeper hatred of their enemy. Fortune, friends, kindred, home,- all
were gone. They were content to throw away life itself, now that they
had nothing more to live for. Far different was the scene in the Christian
camp, where, elated with their recent successes, all was alive with
bustle, and preparation for the morrow. Bonfires were seen blazing along
the causeways, lights gleamed from tents and barracks, and the sounds
of music and merriment, borne over the waters, proclaimed the joy of the
soldiers at the prospect of so soon terminating their wearisome
campaign. On the following morning the Spanish commander again mustered
his forces, having decided to follow up the blow of the preceding day
before the enemy should have time to rally, and at once to put an end to
the war. He had arranged with Alvarado, on the evening previous, to
occupy the market-place of Tlatelolco; and the discharge of an arquebuse
was to be the signal for a simultaneous assault. Sandoval was to hold
the northern causeway, and, with the fleet, to watch the movements of
the Indian emperor, and to intercept the flight to the main land, which
Cortes knew he meditated. To allow him to effect this, would be to leave
a formidable enemy in his own neighbourhood, who might at any time
kindle the flame of insurrection throughout the country. He ordered
Sandoval, however, to do no harm to the royal person, and not to fire on
the enemy at all, except in self-defence. It was on the memorable 13th
of August, 1521, that Cortes led his warlike array for the last time
across the black and blasted environs which lay around the Indian
capital. On entering the Aztec precincts, he paused, willing to afford
its wretched inmates one more chance of escape, before striking the
fatal blow. He obtained an interview with some of the principal chiefs,
and expostulated with them on the conduct of their prince. "He surely
will not," said the general, "see you all perish, when he can so easily
save you." He then urged them to prevail on Guatemozin to hold a
conference with him, repeating the assurances of his personal safety.
The messengers went on their mission, and soon returned with the
cihuacoatl at their head, a magistrate of high authority among the
Mexicans. He said, with a melancholy air, in which his own
disappointment was visible, that "Guatemozin was ready to die where he
was, but would hold no interview with the Spanish commander"; adding in a
tone of resignation, "It is for you to work your Pleasure." "Go, then,"
replied the stern Conqueror, "and prepare your countrymen for death.
Their hour is come." He still postponed the assault for several hours.
But the impatience of his troops at this delay was heightened by the
rumor that Guatemozin and his nobles were preparing to escape with their
effects in the piraguas and canoes which were moored on the margin of
the lake. Convinced of the fruitlessness and impolicy of further
procrastination, Cortes made his final dispositions for the attack, and
took his own station on an azotea, which commanded the theatre of
operations. When the assailants came into presence of the enemy, they
found them huddled together in the utmost confusion, all ages and sexes,
in masses so dense that they nearly forced one another over the brink
of the causeways into the water below. Some had climbed on the terraces,
others feebly supported themselves against the wars of the buildings.
Their squalid and tattered garments gave a wildness to their appearance,
which still further heightened the ferocity of their expressions, as
they glared on their enemy with eyes in which hate was mingled with
despair. When the Spaniards had approached within bowshot, the Aztecs
let off a flight of impotent missiles, showing to the last the resolute
spirit, though they had lost the strength, of their better days. The
fatal signal was then given by the discharge of an arquebuse,- speedily
followed by peals of heavy ordnance, the rattle of firearms, and the
hellish shouts of the confederates, as they sprang upon their victims.
It is unnecessary to stain the page with a repetition of the horrors of
the preceding day. Some of the wretched Aztecs threw themselves into the
water, and were picked up by the canoes. Others sunk and were
suffocated in the canals. The number of these became so great, that a
bridge was made of their dead bodies, over which the assailants could
climb to the opposite banks. Others again, especially the women, begged
for mercy, which, as the chroniclers assure us, was everywhere granted
by the Spaniards, and, contrary to the instructions and entreaties of
Cortes, everywhere refused by the confederates. While this work of
butchery was going on, numbers were observed pushing off in the barks
that lined the shore, and making the best of their way across the lake.
