History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0196/01960.txt

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$Title{History Of The Conquest Of Mexico
Chapter II. Storming Of The Great Temple, Part I.}
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$Author{Prescott, William H.}
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Title:       History Of The Conquest Of Mexico
Book:        Book V. Expulsion From Mexico.
Author:      Prescott, William H.

Chapter II. Storming Of The Great Temple, Part I.

Spirit Of The Aztecs. - Distresses Of The Garrison. - Sharp Combats In The
City. - Death Of Montezuma. (1520.)

     Opposite to the Spanish quarters, at only a few rods' distance, stood
the great teocalli of Huitzilopochtli.  This pyramidal mound, with the
sanctuaries that crowned it, rising altogether to the height of near a
hundred and fifty feet, afforded an elevated position that completely
commanded the palace of Axayacatl, occupied by the Christians.  A body of
five or six hundred Mexicans, many of them nobles and warriors of the highest
rank, had got possession of the teocalli, whence they discharged such a
tempest of arrows on the garrison that no one could leave his defences for a
moment without imminent danger; while the Mexicans, under shelter of the
sanctuaries, were entirely covered from the fire of the besieged.  It was
obviously necessary to dislodge the enemy, if the Spaniards would remain
longer in their quarters.

     Cortes assigned this service to his chamberlain, Escobar, giving him a
hundred men for the purpose, with orders to storm the teocalli and set fire
to the sanctuaries.  But that officer was thrice repulsed in the attempt,
and, after the most desperate efforts, was obliged to return with
considerable loss and without accomplishing his object.

     Cortes, who saw the immediate necessity of carrying the place,
determined to lead the storming party himself.  He was then suffering much
from the wound in his left hand, which had disabled it for the present.  He
made the arm serviceable, however, by fastening his buckler to it, ^1 and,
thus crippled, sallied out at the head of three hundred chosen cavaliers and
several thousand of his auxiliaries.

[Footnote 1: "Sali fuera de la Fortaleza, aunque manco de la mano izquierda
de una herida que el primer dia me habian dado: y liada la rodela en el brazo
fuy a la Torre con algunos Espanoles, que me siguieron."  Rel. Seg. de
Cortes, ap. Lorenzana, p. 138.]

     In the courtyard of the temple he found a numerous body of Indians
prepared to dispute his passage.  He briskly charged them; but the flat
smooth stones of the pavement were so slippery that the horses lost their
footing and many of them fell.  Hastily dismounting, they sent back the
animals to their quarters, and, renewing the assault, the Spaniards succeeded
without much difficulty in dispersing the Indian warriors and opening a free
passage for themselves to the teocalli.  This building, as the reader may
remember, was a huge pyramidal structure, about three hundred feet square at
the base.  A flight of stone steps on the outside, at one of the angles of
the mound, led to a platform, or terraced walk, which passed round the
building until it reached a similar flight of stairs directly over the
preceding, that conducted to another landing as before.  As there were five
bodies or divisions of the teocalli, it became necessary to pass round its
whole extent four times, or nearly a mile, in order to reach the summit,
which, it may be recollected, was an open area, crowned only by the two
sanctuaries dedicated to the Aztec deities. ^1

[Footnote 1: See ante, pp. 298, 299. - I have ventured to repeat the
description of the temple here, as it is important that the reader who may
perhaps not turn to the preceding pages, should have a distinct image of it
in his own mind before beginning the account of the combat.]

     Cortes, having cleared a way for the assault, sprang up the lower
stairway, followed by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other gallant
cavaliers of his little band, leaving a file of arquebusiers and a strong
corps of Indian allies to hold the enemy in check at the foot of the
monument.  On the first landing, as well as on the several galleries above,
and on the summit, the Aztec warriors were drawn up to dispute his passage.
From their elevated position they showered down volleys of lighter missiles,
together with heavy stones, beams, and burning rafters, which, thundering
along the stairway, overturned the ascending Spaniards and carried desolation
through their ranks.  The more fortunate, eluding or springing over these
obstacles, succeeded in gaining the first terrace; where, throwing themselves
on their enemies, they compelled them, after a short resistance, to fall
back.  The assailants pressed on, effectually supported by a brisk fire of
the musketeers from below, which so much galled the Mexicans in their exposed
situation that they were glad to take shelter on the broad summit of the
teocalli.

