Mexico and its Religion Part 15

The Aztec city of Mexico perished with its conquest by the Spaniards.

Day by day, as the siege went on, the Indians that followed the soldiers pulled the houses down, when the latter had pa.s.sed, and threw the rubbish into the ca.n.a.ls; so that, on the day on which the conquest was effected, the city ceased to exist. Many times has that old city been restored, in the imagination of enthusiasts, with its forty pyramids (_teocallis_) and unnumbered palaces, adorned with all the luxury and magnificence of the most refined civilization, united with barbaric grandeur and inhumanity in so strange a combination as to distract our feelings between hate and admiration.

It was easy to build an Indian city that would present a most imposing appearance, for the climate was well fitted for drying mud thoroughly.

Besides, there was an inexhaustible supply of pumice-stone (_tepetate_), and an exceedingly soft, gray quarry stone, for caps and lintels, with an excellent quality of cement, and material for "_fresco_ painting" of the walls, abundant and cheap. All these articles are combined in the building of the modern city, and give it its present appearance of elegance and great durability. But in the old city, one-story palaces of dried mud, plastered and frescoed, with large interior courts like that I have described at Tezcuco, must have been among the most imposing structures. If _tepetate_ was employed in the construction of the royal palaces, it would not have added materially to the weight resting upon the earthy foundations; for when the water in the ditches occupied half the street,[41] the foundations must have been so much softer than at present, that structures of the lightest material only could be borne.

In his anxiety to keep up a resemblance between his conquests and that of Granada, Cortez calls the _teocallis_, or Indian mounds which he found, _mosques_, and speaks of "forty towers, the largest of which has fifty steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the princ.i.p.al church in Seville."[42] Bernal Diaz says there were "115 steps to the summit."[43] I must reduce the size of this great pyramid to the size of the isolated rock that the Cathedral is said to occupy. The difficulty of getting rid of the earth that composed these forty artificial mountains does not seem to have troubled historians so much as it would a contractor. I have often thought that those hillocks of earth on the north side of the town were once small artificial mounds on which the Indians offered their wors.h.i.+p, for in the ca.n.a.l near by was found that collection of clay divinities of which I have already spoken.

The difficulty in the way of forming a correct idea of that old city, is owing to the defective character of our witnesses. The one confesses to the habitual practice of falsehood for the purpose of deceiving the Indians; the other acknowledges practices that render the character of both infamous, and would make their testimony of no weight in a court of justice unless corroborated. We must therefore feel our way as best we can.

With the rude implements of the Indians, houses of the driest blocks of mud, though covered with cement and painted with colored wash, could easily have been thrown down; but gunpowder or iron bars would have been necessary to overturn a wall composed either of stone or _tepetate_ and cement. Villages built of dried mud are often imposing in their appearance, and are yet most perishable; for the first overflow of waters, that shall cover but a few inches of the walls of the houses, will in a few hours reduce a whole village to a ma.s.s of ruins. Again, the dry wall that has fallen becomes saturated, and dissolves itself into soft mud. My hypothesis is, therefore, not without its difficulty, for at every inundation of the city in the times of the Aztecs we have to suppose it totally destroyed; an evil that could not be remedied until the water had entirely subsided, and new mud had been formed into blocks and dried in the sun, and a new village or city built every twenty-five years.

To sum up my theory of Aztec civilization: they had earthen G.o.ds, earthen cooking utensils, and earthen aqueducts; their temples were small buildings, upon moderately-sized Indian burial mounds, and their palaces and sacred inclosures were of dried mud, and of a single story in height.

THE TOLTECS.

With this solution, the difficulty that occurred to Humboldt is in part removed, viz., that the allotted time--one hundred and seventy years--was too short a period in which to transform a tribe of North American Indians into a settled community. The remainder of the difficulty is explained by an event taking place in our own days. It is hardly thirty years since the Apache Indians began the systematic plunder of the northern states of Mexico, and now even these nomades begin to show the first glimmerings of civilization. Their captives teach them the use of much of the plunder they have brought to their own villages. Though their treatment of female captives is inhuman, yet it is not an uncommon thing for a captive to become a wife, and to introduce into her wigwam, and to inculcate upon the minds of her children, a few of the primary ideas of civilization. It is the commonly received notion that the Toltecs abandoned the table-land about the time of the arrival of the Aztecs, but continued to flourish in the region of the Gulf coast and in other parts of the hot country; that the vast ruins which abound in those regions were inhabited cities till within a few generations of the coming of the Spaniards; and that in Yucatan, the part most distant from Mexico, that civilization continued quite down to that period; that for a great portion of the one hundred and seventy years of their national existence, the Aztecs kept up predatory excursions into the Toltec region, and out of its dense population derived an inexhaustible supply of slaves and the plunder of civilization, included in which may have been the best wrought of the stone idols that are still preserved. So that the Aztec civilization resolves itself into the very ancient civilization of the Toltecs.

PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.

We have removed to a greater antiquity, but have not got rid of the question of the origin of Mexican civilization. The year 600, named by Humboldt, may be considered as the time of their appearance on the table-land; out many of the ruins in the hot country might claim a thousand years earlier antiquity. These ma.s.sive remains must have stood, abandoned as they are now, in the midst of the forest, for a long time before the Conquest, as their very existence was unknown to the Spaniards until near the close of the last century. The close resemblance between the apparently most ancient of these works, and those of the Egyptianss and other Eastern civilizations, does not involve the idea of a common origin or of intercourse, but only leads to the suggestion that the human race, in its progress, naturally follows the same path, whether upon the eastern or western continent, and that it is separated by a cycle of thousands of years from the civilization of our day. As a specimen of the works of the Toltecs, I insert a sketch of the pyramid of Papantla.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.]

"The pyramid of Papantla," says Humboldt,[44] "is not constructed like the pyramids of Cholula and Mexico. The only materials employed are immense stones. Mortar is distinguished in the seams. The edifice, however, is not so remarkable for its size as for its symmetry, the polish of the stones, and the great regularity of their cut. The base of the pyramid is an exact square, each side being eighty-two feet in length. The perpendicular height appears not to be more than from fifty-two to sixty-five feet. This monument, like all the Mexican _teocallis_, is composed of several stages. Six are still distinguishable, and a seventh appears to be concealed by the vegetation with which the sides of the pyramid are covered. A great stairway of fifty-seven steps conducts to the truncated top of the _teocalli_, where the human victims were sacrificed. On each side of the great stairs is a flight of small stairs. The facing of the stories is adorned with hieroglyphics, in which serpents and crocodiles, carved in relievo, are discernible. Each story contains a great number of square niches, symmetrically distributed. In the first story we reckon twenty-four on each side, in the second twenty, and in the third sixteen. The number of these niches in the body of the pyramid is three hundred and sixty-six, and there are twelve in the stairs toward the east. The Abbe Marquez supposes that this number of three hundred and seventy-eight niches has some allusion to a calendar of the Mexicans, and he even believes that in each of them one of the twenty figures was repeated, which, in the hieroglyphical language of the Toltecs, served as a symbol for marking the days of the common year, and the intercalated days at the end of the cycles. The year being composed of eighteen months of twenty days, there would then be three hundred and sixty days, to which, agreeable to the Egyptian practice, five complementary days were added.... This pyramid was visited by M. Dupe, a captain in the service of the King of Spain. He possesses the bust, in basalt, of a Mexican, which I employed M. Ma.s.sard to engrave, and which bears great resemblance to the _calautica_ of the heads of Isis."

I prefer in this way to copy from an author of unquestionable authority an important historical fact, rather than to search for less accessible sources of evidence on which I rest the theory, that what of this kind we have seen at the city of Mexico are but fragments from the wreck that befell the American civilization of antiquity, which had succ.u.mbed before the inroads of northern savages. This is sufficient inquiry into antiquities till we come to the museum.

MEXICO ACCORDING TO CORTeZ.

It is but justice to add the substance of Cortez's account of this ancient city, which is embodied in the following paragraphs:

"This n.o.ble city contains many fine and magnificent houses, which may be accounted for from the fact that all the n.o.bility of the country, who are the va.s.sals of Montezuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part of the year; and, besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens who also possess fine houses. All these persons, in addition to the large and s.p.a.cious apartments for ordinary purposes, have others, both upper and lower, that contain conservatories of flowers. Along one of the causeways [the Chapultepec]

