Chapter XXXVI: Across the Causeway

Scarcely any one in this nineteenth century, who pretends to the name of traveller, neglects to visit the world-famous and beautiful water city of Italy, the white-robed bride of the Adriatic.

When the Spanish discoverers set out for the lands of another hemisphere they little dreamt that they were to find out there another Venice, even more strange, more wonderful in its sweet, flowery, marvellous beauty, than the Venice on their own side of the Atlantic.

As the rough, way-hardened soldiers of Cortes came in sight of the great Lake of Tezcuco, with its fringe of white, well-ordered, flower-embowered villages, its dark groves of oak, cedar, and sycamores, and its richly-cultivated fields, they involuntarily came to a sudden halt, with first a dead silence, and then the air was rent with a simultaneous burst of ecstatic admiration.

"But behold!" exclaimed Juan de Cabrera with sudden bewilderment; "behold, Toro, the very islands on the bosom of yon fair lake are islands of enchantment!"

"How so?" queried Velasquez, pushing in his eager face between the two. "What new marvel hast discovered, Juan, where all is past belief?"

"Past belief, you may well say," returned the other. "I believe not that Hernando Cortes himself, even in his dreams, hath had thought of what he was to find out here. As I said before, I have cut the old world for aye; my home is henceforth here in fairy-land."

"Well, well," retorted Velasquez, "that is stale news now. Thou'st said that same every time, the past weeks, that thou hast caught sight of bright blossoms, bright eyes, or a palm tree. What hast seen now of novelty?"

"Why, his new home on a moving island," said Montoro, laughing. "Have I not guessed right, Cabrera?"

"That hast thou," was the satisfied answer. "Trust thine eyes, my Toro, to see farther through a deal board than the very wood-worm itself. Thine eyes and thy voice make some amends to thy friends for thy long face and scruples."

"I hope he thanks thee for thy compliment," ejaculated Velasquez, with his more short-sighted eyes roving here, there, and everywhere meantime. "But I do wish thou couldst answer a comrade's civil question, instead of indulging in questionable flatteries. What meanest thou by moving islands?"

"Just what I say," replied Juan de Cabrera, as the group of men moved slowly on down the mountain road towards the vast plain of Mexico, his eyes for the time diverted from the proud island city of Tenochtitlan to the chinampas, or wandering islands, being propelled by their owners from one part of the lake to another, as trade or inclination prompted.

These chinampas might be regarded as the market-gardens of the capital. Originally they were nothing but masses of earth loosened from the shore by the action of the water, and held together by the fibrous roots of the various plants flourishing upon them. Gathering these into rafts, tightly knit together, of reeds and rushes, the Aztecs had made for themselves artificial islands two or three hundred feet in length, on which were grown the fruits and vegetables for Tenochtitlan.

Bright with luxuriant vegetation, graceful with little fruit-trees, and homelike with the pretty little wooden hut of the owner, these moving islands were a feature in the glorious landscape, quite sufficiently noteworthy to excuse Cabrera for letting his attention be diverted by them for a few minutes from more important objects. Even the warlike Velasquez was momentarily charmed into an amused pleasure with the novel sight.

"I tell thee what it is, Juan," he said, laughing. "Our General will thus have small trouble in rewarding his faithful followers with lands and homes. He has but to turn off a score or two of those redskin beggars yonder and put us on, and there we are."

"Yea, verily," exclaimed Montoro in a tone of indignant scorn. "There ye would be. Fresh examples of the base, thievish instincts of the Spanish nation."

Velasquez started forward with flashing eyes, and his sword half-drawn. But Cabrera dragged him back, muttering hurriedly--

"Nonsense, Leon. Thou mightest as well wish to fight that enthusiast, Bishop Las Casas, for taking the Indians' part, as this monk-soldier here. Let him be. He returns to Spain, he tells me, with the next despatches. See yonder. What is Hernando Cortes regarding thus intently?"

"Thy magic islands, perchance," was the reply.

But Cortes had no eyes just then for the mere prettinesses of the majestically-beautiful scene lying stretched out beneath his feet, nor even for the great volcano Popocatapetl towering above it all. His eyes were fixed upon the approaches to that great capital of the powerful empire of Mexico, within which he meant to rest that coming night. As he gazed upon the city, and its approaches, his face told nothing of the nature of his intent thought, but in his heart there was the full confession that his determination was one bold almost to madness.

On the east of Tenochtitlan there was no access but by water. On the other three sides the entrances were by causeways. That of Iztapalapan, built out from the mainland to the city, on the south. That of Tepejacac on the north, which, running through the heart of the city as its principal street, met the southern causeway. And lastly, the dike of Tlacopan, connecting the island city with the continent on the west.[10]

[Footnote 10: 'Hist. Conquest of Mexico,'--Prescott.]

