CHAPTER IX.
A Ride to Popocatapetl.—The Village of Atlizco.—The old Man of Atlizco and the Inquisition.—A novel Mode of Escape.—An avenging Ghost.—The Vice-King Ravillagigedo.—The Court of the Vice-King and the Inquisition.—Ascent of Popocatapetl.—How a Party perished by Night.—The Crater and the House in it.—Descent into the Crater.—The Interior.—The Workmen in the Volcano.—The View from Popocatapetl.—The first White that climbed Popocatapetl.—The Story of Corchado.—Corchado converts the Volcano into a Sulphur-mine.
One of the first objects of interest in Mexico is the volcano of Popocatapetl. A stage runs from Puebla to Atlizco, but beyond that village the visitor must travel upon horseback. Atlizco is worthy of a special notice from its situation in a most fertile valley, and its peculiar location at the base of a conical hill. This hill, like every attractive locality in Mexico, is the scene of romantic traditions of the common people. From many, I select one illustration of the state of society in the times of the vice-kings.
There once was, the tradition runs in this village, an oldhidalgowho possessed a plantation in the immediate neighborhood of the town. His family consisted of himself and two daughters; and he was rich. Upon a certain time, one of those strolling monks, with whom the country abounds, chanced to offer an indignity to one of the daughters, and the old man chanced to return the indignity by inflicting upon the monk such a beating as never poor friar had yet received in the vice-kingdom—such a one as the feelings of an outraged father alone could justify. This was not the end of the matter; it was only the beginning of evil to the old man, as he well knew, for he had laid his hands upon one of the consecrated—one who had received the sacrament of "Holy Orders;" and, above all, he was rich enough to tempt the cupidity of the Inquisition, which always watched with jealous care over the orthodoxy of those whose estates, when confiscated, would add to "the greater glory of God," that is, to the treasury of the "Holy Office."
Guilty or not guilty, the old man had but one mode of escape, and that was by avoiding an arrest. To effect this object he resorted to a novel expedient. As soon as he heard that his accuser had started for Mexico, it was given out that the old man had suddenly died. A circumstance by no means thought remarkable, when it became known that he had assaulted a priest. As he had not yet been accused, his neighbors ventured to come to his funeral; and a coffin, with his name and age marked upon it, was decently buried in holy ground. The funeral fees, too, were secured before the estate was pounced upon by the familiars of the Inquisition. The daughters put on the deepest mourning, and hid themselves from the public gaze, among their relatives; for they had not only to endure the loss of home and estates, but were to be shunned as the accursed of God—the children of one dying while under the accusation of sacrilege. As for the Inquisition, its officials did not care to investigate the question of the decease, for it had reaped all the benefit it might hope for from his conviction—"The Holy Office" had become his heir.
THE OLD MAN OF ATLIZCO.
Strange appearances and stranger noises after a time were heard about the cave that is said to be in the top of the hill of Atlizco, and sometimes a ghost had been seen wandering about the hill by certain benighted villagers; and one time, when the accusing monk was returning rather later than usual from a drunken revel, this ghost who had now become the town-talk, chanced to fall in with him, and to give him such a beating as few living men could inflict, and then disappeared. Still there was no earthquake, and the sun rose and set as though no injury had been done to a priest.
Time wore its slow course along, without any important incident occurring in this matter, until the reputation of the new Virey, Ravillagigedo, reached Atlizco. Shortly thereafter there appeared at the vice-royal palace in the city of Mexico an old man, who related in a private audience the story of his griefs and of his misfortunes, and insisted that, in striking "the Lord's priest," he had no intention of committing an act of impiety, but that the feelings of a father had overcome him in an unguarded moment, and induced him to avenge an attempt made to dishonor his daughter. The story of the old man touched the Virey, who had a manly heart wrapped up in a forbidding exterior. But it was a delicate undertaking even for a vice-king to attempt to wrest a rich estate out of the clutches of the "Holy Office" without himself being suspected of heresy, or of disloyalty to the Church. Yet Ravillagigedo was never at a loss for expedients when justice was to be done or the oppressed relieved. The best advice, however, that he could give the old man was to hide himself again, and to send his daughters to Mexico to accuse the monk.
Upon a set day, the vice-king was found arrayed in state, surrounded by a council of Inquisitors, before whom the daughters, in the deepest mourning, presented themselves as the accusers of the profligate monk. They stated, with an artless simplicity which could not fail to convince, the story of the wrongs the monk had done them. The Inquisitors, sitting in the presence of the incorruptible Virey, could not, for very shame, do otherwise than declare unanimously that the monk, and not the old man, was worthy of the censure of the Church.
"Then let us wipe away the stain that rests upon the fair fame of these ladies as daughters of one dying suspected, by decreeing their father's innocence," said the Virey.
This being assented to, the record of the old man's innocence was made up, and, when duly attested by the Inquisitors, was handed to the daughters. A door was at this moment opened, and there entered into the august presence a gray-headed old man, to whom the daughters presented the record. The old man, when he had received the record, advanced, and, bowing humbly, made confession of his fault. It was a bitter pill for the "Holy Office" thus to be tricked into the performance of a common act of justice, and in this way to lose a valuable estate. From this time onward, it is said that Inquisitors were never known to hold court with a Virey.
ASCENT OF POPOCATAPETL.
At Atlizco horses must be procured for the journey up the mountain, for beyond this point there is no carriage-road. I here follow the verbal narrative of Mr. Frank Kellott, the artist of whom I have already made mention, as I dared not venture where bleeding of the lungs is produced by the rarity of the atmosphere and by the fatigue.
