INTRODUCTION.
Nature, and the memory of strange deeds of renown have flung over thevalley of Mexico a charm more romantic than is attached to many of thevales of the olden world for though historic association and the spellof poetry have consecrated the borders of Leman and the laurel groves ofTempe, and Providence has touched both with the finger of beauty, yetdoes our fancy, in either, dwell upon objects which are not so much theadjuvants of romance as of sentiment; in both, we gather food rather forfeeling than imagination,--we live over thoughts which are generated bymemory, and our conceptions are the reproductions of experience. Butpoetry has added no plenary charm, history has cast no over-sufficientlight on the haunts of Montezuma; on the Valley of Lakes, though filledwith the hum of life, the mysteries of backward years are yet brooding;and the marvels of human destiny are whispered to our ears, in the sighof every breeze,--in the rustling of every tree which it stirs on theshore, and in the sound of every ripple it curls up on the lake. Onechapter only of its history (and that how full of marvels!) has beenwritten, or preserved; the rest is a blank: a single chain ofvicissitudes,--a few consecutive links in the concatenation ofevents,--have escaped; the rest is a secret, strange, captivating, andpregnant of possibilities. This is the proper field for romanticmusings.
So, at least, thought a traveller,--or, to speak more strictly, arambler, whose idle wanderings from place to place, directed by ennuior whim, did not deserve the name of travels,--who sat, one pleasantevening of October, 183-, on the hill of Chapoltepec, regarding thespectacle which is disclosed from the summit of that fair promontory.
The hum of the city came faintly to his ear; the church-towers flungtheir long shadows over the gardened roofs; the wildfowl flapped thewhite wing over the distant sheets of water, which stretched, in achain, from Chalco to San Cristobal; the shouts of Indian boatmen wereheard, at a distance, on the canal of La Viga, and the dark forms ofothers, trotting along the causeway that borders it, were seen returningto their huts among the _Chinampas_. Quiet stole over the valley; thelizard crept to his hole; the bat woke up in the ruined chambers of theviceroy's palace, that crowns the hill of Chapoltepec, or started awayfrom his den among the leaves of those mossy, majestic, and indeedcolossal, cypresses, which, at its base, overshadow the graves of Azteckings and sultanas. At last, the vesper-bells sounded in the city, andthe sun stooped under the western hills, leaving his rays stillglittering, with such hues as are only seen in a land of mountains, onthe grand peaks of Popocatepetl and the White Woman, the farthest butyet the noblest summits of all in that girdle of mountain magnificence,which seems to shut out Mexico from the rest of the world.
As these bright tints faded into a mellow and harmonious lustre, castinga sort of radiant obscurity over vale and mountain, lake and steeple,the thoughts of the wanderer (for the romance of the spectacle and thehour had pervaded his imagination,) crept back to the ages of antiquityand to those mystic races of men, the earliest of the land, who hadbuilt their cities and dug their graves in this Alpine paradise, nowpossessed by a race of whom their world had not dreamed. He gazed andmused, until fancy peopled the scene around him with spectral life, andhis spirit's eye was opened on spectacles never more to be revealed tothe corporeal organ. It opened on the day when the land was awilderness, shaking for the first time under the foot of a stranger; andhe beheld, as in a vision, the various emigrations and irruptions intothe vale, of men born in other climates. They came like the tides ofocean, and, as such, passed away,--like shadows, and so departed; thehistory of ages was compressed into the representation of a moment, andan hundred generations, assembled together as one people, rushed by insuccessive apparitions.
First, over the distant ridges of Nochistongo, there stole, or seemed tosteal, a multitude of men, worn with travel, yet bearing idols on theirbacks, in whose honour, for now they had reached their land of promise,they built huge pyramids, to outlive their gods and themselves; and,scattering over the whole plain, covered it at once with cornfields andcities. The historian (for this unknown race brought with it science aswell as religion,) sat him in the grove, to trace the pictured annals ofhis age; the astronomer ascended to the tower, to observe the heavens,and calculate the seasons, of the new land; while the multitude,forgetting the austere climes of their nativity, sat down in peace andjoy, under the vines and fruit-trees that made their place of habitationso beautiful. Thus they rested and multiplied, until the barbarians ofthe hills,--the earlier races, and perhaps the aborigines of theland,--descended to take counsel of their wisdom, and follow in the waysof civilization. Then came a cloud, bringing a pestilence, in whose hotbreath the rivers vanished, the lakes turned to dust and the mountainsto volcanoes, the trees crackled and fell as before a conflagration, andmen lay scorched with the leaves, as thick and as dead, on the plain;and the few who had strength to fly, betook themselves to the hills andthe seaside, to forget their miseries and their arts, and becomebarbarians.--Thus began, and thus ended, in Mexico, the race of_Toltecs_, the first and the most civilized of which Mexicanhieroglyphics,--the legacy of this buried people to theirsuccessors,--have preserved the memory.
