The Infidel Volume I Part 1

The Infidel.

Vol. I.

by Robert Montgomery Bird.

CHAPTER I.

The traveller, who wanders at the present day along the northern and eastern borders of the Lake of Tezcuco, searches in vain for those monuments of aboriginal grandeur, which surrounded it in the age of Montezuma. The lake itself, which not so much from the saltness of its flood as from the vastness of its expanse, was called by Cortes the Sea of Anahuac, is no longer worthy of the name. The labours of that unhappy race of men, whose bondage the famous Conquistador cemented in the blood of their forefathers, have conducted, through the bowels of a mountain, the waters of its great tributaries, the pools of San Cristobal and Zumpango; and these, rus.h.i.+ng down the channel of the Tula, or river of Montezuma, and mingled with the surges of the great Gulf, support fleets of modern argosies, instead of piraguas and chinampas, and expend upon foundering s.h.i.+ps-of-war the wrath, which, in their ancient beds, was wasted upon reeds and bulrushes. With the waters, which rippled through their streets, have vanished the numberless towns and cities, that once beautified the margin of the Alpine sea; the towers have fallen, the lofty pyramids melted into earth or air, and the palaces and tombs of kings will be looked for in vain, under tangled copses of thistle and p.r.i.c.kly-pear.

The royal city of Tezcuco is now, though the capital of a republican state, a mean and insignificant village. It was originally the metropolis of a kingdom once more ancient and powerful than that of Mexico; and which, when it had shared the fate of all others within the bounds of Anahuac, and acknowledged the sway of the Island Kings, still preserved the reputed, and perhaps the real possession of superior civilization. Its princes, in becoming the feudatories, became also the electors, of Mexico; and thus added dignity to an independence which was only nominal. The polished character of these barbarous chieftains, as the world has been taught to esteem them, may be better understood, when we know, that they sowed the roadside with corn for the sustenance of travellers, and the protection of husbandmen, built hospitals and observatories, endowed colleges and formed a.s.sociations of literature and science, in which, to compare small things with great, as in the learned societies of modern Europe and America, encouragement was given to the study of history, poetry, music, painting, astronomy, and natural magic. The various mechanical trades were divided into corporate bodies, and a.s.signed, each, to some particular quarter of the city; courts and councils were regularly established, and the laws which they dispensed, digested into uniform and written codes, some of which are still preserved. The kings of Tezcuco themselves mingled in the generous rivalries which they fomented: there are still in existence,--at least, in the form of translation,--several of the odes of Nezahualcojotl, a royal Tezcucan poet; and his hymns to the Creator, composed half a century before the advent of the Spaniards, were admired and chanted by the Conquerors, until devoted by misjudging and fanatical missionaries to the flames which consumed the written histories and laws of the kingdom, as well as the idolatrous rituals of the priests, with which last the others were unfortunately confounded.[1]

[Footnote 1: These poems, we presume, were handed down _orally_. We know not how far the picture-writing of the Mexicans (the art of interpreting which appears to be now lost,) was capable of conveying any such thoughts as could not be represented by an absolute _portrait_. No system of writing that is not essentially _phonetic_ or _dialectical_, (i. e. representative of sounds, or of language,) can be made to express abstract ideas, which may be defined to be such as admit of no ideographic or metaphoric representation. If they could, mankind might, at once, enjoy the benefits of the _universal language_, (or, to speak strictly, a subst.i.tute for it; for it would convey ideas not words,) which Leibnitz dreamed of, and Bishop Wilkins, and many others after him, so vainly attempted to construct.

When, therefore, we relate any very curious and marvellous matters, appertaining to Mexican _literature_, though we speak upon the authority of historians, we invite the reader to receive our accounts with some grains of allowance. With the exception of a few arbitrary symbols, expressive of numerals, and a few other objects of constant recurrence, the picture-writing of Mexico spoke in ideas, not words; and it may therefore be a.s.sumed, that it could express nothing that did not, or by a stretch of ingenuity, could not be made to, address and explain itself to the eye.]

A few ruins--a cl.u.s.ter of dilapidated houses--a galloping Creole on his high Spanish saddle, with glittering _manga_ and rattling _anquera_,--and, now and then, an Indian skulking moodily along, in his squalid _serape_,[2]--are all that remain of Tezcuco.