"The company consisted of Mr. Corchado, the proprietor, Mr. Munez, a neighboring gentleman, three ladies, and myself, all on horseback. Sixteen Indians had been sent forward on foot early in the morning, with all the conveniences to make the trip a safe and agreeable one. The party went cheerfully up the mule-road that leads to the mountain rancho of Zacopalco, one of the highest inhabited points upon our globe. The soil upon the mountain, composed of volcanic mud, yields such rich grasses, that almost at the upper edge of the timber there is a milk-house (lecheria), where a cattleherd, if caught out at night, may find a shelter. The inner man being well cared, for at the rancho, we journeyed on, following the path that led us through a tangled mass of trees and plants, and amongbarrancaswhose sides were covered with pines. The timber grew shorter and more stunted as we proceeded, until, at the height of 12,544 feet, the pines entirely disappeared. A little farther on, at an elevation of 12,692 feet, we were at the limit of vegetation. After journeying a league or so over the yielding sand mixed with sharp stones, twelve of our Indians and our horses gave out. From this point for a little way farther, our party proceeded on foot, with the four remaining servants.
"We had gone only a little way farther when two of our fair companions also gave out, and we sent them back to the rancho with the returning horses and the fatigued servants, for there was now no time for delay, if we intended to reach the summit that day. The third lady went bravely on, and would probably have enjoyed the honor of being the first woman that had ever ascended Popocatapetl, had it not been for the unfortunate arrangement she had made in her wardrobe. Instead of putting on the pantaloons, orbloomers, she had added extra skirts by way of precaution against the cold; so that when she had climbed about 3000 feet over volcanic sand and loose stones, she gave out from fatigue and the bruises she had received in her numerous falls. It was a painful effort even for those of us who had noskirtsto impede us to get on; and it was imprudent for her to proceed farther, for the icicles would be in her way as much as the sand and stones; for these icicles were like spikes projecting upward from the rocks, and between which we should have to place our feet and pick our way as best we could without falling upon them. In this state of things there was no alternative, and we were reluctantly obliged to dissuade her from farther effort, and to consign her over to the kind attentions of three more of our Indians, who had given out, to conduct her down the mountain.
"Unfortunately, one of the last three Indians sent back had in his pocket all the chocolate, an article almost indispensable to the comfort of a party climbing a high mountain, and, unconscious of our loss, we continued our way until it was too late to remedy this loss. The basaltic rock which we had now reached was covered with the icicles which I have described, and we found no little difficulty in placing our feet between them, and guiding ourselves with the iron-pointed sticks which had been furnished us; while the dizziness caused by looking back upon the world we had left behind added to our troubles.
"Mr. Corchado, to draw off our attention from our own hardships, related to us the story of the death of six of his workmen, who undertook to make the journey down the mountain by night. Each of them had a load of stolen brimstone on his head. The day after this rash and criminal attempt, their dead bodies were found in such a situation as to indicate plainly the manner of their death. Stiffened with the intense cold, and impeded by their heavy burdens, they had stumbled in the darkness, and had fallen upon the sharp ice. One had his cheek pierced, and the others had divers wounds and bruises marked upon them as they lay frozen in death. The story of these unfortunates was not calculated to inspire us with very pleasant reflections, in case the weather should change while we were on the mountain.
A NIGHT UPON THE SUMMIT.
"We climbed on, having reached the basaltic rock at an elevation of 16,805 feet, and with exhausting labor we traveled upon it until toward evening, when we came to that immense yawning abyss, the crater. The mouth was about three miles in circumference, of a very irregular form. Into this we entered, and soon arrived at the house which was to be our lodging for the night. This house was a curiosity in its way; as it was not built like any other house, and could not be, on account of the rarity of the atmosphere at this elevation of 17,125 feet, and the impossibility of obtaining sufficient oxygen, in a closed room, to feed combustion. It was therefore built in the form of a miniature volcano. There was an outside and an inside wall, of a circular form, the outside wall sloping inwardly, and the inside wall, which rested on pillars, sloping outwardly, until it met the outside wall. The fire was built in the open court, in the centre of the building, and the party sat under the arches and warmed themselves. The night that we were there, the perverse smoke took the same direction as the heated air, and filled the whole inside to suffocation, so that our condition was most disagreeable, notwithstanding the arrangements that Mr. Corchado had made in his own apartment for the comfort of his guests, for the reflection of the sun on the snow had thrown a film over our eyes, in spite of our green vails. Our stomachs were nauseated at this giddy height, and, though we had almost every other kind of eatable and drinkable, our appetites craved only chocolate, which we could not obtain. Our heads were dizzy, and our limbs were weary, and we lay down in a dense smoke to try to sleep.
DESCENT INTO THE CRATER.
"Morning came to our relief, and with it the film had passed from our eyes. We looked up to the top of the mountain above us, and then down into that fearful abyss into which we were soon to descend. We could eat no breakfast, and could drink no coffee, and so we were soon ready for our day's journey. We followed a narrow footpath until we reached a shelf, where we were seated in a skid, and let down by a windlass 500 feet or so, to a landing-place, from which we clambered downward to a second windlass and a second skid, which was the most fearful of all, because we were dangling about without any thing to steady ourselves, as we descended before the mouth of one of those yawning caverns, which are called the 'breathing-holes' of the crater. They are so called from the fresh air and horrid sounds that continually issue from them. But we shut our eyes and clung fast to the rope, as we whirled round and round in mid air, until we reached another landing-place about 500 feet lower. From this point we clambered down, as best we could, until we came among the men digging up cinders, from which sulphur, in the form of brimstone, is made.