     Cortes and his comrades were close upon their rear, and the two parties
soon found themselves face to face on this aerial battle-field, engaged in
mortal combat in presence of the whole city, as well as of the troops in the
courtyard, who paused, as if by mutual consent, from their own hostilities,
gazing in silent expectation on the issue of those above.  The area, though
somewhat smaller than the base of the teocalli, was large enough to afford a
fair field of fight for a thousand combatants.  It was paved with broad, flat
stones.  No impediment occurred over its surface, except the huge sacrificial
block, and the temples of stone which rose to the height of forty feet, at
the farther extremity of the arena.  One of these had been consecrated to the
Cross.  The other was still occupied by the Mexican war-god.  The Christian
and the Aztec contended for their religions under the very shadow of their
respective shrines; while the Indian priests, running to and fro, with their
hair wildly streaming over their sable mantles, seemed hovering in mid-air,
like so many demons of darkness urging on the work of slaughter!

     The parties closed with the desperate fury of men who had no hope but in
victory.  Quarter was neither asked nor given; and to fly was impossible.
The edge of the area was unprotected by parapet or battlement.  The least
slip would be fatal; and the combatants, as they struggled in mortal agony,
were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. ^1
Cortes himself is said to have had a narrow escape from this dreadful fate.
Two warriors, of strong, muscular frames, seized on him, and were dragging
him violently towards the brink of the pyramid.  Aware of their intention, he
struggled with all his force, and, before they could accomplish their
purpose, succeeded in tearing himself from their grasp and hurling one of
them over the walls with his own arm!  The story is not improbable in itself,
for Cortes was a man of uncommon agility and strength.  It has been often
repeated; but not by contemporary history. ^2

[Footnote 1: Many of the Aztecs, according to Sahagun, seeing the fate of
such of their comrades as fell into the hands of the Spaniards on the narrow
terraces below, voluntarily threw themselves headlong from the lofty summit,
and were dashed in pieces on the pavement.  "Y los de arriba viendo a los de
abajo muertos, y a los de arriba que los iban matando los que habian subido,
comenzaron a arrojarse del cu abajo, desde lo alto, los cuales todos morian
despenados, quebrados brazos y piernas, y hechos pedazos, porque el cu era
muy alto; y otros los mesmos Espanoles los arrojaban de lo alto del cu, y
asi todos cuantos alla habian subido de los Mexicanos, murieron mala
muerte."  Sahagun, Hist. de Neuva-Espana, MS., lib. 12, cap. 22.]

[Footnote 2: Among others, see Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 10, cap.
9, - Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap. 69, - and Solis, very
circumstantially, as usual, Conquista, lib. 4, cap. 16. - The first of these
authors had access to some contemporary sources, the chronicle of the old
soldier, Ojeda, for example, not now to be met with.  It is strange that so
valiant an exploit should not have been communicated by Cortes himself, who
cannot be accused of diffidence in such matters.]

     The battle lasted with unintermitting fury for three hours.  The number
of the enemy was double that of the Christians; and it seemed as if it were a
contest which must be determined by numbers and brute force, rather than by
superior science.  But it was not so.  The invulnerable armour of the
Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave
him advantages which far outweighed the odds of physical strength and
numbers.  After doing all that the courage of despair could enable men to do,
resistance grew fainter and fainter on the side of the Aztecs.  One after
another they had fallen.  Two or three priests only survived, to be led away
in triumph by the victors.  Every other combatant was stretched a corpse on
the bloody arena, or had been hurled from the giddy heights.  Yet the loss of
the Spaniards was not inconsiderable.  It amounted to forty-five of their
best men; and nearly all the remainder were more or less injured in the
desperate conflict. ^3

[Footnote 3: Captain Diaz, a little loth sometimes, is emphatic in his
encomiums on the valour shown by his commander on this occasion.  "Here
Cortes showed himself a very man, such as he always was.  Oh what a fighting,
what a strenuous battle, did we have!  It was a memorable thing to see us
flowing with blood and full of wounds, and more than forty soldiers slain."
(Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 126.)  The pens of the old chroniclers keep pace
with their swords in the display of this brilliant exploit: - "colla penna e
colla spada," equally fortunate.  See Rel. Seg. de Cortes, ap. Lorenzana, p.
138. - Gomara, Cronica, cap. 106. - Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-Espana, MS., lib.
12, cap. 22. - Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 10, cap. 9. - Oviedo,
Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 13. - Torquemada, Monarch, Ind., lib.
4, cap. 69.]