This last causeway, which a short time hence Cortes and his companions were to have the bitterest reasons for remembering, was about two miles in length. All the three were built in the same substantial manner, of lime and stone, were defended by drawbridges, and were wide enough for ten or twelve horsemen to ride abreast.

"But still," as Cortes told himself in the secresy of his own heart, and as some of the more thoughtful of his men also told themselves as they now looked down upon it for the first time, "wide as that causeway was, some thousands of determined enemies upon it in their rear, the thousands of the great city's inhabitants driving them in front, that long causeway might well become the death-blow of them and their exalted hopes."

There was a few minutes' pause. Some would not unwillingly have heard the word of command for a retreat, while there was yet time. But that word did not come. As Cabrera had once said so Cortes always thought: "We must all die, and we can die but once."

The word of command was given to advance, and in no long time after, the army had reached the city of Iztapalapan, where it was finally determined to call a halt for the night, and make a first appearance before the Emperor at a more seasonable hour on the following day.

With the first streak of dawn of the 8th November, 1519, the Spanish general and his troops were astir. A lovely morning, the brilliant beams of the sun gradually fading into dimness the innumerable sacred fires of the assemblages of temples.

The whole city was visible to them. The wide-spreading palace of the Emperor, like a second palace of the Cæsars, comprising many homes, gardens of every description for plants and animals, and aviaries of the most gorgeous description, within the one circle. Then the great redstone mansions of the nobles, their roofs blooming like so many exquisite parterres of flowers. The neat dwellings of the poorer classes, of stone and unbaked bricks, here and there rudely adorned with crossbar wooden rafters. Everywhere gardens, streets perfectly kept and perfectly clean, and terraces.

The whole place was waking up now to a new day. All was gay with business and bustle. Canoes glancing swiftly up and down the canals, the streets crowded with people in their bright and picturesque costumes, fountains playing in courts adorned with porphyry and jasper. Stone footways, revenue offices, and numerous bridges, over which people were hurrying in all directions; whilst the enormous market was already becoming thronged with an animated company of many thousands of buyers and sellers, and commodities of all kinds, from slaves for work or sacrifice, down to pastry, sweets, and flowers. Cotton dresses and cloaks, curtains and coverlids, toys and jewellery of the most delicate and exquisite workmanship. Pottery stalls, graceful wood-carvings, helmets, quilted doublets, copperheaded lances and arrows, feather-mail, and the broad maquahuitl or Mexican sword, with its sharp blades of itztli. Itztli razors and mirrors, and barbers to use the razors and lend or sell the mirrors, hides raw and dressed, and live animals. Fish, game, poultry, and building materials. Flowers everywhere, and also, almost everywhere, in and out amongst the motley throngs, the royal officers of justice to keep the peace, collect the duties, and to see to weights and measures, and good faith and order generally.

This Empire of Mexico, and above all its heart, this fair city of Tenochtitlan, was decidedly no abode of savage ignorance, but rather the region of a civilization but very little lower in the scale than that of its conquerors. The deep astonishment and wonder they felt at the discovery is but reproduced in us, as we read of all these marvels. And the wonder in our minds must but be a hundred-fold increased as we remember that this great and far-advanced nation, was utterly conquered and overthrown by a handful of rough, half-taught adventurers!

Meantime, to return to these same adventurers, with no apology either for having given you Prescott's descriptions of this most astonishing Mexico almost word for word, as he, in his turn, has copied it from the letters of one of the very adventurers themselves who accompanied Cortes, that 8th of November morning over the south causeway into ancient Mexico.

On the causeway, at the distance of about half a league from the capital, the small army of conquest encountered a solid wall of stone twelve feet high stretching right across the dike, and strengthened by towers at the extremities. In the centre was a battlemented gate which was opened to admit the white-faced warriors.

"I confess," muttered Alvarado to Velasquez, who rode beside him, as those gates clanged to behind them, "I confess that I should not think him quite a craven among my brethren who should indeed, at this moment, show a real white-face for once."

Velasquez shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, it is true we have walked into the jaws of death. It but remains to see whether our Captain-General be a wedge strong enough to split them."

"Or, as our Diego yonder would say," returned the other, "to hold them open until we walk out again."

"Bah! for the walking out again," was the impatient reply. "Unless, forsooth, it be to leave but bare walls behind us. As the Lord's people of old had command to spoil the Egyptians, so I believe are we now ordained to spoil the heathen savages who imbrue their land with human sacrifices."

"Well," murmured Pedro de Alvarado thoughtfully, "I know not. But it is true, these hateful sacrifices have made even Diego himself grow somewhat cooler, methinks, in his desire to keep our fingers away from this Mexican pie."