[Footnote 2: The Manga and Serape are Mexican cloaks worn scapulary-wise, the one of richly embroidered cloth, the other of blanket, or some such coa.r.s.e material. The Anquera is a leather housing, embossed and gilt, with a jingling fringe of bra.s.s or silver ornaments.]

In the spring of 1521, the year that followed the flight of the Spaniards from Mexico, the city of the Acolhuacanese presented all its grandeur of aspect, and, to the eye, looked full as royal and imperishable as in the best days of its freedom. But the molewarp was digging at its foundations; and the cloud which had ravaged the Mexican valley, and then pa.s.sed away into the east, where it lay for a time still and small, 'like to a man's hand,' had again crept over the mountain barriers to its gates, and was now brooding among its sanctuaries. A group of Christian men sat under a cypress-tree, without the walls, regarding the great pyramid, on whose lofty terrace, overshadowing the surrounding edifices, floated a crimson banner of velvet and gold, on which, besides the royal arms of Spain, was emblazoned, as on the Labarum of the Constantines, a white cross, with the legend, imitated from that famous standard of fanaticism, _In hoc signo vincemus_. If other proof had been wanting of the return of the Spaniards to the scene of their discomfiture, their presence in Tezcuco, and their unchangeable resolution to complete the work of conquest so disastrously begun, it might have been traced abundantly in the strange spectacle, which, equally with the desecrated temple, divided the attention of the group of Castilians at the cypress-tree. They sat on a little swell of earth,--a natural mound which jutted into the lake, whose waters, agitated by a western breeze, dashed in musical breakers at its base; while the rustling of the leaves above, mingled with these sounds of waves, a tone that was both melancholy and harmonious. The beautiful prospect of Tezcuco, rising beyond fertile meadows in the livery of spring, flanked, on the right hand, by a sheet of dark and glossy water,--with white towers, turrets, and temple-tops, painted, as it seemed, on a background of mountains of the purest azure, was enough of itself to engross the admiration of a looker-on, had there not been presented, hard by, a scene still more singular and romantic.

A train of warriors, artificers and labourers, the latter bending under such burthens as had never before descended to the verge of Tezcuco, was seen pa.s.sing, at a little distance, towards the city, into which, as was denoted by a sudden explosion of artillery and the blast of trumpets on the top of the pyramid, the leaders were just entering, while the rear of the procession, extending for miles, and winding like some mighty snake, over hill and meadow, was lost among distant forests.

The martial salutation from the town was answered by the whole train with a yell, filling the air, and causing the distant hills and lakes to tremble with the reverberation. In this, the ear might detect, besides the war-cry of Indians, "Tlascala, Tlascala!" the not less piercing shouts of Spaniards, "In the name of G.o.d and Santiago!" as well as the flourish of bugles, scattered at intervals among the train. If the broad Sea of Anahuac trembled at the sound, it was with good reason; for the clamour of triumph indicated the approach of those unknown naval engines, which were to plough its undefiled bosom, and convert every billow into the va.s.sal of the stranger. On the shoulders of eight thousand Tlascalans, were borne the materials for the construction of thirteen brigantines, with which the unconquerable Spaniard, capable of every expedient, meditated the complete investment and the certain reduction of Tenocht.i.tlan. The iron, the sails, and cordage of that fleet which he had caused to be broken up and sunk in the harbour of Vera Cruz, were added to planks, spars, and timbers from the sierras of Tlascala, and to pitch and rosin from the _pinales_, or pine-forests, of Huexotzinco,--a gloomy and broken desert, notorious, in the present day, as the haunt of bandits, the most brutal and merciless in the world.

The brawny carriers of these ma.s.sive materials were protected, on the front and in the rear, by legions of their countrymen, armed, after their wild and romantic way, and clad in tunics of cotton or maguey cloth, with tiaras of feathers; who pa.s.sed by in successive bodies of spearmen, archers, slingers, and swordsmen, arranged and divided in the manner of their Christian confederates. Besides these guards of front and rear, of whom the historian Herrera a.s.serts, there were 180,000, while even the modest Clavigero computes their numbers at full one-sixth of this vast host, there were on either flank, bodies of picked warriors, marching in company with small bands of Spaniards, and personally led by distinguished Christian cavaliers. A military man may form a juster estimate of the numbers of the train, by being told, that it formed a line more than six miles in length, the whole marching compactly, and in strict order, so as to be best able to resist an attack of enemies.

