the summit of the pyramidal temple, tore down | of invasion amounted to but twenty-eight hunthe massive wooden idols, and tumbled them dred. Cortez made a very devout speech to his into the streets. They then collected the muti- companions at the moment of his departure. lated fragments and burned them to ashes. The "The blessed Saviour," said he, "will give heathen temple was then emptied, swept, and us victory. We have now no other refuge than garnished. The Totonac chiefs, passively yield- the kind providence of God and our own stout ing, were dressed in the white robes of the Cath- hearts." olic priesthood, and, with lighted candles in their hands, aided in installing an image of the Virgin in this shrine which had been polluted by all the horrid orgies of pagan abominations. It was a blessed change. The very lowest and most corrupt form of Christianity is infinitely above the most refined creations of paganism. Mass, with all its pomp, was then performed. The Indians were pleased. It is said that their emotions were so much excited that they wept. They made no farther resistance, and cheerfully exchanged the hideous idols of Mexico for the more attractive and the more merciful idols of Rome. Let no one here accuse us of want of candor; for no one can deny that, to these poor natives, it was merely an exchange of idols.

Cortez having accomplished this all-important work of converting his allies into fellow-Christians, returned to Vera Cruz. Some of the companions of Cortez were alarmed by the bold movements of their leader, and a conspiracy was formed to seize one of the vessels and escape to Cuba. The conspiracy was detected. The offenders were punished inexorably; and Cortez resolved to prevent the possible repetition of such an attempt by destroying his fleet! Most of the troops were in Zempoalla. All the ships but one, after having been dismantled of every movable article, were scuttled and sunk.

When the soldiers heard of the deed they were struck with consternation. Escape was now impossible. Murmurs of indignation, loud and deep, began to rise against Cortez. He immediately assembled the troops around him, and by his peculiar tact soothed their anger, and won them to his cause. They could not be blind to the fact that their destiny was now depending entirely upon their obedience to their leader. The least insubordination would lead to inevitable ruin. Cortez closed his speech with the following forcible words:

"As for me, I have chosen my part. I will remain here while there is one to bear me company. If there be any so craven as to shrink from sharing the danger of our glorious enterprise, let them go home. There is still one vessel left. Let them take that and return to Cuba. They can tell there how they have deserted their commander, and can patiently wait till we return loaded with the spoils of the Mexicans."

Universal enthusiasm was excited by this appeal, and one general shout arose—“To Mexico! to Mexico!" Cortez now made vigorous preparations for his march uninvited, and even forbidden, to the capital of Montezuma. He took with him four hundred Spaniards, fifteen horses, and seven pieces of artillery. His allies, the Totonacs, also furnished him with two thousand three hundred men. His whole army

It was a bright and beautiful morning in August, 1519, when this merciless army of fanatics commenced their march of piracy and blood. For two days they moved gayly along through an enchanting country of luxuriance, flowers, and perfume, encountering no opposition. Indian villages were thickly scattered around, and scenery of surpassing magnificence and loveliness was continually opening before their eyes. On the evening of the second day they arrived at the beautiful town of Xalapa, which was filled with the country residences of the wealthy natives, and which commanded a prospect in which the beautiful and the sublime were lavishly blended. Still continuing their march through a well-settled country, as they ascended the gradual slope of the Cordilleras, on the fourth day they arrived at Naulinco. This was a large and populous town. The adventurers were received with great kindness. Cortez was very zealous, as in all cases, to convert the natives to Christianity. He succeeded so far as to raise a cross in the market-place, which it was hoped would excite the adoration of the untutored spectators.

They now entered into the defiles of the mountains, where they encountered rugged paths and fierce storms of wind and sleet. A weary march of three days brought them to the high table-lands of the Cordilleras, seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, and extending, a fertile and flowery savanna, before them for many leagues. It was a temperate region beneath a tropical sun. The country was highly cultivated, and luxuriantly adorned with hedges, with groves, with waving fields of maize, and with picturesque towns and villages. God did indeed seem to smile upon these reckless adventurers. Thus far their march had been as a delightful holiday excursion.