At this point in the short conversation the Spanish expedition was met by a splendid cortege of several hundred Aztec chiefs, sent forward by their monarch, who had at length so far overcome his unwillingness to receive the dreaded strangers as to send these messengers with words of welcome to them, and to announce his own approach.

Having spent a somewhat tedious hour in ceremonious greetings, the route was continued over a drawbridge, accompanied by their brilliantly attired escort, each member of which evidently had studied the art of setting himself off to the best advantage, as well as any dainty Spanish cavalier at the Court of Madrid. At length there came in sight the glittering retinue of the Emperor, wending its stately course along the great, wide, central street towards the foreigners.

Amidst a crowd of Indian nobles, preceded by three officers of state bearing golden wands, was borne the royal palanquin, blazing with burnished gold, and canopied with brilliant feather work, powdered with jewels and fringed with silver.

Having advanced to within a few yards of the Spanish General, the palanquin was lowered, the intervening ground was spread with cotton carpetings; nobles, bare-footed, and with faces bent to the earth, lined the way, and the great monarch Montezuma, clothed with the girdle and ample national cloak of the finest embroidered cotton, stepped forth.

"Behold them!" softly ejaculated Cabrera, as the Emperor stepped to the ground, and the Spaniard's eyes were dazzled by the passing flash of the sandals' golden soles, and the glisten of emeralds and pearls with which their fastenings were beautified.

Montezuma, this monarch who had taught both friends and foes to tremble at his frown, was at this time about forty years of age, tall and slender. His hair, which was black and straight, and of a due length to become his rank, was crowned with a plume of feathers of the royal green, which waved above features marked by a considerable degree of thoughtful intelligence. He moved with dignity, and his whole bearing, tempered by an expression of benignity not to have been anticipated, from the reports of him that had hitherto reached the Spaniards' ears, proclaimed a great and worthy ruler among men.[11]

[Footnote 11: 'Hist. Conquest of Mexico,' vol. ii.--Prescott.]

Such courtly and dignified compliments were forthwith exchanged between the Aztec Emperor and the Spanish commander as might be expected between two such men, and then the Emperor was once more borne back to his palace, amid the homage of his prostrate subjects; while the Spaniards, with colours flying and music playing, were conducted by Montezuma's brother to the quarters assigned to them in the capital.

With royal hospitality the Emperor had devoted to the use of his visitors a splendid palace, built some fifty years before by his own father, and here he was waiting to receive them when they entered, and he completed the ceremony of welcome by hanging a superb and massy collar of golden ornaments around the neck of Hernando Cortes, or 'Malinche,' as with a touch of brotherly affection he now renamed him.

"This palace," he said, with the superb generosity he had already several times shown in the magnificence of the gifts to his 'Brother of Spain'--"This palace, Malinche, henceforth belongs to you and to your brethren. Rest after your fatigues, and in a little while I will visit you again."

So saying, with the most true tact and politeness, Montezuma withdrew, only to evince afresh his thought and kindness by forthwith sending his stranger guests a bountiful collation, and a tribe of obsequious and skilful Mexican slaves to serve it.

Having left his visitors ample leisure, both for feastings and for a few hours' quiet sleep, the Emperor's glittering palanquin once more made its appearance, amidst the fountains and flowers of the courtyard of their pleasant new quarters.

He did not depart this time until he had left behind him substantial proofs of his good-will. Suits of garments for every man of the small army, even including the hated Tlascalan allies, profusion of gold chains and other ornaments, and so many gracious expressions of face and voice, that he left even the most morose or prejudiced amongst the Spaniards deeply impressed with the munificence and affability of one whom they had been taught, by his enemies, to regard as a tyrannical and bloodthirsty monster.

The iron hearts of the rough adventurers were touched for once in their lives; and when, on the next day, they, in turn, visited Montezuma in his royal abode, they beguiled their return march with discourse on his gentle breeding and courtesy, and their new-born respect for this potentate of a new-found world.

Meantime Cortes was not quite so thoroughly satisfied with this new aspect of affairs as might, perhaps, be expected, or as were Montoro de Diego, Father Olmedo, and others of the gentler spirits of the expedition.

Cortes was bent on conquest, not compliments, and the strong position of the Indians and their immense numbers, combined with the growing good-will towards them, and respect of many of his own followers, inspired him with a sudden hurry, and most unusual feverish eagerness to bring matters to an issue.

As a first step to demonstrate his power he treated the inhabitants of the capital to a discharge of the artillery, which the poor terrified people regarded as powers wielded by the white-faces' very gods themselves.

But this was not enough for Cortes. He decided by one great theft, made at once, to gain a bloodless victory. He decided to steal from them their king.