that lead into the city are laid two [water] pipes, constructed of masonry, each of which is two paces in width, and about five feet in height.... The inhabitants of this city pay greater regard to the style of their mode of living, and are more attentive to elegance of dress and politeness of manners than those of other provinces and cities, since, as the cacique Montezuma has his residence in the capital, and all the n.o.bility, his va.s.sals, are in the constant habit of meeting there, a general courtesy of demeanor necessarily prevails.... For, as I have already stated, what can be more wonderful than that a barbarous monarch, as he is, should have every object found in his dominions imitated in gold, silver, precious stones, and feathers, the gold and silver being wrought so naturally as not to be surpa.s.sed by any smith in the world, the stone-work executed with such perfection that it is difficult to conceive what instruments could have been used, and the feather-work superior to the finest production in wax and embroidery?... He possessed out of the city as well as within numerous villas, each of which had its peculiar sources of amus.e.m.e.nt, and all were constructed in the best possible manner for the use of a great prince or lord. Within the city, his palaces were so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent. I can only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them. There was one palace somewhat inferior to the rest, attached to which was a beautiful garden, with balconies extending over it, supported by marble columns, and having a floor formed of jasper elegantly inlaid. There were apartments in this palace sufficient to lodge two princes of the highest rank with their retinues.... The emperor has another beautiful palace, with a large court-yard paved with handsome flags in the style of a chess-board.

"Every day, as soon as it was light, six hundred n.o.bles and men of rank were in attendance at the palace, who either sat or walked about the halls and galleries, and pa.s.sed their time in conversation, but without entering the apartments where his person was.... Daily his larder and wine-cellar[45] were open to all who wished to eat and drink. The meals were served by three hundred youths, who brought on an infinite variety of dishes; indeed, whenever he dined or supped, the table was loaded with every kind of flesh, fish, and vegetables that the country produced. The meals were served in a large hall, in which Montezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats, and kept very clean. He sat on a small cus.h.i.+on curiously wrought of leather.[46] He is also dressed four times every day in four different suits entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of the caciques who enter his palace have their feet covered, and when those for whom he sends enter his presence, they incline their heads and look down, bending their bodies; and when they address him, they do not look him in the face; this arises from excessive modesty and reverence....[47] No sultan or other infidel lord, of whom any knowledge now exists, ever had so much ceremonial in his court."

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SPANIARDS.

It was in the spring of 1519 that Cortez and his company had landed at Vera Cruz. From that point they had marched toward Mexico without opposition, except the skirmishes with the Tlascalans, and without opposition they had entered the city of Mexico on the 5th of November, 1519. Here they had been received with every mark of hospitality and treated with every kindness. But this did not prevent their treacherously seizing the person of their host, and making him a prisoner in their quarters. In his name they had governed his tribe, and ransacked his dominions in search of the treasures collected by the gold-washers, and had even interfered in the religious wors.h.i.+p of a superst.i.tious people, and murdered, in cold blood, a party of their chiefs celebrating an Indian feast. Still there had been no war, until Ordaz was sent, with his four hundred men, to recapture the concubines of Cortez, who had been rescued, as already mentioned. This was in July of the following year, eight months after their first entry into Mexico, and on the 10th of July, 1520, the licentious rule of the Spaniards at Mexico was terminated by the events of the _triste noche_.

The mere handful that had at first entered the city had been increased by the army of Narvaez, so that when the news reached Cortez that Alvarado and the eighty odd men that had been left with him in the city were threatened with difficulty, he marched a well-appointed army of fourteen hundred men, besides two hundred Tlascalans, to his relief.

Their retreat to Tlascala has already been described, the character of the brigantines has been discussed, as well as the absurd story of his having dug a slip or launching ca.n.a.l at Tezcuco, twelve feet broad and twelve feet deep. We have seen that the towns and villages said to have been built in the lake, and the still greater number of large towns on the main land, could only have been petty Indian hamlets, and that the central portions of the valley of Mexico would not have been habitable if the lakes of Mexico had been any thing more than evaporation ponds.

And, lest I should venture too far, I will conclude this remark by adverting to the testimony of Diaz, which concedes that when his book was written the face of the country was substantially as it now is, and as I have already described it to be. But he endeavors to save the story of the Conquest by the shallow pretense that, during the few years that intervened between that event and the date of his history, the whole face of the country had completely changed.[48]

The great mystery is why so large a body of Spaniards, if they really amounted to the number claimed by Cortez, should have retreated from the city at all, as they do not complain of being short of provisions.

They had the great _teocalli_ for a fortress, on which they might have planted their cannon, and leveled the city in a few days, if not in a few hours, and the great Plaza in which to manoeuvre their cavalry and protect the Indians while leveling the rubbish of the broken walls.