They soon entered a large city, Tlatlanquitepec. It was even more populous and more imposing in its architecture than Zempoalla. But here they witnessed appalling indications of the horrid atrocities of pagan idolatry. They found, it is stated, piled in order, a hundred thousand skulls of human victims who had been offered in sacrifice to their gods. There was a Mexican garrison stationed in this place, but not sufficiently strong to resist the invaders. They, however, gave Cortez a very cold reception, and incited rather than discouraged his zeal by glowing descriptions of the wealth and the power of the monarch whose court he was approaching. Cortez again made a vigorous but an unavailing effort to introduce among these benighted pagans, in exchange for their cruel superstitions, the infinitely more harmless and mild idolatry of Rome. In his zeal he was just

about ordering an onslaught upon the hideous | mowing down, in hideous mutilation, whole idols with sword and hatchet, when the sincere- platoons at a discharge. Immense multitudes ly pious Father Olmedo dissuaded him.

The

of the dead now covered the plain, and eight of the chiefs had fallen. The commander of the native army finding it in vain to contend against these new and apparently unearthly weapons, ordered a retreat. The natives retired in as highly disciplined order as would have been displayed by French or Austrian troops. exhausted victors, many of them wounded and bleeding, encamped upon the ground. The darkness and the silence of the night again overshadowed them. Cortez devoted the next day to the repose and the refreshment of his army, and sent an embassy to the camp of the Tlascalans proposing an armistice, and stating that he wished to visit their capital, Tlascala, as a friend. But in the mean time, to intimidate the natives, he headed a party of cavalry and infantry, and set out on a foraging expedition. Wherever he encountered any resistance he inflicted condign punishment with fire and sword. The embassy soon returned from the camp of the natives with the following defiant response:

After a rest of five days the route was again commenced. Their road wound along the banks of a broad and tranquil stream, fringed with an unbroken line of Indian villages. Some twenty leagues of travel brought them to the large town of Xalacingo. Here they met with friendly treatment, and made another halt of several days. Again resuming their march, they soon entered the country of a powerful people called the Tlascalans. This nation had successfully resisted for many years the assailing legions of Montezuma. The adventurers here met with fortifications of stone of immense strength and magnitude, constructed with much scientific skill. After pressing along some dozen miles in this new country they met a large hostile force of Indians, who attacked them with the fiercest fury. Cortez and his band were nearly overpowered, when the artillery came up and opened a dreadful fire. The thunder of the guns, which the Indians had never heard before, and the horrid carnage of the grape-shot sweeping through their ranks, compelled the warlike na-gies of despair. Every man confessed himself tives at last, though slowly and sullenly, to retire. Two of the horses were killed in this conflict, a loss which Cortez deeply deplored.

It was now the 2d of September. Cortez had added some recruits from the natives to his army, so that he now numbered about three thousand men. Prayers and thanksgiving were here offered for the success of the enterprise thus far, and this whole band of blood-stained warriors partook of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in accordance with the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The army now advanced firmly, but with the utmost possible vigilance. They were drilled to the most perfect discipline, and inspired with the highest fanatic zeal.

"The Spaniards may pass on, as soon as they choose, to Tlascala. When they reach it, their flesh will be hewn from their bones for sacrifice to the gods. If they prefer to remain where they are, we shall visit them to-morrow."

It was a terrible hour. The Tlascalans had recruited their forces, and were prepared for a decisive battle. The stoutest hearts in the Spanish army felt and admitted the magnitude of the peril. Their only hope was in the ener

that night to good Father Olmedo, and obtained absolution. Then, lulled to peace of spirit by the delusion that they were the accepted soldiers of the cross of Christ, they fell asleep.

