By displaying my weapon carelessly in my hand when we stopped to take coffee at Saint Martin's, I procured a seat upon the outside, which had been refused me at Puebla.
Our escort consisted of a body of six lancers, who, standing at the roadside, saluted us as we passed, and then rode after us at the top of their speed. Poor fellows! they found it hard riding to keep up with the coach. It was some consolation for them to see a man seated on the top of the stage with a Colt's pistol, even if he did not know how to use it, and for once they rode out their beat without getting frightened at their shadows. As the robbers were as great cowards as themselves, whether the man on the box was really a fire-eater or not, it answered the same purpose. These stage-guards are heroes in their way; they always come when the road appears the safest, and never fail to ask for charity, but invariably leave you just as the coach approaches a thicket. A few days ago, this guard caught a fellow on the road whom they believed to be a robber, and hung him with a pocket-handkerchief.
REPUBLIC OF TLASCALA.
We are now passing the borders of that famous Indian republic, of the high table-land, which shut out despotism by a lofty wall,[16] ] and was so completely isolated in the times of Montezuma that its people could obtain no foreign products, not even cotton or salt;[17] ] whose food was the maize which they cultivated, and the game which they caught upon the snow-capped mountains; whose clothing was made from the maguey, and from skins of animals taken in the chase; a people whose government was a council of elders, which was presided over by an hereditary chief; whose political institutions have been the study and admiration of the learned of many lands. That is, in plain English, they were an ordinary tribe of North American savages, obtaining their living, as other Indians did then and do now, by the cultivation of Indian corn and hunting, having the same crude form of government that is common to all the savage tribes of North America. They gloried in their savage notions of independence, and submitted only to the merest shadow of authority. They had not yet reached that point of social organization at which the loose government of savages gives way to the despotism of the next stage of advancement, which we shall call barbarism. The difference between the Tlascalans and the Aztecs was the same difference that exists between the North American savages, who live in underground wigwams,[18] ] and the barbarous tribes of the interior of Africa, that live in cities of mud huts above the ground, and who yield a slavish obedience to a half-naked emperor, who sits or squats upon an ox-hide in a mud palace, exercising the power of life and death, according to his momentary caprice, upon thousands of trembling slaves. The concentrated power and wealth of a whole tribe is in single hands, and is made available for conquest and for the sensual enjoyment of a single individual. Savages can only act in concert when all are agreed, hence councils are their governing power, and the orator has as much influence among them as the successful warrior; but when they have advanced a step, and power has become concentrated, the orator becomes silent, and the war-chief is the government.
I had read with avidity the histories of Mexico, and gave to them implicit credence, until I stood upon the Indian mound of Cholula, and searched in vain for the least vestige of that magnificent city of 40,000 houses, which, only 300 years ago, was in the height of its prosperity; and though it is not in the power of man, in the space of a thousand years, wholly to obliterate the traces of a great city, yet not a vestige of the Cholula of Cortéz can now be found. As I followed up the investigation, I soon discovered that not a vestige of any of the cities that entered into the alliance with Cortéz can now be found. Not a vestige exists even of the old city of Mexico, except the calendar and sacrificial stones, of which I shall speak hereafter.
CORTÉZ AND BERNAL DIAZ.
Cortéz says that a dry stone wall, nine feet high, inclosed Tlascala from mountain to mountain, through which he entered between overlapping semicircles of the wall. He says that he was attacked first by an army of 6000 Indians, then by an army of 100,000 on one day, and on the next by 149,000. He says farther, "I attacked another place, which was so large that it contained, according to an examination I caused to be made, more than 20,000 houses." Of the capital of Tlascala, he says, "It is larger than Granada, and much stronger, and contains as many fine houses and a much larger population than that city did at the time of its capture."
A comparison of the statements of Bernal Diaz and those of Cortéz will cast some discredit upon the narrative of the former. The stout old chronicler cuts down the 100,000 Indians in the second battle to 50,000, and makes no mention of the third great action, in which 149,000 Indians were said by Cortéz to have been engaged. Here is another comparison:
"There is," says Cortéz, "in this city [Tlascala], a market, in which every day 30,000 people are engaged in buying and selling, besides many other merchants who are scattered about the city. The market contains a great variety of articles, both of food and clothing, and all kinds of shoes for the feet, jewels of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and ornaments of feathers; all as well arranged as they possibly can be found in any public square in the world."[19] ]
Now see the difference between this great Munchausen and his professed apologist and companion, the writer of Bernal Diaz, who was familiar with the suppressed manuscript of Las Casas, and makes quotations from it. "The elder Xicotencotl," says Bernal Diaz, "now informed Cortéz that it was the general wish of the inhabitants to make him a present, if agreeable to him. Cortéz answered that he should at all times be most happy to receive one; they accordingly spread some mats on the floor, and over them a few cloaks, upon which they arranged five or six pieces of gold, a few articles of trifling value, and several parcels of manufactured nequen—altogether a poor present, and not worth twenty pesos (dollars). The caziques, on presenting these things to Cortéz, said to him, 'Malinche! we can easily imagine that you will not exactly experience much joy on receiving a present of such wretched things as these; but we have told you before that we are poor—possessing neither gold nor other riches, as the deceitful Mexicans, with their present monarch, Montezuma, have, by degrees, despoiled us of every thing we had. Do not look to the small value of these things, but accept them in all kindness, and as coming from your faithful friends and servants.' These presents were, at the same time, accompanied by a quantity of provisions."[20] ]