They were constantly intercepted by the brigantines, which broke through
the flimsy array of boats; sending off their volleys to the right and
left, as the crews of the latter hotly assailed them. The battle raged
as fiercely on the lake as on the land. Many of the Indian vessels were
shattered and overturned. Some few, however, under cover of the smoke,
which rolled darkly over the waters, succeeded in clearing themselves of
the turmoil, and were fast nearing the opposite shore. Sandoval had
particularly charged his captains to keep an eye on the movements of any
vessel in which it was at all probable that Guatemozin might be
concealed. At this crisis, three or four of the largest piraguas were
seen skimming over the water, and making their way rapidly across the
lake. A captain named Garci Holguin, who had command of one of the best
sailers in the fleet, instantly gave them chase. The wind was
favourable, and every moment he gained on the fugitives, who pulled
their oars with a vigour that despair alone could have given. But it was
in vain; and, after a short race, Holguin, coming alongside of one of
the piraguas, which, whether from its appearance, or from information he
had received, he conjectured might bear the Indian emperor, ordered his
men to level their crossbows at the boat. But, before they could
discharge them, a cry arose from those on it, that their lord was on
board. At the same moment, a young warrior, armed with buckler and
maquahuitl, rose up, as if to beat off the assailants. But, as the
Spanish captain ordered his men not to shoot, he dropped his weapons,
and exclaimed, "I am Guatemozin; lead me to Malinche, I am his prisoner;
but let no harm come to my wife and my followers." Holguin assured him
that his wishes should be respected, and assisted him to get on board
the brigantine, followed by his wife and attendants. These were twenty
in number, consisting of Coanaco, the deposed lord of Tezcuco, the lord
of Tlacopan, and several other caciques and dignitaries, whose rank,
probably, had secured them some exemption from the general calamities of
the siege. When the captives were seated on the deck of his vessel,
Holguin requested the Aztec prince to put an end to the combat by
commanding his people in the other canoes to surrender. But, with a
dejected air, he replied, "It is not necessary. They will fight no
longer, when they see that their prince is taken." He spoke truth. The
news of Guatemozin's capture spread rapidly through the fleet, and on
shore, where the Mexicans were still engaged in conflict with their
enemies. It ceased, however, at once. They made no further resistance;
and those on the water quickly followed the brigantines, which conveyed
their captive monarch to land. Meanwhile Sandoval, on receiving tidings
of the capture, brought his own brigantine alongside of Holguin's, and
demanded the royal prisoner to be surrendered to him. But his captain
claimed him as his prize. A dispute arose between the parties, each
anxious to have the glory of the deed, and perhaps the privilege of
commemorating it on his escutcheon. The controversy continued so long
that it reached the ears of Cortes, who, in his station on the azotea,
had learned, with no little satisfaction, the capture of his enemy. He
instantly sent orders to his wrangling officers to bring Guatemozin
before him, that he might adjust the difference between them. He charged
them, at the same time, to treat their prisoner with respect. He then
made preparations for the interview; caused the terrace to be carpeted
with crimson cloth and matting, and a table to be spread with
provisions, of which the unhappy Aztecs stood so much in need. His
lovely Indian mistress, Dona Marina, was present to act as interpreter.
She had stood by his side through all the troubled scenes of the
Conquest, and she was there now to witness its triumphant termination.