     The victorious cavaliers now rushed towards the sanctuaries.  The lower
story was of stone; the two upper were of wood.  Penetrating into their
recesses, they had the mortification to find the image of the Virgin and the
Cross removed. ^1  But in the other edifice they still beheld the grim figure
of Huitzilopochtli, with his censer of smoking hearts, and the walls of his
oratory reeking with gore, - not improbably of their own countrymen!  With
shouts of triumph the Christians tore the uncouth monster from his niche, and
tumbled him, in the presence of the horror-struck Aztecs, down the steps of
the teocalli, ^2 they then set fire to the accursed building.  The flames
speedily ran up the slender towers, sending forth an ominous light over city,
lake, and valley, to the remotest hut among the mountains.  It was the
funeral pyre of paganism, and proclaimed the fall of that sanguinary religion
which had so long hung like a dark cloud over the fair regions of Anahuac! ^3

[Footnote 1: Archbishop Lorenzana is of opinion that this image of the Virgin
is the same now seen in the church of Nuestra Senora de los Remedios!  (Rel.
Seg. de Cortes, ap. Lorenzana, p. 138, nota.)  In what way the Virgin
survived the sack of the city and was brought to light again, he does not
inform us.  But the more difficult to explain, the more undoubted the
miracle.]

[Footnote 2: Sir Arthur Helps speaks, rather oddly, of Cortes having set fire
to this image.  Neither Cortes himself nor Bernal Diaz mentions any such
attempt to burn what is described as a "huge block of basalt, covered with
sculptured figures."  It is now in the museum at Mexico, having lain
undiscovered in the great square, close to the site of the teocalli, till the
end of the last century.  "For some years after that it was kept buried, lest
the sight of one of their old deities might be too exciting for the Indians,
who had certainly not forgotten it, and secretly ornamented it with flowers
as long as it remained above ground."  Tylor, Anahuac, p. 223. - Ed.]

[Footnote 3: No achievement in the war struck more awe into the Mexicans than
this storming of the great temple, in which the white men seemed to bid
defiance equally to the powers of God and many.  Hieroglyphical paintings
minutely commemorating it were to be frequently found among the natives after
the Conquest.  The sensitive Captain Diaz intimates that those which he saw
made full as much account of the wounds and losses of the Christians as the
facts would warrant. (Hist. de la Conquista, ubi supra.) It was the only way
in which the conquered could take their revenge.]

     Having accomplished this good work, the Spaniards descended the winding
slopes of the teocalli with more free and buoyant step, as if conscious that
the blessing of Heaven now rested on their arms.  They passed through the
dusky files of Indian warriors in the courtyard, too much dismayed by the
appalling scenes they had witnessed to offer resistance, and reached their
own quarters in safety.  That very night they followed up the blow by a
sortie on the sleeping town, and burned three hundred houses, the horrors of
conflagration being made still more impressive by occurring at the hour when
the Aztecs, from their own system of warfare, were least prepared for them. ^4

[Footnote 4: "Sequenti nocte, nostri erumpentes in vna via-rum arci vicina,
domos combussere tercentum: in altera plerasque e quibus arci molestia
fiebat.  Ita nunc trucidando, nunc diruendo, et interdum vulnera recipiendo,
in pontibus et in viis, diebus noctibusque multis laboratum est utrinque.
(Martyr, De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 6.)  In the number of actions and their
general result, namely, the victories, barren victories, of the Christians,
all writers are agreed.  But as to time, place, circumstance, or order, no
two hold together.  How shall the historian of the present day make a
harmonious tissue out of these motley and many - coloured threads?]

     Hoping to find the temper of the natives somewhat subdued by these
reverses, Cortes now determined, with his usual policy, to make them a
vantage-ground for proposing terms of accommodation.  He accordingly invited
the enemy to a parley, and, as the principal chiefs, attended by their
followers, assembled in the great square, he mounted the turret before
occupied by Montezuma, and made signs that he would address them.  Marina, as
usual, took her place by his side, as his interpreter.  The multitude gazed
with earnest curiosity on the Indian girl, whose influence with the Spaniards
was well known, and those connection with the general, in particular, had led
the Aztecs to designate him by her Mexican name of Malinche. ^1  Cortes,
speaking through the soft, musical tones of his mistress, told his audience
they must now be convinced that they had nothing further to hope from
opposition to the Spaniards.  They had seen their gods trampled in the dust,
their altars broken, their dwellings burned, their warriors falling on all
sides.  "All this," continued he, "you have brought on yourselves by your
rebellion.  Yet, for the affection the sovereign whom you have so unworthily
treated still bears you, I would willingly stay my hand, if you will lay down
your arms and return once more to your obedience.  But, if you do not," he
concluded, "I will make your city a heap of ruins, and leave not a soul alive
to mourn over it!"