But the rains fell at last, the lakes filled, the forests grew; andother tribes,--the _Chechemecs_ and _Acolhuacans_, with others, many innumber and strangers to each other,--coming from the same distant North,but bringing not the civilization of the first pilgrims, sat in theirseats, and mingling together into one people, began, at last, after longseasons of barbarism, to emerge from the gloom of ignorance, and acquirethe arts, and understand the destinies of man.
To these came, by the same trodden path, a herd of men, ruder than anywho had yet visited the southern valleys,--_Aztecs_ in family, butcalled by their neighbours and foes, _Nahuatlacas_, or People of theLakes,--consisting of many tribes, the chief of which was that whichbore upon a throne of bulrushes an image of the god Mexitli, theDestroyer, from whom, in its days of grandeur, it took its name. Fromthis crew of savages, the most benighted and blood-thirsty, and, atfirst, the feeblest of all,--so base that history presents them as theonly nation of bondmen known to the region of Anahuac, and so sordidthat, in the festivals of religion, they could provide for their deityonly the poor offering of a knife and flower,--fated now to fight thebattles of their task-masters, and now condemned to knead the bread ofindependence from the fetid plants and foul reptiles of the lake;--fromthis herd of barbarians, grew, as it seemed, in a moment's space, thevast, the powerful, and, in many respects, the magnificent empire of theMontezumas. In his mind's eye, the stranger could perceive the saltTezcuco, restored to its ancient limits, beating again upon the porphyryhill on which he sat, and the City of the Island, with her hundredtemples and her thousand towers, rising from the shadows, and heavingagain with the impulses of nascent civilization. It was at this moment,when the travail of centuries was about to be recompensed, when thecarved statue, the work of many successive Pygmalions, was beginning tobreathe the breath, and feel the instincts of moral animation, that amysterious destiny trampled upon the little spark, and crushed to atomsthe body it was warming. From the eastern hills came the voice of theOld World--the sound of the battle-trumpet; the smoke of artilleryrolled over the lake; and, in a moment more, the shout of conquest andglory was answered by the groan of a dying nation.
As this revery ended in the brain of the stranger, and the conqueror andthe captive of the vision vanished away together, he began to contrastin his mind the past condition of the new world with the present, andparticularly of those two portions, which, at the time of theirinvasion, had outlived the barbarism of nature, and were teeming withthe evidences of incipient greatness. As for this fair valley of Mexico,there was scarcely an object either of beauty or utility, the creationof Christian wants or Christian taste, to be seen, for which his memorycould not trace a rival, or superior, which existed in the day ofpaganism. The maize fields, the maguey plantations, the orchards andflower-gardens, that beautify the plains and sweeping slopes,--thesewere here, long ages ago, with the many vill
ages that glisten amongthem,--all indeed but the white church and steeple; the lakes which arenow noisome pools,--were they not lovelier when they covered thepestilential fens, and when the rose-garden floated over their bluesurface? The long rows of trees marking the line of the great_Calzadas_, or causeways, the approaches to Mezico, but poorly supplythe place of aboriginal groves, the haunts of the doe and thecentzontli, while the calzadas themselves, stretching along over bog andmorass, have entirely lost the charm they possessed, when washed, oneither side, by rolling surges; even the aqueducts, though they sprangnot from arch to arch, over the valley, as at the present time, were notwanting; and where the church spires of the metropolis pierce theheaven, the sacred tabernacles of the gods rose from the summits ofpyramids. The changes in the physical spectacle among the valleys ofPeru were perhaps not much greater; but what happy mutations in thecharacter and condition of man, what advance of knowledge and virtue,had repaid the havoc and horror which were let loose, three hundredyears ago, on the lands of Montezuma and the Incas? The question was oneto which the rambler could not conceive an answer without pain.