"We took no measurements within the crater, and heights and distances here can only be given by approximation. We only know that all things are on a scale so vast that old Pluto might here have forged new thunder-bolts, and Milton's Satan might have here found the material for his sulphurous bed. All was strange, and wild, and frightful.
"We crawled into several of the 'breathing holes,' but nothing was there except darkness visible. The sides and bottom were, for the most part, polished by the molten mass, which had cooled in passing through them; and if it had not been for the ropes around our waist, we should have slipped and fallen we knew not whither. We almost fancied that, in the moving currents of air, we heard the wailings of the lost in the great sulphurous lake below. The stones we threw in were lost to sound unless they hit upon a projecting rock, and fell from shelf to shelf. The deep darkness was fearful to contemplate. The abyss looked as though it might be the mouth of the bottomless pit. What must have been the effect when each one of these 'breathing holes' was vomiting liquid fire and sulphur into the basin in which we stood? How immeasurable must be that lake whose overflowings fill such cavities as this! It is when standing in such a place that we get the full force of the figures used by the Scriptures in illustrating the condition of the souls that have perished forever.
"Let us turn from great to smaller things—to witness the labors of the men who work, and eat, and often sleep in the volcano. Some are digging sulphur and placing it in baskets, while others are waiting to carry it upon their heads up the side of the crater. Others, again, out of our sight far up the mountain, are working at the oven, when the weather is clear, and there is no cloud between them and the sun, as it is only in the finest weather that men can work upon the top, or carry burdens to the hacienda. When the weather is fine, all the works are in full operation, and good profits are realized by furnishing brimstone for the manufacture of sulphuric acid.
"We are at the top once more; and now that our eyesight, which we lost in climbing the mountain, is restored to us, we will take a view of the lower world. Looking toward the west, every object glows in the brightness of the rising sun, except where the mountain casts its vast shadow even across the valley of Toluca. How strangely diminished now are all familiar objects that are visible! The pureness of the medium through which things are seen presents distant objects with great distinctness, but it will not present them in their natural size, for it can not change the angle of vision. The villages upon the table-land were apparently pigmy villages, inhabited by pigmy men and pigmy women, surrounded with pigmy cattle, and garrisoned by pigmy soldiery. It is, by an optical illusion, Liliput in real life. Had the English satirist placed himself where we now stood, he would have more than realized the picture which his fancy painted. He might have seen the marshaled hosts of Liliput marching to the beat of drum, in the proud array of war.
"If you wish to see all the sights, you must walk around the mountain, and look down its steepest side, where there is no table-land, into the 'hot country.' The distance is so vast, the descent so steep, that an inexperienced climber suffers from dizziness. If you climb to the very summit, 250 feet above the mouth of the crater, you will find more surface about you. But it is a point where few can desire to remain long, or to visit it a second time."
THE SULPHUR MINE.
In Cortéz's letters to the Emperor we read as follows: "As for sulphur, I have already made mention to your Majesty of a mountain in this province from which, smoke issues; out of it sulphur has been taken by a Spaniard, who descended seventy or eighty fathoms by means of a rope attached to his body below his arms; from which source we have been enabled to obtain sufficient supplies, although it is attended with danger. It is hoped that it will not be necessary for us to resort [again] to this means of procuring it." ... "As the Indians told us that it was dangerous to ascend, and fatal to those who made the attempt, I caused several Spaniards to undertake it, and examine the character of the summit. At the time they went up, so much smoke proceeded from it, accompanied by noises, that they were either unable or afraid to reach its mouth. Afterward I sent up some other Spaniards, who made two attempts, and finally reached the aperture of the mountain whence the smoke issued, which was two bow-shots wide, and about three fourths of a league in circumference, where they discovered some sulphur which the smoke deposited."[14](Bernal Diaz says that the crater was perfectly round, a mile in diameter.—Vol. i. p. 186.) During one of their visits they heard a tremendous noise, followed by smoke, when they made haste to descend; but before they reached the middle of the mountain there fell around them a heavy shower of stones, from which they were in no little danger.
In or about the year 1850, Corchado, an active and enterprising white man, had become a favorite with the Indians at the foot of the mountain, who proposed to him that he should accompany them when they again undertook one of their expeditions into the volcano, which of late had been very frequent. This was a proposition that exactly accorded with his adventurous character. Accordingly, on an appointed day, he appeared at the rendezvous, with a rope, a piece of sail-cloth, and an iron bar. Thus provided, the party, which was a large one, started up the mountain, but one by one they gave out, until only Corchado and a single Indian arrived at the mouth of the crater. Here, unfortunately, Corchado fainted from the loss of blood and fatigue; and the Indian, not knowing what better to do, covered him with the sail-cloth, and then started down the mountain for assistance. In a short time he revived under the sail-cloth, and from his dangerous position he drew himself into the volcano, that he might not perish from cold outside. He descended as far as the shelf, and, looking over into the abyss, he found himself so refreshed by the atmosphere of the volcano that he brought down the bar, sail-cloth, and rope, determining to pass the approaching night at the bottom of the volcano. When he had fixed his bar and rope, the relieving party arrived, and all descended, one by one, upon the rope to a point where they passed the night in safety.