The Spaniards under the cypress-tree, surveyed this striking spectacle with interest, but not with the grave wonder and absorbing admiration of men unfamiliar with such scenes. On the contrary, it was evident, from the tone of the remarks with which they wiled away the time of observation, (for it was many a long hour before the last of the train drew in sight,) that they were of that levity of spirit, or in that wantonness of mood, which can find matter for ridicule in the most serious of occurrences. Thus, they beheld, or fancied they beheld, somewhat that was diverting in the persons, or motions, of the stern and warlike Tlascalans, and especially in the zealous eagerness with which these barbarians strove to imitate the bearing and gait, as well as the evolutions, of their disciplined a.s.sociates. Nay, their raillery was extended even to the Spanish portion of the train; and, sometimes, when a comrade pa.s.sed by, if near enough to be made sensible of the jest, he was saluted with some such outpouring of wit, as put to the proof either his gravity or his patience.

These happy individuals, to whom we desire to introduce the reader, were five in number, and, with a single exception, though betraying none of the submissiveness of inferior personages, were evidently of no very exalted rank in the Christian army. Their attire was plain, and consisted, for the most part, of the c.u.mbrous escaupil, or cotton-armour, over which, in the case of one or two, at least, were buckled a few plates of iron. Most of them had on their heads, helmets, or rather caps, of the same flimsy material, sometimes so thickly padded as to a.s.sume the bulk, as well as the appearance of rude turbans; all wore swords, and two had crossbows hanging at their backs. No distinction of station could have been inferred from their manner of discoursing one with another; and it was only by the morion of bright steel, richly inlaid with gold, on the head of one, and the polished hauberk on his chest, worn more for display than for any present service, that the wearer would have been recognized as of a grade superior to that of his companions. He was a tall and athletic cavalier, with a long chin, and cheeks broad and bony; and a singular and rather unpleasing expression was added to his countenance by eyes disproportionably small, though exceedingly black, keen, and resolute. A small, sharply peaked beard,--mustaches so thin, long, and straight, that they looked rather like the drooping locks of a woman than the favourites of a vain gallant,--a narrow but lofty forehead, on either side of which, divided and smoothed with effeminate care, fell ma.s.ses of straight black hair, touched, yet almost invisibly, with the traces of matured manhood,--a small mouth,--a prominent nose,--and a complexion exceedingly dark, yet rather of the hue of iron than mahogany, completed a visage which a stranger would not have hesitated to attribute to a man of decided character, but without daring to determine whether that was of good or evil.

The individual who would have been the second to attract the notice of a wayfarer, owed this distinction rather to his personal deformity than to any other very striking characteristic. He was a hunchback, with much of the saturnine and sour expression which distinguishes the countenances of the deformed, and yet of a spirit so much belied by his looks, that he heard, recognized, and constantly replied to, without anger, the nickname of _Corcobado_, or the humpbacked, to which his misfortune exposed him. The most observable peculiarity in his countenance, was the uncommon length of his nose, which so far intruded upon the lower part of his visage, as to give this a look of age, which was contradicted, not only by other features, but by the prodigious muscularity of his shoulders and arms. It must be confessed, however, that his lower extremities were entirely unworthy to compare with the upper, being both so short and thin, that when he stood upon his feet, his arms crossed behind,--which was their ordinary position,--with the stout iron plates protruding from both back and breast, he looked rather like a bundle of armour and garments, exposed to the air and supported above the earth on two broken pikestaves or javelins, than a living and human creature.

The next individual was a man of good stature, who would have been considered, notwithstanding his grey hairs, the strongest man in the company, had it not been for his general emaciation and an expression of suffering on a countenance over which disease, contracted among the hot and humid swamps of the coast, had cast the sickliest hues of jaundice.

Indeed, this discolouration, on a visage naturally none of the fairest, was of so deep a tint, that it had gained for the invalid, as well as for a whole s.h.i.+p's crew of his companions, the significant t.i.tle of _Ojo Verde_, or the Green Eye. And here we may as well observe, that, in the army of Cortes, the wit which shows itself in the invention of such distinctions, was so prevalent, that there was scarce a man, from the general down to his groom or scullion, who had not been honoured by at least _one_ sobriquet.

The fourth personage was a man of indifferent figure, remarkable for little save the marvellous sweetness of his eyes, which were set among features exceedingly sharp and harsh, and the volubility of his tongue.