'The ways of Providence,' he murmured, 'are indeed inscrutable; thedesigns of Him who layeth the corner-stone and buildeth up the fabric ofdestiny, unfathomable. Two mighty empires,--the only states which seemedto be leading the new world to civilization,--were broken, and at anexpense of millions of lives, barbarously destroyed; and for whatpurpose? to what good end? How much better or happier are the presentraces of Peru and Mexico, than the past? Hope speaks in the breath offancy--time may, perhaps, teach us the lesson of mystery; and thesemagnificent climates, now given up, a second time, to the sway of man inhis darkest mood,--to civilized savages and Christian pagans,--may bemade the seats of peace and wisdom; and perhaps, if mankind should againdescend into the gloom of the middle ages, their inhabitants willpreserve, as did the more barbarous nations in all previousretrogressions, the brands from which to rekindle the torches ofknowledge, and thus be made the engines of the reclamation of a world.'
The traveller muttered the conclusion of his speculations aloud, and,insensibly to himself, in the Spanish tongue, totally unconscious of thepresence of a second person, until made aware of it by a voiceexclaiming suddenly, as if in answer, and in the same language--
"Right! very right! _pecador de mi!_ sinner that I am, that _I_ shouldnot have thought it, for the honour of God and my country!"
The voice was sharp, abrupt, and eager, but very quavering. The strangerturned, and perceived that the words came from a man dressed in a longloose surtout or gown of black texture, none of the newest, with a hatof Manilla grass, umbrageous as an oak-top. He looked old and infirm;his person was very meager; his cheeks were of a mahogany hue, andhollow, and the little hair that stirred over them in the eveningbreeze, was of a sable silvered: his eyes were large, restless,exceedingly bright, and irascible. He carried swinging in his hand,without seeming to use it much, (for, in truth, his gait was tooirregular and capricious to admit such support,) a staff, to the head ofwhich was tied a bunch of flowers; and he bore under his arm, as theyseemed to the unpractised eye of the observer, a bundle of books, acluster of veritable quartos, so antique and worn, that the stringknotted round each, seemed necessary to keep together its dilapidatedpages. The whole air of the man was unique, but not mean; and thetraveller did not doubt, at the first glance, that he belonged to someinferior order of ecclesiastics, and was perhaps the curate of aneighbouring village.
"Right! you have said the truth!" he continued, regarding the travellereagerly, and, as the latter thought, with profound veneration; "I mustspeak with you, very learned stranger, for I perceive you are aphilosopher. Very great thanks to you! may you live a thousand years! Ina single word, you have revealed the secret that has been the enigma ofa long life, made good the justice of heaven, and defended the fame ofmy country. God be thanked! I am grateful to your wisdom: you speak likea saint: you are a philosopher!"
The traveller stared with surprise on the speaker; but though thus movedby the abruptness of the address, and somewhat inclined to doubt itsseriousness, there was something so unusual in the mode and quality ofthe compliment as to mollify any indignation which he might have feltrising in his breast.
"Father," said he, "reverend father--for I perceive you are one of theclergy----"
"The poor licentiate, Cristobal Johualicahuatzin, curate of the parishof San Pablo de Chinchaluca," interrupted the ecclesiastic meekly, andin fact with the greatest humility.
"Then, indeed, very excellent and worthy father Cristobal," resumed thestranger, courteously, "though I do not pretend to understand you----"
The padre raised his head; his meekness vanished; he eyed the travellerwith a sharp and indignant frown:
"_Gachupin!_" he cried; "you are a man with two souls: you are wise andyou are foolish, and you speak bad Spanish!--Why do you insult me?"
The stranger stared at his new acquaintance with fresh amazement.
"Insult you, father!" he exclaimed. "I declare to you, I have, thismoment, woke out of a revery; and I scarcely know what you have said orwhat I have answered, or what you are saying and what I am answering. IfI have offended you, I ask your pardon."