[Footnote 1: It is the name by which she is still celebrated in the popular
minstrelsy of Mexico.  Was the famous Tlascalan mountain, sierra de
Malinche, - anciently " Mattalcueye," - named in compliment to the Indian
damsel?  At all events, it was an honour well merited from her adopted
countrymen.]

     But the Spanish commander did not yet comprehend the character of the
Aztecs, if he thought to intimidate them by menaces.  Calm in their exterior,
and slow to move, they were the more difficult to pacify when roused; and now
that they had been stirred to their inmost depths, it was no human voice that
could still the tempest.  It may be, however, that Cortes did not so much
misconceive the character of the people.  He may have felt that an
authoritative tone was the only one he could assume with any chance of effect
in his present position, in which milder and more conciliatory language
would, by intimating a consciousness of inferiority, have too certainly
defeated its own object.

     It was true, they answered, he had destroyed their temples, broken in
pieces their gods, massacred their countrymen.  Many more, doubtless, were
yet to fall under their terrible swords.  But they were content so long as
for every thousand Mexicans they could shed the blood of a single white
man! ^2  "Look out," they continued, "on our terraces and streets; see them
still thronged with warriors, as far as your eyes can reach.  Our numbers are
scarcely diminished by our losses.  Yours, on the contrary, are lessening
every hour.  You are perishing from hunger and sickness.  Your provisions and
water are failing.  You must soon fall into our hands.  The bridges are
broken down, and you cannot escape! ^3  There will be too few of you left to
glut the vengeance of our gods!"  As they concluded, they sent a volley of
arrows over the battlements, which compelled the Spaniards to descend and
take refuge in their defences.

[Footnote 2: According to Cortes, they boasted, in somewhat loftier strain,
they could spare twenty-five thousand for one: "a morir veinte y cinco mil de
ellos, y uno de los nuestros."  Rel. Seg. de Cortes, ap. Lorenzana, p.139.]

[Footnote 3: "Que todas las calzadas de las entradas de la ciudad eran
deshechas, como de hecho passaba."  Ibid., loc. it. - Oviedo, Hist. de las
Ind., MS., lib. 33. cap. 13.]

     The fierce and indomitable spirit of the Aztecs filled the besieged with
dismay.  All, then, that they had done and suffered, their battles by day,
their vigils by night, the perils they had braved, even the victories they
had won, were of no avail.  It was too evident that they had no longer the
spring of ancient superstition to work upon in the breasts of the natives,
who, like some wild beast that has burst the bonds of his keeper, seemed now
to swell and exult in the full consciousness of their strength.  The
annunciation respecting the bridges fell like a knell on the ears of the
Christians.  All that they had heard was too true; and they gazed on one
another with looks of anxiety and dismay.

     The same consequences followed which sometimes take place among the crew
of a shipwrecked vessel.  Subordination was lost in the dreadful sense of
danger.  A spirit of mutiny broke out, especially among the recent levies
drawn from the army of Narvaez.  They had come into the country from no
motive of ambition, but attracted simply by the glowing reports of its
opulence, and they had fondly hoped to return in a few months with their
pockets well lined with the gold of the Aztec monarch.  But how different had
been their lot!  From the first hour of their landing, they had experienced
only trouble and disaster, privations of every description, sufferings
unexampled, and they now beheld in perspective a fate yet more appalling.
Bitterly did they lament the hour when they left the sunny fields of Cuba for
these cannibal regions; and heartily did they curse their own folly in
listening to the call of Velasquez, and still more in embarking under the
banner of Cortes! ^1

[Footnote 1: "Pues tambien quiero dezir las maldiciones que los de Narvaez
echauan a Cortes, y las palabras que dezian, que renegauan del, y de la
tierra, y aun de Diego Velasquez, que aca les embio, que bien pacificos
estauan en sus casas en la Isla de Cuba, y estavan embelesados, y sin
sentido."  Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, ubi supra.]