The fifth sat apart from the others, a little down the slope of the hillock, with tablets in his hands, yet so plunged in abstraction, or so much wrapped up in the contemplation of the dark lake, the little piraguas dancing over its billows, and the far-distant turrets of the infidel city, that he seemed to have forgotten, not only the presence of his companions, and the pa.s.sing procession, but the purpose for which he had drawn forth his writing implements.

The sound of the cannon, as we have said, was immediately responded to by the shouts of the train; which, commencing at the gates of the city, were continued and prolonged by the various bodies that composed the huge and moving ma.s.s, until they died away in the distance, like peals of rolling thunder. At the same time, the Indians struck their tabours, and sounded their conches and cane-flutes, in rivalry with the Spanish buglers; and a din was made, which, for a time, put a stop to the conversation of the four Castilians. It also startled the solitary man from his meditations, but only for an instant. He rose, turned his eye listlessly towards the procession, and then again resuming his seat, he was presently sunk in as profound abstraction as before.

In the meanwhile, the cavalier of the helmet had bent his gaze upon the pyramid, from the top of which the cannon-smoke was driving slowly away like a cloud, and revealing the proud banner, which it had for a moment enveloped. He could see, even at this distance, that the two stone turrets,--the idol-chambers,--on the summit, were crowned with crosses, and that the flag-staff,--a tall cedar, that might have made a mast for an admiral's s.h.i.+p,--was surrounded by a tent, or rather pavilion, of native white cloth, broadly striped with crimson, which glittered brilliantly at its foot. As he looked he stroked his beard, and muttered, addressing himself to the hunchback,

"Harkee, Najara, man! give me the benefit of thy thoughts, and care not if they come out like crab-apples. What thinkest thou of Cortes now? Is there not something over-stately and very regal-like in the present condition of his temper?"

"Why dost thou ask that of _me_, when thou hast Villafana at thy elbow?"

replied the hunchback, with a voice worthy the acerbity of his aspect: "if thou wilt have dirty water, get thee to the ditch."

"You call me _Grunidor_, and grumbler I am," said he of the sweet eyes, with a laugh. "I grumble when I am in the humour; and I care not who knows it. Am I a ditch, old sinner? I'faith, I must be, when I have such ill weeds as thyself growing about me. Wilt thou have _my_ thoughts, senor Guzman, on this subject? I can speak them."

"Be quick, then," said the cavalier; "for Corcobado is digesting an answer to thy fling, which will leave thee speechless."

"Pho, I will bandy mudb.a.l.l.s with him at any moment," said Villafana: "I care not for the buffets of a friend. As for the n.o.ble senor, the Captain General, what you say is true. The king's letter hath set him mad. While the Bishop of Burgos was still in power, and his enemy, he was e'en a good companion,--a comrade, and no master. Demonios! 'twas a better thing for us, when his authority rested on our good-will, and no royal patent."

"Ay," said Guzman; "when we were but rebels and exiles, denounced by the governor, cursed by the priest, and outlawed by the king, Cortes was the most moderate, humble, and loving rogue of us all. I do think, he is somewhat altered."

"Oh, senor, there is no such bond for our friends.h.i.+p as a consciousness of dependence upon those who love us; and nothing so efficacious in cooling us to friends, as the discovery that we can do without them. His authority is no longer our gift; the bishop has fallen; the king has acknowledged his claims, and sent him, besides a fair, lawful commission and goodly reinforcements both of men and arms, a letter of commendation written with his own royal hands. May his majesty live a thousand years!

but would to heaven his letter were at the bottom of the sea. It has brought us a hard master. Can your favour solve me the riddle of the king's change? What argument has so operated on his mind, that he now does honour to a man he once condemned as a traitor, and advances him into such power as leaves him independent even of the Governor of the Islands?"

"The very same argument," replied Guzman, "which has turned thee--a friend of Velasquez--into the most devoted, though grumbling adherent of our Captain--_interest_, sirrah, interest. It is manifest, that this empire was made to be won; and equally apparent, that the man who could half subdue it, though trammelled and opposed by all the arts and power of Velasquez, was the fittest to conclude the good work; and what was no less persuasive, it was plain, our valiant Don was fully determined to do the work himself, without much questioning whether the king would or not."

"Why, by heaven!" cried Villafana, "you make out the general to be a traitor, indeed!"

