PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.]
"The pyramid of Papantla," says Humboldt,[44] ] "is not constructed like the pyramids of Cholula and Mexico. The only materials employed are immense stones. Mortar is distinguished in the seams. The edifice, however, is not so remarkable for its size as for its symmetry, the polish of the stones, and the great regularity of their cut. The base of the pyramid is an exact square, each side being eighty-two feet in length. The perpendicular height appears not to be more than from fifty-two to sixty-five feet. This monument, like all the Mexican teocallis, is composed of several stages. Six are still distinguishable, and a seventh appears to be concealed by the vegetation with which the sides of the pyramid are covered. A great stairway of fifty-seven steps conducts to the truncated top of the teocalli, where the human victims were sacrificed. On each side of the great stairs is a flight of small stairs. The facing of the stories is adorned with hieroglyphics, in which serpents and crocodiles, carved in relievo, are discernible. Each story contains a great number of square niches, symmetrically distributed. In the first story we reckon twenty-four on each side, in the second twenty, and in the third sixteen. The number of these niches in the body of the pyramid is three hundred and sixty-six, and there are twelve in the stairs toward the east. The Abbé Marquez supposes that this number of three hundred and seventy-eight niches has some allusion to a calendar of the Mexicans, and he even believes that in each of them one of the twenty figures was repeated, which, in the hieroglyphical language of the Toltecs, served as a symbol for marking the days of the common year, and the intercalated days at the end of the cycles. The year being composed of eighteen months of twenty days, there would then be three hundred and sixty days, to which, agreeable to the Egyptian practice, five complementary days were added.... This pyramid was visited by M. Dupé, a captain in the service of the King of Spain. He possesses the bust, in basalt, of a Mexican, which I employed M. Massard to engrave, and which bears great resemblance to the calautica of the heads of Isis."
I prefer in this way to copy from an author of unquestionable authority an important historical fact, rather than to search for less accessible sources of evidence on which I rest the theory, that what of this kind we have seen at the city of Mexico are but fragments from the wreck that befell the American civilization of antiquity, which had succumbed before the inroads of northern savages. This is sufficient inquiry into antiquities till we come to the museum.
MEXICO ACCORDING TO CORTÉZ.
It is but justice to add the substance of Cortéz's account of this ancient city, which is embodied in the following paragraphs:
"This noble city contains many fine and magnificent houses, which may be accounted for from the fact that all the nobility of the country, who are the vassals of Montezuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part of the year; and, besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens who also possess fine houses. All these persons, in addition to the large and spacious apartments for ordinary purposes, have others, both upper and lower, that contain conservatories of flowers. Along one of the causeways [the Chapultepec] that lead into the city are laid two [water] pipes, constructed of masonry, each of which is two paces in width, and about five feet in height.... The inhabitants of this city pay greater regard to the style of their mode of living, and are more attentive to elegance of dress and politeness of manners than those of other provinces and cities, since, as the caçique Montezuma has his residence in the capital, and all the nobility, his vassals, are in the constant habit of meeting there, a general courtesy of demeanor necessarily prevails.... For, as I have already stated, what can be more wonderful than that a barbarous monarch, as he is, should have every object found in his dominions imitated in gold, silver, precious stones, and feathers, the gold and silver being wrought so naturally as not to be surpassed by any smith in the world, the stone-work executed with such perfection that it is difficult to conceive what instruments could have been used, and the feather-work superior to the finest production in wax and embroidery?... He possessed out of the city as well as within numerous villas, each of which had its peculiar sources of amusement, and all were constructed in the best possible manner for the use of a great prince or lord. Within the city, his palaces were so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent. I can only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them. There was one palace somewhat inferior to the rest, attached to which was a beautiful garden, with balconies extending over it, supported by marble columns, and having a floor formed of jasper elegantly inlaid. There were apartments in this palace sufficient to lodge two princes of the highest rank with their retinues.... The emperor has another beautiful palace, with a large court-yard paved with handsome flags in the style of a chess-board.
"Every day, as soon as it was light, six hundred nobles and men of rank were in attendance at the palace, who either sat or walked about the halls and galleries, and passed their time in conversation, but without entering the apartments where his person was.... Daily his larder and wine-cellar[45] ] were open to all who wished to eat and drink. The meals were served by three hundred youths, who brought on an infinite variety of dishes; indeed, whenever he dined or supped, the table was loaded with every kind of flesh, fish, and vegetables that the country produced. The meals were served in a large hall, in which Montezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats, and kept very clean. He sat on a small cushion curiously wrought of leather.[46] ] He is also dressed four times every day in four different suits entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of the caçiques who enter his palace have their feet covered, and when those for whom he sends enter his presence, they incline their heads and look down, bending their bodies; and when they address him, they do not look him in the face; this arises from excessive modesty and reverence....[47] ] No sultan or other infidel lord, of whom any knowledge now exists, ever had so much ceremonial in his court."
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SPANIARDS.
It was in the spring of 1519 that Cortéz and his company had landed at Vera Cruz. From that point they had marched toward Mexico without opposition, except the skirmishes with the Tlascalans, and without opposition they had entered the city of Mexico on the 5th of November, 1519. Here they had been received with every mark of hospitality and treated with every kindness. But this did not prevent their treacherously seizing the person of their host, and making him a prisoner in their quarters. In his name they had governed his tribe, and ransacked his dominions in search of the treasures collected by the gold-washers, and had even interfered in the religious worship of a superstitious people, and murdered, in cold blood, a party of their chiefs celebrating an Indian feast. Still there had been no war, until Ordaz was sent, with his four hundred men, to recapture the concubines of Cortéz, who had been rescued, as already mentioned. This was in July of the following year, eight months after their first entry into Mexico, and on the 10th of July, 1520, the licentious rule of the Spaniards at Mexico was terminated by the events of the triste noche.
The mere handful that had at first entered the city had been increased by the army of Narvaez, so that when the news reached Cortéz that Alvarado and the eighty odd men that had been left with him in the city were threatened with difficulty, he marched a well-appointed army of fourteen hundred men, besides two hundred Tlascalans, to his relief. Their retreat to Tlascala has already been described, the character of the brigantines has been discussed, as well as the absurd story of his having dug a slip or launching canal at Tezcuco, twelve feet broad and twelve feet deep. We have seen that the towns and villages said to have been built in the lake, and the still greater number of large towns on the main land, could only have been petty Indian hamlets, and that the central portions of the valley of Mexico would not have been habitable if the lakes of Mexico had been any thing more than evaporation ponds. And, lest I should venture too far, I will conclude this remark by adverting to the testimony of Diaz, which concedes that when his book was written the face of the country was substantially as it now is, and as I have already described it to be. But he endeavors to save the story of the Conquest by the shallow pretense that, during the few years that intervened between that event and the date of his history, the whole face of the country had completely changed.[48] ]