The morning of the 5th of September, 1519, dawned cloudless and brilliant upon the adventurers encamped upon these high table-lands of the Cordilleras. Cortez made energetic arrangements for the conflict, addressed a few glowing words to his troops, and advanced to meet the foe. They had marched about a mile and a half when they met the Tlascalan army, filling a vast plain, six miles square, with their thronging multitudes. They were decorated with the highest appliances of barbaric taste. As they were emerging from a valley into a Their weapons were slings, arrows, javelins, wide-spread plain they again encountered the clubs, and rude swords. The moment the Spanenemy, drawn up in battle array, in numbers iards appeared the Tlascalans, uttering hideous apparently overwhelming. With plumes and yells, and with all the inconceivable clangor of banners, and gilded helmets glittering in the their military bands, rushed upon them. For morning sun, the Indian host presented an as-four hours the dreadful battle raged. Again pect truly appalling. Cortez estimated their and again it appeared as if the Spaniards would numbers at one hundred thousand. The battle be overwhelmed and utterly destroyed by overwas fierce in the extreme. Cortez arranged his powering numbers. Every horse was woundmen in a square. The natives came pouring ed. The sky was actually darkened with the upon them like ocean billows, rending the heav-shower of arrows and javelins. Nearly every ens with their shouts, and deafening the ear man in the Spanish ranks was bleeding, and with the clangor of gongs and drums. But several were killed. But at last the terrific ensoon the terrific cannon uttered its roar. Ballergies of gunpowder triumphed. The Indians, and grape-shot swept through the dense ranks, leaving the hard-fought field covered with their

dead, in confusion retired. The cavalry plunged | visit the metropolis of the great empire. Corinto the retreating ranks, and cut down the poor tez ever acted upon the principle that truth was natives until weary with slaughter. too precious a commodity to be wasted upon the heathen.

Cortez now sent an imperious command to the chief of the Tlascalan army, demanding peace and friendship.

"If this proposition is rejected," said he, "I will enter the capital as a conqueror. I will raze every house to the ground. I will put every inhabitant to the sword."

After an encampment of three weeks upon the bloody and hard-earned field of Tzompach, Cortez again struck his tents and resumed his march. He no longer encountered any opposition. The route led over fertile hills and valleys, and through the villages and towns of a populous, and apparently a contented and happy people. The invading army was every where received with cordiality, and provisions in great abundance flowed into their camp. The march of a few days brought them to Tlascala, the capital of this strong nation.

To inspire the natives with more terror, Cortez placed himself at the head of a detachment of cavalry and light troops, and scoured the adjacent country, taking fearful vengeance upon all who manifested any spirit of resistance. The Tlascalans, alarmed, sent an embassy to the Spanish camp, proposing terms of peace. More than It was, indeed, a magnificent city; larger, fifty persons, bearing rich presents, composed more populous, and of more imposing architectthe embassage. Cortez suspected them, per-ure, Cortez asserts, than the celebrated Moorhaps with good reason, of merely acting the ish capital Granada, in old Spain. An impart of spies. He immediately ordered their mense throng flocked from the gates of the city hands to be cut off. The cruel deed was prompt- to meet the troops, and the roofs of the houses ly executed; and the sufferers, thus awfully mu- were covered with spectators. Wild music, tilated, were sent to their countrymen with the from semi-barbarian bands and voices, filled the defiant message: air; banners floated in the breeze; plumed "The Tlascalans may come by day or by warriors hurried too and fro, and shouts of night; the Spaniards are ready for them."

The Span

welcome seemed to rend the skies, as these This atrocious act seemed to appall and crush hardy adventurers slowly defiled through the the spirit of the Indians. All further idea of crowded gates and streets of the city. The poresistance was abandoned. The commander-lice regulations of the city were extraordinarily in-chief of the Tlascalan army, with a numer-effective, repressing all disorder. ous retinue, entered the Spanish camp with proffers of submission. The brave and proud chieftain, subdued by the terrors of the thunder and the lightning of their strange assailants, addressed Cortez in language which will command universal respect and sympathy:

"I loved my country," said he, "and wished to preserve its independence. We have been beaten. I hope you will use your victory with moderation, and not trample upon our liberties. In the name of the nation I now tender obedience to the Spaniards. We will be as faithful in peace as we have been bold in war."

iards were surprised to find barbers' shops, and baths both for vapor and hot water. The river Zahuatel flowed through the heart of the city.

Cortez remained here several days, refreshing his troops, but maintaining the utmost vigilance of military discipline to guard against the possibility of any hostile attack. Promptly and earnestly he entered upon his favorite effort to convert the natives to Christianity. With his own voice he argued and exhorted, and he also called into requisition all the eloquence of Father Olmedo.

"The God of the Christians," they replied, must be great and good. We will give him a place with our gods, who are also great and good."