Corchado, on his return, gathered up some of the scoria and carried it to Puebla, when it was found to contain so large a percentage of sulphur as to warrant its 'denouncement' as a sulphur-mine. Capital was procured at Puebla sufficient to set up the rude apparatus we have already described, by means of which a very handsome profit on the adventure was realized. But, owing to a lawsuit, in which the affair was at that time (1852) involved, no effort had yet been made to pierce the mountain, or to explore a passage through some vent or fissure. A good path had been made up the mountain, and in the month of May it was considered quite a safe undertaking to visit these sulphur-works.
CHAPTER X.
Texas.—Battle of Madina.—First Introduction of Americans into Texas.—Usurpation of Bustamente.—Texas owed no Allegiance to the Usurper.—The good Faith of the United States in the Acquisition of Louisiana and Texas.—Santa Anna pronounces against Bustamente.—Santa Anna in Texas.—A Mexican's Denunciation of the Texan War.—His Idea of our Revolution,—He complains of our grasping Spirit.—The right of the United States to occupy unsettled Territory.—A few more Pronunciamientos of Santa Anna.—The Adventures of Santa Anna to the present Date.
We must resume again the narrative of historical events, in order better to set forth the condition of the country through which we are traveling.
Texas is a turning-point in the history of Mexico. Captain Don Alonzo de Leon, in the year 1689,[15]by command of the Vice-King of New Spain, took formal possession of Texas, in the name of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain. Afterward a few military and missionary settlements were commenced, with indifferent success, as the Indians were of a less docile character than those of the southern provinces. They were ever restive under the yoke of spiritual taskmasters, so that the feeble missions and presidios had only a sickly existence down to the time of the breaking out of the civil wars of Mexico.
We have already noticed the statement that, in the year 1819, a Mexican general routed at the River Madina a party of 3000 men, who were on their way to join the Mexican insurgents. The above number is somewhat improbable; say there were 500, which would be about as many as could well be mustered at that early period for a filibustering expedition at New Orleans.
In 1820 Moses Austin applied to the Spanish authorities, and obtained from them the right to settle a certain number of families in Texas. He died soon after, and his son Stephen obtained a confirmation of the grant, or, rather, a new grant, from the authorities established at Mexico under the Federal Constitution of 1824. Under that constitution Texas was annexed to Coahuila, and, together with it, was formed into the united state of Coahuila and Texas. From the authorities of this state divers other Americans obtained grants of land under the provisions of the colonization law of the Mexican Congress of the year 1824. From this time all things went smoothly on, and the grantees were busily engaged in introducing the number of families which were stipulated for in the said law, and in the grants made under it, when the Spanish armada landed at Tampico.
DOWNFALL OF BUSTAMENTE.
In consequence of the great dangers threatening the country, Congress had conferred dictatorial powers upon the President of the Republic, Vincente Guerrero. By virtue of his dictatorship, he had invested the Vice-president of the Republic, Bustamente, with the command of an army of reserve, which he established at Jalapa. As soon as the Spanish army had capitulated to Santa Anna, Bustamente put forth apronunciamiento, and, marching to the city of Mexico, he deposed the President, whom he afterward caused to be cruelly put to death. Having now, by means of a successful military insurrection, possessed himself of the executive power, he proceeded by violent means to overturn, one by one, the governments of the individual states. In this war against the states he was also successful, except in the most distant one, that of Coahuila and Texas.
Texas clearly owed no allegiance to the usurper Bustamente. It was an independent state in all respects, excepting those powers it had conceded to the general government by adopting the Federal Constitution. The subversion of this Constitution reinstated Texas as an independent republic. It owed no farther allegiance to Mexico. Texas might at once have applied for admission into our Union, or have asked to be annexed to any other foreign state, pleading not only her inherent right to do so, but the excessive cruelties that Bustamente inflicted on those state authorities that opposed his usurpations.
The learned and eloquent General Tornel, distinguished alike as a statesman and a soldier, from whose popular history we have below made a brief extract, in pleading the cause of his country, charges bad faith against the United States in the acquisition of both Louisiana and Texas, but in both arguments he fails to make out a case. By the treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, France acquired an imperfect title to Louisiana; by the treaty of Paris in 1803, she conveyed all her title to the United States. But, before the United States would pay over any money on account of the treaty of 1803, she required Spain to confirm the treaty of San Ildefonso by putting France into the actual possession of Louisiana. This being done, and not till it was done, did the United States pay over the $15,000,000 stipulated as the purchase money. The dispute with Spain about boundaries was settled by the treaty for the acquisition of Florida, in 1819, which established boundaries that were confirmed in a subsequent treaty with Mexico. Thus far, certainly, there was no breach of faith.
On the night of January 3d, 1832, the garrison of Vera Cruzpronouncedagainst the usurping government of Bustamente, which was then suffering dreadfully from the want of funds. A delegation was sent the same night to Santa Anna, who had been in retirement at his estate ofManga de Clavosince the murder of his friend, President Guerrero. This fourth insurrection was prosecuted with varying success for several months, but was finally terminated by the capitulation of Bustamente at Puebla, and the recalling of Pedraza from banishment in the United States, to serve out the few months that remained of his term of office as President.
