CANNON OF CORTÉS’ TIME.
As represented in a cut by Israel van Mecken, which is here reduced from a fac-simile in A. O. Essenwein’s Kulturhistorischer Bilder Atlas, ii., Mittelalter (Leipsic, 1883), pl. cxv. It will be observed that the pieces have no trunnions, and are supported in a kind of trough. They were breech-loaders by means of chambers, three of which, with handles, are seen (in the cut) lying on the ground, and one is in place, in the gun on the right. In the Naval Museum at Annapolis there are guns captured in the Mexican war, that are supposed to be the ones used by Cortés. A search of the records of the Ordnance Department at Washington, instituted for me by Commodore Sicard, at the suggestion of Prof. Charles E. Munroe of the Naval Academy, has not, however, revealed any documentary evidence; but a paper in the Army and Navy Journal, Nov. 22, 1884, p. 325, shows such guns to have been captured by Lieutenant Wyse in the “Darien.” The guns at Annapolis are provided with like chambers, as seen in photographs kindly sent to me. Similar chambers are now, or were recently, used in firing salutes on the Queen’s birthday in St. James’s Park. Cf. Stanley’s De Gama’s Voyages (Hakluyt Society), p. 227.
Early in March the fleet started to skirt the Yucatan shore, and Cortés had his first fight with the natives at Tabasco,—a conflict brought on for no reason but that the town would not supply provisions. The stockade was forced, and the place formally occupied. A more signal victory was required; and the Spaniards, getting on shore their horses and artillery, encountered the savage hordes and dispersed them,—aided, as the veracious story goes, by a spectral horseman who shone upon the field. The native king only secured immunity from further assaults by large presents. The Spaniards then re-embarked, and next cast anchor at San Juan de Ulloa.
CORTÉS’ VOYAGE TO MEXICO.
This is a reproduction of the map in Arthur Helps’s Spanish Conquest, ii. 236.
Meanwhile the rumors of the descent of the Spaniards on the coast had certainly hurried to Montezuma at his capital; and his people doubtless rehearsed some of the many portents which are said to have been regarded.[1063] We read also of new temples erected, and immense sacrifices of war-captives made, to propitiate the deities and avert the dangers which these portents and forebodings for years past had indicated to the believing.