But a panic having seized them, and having escaped from the city by a badly-managed night retreat, ten months elapsed before the Spaniards, on the 13th of May, 1521, laid siege to the city. And with varying success the siege was continued just three months, until Guatemozin was taken prisoner, on the 13th of August, 1521, so that the siege was carried on in the midst of the rainy season, when the flats must have been covered with water, and the ditches well filled. No difficulty was experienced in bringing up his flat-boats to the sides of the muddy causeways, or in cutting off the supplies of provisions by water, or in breaking down the earthen aqueduct of Chapultepec, so that the Indians were finally subdued by the combined forces of hunger and thirst. When, the Aztecs were so enfeebled by want that they could no longer offer resistance, the Spaniards rushed into the town, seized the unresisting Guatemozin, and shouted victory.

INDIAN WARFARE.

It requires a familiarity with Spanish character, and the Moorish, Oriental origin of their literature, in order to read Spanish-American military annals understandingly, as much so as it does a knowledge of Indian character in order to sift out the truth from accounts of Indian wars. The superst.i.tious dread which the Aztecs at all times evinced for the Spanish horses and hors.e.m.e.n is common to all savages.[49] The appearance of two or three horses, kept ready for that purpose, was sufficient to restore the battle after the Spaniards had taken to their heels. And while the facts of the siege amount to little more than keeping possession of the narrow causeways, by aid of superior implements of war, until famine and thirst had done their work, yet the Spanish histories of the Conquest make it to surpa.s.s in interest, and in the magnitude of forces engaged, almost any siege on record. And so plausibly is the narrative written, that the reader drinks it in with breathless anxiety, without once stopping to ask himself how so many hundreds of thousands of Indians could be fed in a salt valley, inclosed by high mountains, without the aid of a regularly organized commissariat department, or how such ma.s.ses of undisciplined Indians could be manoeuvred upon a narrow causeway, where numbers add no strength, but only tend to augment the confusion--where, as in this case, there had to be a daily advance and retreat in presence of an active enemy.

IMPROBABILITY OF CORTeZ'S ACCOUNT.

The interesting note which we have copied describes an event within the memory of the present generation. And it is well recollected what trepidation was caused in that colony of the British Empire by the approach to the frontier of a nation of barbarians who despised fear, whose religion was war, and who knew no sin like that of turning the back to any enemy. Yet a hundred hors.e.m.e.n, with firearms, from a missionary village, unaccustomed to war, were sufficient to turn back this mighty host of brave savages. It can not be claimed that the Aztecs were superior to these Mantatees, or that the force of Cortez was inferior in equipment to the hundred unwarlike Griquas whose "thunder and lightning" (as they termed the musketry) drove them back.

The missionary was a Protestant, a man of truth, and had no glory to win, and therefore told only the simple truth. Cortez, out of a much inferior affair, has fabricated a romance, with such verisimilitude that he has astonished the world by an account of achievements which he never performed. To write well is nine tenths of a hero; and in the time of Cortez, as it is even now at Mexico, it was the easiest thing imaginable to manufacture an astonis.h.i.+ng victory out of the very smallest amount of material. If no lives were lost in the battle, so much more astounding is the victory. This practice of sacrificing human life is only a modification of cannibalism, and the very mission on which the Spaniards came to Mexico was to extinguish that crime, so that they would jeopardize their t.i.tle to the country should they presume to shed the blood of each other in their interminable wars. And so long as only women, and children, and Indians are the sufferers, they do no violence to the rules of warfare which Cortez and the Conquistadors introduced. The armies of Mexico have never been deficient in good writers; a specimen of the capacity of one of them I have already given in the chapter on Texas; so that their stately and dignified histories of the national squabbles of the last thirty years are equal to Cortez in gross exaggeration, and not a whit behind him in elegance of composition.

MORGAN AND CORTeZ.

A hundred years after the conquest of Mexico, there sailed out of the harbor of Port Royal, now Kingston, in Jamaica, an unlawful military enterprise, about equal in force to that with which Cortez first landed at Vera Cruz, but immensely inferior to the panic-stricken host that fled by night from the city of Mexico. The fitting out of this unlawful expedition, like that of Cortez, had the connivance of the local authorities. The difference between the two was, that Morgan did not understand the Spanish Oriental style of proclaiming his own heroism, and furthermore, his expedition was not directed against a miserably-armed rabble of Indians, but against the fortified city of Panama, held by a garrison of royal troops.