"Enough! right!" said the curate, with an air of satisfaction; "you area philosopher; you are right. You were in a revery; you have done me nowrong. I have intruded upon your musings,--I beg your pardon. I thankyou very heartily. You have instructed my ignorance, and appeased myrepining; you have taught me the answer to a vast and painful riddle;and now I perceive why Providence hath given over my native land toseeming ruin, and permitted it to become a place of dust and sand, ofdry-rot and death. The day of darkness shall come again,--it is coming;man merges again into gloom, and now we fall into the age of stone, whenthe hearts of men shall be as flint. This then shall be the valley ofresuscitation, after it is first _plenus ossibus_, full of skeletons, anossuary--a place of moral ossification. Here, then, shall the wind blow,the voice sound, the spirit move, the bone unite to his bone, the sinewcome with the flesh, and light and knowledge, animating the mass into anarmy, send it forth to conquer the world;--not as an army of flesh, withdrum and trump, sword and spear, banner and cannon, to kill and destroy,to ravage and depopulate; but as a phalanx of angels, with healing ontheir wings, to harmonize and enlighten, to pacify and adorn. Yes, youhave taught me this, excellent sage! and you shall know my gratitude:for great joy is it to the child of Moteuczoma, to know there shall bean end to this desolation, this anarchy, this horror!
Vigilare metu exanimis, noctesque diesque Formidare:----
Came I into the world to watch in sorrow and fear for ever? _Hijo mio!_give me thy hand; I love thee. The vale of Anahuac is not deformed fornothing; Christian man has ruined it, but not for a long season!"
The Cura delivered this rhapsody with extreme animation; his eyekindled, he spoke with a rapid and confused vehemence; and the strangerbegan to doubt the stability of his understanding. He flung his bundleto the earth, and grasped the hand of the philosopher, who, until thismoment, was ignorant of the depth of his own wisdom. While still inperplexity, unable to comprehend the strange character, or indeed thestrange fancies to which he had given tongue, the padre looked aroundhim with complacency on the scene, over which a tropical moon was risingto replace the luminary of day, and continued, with a gravity whichpuzzled as much as did his late vivacity,--
"It is very true; I regret it no longer, but it cannot be denied: Thecutting through yonder hill of Nochistongo has given the last blow in asystem of devastation; the canal of Huehuetoca has emptied the goldenpitcher of Moteuczoma. It has converted the valley into a desert, andwill depopulate it.--Men cannot live upon salt."
"A desert, father!"
"Hijo mio! do you pretend to deny it?" cried the Cura, picking up hisbundle, and thumping it with energy. "I aver, and I will prove it toyour satisfaction, out of these books, which--But hold! Are you a spy?will you betray me? No; you are not of Mexico: the cameo on yo
ur breastbears the device of stars, the symbol of intellectual as well aspolitical independence. I reverence that flag; I saw it, when yourenvoy, attacked by an infuriated mob, in his house in yonder very city,(I stole there in spite of them!) sprang upon the balcony, and waved itabroad in the street. Frenzy vanished at the sight: it was the banner ofman's friend!--No! you are no fool with a free arm, a licentious tongue,and a soul in chains. Therefore, you shall look into these pages,concealed for years from the jealousy of misconstruction, and the penalfires of intolerance; and they shall convince you, that this hollow ofthe mountain, as it came from the hands of God, and as it was occupiedby the children of nature, was the loveliest of all the vales of theearth; and that, since Christian man has laid upon it his innovatingfinger, its beauty has vanished, its charm decayed; and it has become aplace fitting only for a den of thieves, a refuge for the snake and thewater-newt, the wild-hog and the vulture!"
"To my mind, father," said the American, no longer amazed at theextravagant expressions of the ecclesiastic, for he was persuaded hiswits were disordered, "to my mind, it is still the most charming ofvalleys; and were it not that the folly and madness of its inhabitants,the contemptible ambition of its rulers, and the servile supineness ofits people,--in fine, the general disorganization of all its elements,both social and political, have made it a sort of Pandemonium,--a spotwherein splendour and grandeur (at least the possibilities and rudimentsof grandeur,) are mixed with all the causes of decline and perdition, Ishould be fain to dream away my life on the borders of its blue lakes,and under the shadow of its volcanic barriers."
"True, true, true! you have said it!" replied the curate, eagerly; "theambition of public men; the feverish servility of the people, forgetfulof themselves, of their own rights and interests, and ever anxious toyoke themselves to the cars of demagogues, to the wires wherewith theymay be worked as puppets, and giving their blood to aggrandizethese--the natural enemies of order and justice, of reason andtranquillity; is not this enough to demoralize and destroy? What peopleis like mine? Wo for us! The bondmen of the old world wake from sleepand live, while we, in the blessed light of sunshine, wrap the mantleround our eyes, sleep, and perish! Revolution after revolution, frenzyafter frenzy! and what do we gain? By revolution, other nations areliberated, but we, by revolution, are enslaved. 'Nil medium est'--isthere no happy mean?"
