Before his sails filled to the breeze Cortes approached the shore in an armed boat. "Farewell! good Governor," was the burden of his words. "Time is short, and what is to be done 'twere well it were done quickly!" And so he sailed away towards the West, into a sunset-land of conquest-dreams, and left Velasquez fuming on the quay.[13]
13 This story of the departure of Cortes is doubted by some writers, but it appeals to the mind of the adventurous traveller in those regions, even to-day, with too strong a ring of probability to be ignored.
But the jealous Governor's resources were not quite exhausted. He despatched swift messengers to other Cuban ports where the expedition must touch for further supplies, ill-provisioned as it was by the hasty departure, with orders for the authorities at these points to detain Cortes at all hazards. It was useless. Far from detention, he received supplies and reinforcements. A number of well-known hidalgos joined him, among them Pedro de Alvarado, Cristoval de Olid, Velasquez de Leon, Gonzalo de Sandoval, Hernandez Puertocarrero, Alonzo de Avila, and others who took a valiant part afterwards in the conquest. At his last port of departure Cortes wrote a letter to Velasquez, of a conciliatory nature: reviewed his forces, which amounted to nearly nine hundred Spaniards and two hundred Indians, with ten heavy guns, several falconets, ample ammunition, and sixteen horses, in eleven vessels. Having addressed the forces in words of enthusiasm, dangling before them the glories of conquest, specially pointing out to them that they were carrying the Cross to set before savages, Cortes invoked the patronage of St. Peter, and the squadron set sail for the shores of Yucatan.
How they arrived at the island of Cozumel, fought with the Indians of the mainland, tumbled the gross idols of the savages from their pyramid-temple, and set up an altar to the Virgin; and how they recovered an unfortunate Spaniard who had sojourned eight years, after shipwreck, with the natives of Yucatan; how Alvarado antagonised the natives and Cortes pacified them; and how they sailed thence to the real shores of Mexico, where we left them halting, are fascinating matters of their voyage which we must thus lightly pass over.
| PREHISTORIC MEXICO: RUINS OF "THE PALACE" AT CHICHEN-YTZA, IN YUCATAN. |
Behold a level, sun-beat, wind-swept plain, the drifting sand blown into médanos, or sand-hills, by the hurricanes of the gulf, the perennial norte. Here are the Conquistadores grouped, Cortes and his associates. Among them is the figure of a woman, and her name is worthy to rank in the first verse and chapter of our story. It is Marina, the beautiful Indian girl who had been given to the Spaniards, among other female slaves, at Tabasco, in Yucatan, and who, Cortes had learned, spoke the language of the Mexicans, in addition to her native Yucatec. So Marina was the interpreter through whose medium understanding was had with the natives. This was in conjunction with the Spaniard Aguilar—the rescued castaway, who spoke the language of Marina. But this was only at first, for as Cortes loved her and she loved him, she soon acquired the Castilian of the Conquistador as his mistress.
Thus was parley opened with the natives and their caciques, and knowledge gained of Montezuma, the great Emperor of the Aztecs, and of the power and circumstances of their empire, whose rule extended to the coast whereon they stood. Cortes and his captains made presents to the caciques, and received such in return, and it was decided to establish the colony of Villa Rica de Vera Cruz. A pretty piece of juggling—singular yet not unjustifiable—took place in the inauguration of this, Cortes establishing his captains as its municipality, resigning the commission he had received from the Governor of Cuba into the hands of the body he had called into being himself, and then accepting from it a commission as captain-general, all taking title as officials of the Crown of Spain! This proceeding, solemnly carried out on the edge of the wilderness, and in sound of the roaring waters of the Gulf, is not without a Gilbertian spice.
Rude habitations had been built, guns mounted, and supplies secured from the Indian population which flocked around the Spaniards. And suddenly a new sensation was sprung upon these simple people. The horses were brought on shore, and the cavalry manoeuvred upon the beach; cannons were fired and trumpets sounded, the shot from the guns, purposely directed against the trees, smashing them to splinters. Filled with awe the Aztec chief of the place—the friendly cacique Teuhtile—bade his picture-writers depict it all; and upon the native paper these terrible gachupines[14] and their great "water-houses," and thundering engines, and singular musical instruments, were drawn in lifelike form by these native "newspaper artists," to be despatched by the native postmen over the rocky fastnesses of the Cordilleras to the great Montezuma. Then Cortes announced his mission. He was the ambassador of a mighty Emperor from beyond the seas, come to greet the Emperor of the Aztecs and to carry a present from his monarch, the mightiest in the world. When could he be admitted before Montezuma? The awe in which this potentate was held by his vassals was shown in Teuhtile's reply: "Was it possible that a monarch, the equal of the Aztec king, existed elsewhere? How could the white men ask, at such short notice, to be admitted to the semi-sacred presence?" But he brought forward presents of beautiful feather-work and ornaments of gold for the Spaniards; and Cortes, not to be outdone, produced a richly-carved chair and other things admired by the simple natives, including articles of cut glass, which were held to be gems of great price, as of course the Aztecs had no knowledge of glass. All these matters were carried out with due ceremony, messengers with the presents were sent to Montezuma, and the Spaniards, pending the return of the emissaries of Teuhtile with their greeting, devoted themselves to the perfecting of their dwellings.
14 The Aztec word for centaurs, which was applied to the horsemen.