Mooring his little fleet in the harbor of Chagres, Morgan marched his small force across the Isthmus, which then presented greater difficulties to his pa.s.sage with cannon and munitions of war than Cortez encountered in his march to Mexico. Like Cortez in his first expedition, Morgan met with no opposition in his first visit to Panama, but, with his men, lived at free quarters in rioting and debauchery, committing those atrocities that pirates alone can commit, until, their appet.i.tes and their pa.s.sions being satiated, they returned to the Gulf coast, taking with them the plunder of a city which was then the depository of the treasures drawn from South America. They returned a second time to Panama, as Cortez did to Mexico. This time they met with resistance, but they carried the town by a.s.sault, and devoted it to utter destruction. Their efforts were seconded by a terrible earthquake, from which the people fled, and built a new city at a distance of a few miles from the ruins.

For more than two hundred years the rank vegetation of a tropical forest has been driving its ma.s.sive roots beneath its foundations, and yet the ruins of Panama still bear the marks of having once been a city of much magnificence. Two ma.s.sive stone bridges, a pavement, diverse broken walls, and a solid tower standing up above the tops of the tall forest-trees, proclaim the incontrovertible fact that the traces of a large city can not be altogether blotted out in the course of a few centuries.

Morgan has never gratified the world with a narrative of his adventures, nor has any of his gang enlightened us with a history of the conquest of Panama, nor has any Saxon bishop Lorenzana yet been found so lost to all moral sense as to commend the piety of such infamous men. And yet, in the boldness of his enterprise, in the courage of its execution, in the amount of plunder realized, in military talent and prowess, Morgan the pirate was incalculably superior to Cortez the hero.

[41] CORTeZ, _Letters_, p. 111.

[42] Ibid.

[43] _Diaz_, p. 247.

[44] _Essai Politique_, vol. ii. p. 172.

[45] This is a little too strong a statement, considering that there never was and never could be a cellar at Mexico.

[46] The naked negro alcalde mentioned in Chapter XII. was also seated on a leather cus.h.i.+on.

[47] This is not all fancy. No people in the world show more profound reverence to the aged or deference to their chiefs than the North American Indians.

[48] "Iztapalapan was at that time a town of considerable magnitude, built half in the water and half on dry land. The spot where it stood is at present all dry land; and where vessels once sailed up and down, seeds are sown and harvests gathered. In fact, the whole face of the country is so completely changed, that he who had not seen these parts previously would scarcely believe that waves had ever rolled over the spot where now fertile corn-plantations extend themselves to all sides, so wonderfully have all things changed here in a short s.p.a.ce of time."--BERNAL DIAZ, vol. i. p. 220.

[49] Moffatt's Southern Africa, page 242, furnishes the following complete ill.u.s.tration of the effect produced by hors.e.m.e.n and fire-arms upon savage warriors. "The commando approached within 150 yards with a view to beckon some one to come out. On this, the enemy commenced their terrible howl, and at once discharged their clubs and javelins. Their black, dismal appearance and savage fury, with their hoa.r.s.e and stentorian voices, were calculated to daunt; and the Griquas [hors.e.m.e.n], on their first attack, wisely retreated to a short distance, and then drew up.

Waterboer, the chief, commenced firing, and leveled one of their warriors to the ground; several more instantly shared the same fate. It was confidently expected that their courage would be daunted when they saw their warriors fall by an invisible weapon, and it was hoped they would be humbled and alarmed, that thus further bloodshed might be prevented. Though they beheld with astonishment the dead and the stricken warriors writhing in the dust, they looked with lion-like fierceness at the hors.e.m.e.n, and yelled vengeance, violently wrenching the weapons from the hands of their dying companions to supply the place of those they had discharged at their antagonists. Sufficient intervals were afforded, and every encouragement held out for them to make proposals, but all was ineffectual. They sallied forth with increased vigor, so as to oblige the Griquas to retreat, though only to a short distance, for they never attempted to pursue above 200 yards from their camp. The firing, though without any order, was very destructive, as each took a steady aim. Many of their chief men fell victims to their own temerity, after manifesting undaunted spirit. Again and again the chiefs and Mr.

Melville met to deliberate on how to act to prevent bloodshed among a people who determined to die rather than flee, which they could easily have done.