"Ay;--for, in certain cases, there is virtue in treason."

"Hark now to Villafana!" cried the hunchback, abruptly: "he will thank you for the maxim, as if 'twere a ma.s.s for his soul."

"_I_, curmudgeon?" exclaimed the grumbler. "There were a virtue in it, could it bring such fellows as thyself to the block. What I aver, is, that the king's honours have spoiled our general. By'r lady, I see not what good can come of sending us a Royal Treasurer, Franciscan friars with bulls of St. Peter, and Lady Abbesses to build up nunneries, unless to make up more state for our leader."

"Then art thou more thick-pated than I thought thee," replied the cavalier. "The bulls will make us somewhat stronger of heart, and therefore better gatherers of gold in a land where gold is not to be had without fighting. La Monjonaza will sanctify our efforts, by converting the women; and the king's Treasurer will see that we do not cheat the king, after we have got our rewards, as, it is rumoured, we have done somewhat already."

"Santos! I know what thou art pointing at, Don Francisco," said Villafana, significantly. "The four hundred thousand crowns that have vanished out of the treasury, hah! This is a matter that has stained the General's honour for ever. And as for La Monjonaza, thou knowest there are dark thoughts about her."

"Have a care," said Don Francisco. "We are friends, and friends may speak their minds: but I cannot hear thee abuse Don Hernan."

"Hast thou never been as free thyself?" cried Villafana, with a laugh, which mingled a careless derision with good-humour. "Come, now,--confess thou wert pleased to be appointed Grand Guardian and Chamberlain,--or, if thou wilt, Grand Vizier,--to his G.o.d-son, the young king of Tezcuco; and that, since he gave thee Lerma's horse, thou hast been better mounted than any other cavalier in the army."

"Thou art an a.s.s. Cortes has ever been my friend; and when I have complained, as I have sometimes done, it was only like a good house-dog, who howls in the night-watches, because he has nothing better to amuse him. But hold,--look! the carriers are pa.s.sed. The rear-guard approaches. Now is my friend Sandoval yonder, betwixt the two Tlascalan chiefs, glorified in his imagination. 'Slid! he would have had me exchange my brown Bobadil for his raw-boned Motacila!--Come, Najara, rub up thy wit; fling me some sweet word into the teeth of the Tlascalan generals. Dost thou perceive with what solemn visages they approach us?"

"I perceive," said Najara, "that Xicotencal is in no mood for jesting.

It is said, he comes to join us with his power reluctantly. Dost thou see how he stalks by himself, frowning? A maravedi to a ducat, he would sooner take us by the throat than the hand!"

"Why then, be quick, show him thy scorn in a fillip."

"Hast thou forgotten it has been decreed a matter for the bastinado, to abuse an ally?"

"Ay!" cried Villafana, "there is another fruit of a king's patent. One may neither laugh nor scold, gamble nor play truant, but straight he is told of a decree. Faith, when Cortes was our plain Captain, it was another matter: if there was aught to be done or not to do, it was then, in simple phrase, 'I commend to your favours,' or, 'I beg of your friends.h.i.+ps, do me this thing,' or, 'do it not,' as was needful. But now the Captain-General deals only in decrees or proclamations, wherein we have commands for exhortations, prohibitions in place of dissuasions, and, withal, a plentiful garnis.h.i.+ng of stocks and dungeons, whips and halters, all in the king's name. By Santiago! there is too much state in this."

"Pho! thou art an Alguazil; why shouldst thou care?" said the Cavalier.

"The decrees are wholesome, the restrictions wise. It is right, we should not displease the Republicans: they are our best friends,--very quick and jealous too; and we were but a scotched snake without them."

"If they fight our battles," said Villafana, "they divide our spoil. In my mind, that black-faced Xicotencal is a villain and traitor."

"Thy judgment is better, in such matters, than another's," said the hunchback.

"Right!" cried Guzman; "the Alguazil will be presently in his own stocks, if thou dost heat him into a quarrel. We are not forbidden to abuse one another. Let the red jackalls pa.s.s by unnoticed; we have mirth enough among ourselves,--we will worry our Immortality. Look, Najara, man; dost thou not see in what perplexity of cogitation he is involved,--yonder dull Bernal? Rouse him with a quip, now; pierce him with a jest. Come, stir; rub thy nose, make thy wit as sharp as a goad, and p.r.i.c.k the ox out of his slumber."