"It is true," said the American. "But let us not speak of this: it isgalling to be able to inveigh against folly without possessing themedicament for its cure."
"Thou art an American of the North," said the Cura; "thy people arewise, thy rulers are servants, and you are happy! Why, then, art thouhere? I thought thee a sage, but, I perceive, thou hast the rashness ofyouth. Art thou here to learn to despise thine own institutions? Whydost thou remain? the death-wind comes from the southern lakes"--(infact, at this moment, the breeze from the south, rising with the moon,brought with it a mephitic odour, the effluvium of a bog, famous, evenin Aztec days, as the breath of pestilence;) "the death-wind breathes onthee: even as this will infect thy blood, when it has entered into thynostrils, disordering thy body, until thou learnest to loathe all thatseems to thee now, in this scenery, to be so goodly and fair; so willthe gusts of anarchy, rising from a distempered republic, disease thyimagination, until thou comest to be disgusted with the yet untaintedexcellence of thine own institutions, because thou perceivest the evilsof their perversion. Arise, and begone; remain no longer with us; leavethis land, and bear with thee to thine own, these volumes,--the poorremnants of another Sibylline library,--which will teach thee toappreciate and preserve, even as thy soul's ransom, the pure andadmirable frame of government, which a beneficent power has suffered youto enjoy."
"And what, then, are these?" demanded the traveller, curiously, layinghis hand on the bundle, "which can teach Americans to admire the beautyof a republic, and yet are not given to thine own countrymen?"
"They are," said the curate, "the fruits of years of reflection andtoil, of deep research and profound speculation. They contain a historyof Mexico, which, when they were perfect, that is, before mycountrymen," (and here the Cura began to whisper, and look about him inalarm, as if dreading the approach of listeners,)--"before mycountrymen were taught to fear them and to destroy, contained thechronicles of the land, from the time that the Toltecas were exiled from_Huehuetapallan_, more than twelve hundred years ago, down to the momentwhen Augustin climbed up to the throne, which Hidalgo tore from theCachupins. A history wherein," continued the padre, with greatcomplacency, "I flatter myself, though Mexicans have found much todetest, Americans will discover somewhat to approve."
"What is it," said the rambler, "which your people have found soobjectionable?"
"Listen," said the padre, "and you shall be informed. In me,"--here hepaused, and surveyed his acquaintance with as much majesty as he couldinfuse into his wasted figure and hollow countenance,--"in me you beholda descendant of Moteuczoma Xocojotzin."
"Moteuczoma what?" exclaimed the traveller.
"Are you so ignorant, then?" demanded the padre, in a heat, "that youmust be told who was Moteuczoma Xocojotzin, that is, _the younger_,--thesecond of that name who reigned over Mexico?--the very magnificent andunfortunate emperor so basely decoyed into captivity, so ruthlesslyoppressed and, as I may say, by a figure of speech, (for, literally, itis not true) so truculently slain, by the illustrious Don Hernan Cortes,the conqueror of Mexico? Perhaps you are also ignorant of the greatnames of Tizoc, of Xocotzin, and of Ixtlilxochitl?"
"I have no doubt," replied the American, with courteous humility, "thatin the histories of Mexico, which I have ever delighted to read,--in thebooks of De Solis, of Clavigero, of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, andespecially in that of Dr. Robertson,--I have met these illustriousnames; but you must allow, that, to one ignorant of the language, and ofthe mode of pronouncing such conglomerated grunts, it must be extremelydifficult, if not wholly impossible, to rivet them in the memory."
The curate snatched up his bundle, and surveyed the stranger with a lookin which it was hard to tell whether anger or contempt bore the greatersway.
"De Solis! Diaz! Clavigero! Robertson!" he at last exclaimed, irefully."_Basta! demasiado?_ What a _nino_, a little child, a _pobre Yankee_,have I fallen upon! That I should waste my words on a man who studiesMexican history out of the books of these jolterheads!"