Guatemozin, on landing, was escorted by a company of infantry to the
presence of the Spanish commander. He mounted the azotea with a calm and
steady step, and was easily to be distinguished from his attendant
nobles, though his full, dark eye was no longer lighted up with its
accustomed fire, and his features wore an expression of passive
resignation, that told little of the fierce and fiery spirit that burned
within. His head was large, his limbs well proportioned, his complexion
fairer than those of his bronze-coloured nation, and his whole
deportment singularly mild and engaging. Cortes came forward with a
dignified and studied courtesy to receive him. The Aztec monarch
probably knew the person of his conqueror, for he first broke silence by
saying, "I have done all that I could, to defend myself and my people. I
am now reduced to this state. You will deal with me, Malinche, as you
list." Then, laying his hand on the hilt of a poniard, stuck in the
general's belt, he added, with vehemence, "Better despatch me with this,
and rid me of life at once." Cortes was filled with admiration at the
proud bearing of the young barbarian, showing in his reverses a spirit
worthy of an ancient Roman. "Fear not," he replied, "you shall be
treated with all honour. You have defended your capital like a brave
warrior. A Spaniard knows how to respect valour even in an enemy." He
then inquired of him, where he had left the princess, his wife; and,
being informed that she still remained under protection of a Spanish
guard on board the brigantine, the general sent to have her escorted to
his presence. She was the youngest daughter of Montezuma; and was hardly
yet on the verge of womanhood. On the accession of her cousin,
Guatemozin, to the throne, she had been wedded to him as his lawful
wife. She was kindly received by Cortes, who showed her the respectful
attentions suited to her rank. Her birth, no doubt, gave her an
additional interest in his eyes, and he may have felt some touch of
compunction, as he gazed on the daughter of the unfortunate Montezuma.
He invited his royal captives to partake of the refreshments which their
exhausted condition rendered so necessary. Meanwhile the Spanish
commander made his dispositions for the night, ordering Sandoval to
escort the prisoners to Cojohuacan, whither he proposed himself
immediately to follow. The other captains, and Alvarado, were to draw
off their forces to their respective quarters. It was impossible for
them to continue in the capital, where the poisonous effluvia from the
unburied carcasses loaded the air with infection. A small guard only was
stationed to keep order in the wasted suburbs.- It was the hour of
vespers when Guatemozin surrendered, and the siege might be considered
as then concluded. Thus, after a siege of nearly three months' duration,
unmatched in history for the constancy and courage of the besieged,
seldom surpassed for the severity of its sufferings, fell the renowned
capital of the Aztecs. Unmatched, it may be truly said, for constancy
and courage, when we recollect that the door of capitulation on the most
honourable terms was left open to them throughout the whole blockade,
and that, sternly rejecting every proposal of their enemy, they, to a
man, preferred to die rather than surrender. More than three centuries
had elapsed since the Aztecs, a poor and wandering tribe from the far
north-west, had come on the plateau. There they built their miserable
collection of huts on the spot- as tradition tells us- prescribed by the
oracle. Their conquests, at first confined to their immediate
neighbourhood, gradually covered the valley, then crossing the
mountains, swept over the broad extent of the tableland, descended its
precipitous sides, and rolled onwards to the Mexican Gulf, and the
distant confines of Central America. Their wretched capital, meanwhile,
keeping pace with the enlargement of territory, had grown into a
flourishing city, filled with buildings, monuments of art, and a
numerous population, that gave it the first rank among the capitals of
the Western World. At this crisis, came over another race from the
remote East, strangers like themselves, whose coming had also been
predicted by the oracle, and, appearing on the plateau, assailed them in
the very zenith of their prosperity, and blotted them out from the map
of nations for ever! The whole story has the air of fable rather than of
history! a legend of romance,- a tale of the genii! Yet we cannot
regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote the
happiness of its subjects, or the real interests of humanity.
Notwithstanding the lustre thrown over its latter days by the glorious
defence of its capital, by the mild munificence of Montezuma, by the
dauntless heroism of Guatemozin, the Aztecs were emphatically a fierce
and brutal race, little calculated, in their best aspects, to excite our
sympathy and regard. Their civilisation, such as it was, was not their
own, but reflected, perhaps imperfectly, from a race whom they had
succeeded in the land. It was, in respect to the Aztecs, a generous
graft on a vicious stock, and could have brought no fruit to perfection.
They ruled over their wide domains with a sword, instead of a sceptre.
They did nothing to ameliorate the condition, or in any way promote the
progress, of their vassals. Their vassals were serfs, used only to
minister to their pleasure, held in awe by armed garrisons, ground to
the dust by imposts in peace, by military conscriptions in war. They did
not, like the Romans, whom they resembled in the nature of their
conquests, extend the rights of citizenship to the conquered. They did
not amalgamate them into one great nation, with common rights and
interests. They held them as aliens,- even those who in the valley were
gathered round the very walls of the capital. The Aztec metropolis, the
heart of the monarchy, had not a sympathy, not a pulsation, in common
with the rest of the body politic. It was a stranger in its own land.