In 1832 Santa Anna was elected successor to Pedraza as President of the Federal Republic of Mexico. Texas had now of right the option of returning into the family of Mexican States, or of maintaining her separate existence; but she was under no obligation to return, for, the confederacy having been once broken up, it was optional with the only member that had not submitted to the usurper to re-enter this unreliable family, or to continue outside. This election was not long open; for, by thepronunciamientoof Toluca (1835), the Federal Constitution was again abolished, and Santa Anna became dictator in fact, if not in name. The clergy were at the bottom of this last revolution, and they demanded, as the price of their support, the extirpation of heresy from the territory of the Republic. This meant the indiscriminate slaughter of all Texans. Santa Anna, who, in all his previous wars, had never shown a disposition to be cruel to the vanquished, was so dazzled with the prospects before him as to be willing to make the slaughter of the Alamo and of Fannin's division an offering to a priesthood who were plotting for the restoration of the Inquisition. The battle of San Jacinto was, in its consequences, more disastrous to the designs of the ecclesiastical party than even to Santa Anna himself.
MEXICAN VIEW OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
Let me stop in my narrative of events to translate a Mexican's eloquent denunciation of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is from the pen of General Tornel, a most uncompromising enemy of that race and of its religion. Thus he opens his account of the Texan difficulty:
"In order to understand what we to-day (1852) are, and what we to-day value, it is indispensable to discover, and to perpetuate the history of one of the greatest scandals of the age—all of its antecedents, all of its consequences, all that can aid in coming to knowledge of this greatest act of injustice of which the Mexican nation has been the victim.
"Those who cross the sea change their skies, but not their nature. The Anglo-Saxons abandoned their country from physical and moral necessities, and on account of their political and religious quarrels. Transporting themselves to the virgin forests of America, they brought with them the characteristics of Northmen; they were distinguished for sobriety, laboriousness, and industry; for ardor in their enterprises; for constancy, and for that spirit of adventure which subjugates all by the right of conquest. They leveled all obstacles by the vigor of their arm and the sweat of their brow, and from their successes has arisen the hope of acquiring every thing by the inspiration of their talents and the force of their genius.
"The English, of whom John Cabot was a compatriot, came by the northern route [to America], and discovered an immense country, whose rivers are the grandest, whose forests appear to be antediluvian, whose lakes would be called seas in Europe; with harbors on an extensive coast which rival the greatest in the world. It has a soil suited to every purpose of agriculture. In short, it has facilities for all enterprises, and for raising the material of a productive commerce sufficient to establish advantageous relations with the Old World, and for creating an independent society; for supplying its necessities; for making its condition enviable; for rivaling the power, the influence, and the destinies of its parent country.
"The country which they discovered they found scarcely inhabited, although here and there wandered some tribes without social organization, without government, without the power of concentration, even to the extent which numbers give to savages. They [the colonists] early learned that they could establish their dominion without resistance, and that they could extend it as far as they could open the country with the ax of the active colonist, who considered himself the heir of undiscovered wealth, which would result from an inevitable destiny. The colonies which were established along the coast, and those which were formed in the interior, increased, as increases the gentle rill in its onward course by uniting with other rills and with rivers, until, becoming one vast torrent, it precipitates itself into the ocean. The colonies of Tyre, of Carthage, or Rome were never comparable with the Anglo-American colonies, who appropriated to themselves, in less than a century, regions more extended than the half of Europe.
"The observer of the providential destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race in America notices that the emancipation of the thirteen American colonies, which constituted so many states and an independent nation, instead of being the result of the alleged political grievances, was rather the impulsive force of expansion, which encountered insuperable obstacles while the states were colonies subordinate to a European nation. They were retarded in their advances by relations and compromises with other nations. The Anglo-Saxon, when translated to the wilds of America, needed only a stopping-place in order to found a peculiar and exclusive polity, which should enable him to march ever onward in his aggressions and usurping institutions.
"The United States of America lost no time in making themselves powerful; a nation rich in its industry, enviable in its commerce, respectable in its social organization, which are so favorable to the advancement of the condition of man. When the government had regulated, with great prudence and wisdom, the interior system of the states, it placed itself upon the watch for the compromised circumstances of embarrassed European states that possessed colonies on the American continent. Some of these colonies were contiguous to the limits which the United States had acquired definitely by the treaty of peace of 1783. In order to augment, at the expense of her neighbors, her possessions, already immense, and not yet well populated, she set about acquiring territory by astuteness, by cunning, by violence, and also by justifiable means, when such were available. Spain first, and Mexico afterward, have been her victims; and to-day these rich and powerful states display the spoils, for such they are in reality, which they have wrested from us. Such are the people that already rival those nations of Europe whose territories are the most extensive, and whose commerce is spread over all the seas."
WEAKNESS OF THE SPANISH TITLE.
My limits will not permit me to follow General Tornel through his statement of the manner in which Louisiana, Florida, and Texas were acquired, and to notice his complaints of the injustice committed by the Americans in all these acquisitions. He loses sight of the fact that Spain had no title to her possessions in America but that of discovery, and that very doubtful claim had not, in a period of 300 years, been strengthened by actual settlement. Three or four dilapidated mud forts, and as many more feeble missions, constituted the sum total of the Spanish possession of Texas; and settlements scarcely worthy of the name in the other northern departments constituted all the title that Spain could put forth to those countries; while the right of Mexico was as much weaker, as Mexico was a weaker power than Spain, and morally incapable of settling the disputed territory. The claim of the United States was the necessity for land in which to settle her population, which was so rapidly augmenting by foreign immigration. Once in ten years she requires a portion of the wild land nominally belonging to Mexico, and once in ten years she must take it.
SANTA ANNA.
