[185] “Si no viniessen, iria sobre ellos, y los destruíria, y procederia contra ellos como contra personas rebeldes; diciéndoles, como todas estas Partes, y otras muy mayores Tierras, y Señoríos eran de Vuestra Alteza.” (Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 63.) “Rebellion” was a very convenient term, fastened in like manner by the countrymen of Cortés on the Moors for defending the possessions which they had held for eight centuries in the Peninsula. It justified very rigorous reprisals. (See the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Part I., chap. 13, et alibi.)
[186] Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, pp. 62, 63.—Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 4.—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 84.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 58.—Martyr, De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 2.—Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 6, cap. 18.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, MS., lib. 12, cap. 11.
[187] Rel. Seg., ap. Lorenzana, p. 67.—According to Las Casas, the place contained 30,000 vecinos, or about 150,000 inhabitants. (Brevissima Relatione della Distruttione dell’ Indie Occidentale (Venetia, 1643)). This latter, being the smaller estimate, is a priori the more credible; especially—a rare occurrence—when in the pages of the good Bishop of Chiapa.
[188] Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. iii. p. 159.
[189] Veytia carries back the foundation of the city to the Ulmecs, a people who preceded the Toltecs. (Hist. antig., tom. i. cap. 13, 20.) As the latter, after occupying the land several centuries, have left not a single written record, probably, of their existence, it will be hard to disprove the licentiate’s assertion,—still harder to prove it.
[190] Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 2.{*}
{*} [“We find that, according to tradition, the territory of Cholula was, up to the year 1519, necessarily occupied by at least three different stocks. The modes of burial, so far as ascertained, reveal an equal number of distinct customs. The architecture, so far as it is possible to investigate it, shows at least two separate types.... Finally we may ask if the facts, that the adobe bricks of the great mound contain pottery and obsidian, and that skulls have been found beneath its projecting western apron, do not hint at a still older population, with perhaps a different style of architecture.” Bandelier, Archæological Tour, p. 261.—M.]
[191] Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 58.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 3, cap. 19.
[192] Veytia, Hist. antig., tom. i. cap. 15, et seq.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 1, cap. 5; lib. 3.
[193] Later divines have found in these teachings of the Toltec god, or high-priest, the germs of some of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, as those of the Incarnation, and the Trinity, for example.