The Aztecs not only did not advance the condition of their vassals, but
morally speaking, they did much to degrade it. How can a nation, where
human sacrifices prevail, and especially when combined with cannibalism,
further the march of civilisation? How can the interests of humanity be
consulted where man is levelled to the rank of the brutes that perish?
The influence of the Aztecs introduced their gloomy superstition into
lands before unacquainted with it, or where, at least, it was not
established in any great strength. The example of the capital was
contagious. As the latter increased in opulence, the religious
celebrations were conducted with still more terrible magnificence. In
the same manner as the gladiatorial shows of the Romans increased in
pomp with the increasing splendour of the capital, men became familiar
with scenes of horror and the most loathsome abominations; women and
children- the whole nation became familiar with, and assisted at them.
The heart was hardened, the manners were made ferocious, the feeble
light of civilisation, transmitted from a milder race, was growing
fainter and fainter, as thousands and thousands of miserable victims
throughout the empire were yearly fattened in its cages, sacrificed on
its altars, dressed and served at its banquets! The whole land was
converted into a vast human shambles! The empire of the Aztecs did not
fall before its time. Whether these unparalleled outrages furnish a
sufficient plea to the Spaniards for their invasion, whether, with the
Protestant, we are content to find a warrant for it in the natural
rights and demands of civilisation, or, with the Roman Catholic, in the
good pleasure of the Pope,- on the one or other of which grounds, the
conquests by most Christian nations in the East and the West have been
defended,- it is unnecessary to discuss, as it has already been
considered in a former chapter. It is more material to inquire, whether,
assuming the right, the conquest of Mexico was conducted with a proper
regard to the claims of humanity. And here we must admit that, with all
allowance for the ferocity of the age and the laxity of its principles,
there are passages which every Spaniard, who cherishes the fame of his
countrymen, would be glad to see expunged from their history; passages
not to be vindicated on the score of self-defence, or of necessity of
any kind, and which must forever leave a dark spot on the annals of the
Conquest. And yet, taken as a whole, the invasion, up to the capture of
the capital, was conducted on principles less revolting to humanity than
most, perhaps than any, of the other conquests of the Castilian crown
in the New World. It may seem slight praise to say that the followers of
Cortes used no blood-hounds to hunt down their wretched victims, as in
some other parts of the continent, nor exterminated a peaceful and
submissive population in mere wantonness of cruelty, as in the Islands.
Yet it is something that they were not so far infected by the spirit of
the age, and that their swords were rarely stained with blood unless it
was indispensable to the success of their enterprise. Even in the last
siege of the capital, the sufferings of the Aztecs, terrible as they
were, do not imply any unusual cruelty in the victors; they were not
greater than those inflicted on their own countrymen at home, in many a
memorable instance, by the most polished nations, not merely of ancient
times but of our own. They were the inevitable consequences which follow
from war, when, instead of being confined to its legitimate field, it
is brought home to the hearthstone, to the peaceful community of the
city,- its burghers untrained to arms, its women and children yet more
defenceless. In the present instance, indeed, the sufferings of the
besieged were in a great degree to be charged on themselves,- on their
patriotic, but desperate, self-devotion. It was not the desire, as
certainly it was not the interest, of the Spaniards to destroy the
capital, or its inhabitants. When any of these fell into their hands,
they were kindly entertained, their wants supplied, and every means
taken to infuse into them a spirit of conciliation; and this, too, it
should be remembered, in despite of the dreadful doom to which they
consigned their Christian captives. The gates of a fair capitulation
were kept open, though unavailingly, to the last hour. The right of
conquest necessarily implies that of using whatever force may be
necessary for overcoming resistance to the assertion of that right. For
the Spaniards to have done otherwise than they did, would have been to
abandon the siege, and, with it, the conquest of the country. To have
suffered the inhabitants, with their high-spirited monarch, to escape,
would but have prolonged the miseries of war by transferring it to
another and more inaccessible quarter. They literally, as far as the