"Soon after the battle commenced, the Bechuanas came up, and united in playing on the enemy with poisoned arrows, but they were soon driven back; half a dozen of the fierce Mantatees [the enemy] made the whole body scamper off in wild disorder. After two hours and a half's combat, the Griquas, finding their ammunition fast diminis.h.i.+ng, at the almost certain risk of loss of life, began to storm [charge], when the enemy gave way, taking a westerly direction. The hors.e.m.e.n, however, intercepted them, when they immediately descended toward the ravine, as if determined not to return by the way they came, which they crossed, but were again intercepted. On turning round they seemed desperate, but were again soon repulsed. Great confusion now prevailed, the ground being very stony, which rendered it difficult to manage the horses. At this moment an awful scene was presented to the view. The undulating country around was covered with warriors all in motion, so that it was difficult to say who were enemies or who were friends. Clouds of dust were rising from the immense ma.s.ses, who appeared flying with terror or pursuing with fear. To the alarming confusion was added the bellowing of oxen, the vociferations of the yet unvanquished warriors, mingled with the groans of the dying, and the widows' piercing wail, and the cries from infant voices. The enemy again directed their course toward a town which was in possession of a tribe of the same people still more numerous. Here again another desperate struggle ensued, when they appeared determined to inclose the hors.e.m.e.n within the smoke and flames of the houses, through which they were slowly pa.s.sing, giving the enemy time to escape. At last, seized with despair, they fled precipitately. It had been observed during the fight that some women went backward and forward to the town, only about half a mile distant, apparently with the most perfect indifference to their fearful situation.

While the commando was struggling between hope and despair of being able to rout the enemy, information was brought that the half of the enemy, under Choane, were reposing in the town, within sound of the guns, perfectly regardless of the fate of the other division, under the command of Karagauye. It was supposed they possessed entire confidence in the yet invincible army of the latter, being the more warlike of the two. Humanly speaking, had both parties been together, the day would have been lost, when they would with perfect ease have carried devastation into the centre of the colony [of the Cape]. When both parties were united, they set fire to all parts of the town, and appeared to be taking their departure, proceeding in an immense body toward the north. If their number may be calculated by the s.p.a.ce of ground occupied by the entire body, it must have amounted to upward of 40,000. The Griquas pursued them about eight miles; and though they continued desperate, they seemed filled with terror at the enemies by whom they had been overcome.... As fighting was not my province, I avoided discharging a single shot, though, at the request of Mr. Melville and the chiefs, I remained with the commando as the only means of safety. Seeing the savage ferocity of the Bechuanas in killing the inoffensive women and children for the sake of a few paltry rings, or to boast that they had killed some of the Mantatees, I turned my attention to these objects of pity, who were flying in consternation in all directions. By my galloping in among them, many of the Bechuanas were deterred from their barbarous purpose. Shortly after they began to retreat, the women, seeing that mercy was shown them, instead of flying, generally sat down, and, baring their bosoms, exclaimed, 'I am a woman. I am a woman.' It seemed impossible for the men to yield. There were several instances of wounded men being surrounded by fifty Bechuanas, but it was not till life was almost extinct that a single one would allow himself to be conquered. I saw more than one instance of a man fighting boldly with ten or twelve spears or arrows fixed in his body.... The men, struggling with death, would raise themselves from the ground, and discharge their weapons at any one of our number within their reach: their hostile and revengeful spirit only ceased when life was extinct. Contemplating this deadly conflict, we could not but admire the mercy of G.o.d that not one of our number was killed, and only one slightly wounded. One Bechuana lost his life while too eagerly seeking for plunder. The slain of the enemy was between four and five hundred.

"The Mantatees are a tall, robust people, in features resembling the Bechuanas; the dress, consisting of prepared ox-hides, hanging doubly over their shoulders. The men, during the engagement, were nearly naked, having on their heads a round c.o.c.kade of black ostrich feathers. Their ornaments were large copper rings, sometimes eight in number, worn round their necks, with numerous arm, leg, and ear rings of the same material. Their weapons were war-axes of various shapes, and clubs. Into many of their k.n.o.b-sticks were inserted pieces of iron resembling a sickle, but more curved, sometimes to a circle, and sharp on the outside. They appeared more rude and barbarous than the tribes around us, the natural consequences of the warlike life they had led. They were suffering dreadfully from want; even in the heat of battle, the poorest cla.s.s seized pieces of meat and devoured them raw."