     They now demanded, with noisy vehemence, to be led instantly from the
city, and refused to serve longer in defence of a place where they were
cooped up like sheep in the shambles, waiting only to be dragged to
slaughter.  In all this they were rebuked by the more orderly, soldier-like
conduct of the veterans of Cortes.  These latter had shared with their
general the day of his prosperity, and they were not disposed to desert him
in the tempest.  It was, indeed, obvious, on a little reflection, that the
only chance of safety, in the existing crisis, rested on subordination and
union, and that even this chance must be greatly diminished under any other
leader that their present one.

     Thus pressed by enemies without and by factions within, that leader was
found, as usual, true to himself.  Circumstances so appalling as would have
paralyzed a common mind only stimulated his to higher action and drew forth
all its resources.  He combined, what is most rare, singular coolness and
constancy of purpose with a spirit of enterprise that might well be called
romantic.  His presence of mind did not now desert him.  He calmly surveyed
his condition and weighed the difficulties which surrounded him, before
coming to a decision.  Independently of the hazard of a retreat in the face
of a watchful and desperate foe, it was a deep mortification to surrender up
the city where he had so long lorded it as a master; to abandon the rich
treasures which he had secured to himself and his followers; to forego the
very means by which he had hoped to propitiate the favour of his sovereign
and secure an amnesty for his irregular proceedings.  This, he well knew,
must, after all, be dependent on success.  To fly now was to acknowledge
himself further removed from the conquest than ever.  What a close was this
to a career so auspiciously begun!  What a contrast to his magnificent
vaunts!  What a triumph would it afford to his enemies!  The governor of Cuba
would be amply revenged.

     But, if such humiliating reflections crowded on his mind, the
alternative of remaining, in his present crippled condition, seemed yet more
desperate. ^1  With his men daily diminishing in strength and numbers, their
provisions reduced so low that a small daily ration of bread was all the
sustenance afforded to the soldier under his extraordinary fatigues, ^2 with
the breaches every day widening in his feeble fortifications, with his
ammunition, in fine, nearly expended, it would be impossible to maintain the
place much longer - and none but men of iron constitutions and tempers, like
the Spaniards, could have held it so long - against the enemy.  The chief
embarrassment was as to the time and manner in which it would be expedient to
evacuate the city.  The best route seemed to be that of Tlacopan (Tacuba).
For the causeway, the most dangerous part of the road, was but two miles long
in that direction, and would, therefore, place the fugitives, much sooner
than either of the other great avenues, on terra firma.  Before his final
departure, however, Cortes proposed to make another sally, in order to
reconnoitre the ground, and, at the same time, divert the enemy's attention
from his real purpose by a show of active operations.

[Footnote 1: Notwithstanding this, in the petition or letter from Vera Cruz,
addressed by the army to the Emperor Charles V., after the Conquest, the
importunity of the soldiers is expressly stated as the principal motive that
finally induced their general to abandon the city.  Carta del Exercito, MS.]

[Footnote 2: "The scarcity was such that the ration of the Indians was a
small cake, and that of the Spaniards fifty grains of maize."  Herrera, Hist.
general, dec. 2, lib. 10, cap. 9.]

     For some days his workmen had been employed in constructing a military
machine of his own invention.  It was called a manta, and was contrived
somewhat on the principle of the mantelets used in the wars of the Middle
Ages.  It was, however, more complicated, consisting of a tower made of light
beams and planks, having two chambers, one over the other.  These were to be
filled with musketeers, and the sides were provided with loopholes, through
which a fire could be kept up on the enemy.  The great advantage proposed by
this contrivance was to afford a defense to the troops  against  the missiles
hurled from the terraces.  These machines, three of which were made, rested
on rollers, and were provided with strong ropes, by which they were to be
dragged along the streets by the Tlascalan auxiliaries. ^3

[Footnote 3: Rel. Seg. de Cortes, ap. Lorenzana, p. 135. - Gomara, Cronica,
cap. 106. - Dr. Bird, in his picturesque romance of "Calavar," has made good
use of these mantas, better, indeed, than can be permitted to the historian.
He claims the privilege of the romancer; though it must be owned he does not
abuse this privilege, for he has studied with great care the costume,
manners, and military usages of the natives.  He has done for them what
Cooper has done for the wild tribes of the North, - touched their rude
features with the bright colouring of a poetic fancy.  He has been equally
fortunate in his delineation of the picturesque scenery of the land.  If he
has been less so in attempting to revive the antique dialogue of the Spanish
cavalier, we must not be surprised.  Nothing is more difficult than the
skilful execution of a modern antique.  It requires all the genius and
learning of Scott to execute it so that the connoisseur shall not detect the
counterfeit.]