In 1836, while Santa Anna was a prisoner in Texas, Bustamente, then in banishment in Europe, was elected President by the same party that had chosen Santa Anna as Dictator. In 1838, the government having incurred the hostility of France, Vera Cruz was blockaded for several months, during which time a night foray was made into the town by a party of French sailors, headed by the Prince de Joinville. On their return, they were pursued by Santa Anna to the Mole, where they stopped farther pursuit by discharging a cannon, which deprived Santa Anna of one of his legs, and effectually wiped out the recollections of his unfortunate Texan campaign. In 1841, the government being no longer able to raise funds at two per cent. a month, the Minister of War, Valencia, pronounced against Bustamente in the citadel of Mexico. The result was, that Santa Anna was again elevated to supreme power, according to the plan of Tacubaya, and the interpretation he put on that plan. In 1843 a slight change was made in the Constitution, but he remained in power until 1845, when, having left the capital to put down the insurrection of Paredes, Congress declared against him. Herrera was appointed President, and Santa Anna was imprisoned for a while in the castle of Perote, and finally banished from the country. In 1847 he was recalled by the Federal party, with the consent of President Polk, and became the chief support of the war, notwithstanding his totally inadequate means for organizing a successful defense. When the defense could no longer be protracted, he left the city by night, and retired to the West Indies, and afterward to Carthagena, where he remained until he was recalled in 1852, and again restored to supreme authority.
We may sum up the politico-military life of Santa Anna by saying that he has been engaged in eightpronunciamientos. Five of these have been made by himself; three by others, for his benefit. Twice he has been chosen President by the Federal party of the Federal Republic of Mexico. Three times he has been made President by the Central, or Ecclesiastical party. He has been twice banished from Mexico, and each time recalled again and placed at the head of affairs. He has twice been taken prisoner, when his captors held long consultations upon the propriety of putting him to death. He has, in turn, been the candidate of all parties, and has served all parties faithfully in turn, but most faithfully of all he has served himself. Actively engaged through life as a politician and a soldier, he has found time to readjust the whole complicated system of Mexican laws, and, in a series of volumes of autocratic decrees, he has drawn from that chaotic mass a new system of jurisprudence, that will stand as a monument of his genius as long as the Mexican nation shall continue.
CHAPTER XI.
From Puebla to Mexico.—The Dread of Robbers.—The Escort—Tlascala.—The Exaggerations of Cortéz and Bernal Diaz.—The Truth about Tlascala.—The Advantages of Tlascala to Cortéz.—Who was Bernal Diaz.—Who wrote his History.—First View of Mexico.
At early twilight, two stage-loads of passengers, drawn rapidly by twelve wild horses through the now deserted streets of Puebla, approached the gate that opened out upon the road to Mexico. The rattle of the wheels and the clatter of so many hoofs had awakened the gatekeeper, and at our approach the ponderous portals that inclosed the city by night flew open, and away we whirled out into the beautiful vega of Puebla.
In times of civil disorder, this is a fine field for robbers to ply their vocation in; and even now, when all was quiet, there was no little apprehension of a visit from these sovereigns of the road. The passengers had noticed my unmistakable Anglo-Saxon name, as it was called at the stage-door, and, when I had taken my seat, an elegant, long Colt's revolver was passed to me by a passenger in full uniform. Such is one of the advantages that a traveler enjoys who belongs to a race of men of acknowledged courage—an advantage that enabled we to travel alone across the continent without encumbering myself with a weapon; for, where all supposed me fully armed, and skilled in the use of weapons by instinct, I found it convenient to go unarmed. Upon the present occasion, I did not wish to raise a smile of incredulity by protesting that I had never fired a pistol in my life, so I quietly consented to play the part of hero.
By displaying my weapon carelessly in my hand when we stopped to take coffee at Saint Martin's, I procured a seat upon the outside, which had been refused me at Puebla.
Our escort consisted of a body of six lancers, who, standing at the roadside, saluted us as we passed, and then rode after us at the top of their speed. Poor fellows! they found it hard riding to keep up with the coach. It was some consolation for them to see a man seated on the top of the stage with a Colt's pistol, even if he did not know how to use it, and for once they rode out their beat without getting frightened at their shadows. As the robbers were as great cowards as themselves, whether the man on the box was really a fire-eater or not, it answered the same purpose. These stage-guards are heroes in their way; they always come when the road appears the safest, and never fail to ask for charity, but invariably leave you just as the coach approaches a thicket. A few days ago, this guard caught a fellow on the road whom they believed to be a robber, and hung him with a pocket-handkerchief.
REPUBLIC OF TLASCALA.
We are now passing the borders of that famous Indian republic, of the high table-land, which shut out despotism by a lofty wall,[16]and was so completely isolated in the times of Montezuma that its people could obtain no foreign products, not even cotton or salt;[17]whose food was the maize which they cultivated, and the game which they caught upon the snow-capped mountains; whose clothing was made from the maguey, and from skins of animals taken in the chase; a people whose government was a council of elders, which was presided over by an hereditary chief; whose political institutions have been the study and admiration of the learned of many lands. That is, in plain English, they were an ordinary tribe of North American savages, obtaining their living, as other Indians did then and do now, by the cultivation of Indian corn and hunting, having the same crude form of government that is common to all the savage tribes of North America. They gloried in their savage notions of independence, and submitted only to the merest shadow of authority. They had not yet reached that point of social organization at which the loose government of savages gives way to the despotism of the next stage of advancement, which we shall callbarbarism. The difference between the Tlascalans and the Aztecs was the same difference that exists between the North American savages, who live in underground wigwams,[18]and the barbarous tribes of the interior of Africa, that live in cities of mud huts above the ground, and who yield a slavish obedience to a half-naked emperor, who sits or squats upon an ox-hide in a mud palace, exercising the power of life and death, according to his momentary caprice, upon thousands of trembling slaves. The concentrated power and wealth of a whole tribe is in single hands, and is made available for conquest and for the sensual enjoyment of a single individual. Savages can only act in concert when all are agreed, hence councils are their governing power, and the orator has as much influence among them as the successful warrior; but when they have advanced a step, and power has become concentrated, the orator becomes silent, and the war-chief is the government.
