[79] “Y todos á vna le respondímos, que hariamos lo que ordenasse, que echada estaua la suerte de la buena ó mala ventura.” Loc. cit.
[80] Jalap, Convolvulus jalapa. The x and j are convertible consonants in the Castilian.{**}
{**} [Jalapa means “Spring in the Sand.”—M.]
[81] The heights of Xalapa are crowned with a convent dedicated to St. Francis, erected in later days by Cortés, showing, in its solidity, like others of the period built under the same auspices, says an agreeable traveller, a military as well as religious design. Tudor’s Travels in North America (London, 1834), vol. ii. p. 186.
[82] Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.—Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 40.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 44.—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 83.—“Every hundred yards of our route,” says the traveller last quoted, speaking of this very region, “was marked by the melancholy erection of a wooden cross, denoting, according to the custom of the country, the commission of some horrible murder on the spot where it was planted.” (Travels in North America, vol. ii. p. 188.)—[Señor Alaman stoutly defends his countrymen from this gross exaggeration, as he pronounces it, of Mr. Tudor. For although it is unhappily true, he says, that travellers were formerly liable to be attacked in going from the city of Mexico to Vera Cruz, and that the diligence which passes over this road is still frequently stopped, yet it is very seldom that personal violence is offered. “Foreign tourists are prone to believe all the stories of atrocities that are related to them, and generally, at inns, fall into the society of persons who take delight in furnishing a large supply of such materials. The crosses that are to be met with in the country are not so numerous as is pretended; nor are all of them memorials of assassinations committed in the places where they have been erected. Many are merely objects of devotion, and others indicate the spot where two roads diverge from each other. We must, nevertheless, confess that this matter is one that demands all the attention of the government; while the candid foreigner will doubtless admit that it is not easy to exercise police supervision over roads on which the central points of population lie far apart, as in countries like ours, instead of being so near that a watch can be maintained from them over the intermediate spaces, as is the case in most countries of Europe and in a great part of the United States.” Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega), tom. i. p. 251.]
[83] El Paso del Obispo. Cortés named it Puerto del Nombre de Dios. Viaje, ap. Lorenzana, p. ii.
[84] The Aztec name is Nauhcampatepetl, from nauhcampa, “anything square,” and tepetl, “a mountain.”—Humboldt, who waded through forests and snows to its summit, ascertained its height to be 4089 metres, = 13,414 feet, above the sea. See his Vues des Cordillères, p. 234, and Essai politique, vol. i. p. 266.
[85] The same mentioned in Cortés’ Letter as the Puerto de la Leña. Viaje, ap. Lorenzana, p. iii.
[86] Now known by the euphonious Indian name of Tlatlanquitepec. (Viaje, ap. Lorenzana, p. iv.) It is the Cocotlan of Bernal Diaz. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 61.) The old Conquerors made sorry work with the Aztec names, both of places and persons, for which they must be allowed to have had ample excuse.
[87] “Puestos tantos rimeros de calaueras de muertos, que se podian bien contar, segun el concierto con que estauan puestas, que me parece que eran mas de cien mil, y digo otra vez sobre cien mil.” Ibid., ubi supra.