Cortez could admit of no such compromise. Their obduracy excited his impatience. He was upon the point of ordering the soldiers to make an onslaught upon the gods of the Tlascalans, which would probably have led to the entire destruction of his army in the narrow streets of the thronged capital, when the judi

Cortez, who was aware of the great peril from which he had just escaped, with stern words, but with secret joy in his heart, accepted this submission, and entered into a cordial alliance with this bold and powerful nation. While these affairs were transpiring in the Spanish camp, an embassy arrived from Montezuma. It consisted of five of the most conspicuous nobles of the empire, accompanied by a retinue of two hundred attendants. Montezuma was alarmed by the terrible victories, and the resist-ious and kind-hearted Olmedo dissuaded him less march of the invaders. He sent many most costly gifts of Mexican manufacture, and the value of about fifty thousand dollars in gold. The Emperor also urgently requested that Cortez would not attempt to approach the Mexican capital, since, as he alleged, the unruly disposition of the people on the route would greatly endanger his safety. Cortez returned an answer filled with expressions of Castilian courtesy, but declared that he must obey the commands of his sovereign, which required him to

from the rash enterprise. With true Christian philosophy he plead that forced conversion was no conversion at all; that God's reign was only over willing minds and in the heart.

Cortez yielded to the pressure of circumstances rather than to the force of argument. "We can not," he said, "change the heart; but we can demolish these abominable idols, clamoring for their hecatombs of human victims; and we can introduce in their stead the blessed Virgin and her blessed Child.

Shall

we not do a part because we can not do the | from the gates. For several days they continwhole ?"

Though Cortez reluctantly yielded to argument enforced by apparent necessity, he insisted upon emptying the prisons of the victims destined to sacrifice. The Tlascalans consented to this. But as soon as the tramp of the Spaniards ceased to echo through their streets, the prisons were again filled, and human blood, in new torrents, crimsoned their altars.

The Indians, accustomed to polygamy, selected a number of their most beautiful young girls to be presented to the Spanish officers for wives. "We can not marry heathen," said Cortez. They were all immediately baptized, and received Christian names. Louisa, the daughter of Xicotencatl, the highest chief of the Tlascalans, was given by her father to the Spanish general Alvarado. Many of the descendants from this beautiful Indian maiden may now be found among the grandees of Spain.

ued their march through a beautiful country, densely populated, and cultivated like a garden. At length they arrived at Cholula. They were received with the warmest tokens of cordiality, in a beautiful city, containing one hundred thousand inhabitants, with wide, neatly arranged streets, and spacious stone houses. The more wealthy inhabitants were very gracefully dressed in garments richly embroidered. The aspect of luxury, of refinement, of high attainments in the arts of beauty and of utility, greatly surprised the Spaniards. In a few days, however, very striking indications of coldness, suspicion, and hostility were perceived. The faithful Marina, ever on the watch, detected, as was supposed, a terrible conspiracy for the destruction of the Spaniards. Cortez, with demoniac energy, crushed the attempt.

He contrived to assemble an enormous multitude of the Cholulans, with their high dignitaMontezuma, finding that he could not dis-ries, in the public square. At an appointed signal suade Cortez from his march by words, and fearing to provoke the hostility of an enemy wielding such supernatural thunders, now endeavored to win his friendship. He accordingly sent another embassy with still richer presents, inviting Cortez to his capital, and assuring him of a warm welcome. He entreated him, however, not to enter into any alliance with his fierce foes the Tlascalans.

every musket and every cannon was discharged into their midst, and a shower of arrows and javelins pierced their thinly-clad bodies. A storm of destruction was swept through the helpless throng, which instantly covered the pavements with the dying and the dead. They were taken by surprise, unarmed, without leaders. They were surrounded, hemmed in; there was no escape. Helpless and frantic, they turned in terror and distraction this way and that, but the terrible missiles of lead and iron met them in every direction, and the slaughter was indis criminate and awful. No quarter was given. The mailed cavaliers on horseback rushed

After spending three weeks in the city of Tlascala, Cortez again took up his march toward the capital of Mexico, by the way of the great city of Cholula. A hundred thousand soldiers, according to the representation of Cortez, volunteered to accompany him. He, how-through the streets, cutting down with their ever, considered this force as too unwieldy, and took but six thousand. The whole population of the city escorted the army some distance

dripping sabres, on the right hand and on the left, the unarmed and distracted fugitives. The Tlascalans, lapping their tongues in blood, re