I had read with avidity the histories of Mexico, and gave to them implicit credence, until I stood upon the Indian mound of Cholula, and searched in vain for the least vestige of that magnificent city of 40,000 houses, which, only 300 years ago, was in the height of its prosperity; and though it is not in the power of man, in the space of a thousand years, wholly to obliterate the traces of a great city, yet not a vestige of the Cholula of Cortéz can now be found. As I followed up the investigation, I soon discovered that not a vestige of any of the cities that entered into the alliance with Cortéz can now be found. Not a vestige exists even of the old city of Mexico, except the calendar and sacrificial stones, of which I shall speak hereafter.
CORTÉZ AND BERNAL DIAZ.
Cortéz says that a dry stone wall, nine feet high, inclosed Tlascala from mountain to mountain, through which he entered between overlapping semicircles of the wall. He says that he was attacked first by an army of 6000 Indians, then by an army of 100,000 on one day, and on the next by 149,000. He says farther, "I attacked another place, which was so large that it contained, according to an examination I caused to be made, more than 20,000 houses." Of the capital of Tlascala, he says, "It is larger than Granada, and much stronger, and contains as many fine houses and a much larger population than that city did at the time of its capture."
A comparison of the statements of Bernal Diaz and those of Cortéz will cast some discredit upon the narrative of the former. The stout old chronicler cuts down the 100,000 Indians in the second battle to 50,000, and makes no mention of the third great action, in which 149,000 Indians were said by Cortéz to have been engaged. Here is another comparison:
"There is," says Cortéz, "in this city [Tlascala], a market, in which every day 30,000 people are engaged in buying and selling, besides many other merchants who are scattered about the city. The market contains a great variety of articles, both of food and clothing, and all kinds of shoes for the feet, jewels of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and ornaments of feathers; all as well arranged as they possibly can be found in any public square in the world."[19]
Now see the difference between this great Munchausen and his professed apologist and companion, the writer of Bernal Diaz, who was familiar with the suppressed manuscript of Las Casas, and makes quotations from it. "The elder Xicotencotl," says Bernal Diaz, "now informed Cortéz that it was the general wish of the inhabitants to make him a present, if agreeable to him. Cortéz answered that he should at all times be most happy to receive one; they accordingly spread some mats on the floor, and over them a few cloaks, upon which they arranged five or six pieces of gold, a few articles of trifling value, and several parcels of manufacturednequen—altogether a poor present, and not worth twenty pesos (dollars). The caziques, on presenting these things to Cortéz, said to him, 'Malinche! we can easily imagine that you will not exactly experience much joy on receiving a present of such wretched things as these; but we have told you before that we are poor—possessing neither gold nor other riches, as the deceitful Mexicans, with their present monarch, Montezuma, have, by degrees, despoiled us of every thing we had. Do not look to the small value of these things, but accept them in all kindness, and as coming from your faithful friends and servants.' These presents were, at the same time, accompanied by a quantity of provisions."[20]
THE TRUTH ABOUT TLASCALA.
Thus, according to Cortéz, the Tlascalans dwelt in cities rivaling the most polished and commercial cities of Europe; according to Diaz, they were so poor that they were unable to make a present worth twenty dollars! Cortéz gives a view of "a large wall of dry stone, about nine feet in height, which extends across the valley from one mountain to the other: it was twenty feet in thickness, surmounted throughout its whole extent by a breastwork a foot and a half thick, to enable them to fight from the top of the wall." Diaz says, "We came to an enormous intrenchment, built so strongly of stone, lime, and a kind of hard bitumen, that it would only have been possible to break it down by means of pick-axes."[21]Such a wall, or the vestiges of it, would last for thousands of years; for it is not in the destructive power of man wholly to obliterate it, and yet I have been utterly unable to find even a ruin, and I verily believe the whole of this Chinese wall is a fiction.
Tlascala is an Indian reservation of an oval shape, sixty-nine miles long by forty-two miles wide. Its climate is cold. Its soil is not remarkably good. It has had its independent government since the time of Cortéz. Its means of subsistence have been increased, and extensive manufactories have been established. The only enumeration ever made of its inhabitants was in 1793, when it was found to contain 51,177 souls. In the extravagant official estimate of last year, its population is set down at 80,171.[22]Cortéz says that Tlascala contained a population of 500,000 inhabitants, according to a report made by his orders. We have here our historians within metes and bounds, between mountains and stone walls; a perfect non-intercourse established with all the world; all foreign means of supply cut off, and the Indians dependent for subsistence upon their own rude cultivation of maize. My readers may call me extravagant if I should say that Tlascala probably contained about 10,000 inhabitants in the time of Cortéz, and could therefore, in an emergency, produce 1000 warriors. A greater number than this would be contrary to the laws of population. I might here stop and call hard names, but it is not my purpose to "bring a railing accusation" against any. My only duty is to place evidence before the reader, and then let him judge how much reliance is to be placed upon any historical statements that have been trimmed and modified to suit the purposes of the Spanish Inquisition.
