"I threw away the glass of aguardiente she had brought me, for it smelled of blood. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of gallinazos, coyotes, and zepilots, were arriving from all quarters, and prowling, running, and flying in the direction of the unfortunate town.
"It was a cool November morning on which we approached Guanaxato; the air was clear and transparent, the heavens were a bright blue; over the cañada there floated a cloud of light greyish vapour that extended a full league; here and there, this vapour seemed to assume a reddish tinge, and then a steam like the smoke of burning sulphur gave such a look of chaos to the atmosphere, that it seemed as if the devils of all the seventeen hells had been roasting beneath. Now and then a flame flickered out of the vapour; it was a foul and revolting spectacle.
"It was over the suburb of Guanaxato, Marfil by name, and over Guanaxato itself, the rich city of 60,000 inhabitants, that this long bank of exhalation hung like a pall. What the place resembled when we entered it, I can hardly say, for Calleja had been there, and had sat in judgment on the devoted town. In city and suburb, in the mines and founderies, all was hushed; not a blow of a hammer was heard, not a wheel was turning; no footsteps nor voice broke the unnatural stillness. We entered the suburb, and the signs of the festival of blood began to multiply themselves; dead bodies became more plentiful; here and there the cañada was choked up with them; while, in other places, broken baggage waggons, dead mules and horses, were lying in picturesque confusion. Wolves and carrion birds were tearing and rending the bodies of the unfortunate patriots. From one wall near the entrance of the town a hundred Indians were hanging; a little further on, a like number had been literally torn in pieces as if by wild horses, and their heads and limbs lay scattered about, so frightfully mangled that even the coyotes turned aside and left them. A fine feast day must that have been for Calleja, thought I—but pshaw! we had as yet seen nothing.
"The bridge over the cañada had been broken down, but a new one replaced it; the piles consisted of human bodies, upon which boards were laid. We were now in the city itself. Truly, they had made clean work of it. Of the thousands of houses that had nestled themselves along the banks of the stream, nought remained but fragments of blackened wall and smoking timber. Among these ruins were other things, fat stinking things, stumps and shapeless masses, which lay scattered, and in some places piled up, amid the reeking embers. We took them at first for stones and pieces of rock; but we were mistaken. They were the roasted carcasses of Guanaxato's wretched inhabitants—hideous lumps! the feet, hands, and heads burnt away, the bodies baked by the fire. In many of the huts, or at least on the places where the huts had stood, heaps of these bodies had burnt together in one pestilential mass, and now emitted an unbearable stench. Not a living human creature to be seen, but thousands of wolves and vultures; although even these neither snarled nor screamed, but seemed almost as if they felt the desolation by which they were surrounded. My Indians did not utter a word; our mules scarcely dared to set their feet down; they pricked their ears, bristled up their manes, refused to advance, stayed, and some even fell. No wonder. Their path lay over corpses!
"We reached the Plaza Mayor. It was there that Calleja had held his chief banquet, and wallowed with his Spaniards in Mexican blood. We waded through a red slime which covered the whole square to the depth of six inches; the bodies were heaped up like maize sacks. In the Alhondega we found a thousand young girls in a state—God be merciful to our poor souls! The Gachupins had first brutally outraged, and then slain them, but slain them in a manner—Jesus, Maria, y José! Can it be true that Spaniards are born of woman? Señores! on the market-place alone, fourteen thousand Mexicans, young women, matrons and children, and men both young and old, had been butchered with every refinement of cruelty. It would have taken too much powder to have shot them, quoth Calleja, and forsooth the rebels were not worth the outlay.
"We had seen enough," continued Jago, over whose cheeks burning tears were now running, while his voice was choked with rage. "It was not the first time we had seen bloodshed, and our stomachs could bear something, but this was too much. We turned back to Guadalajara more dead than alive.
"What followed is scarce worth relating. We strove to make another stand, brought down forty-three cannons from San Blas, and fortified ourselves at the bridge of Calderon; but all in vain! The angel of death had marked us for his prey; Guanaxato had quenched our courage; we were no longer the same men. At one moment there seemed still a chance of victory and revenge. Our Indians, who fought like tigers, although without order or discipline, made a desperate charge upon Calleja's army. The whole line gave way; the fight was won. At that very instant an ammunition-waggon blew up; the Indians thought that Satan himself was come amongst them, were seized with a panic, and took to flight; the Gachupins plucked up courage; a fresh regiment, which Calleja had kept in reserve, charged vigorously. All was over.
"It was plain that Hidalgo's star had set. He fled, poor fellow! was betrayed and delivered up by his own countrymen. But basta! The account was closed for the year one thousand eight hundred and eleven."
Chapter the Twentieth.
| "Even as they fell, in files they lay; Like the mower's grass at the close of day, When his work is done on the levell'd plain, Such was the fall of the foremost slain." Siege of Corinth. |