success of the expedition was concerned, had no choice. If our
imagination is struck with the amount of suffering in this, and in
similar scenes of the Conquest, it should be borne in mind, that it is a
natural result of the great masses of men engaged in the conflict. The
amount of suffering does not in itself show the amount of cruelty which
caused it; and it is but justice to the Conquerors of Mexico to say that
the very brilliancy and importance of their exploits have given a
melancholy celebrity to their misdeeds, and thrown them into somewhat
bolder relief than strictly belongs to them. It is proper that thus much
should be stated, not to excuse their excesses, but that we may be
enabled to make a more impartial estimate of their conduct, as compared
with that of other nations under similar circumstances, and that we may
not visit them with peculiar obloquy for evils which necessarily flow
from the condition of war.* * By none has this obloquy been poured with
such unsparing hand on the heads of the old Conquerors as by their own
descendants, the modern Mexicans. Ixtlilxochitl's editor, Bustamante,
concludes an animated invective against the invaders with recommending
that a monument should be raised on the spot,- now dry land,- where
Guatemozin was taken, which, as the proposed inscription itself
intimates, should "devote to eternal execration the detested memory of
these banditti!" (Venida de los Esp., p. 52, nota.) One would suppose
that the pure Aztec blood, uncontaminated by a drop of Castilian, flowed
in the veins of the indignant editor and his compatriots; or, at least,
that their sympathies for the conquered race would make them anxious to
reinstate them in their ancient rights. Notwithstanding these bursts of
generous indignation, however, which plentifully season the writings of
the Mexicans of our day, we do not find that the Revolution, or any of
its numerous brood of pronunciamientos, has resulted in restoring them
to an acre of their ancient territory. Whatever may be thought of the
Conquest in a moral view, regarded as a military achievement, it must
fill us with astonishment. That a handful of adventurers, indifferently
armed and equipped, should have landed on the shores of a powerful
empire, inhabited by a fierce and warlike race, and in defiance of the
reiterated prohibitions of its sovereign, have forced their way into the
interior;- that they should have done this, without knowledge of the
language or the land, without chart or compass to guide them, without
any idea of the difficulties they were to encounter, totally uncertain
whether the next step might bring them on a hostile nation, or on a
desert, feeling their way along in the dark, as it were;- that though
nearly overwhelmed by their first encounter with the inhabitants, they
should have still pressed on to the capital of the empire, and, having
reached it, thrown themselves unhesitatingly into the midst of their
enemies;- that, so far from being daunted by the extraordinary spectacle
there exhibited of power and civilisation, they should have been but
the more confirmed in their original design;- that they should have
seized the monarch, have executed his ministers before the eyes of his
subjects, and, when driven forth with ruin from the gates, have gathered
their scattered wreck together, and, after a system of operations
pursued with consummate policy and daring, have succeeded in overturning
the capital, and establishing their sway over the country;- that all
this should have been so effected by a mere handful of indigent
adventurers, is in fact little short of the miraculous, too startling
for the probabilities demanded by fiction, and without a parallel in the
pages of history. Yet this must not be understood too literally; for it
would be unjust to the Aztecs themselves, at least to their military
prowess, to regard the Conquest as directly achieved by the Spaniards
alone. The Indian empire was in a manner conquered by Indians. The Aztec
monarchy fell by the hands of its own subjects, under the direction of
European sagacity and science. Had it been united, it might have bidden
defiance to the invaders. As it was, the capital was dissevered from the
rest of the country; and the bolt, which might have passed off
comparatively harmless, had the empire been cemented by a common
principle of loyalty and patriotism, now found its way into every crack
and crevice of the ill-compacted fabric, and buried it in its own ruins.
Its fate may serve as a striking proof, that a government, which does
not rest on the sympathies of its subjects, cannot long abide; that
human institutions, when not connected with human prosperity and
progress, must fall, if not before the increasing light of civilisation,
by the hand of violence; by violence from within, if not from without.
And who shall lament their fall?
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