The quick wit of Cortéz early discovered that Tlascala was a great natural fortress, and that he could make it the centre and base of his operations in the wars he was contemplating against the different Indian tribes of the table-land. The hatred borne against the Mexicans by the Tlascalans assured him of their co-operation against Montezuma. Hence the Tlascalans were especially favored. They shared with him in all the perils of his enterprise, and in the plunder gathered from the conquered tribes; for with them rested the question whether he should succeed, and be hailed as the hero of a holy war, or should be branded as a buccaneer, robber, and enslaver. And when, in course of time, the Indian element became the ruling power, curses loud and deep were muttered against the enslaver of the Indians, and the Tlascalans came in for their share of imprecations.
CENSORSHIP OF HISTORICAL BOOKS.
But who was Bernal Diaz? This would be a strange question to ask in a country where there was liberty of speech and liberty of the press, but in Spain the censorship was not only repressive, but it was "suggestive." It not only suppressed the writings of authors, but compelled them to father productions that were the very opposite of those they wished to publish. Take the case of poor Sahagun, who wrote a refutation of the historian of the conquest, under the pretense of giving the Indian account of that event: when his book was finally allowed to see the light, after a delay of many years, it was found that his own account of the conquest had been suppressed, and the regular Spanish account had been substituted. Of Las Casas's "Apology for the Indians,"[23]which had occupied thirty-two years of his life, that part only was allowed to appear which treated of Saint Domingo. But his refutation of the histories of the conquest of Mexico is wholly suppressed. To have proved the Conquistadors a gang of unprincipled buccaneers would have spoiled a Holy War, which was just what the Inquisition would not allow to go before the world. To the little work of Boturini on Mexico there are appended, 1. The declaration of his faith in the Roman Catholic Church in the most unequivocal terms. 2. The license of the Jesuit father. 3. The license of an Inquisitor. 4. The license of the Judge of the Supreme Council of the Indias. 5. The license of the Royal Council of the Indias. 6. The approbation of the "qualificator" of the Inquisition, who was a bare-footed Carmelite monk. 7. The license of the Royal Council of Castile. Beyond all this, the writer must be a person in holy orders, and be a person of sufficient influence to obtain the favorable notice of all these bodies, who were instinctively hostile to the diffusion of all information, particularly in regard to the New World. Nor was this the end of the difficulty; the license of any one of these officials could be revoked at pleasure, and, when republished, the work had to be re-"viséd." Even as late as the year 1825, a Spanish standard author could not be republished without expurgation.[24]With such facts before us, it is safe to declare that not a single statement of fact that affected either the interests of the king or the Church was ever published in Spain or her colonies during the three hundred years of the existence of the Inquisition; but every thing published was modified to suit the wishes of the censors, without any regard to the sentiments of the putative author.
But who was Bernal Diaz? How came he to be familiar with the writings of Las Casas that never saw the light? Had he access to the secret archives of the convent? He refers to the account of Las Casas as follows:
"These [the slaughters at Cholula] are, among others, those abominable monstrosities which the Bishop of Chiapas, Las Casas, can find no end in enumerating. But he is wrong when he asserts that we gave the Cholulans the above-mentioned chastisement without any provocation, and merely for pastime."[25]The history of Diaz is among the standard literary productions of that age, and is a very picture of candor and simplicity. On every page there are such evident efforts at truthfulness as to raise a suspicion that something more than, a simple narrative was the object of writing this book fifty years after the conquest. By supposing the author to be only sixteen years old when he came to America, Lockhart makes him only seventy years of age when he wrote the work. But if we suppose him to have been of a reasonable age when he began his adventures, he must have been between eighty and ninety years old when this book is alleged to have been written. Gomara had overdone the matter in the superhuman achievements which he had ascribed to Cortéz, while Las Casas had proved the conqueror and his party to have been a gang of cruel monsters. Now, something had to be done to avert the odium that was beginning to attach to this crusade against the enemies of the Church. In Spain, where a padlock was upon every man's mouth, and where each one buried his suspicions in the most secret recesses of his heart, and trembled lest, even in his dreams, a thought of impiety might reach the ear of a familiar, history could always be made to conform to the interests of the Church.
Since the records of the Spanish Inquisition have become the property of the public, and the manner in which the facts of history were trifled with is now understood, it is a question more easily asked than answered, Who wrote such and such a book?
WHO WROTE BERNAL DIAZ?
Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz? We have seen that it cuts down the monstrous exaggerations of Cortéz more than a half, yet we shall see that the statements of Diaz are still incredible. It is a very religious book, as the Spaniards understand the word religion, and reflects great credit on the Church. But, with the slight evidence we have presented, no one would charge the work with being altogether a fiction, and Bernal Diaz a myth. All that can be said is, that we are left in that state of uncertainty in which every one finds himself who looks into a record that was within the control of the Inquisitorial censors.
Our stage-ride has been forgotten in discussing historical questions; and while we have been dwelling upon Cortéz and Bernal Diaz, we have crossed the plain, and been climbing the heights of Rio Frio, and now we begin to catch glances of the valley and of the city of Mexico—a city and valley so renowned in history and tradition, that it seems more like a city of the Old World than a town in the interior of the continent that Columbus discovered. Truly it is an old city. It was an old city before Columbus was born—an old city in a new world. It is one of the links that binds the present age to ages long past and almost forgotten—a city where the present and the past are strangely mingled together. In its streets are "penitents," wandering, in sackcloth and sandals, with a downcast look and a rope for self-castigation, among soldiers in new French uniforms and ladies in the latest Paris fashions. This is not the time for a favorable view of the valley from this point. To see it in its full glory, we must look upon it at sunrise.