The padre was about to depart, without bestowing another word on theoffender. The American was amused at the ready transition of the curatefrom deep reverence to the most unbounded contempt. He was persuaded thewits of the poor father were unsettled, and felt there was the greaterneed to humour and appease him: and, besides, he was curious to discoverwhat would be the end of the adventure.
"Father," said he, with composure, "before you condemn me for acquiringmy little knowledge from these books, you should put it in my power toread better."--The padre looked back.--"What information should beexpected from incompetent writers? from jolterheads? When I have perusedthe histories of father Cristobal, it will then be _my_ fault, if I amfound ignorant of the names of his imperial ancestors."
"_Ay de mi!_" said the curate, striking his forehead; "why did I notthink of that before? _Santos santisimos!_ I am not so quick-witted as Iwas before. I could forgive you more readily, had you not named to methat infidel Scotchman, who calls the superb Moteuczoma a savage, andall the Tlatoani, the great princes, and princesses, the people and all,barbarians! But what more could you expect of a heretic? I forgive you,my son--_you_ are a Christian?"
"A Christian, father; but not of the Catholic faith."
"You will be damned!" said the curate, hastily.
"A point of mere creed, perhaps I should say, mere form--"
"Say nothing about it; form or creed, ceremony or canon, you are in theway to be lost. Open your ears, unbind your eyes--hear, see, andbelieve!--Poor, miserable darkened creature! how can your hereticalunderstanding be made to conceive and profit by the great principles ofphilosophy, when it is blind to the trut
hs of religion?"
"Reverend padre," said the traveller, drily, "my people are a people ofheretics, and yours of Catholic believers. Which has better understood,or better practised, the principles of the philosophy you affect toadmire?"
The padre smote his forehead a second time: "The sneer is, in this case,just! The sin of the enlightened is greater than the crime of theignorant, and so is the punishment: the chosen people of God werechastised with frequent bondage, and finally with expatriation andentire dispersion, for crimes, which, in heathen nations, were punishedonly with wars and famine. But let us not waste time in argument: asbabes may be made the organs of wisdom, so may heretics be suffered asthe instruments of worldly benefaction. What thou sayest, is true;unbelievers as ye are, ye will comprehend and be instructed by truths,which, in this land, would be misconceived and opposed; and from you maythe knowledge you gain, be reflected back on my own people. In thesebooks, which I commit to you for a great purpose, you will learn whowere those worthies of whom I spoke. You will perceive howIxtlilxochitl, the king of Tezcuco, was descended from the house thatgave birth to Moteuczoma. This illustrious name inherit I from mymother. With its glory, it has conferred the penalty to be suspected,opposed, and trampled. Three historians of the name, my ancestors, havealready written in vain; jealousy has locked up their works in darkness,in the veil of manuscript; the privilege of chronicling and pervertingthe history of the land is permitted only to Spaniards, to strangers, toGachupins. Twenty years since, and more, the books I composed, whereinthe truth was told, and the injustice of Spanish writers made manifest,were condemned by ignorance and bigotry to such flames as consumed, atTezcuco, all the native chronicles of Anahuac. But what was written inmy books, was also recorded in the brain; fire could not be put to mymemory. Twenty years of secret labour have repaired the loss. Behold!here is my history; I give it to you.--My enemies must be content withthe ashes!"
The padre rubbed his hands with exultation, as the traveller surveyedthe bundle.
"Why should you fear a similar fate for these volumes, now?" said thelatter. "Times are changed."
"The times, but not the people. Hide them, let no man see them; or thepile will be kindled again; all will be lost--I cannot repair the loss asecond time, for now I am old! Five years have I borne them with me,night and day, seeking for some one cunning and faithful, wise likethyself, to whom to commit them. I have found thee; thou art the man; Iam satisfied: _buen provecho_, much good may they do you,--not you only,but your people,--not your people alone, but the world! Affection forcountry is love of mankind; true patriotism is philanthropy.--Five yearshave I borne them with me, by night and by day."
"Really, I think that this betokened no great fear for their safety."
The padre laughed. "Though the Gachupin and the bigot would rob me of aSpanish dissertation, yet neither would envy me the possession of a fewrolls of hieroglyphics."
As he spoke, he knelt upon the ground, untied the string that securedone of the apparent volumes, and, beginning to unfold the MS., as onewould a very nicely secured traveller's map, displayed, in themoonlight, a huge sheet of maguey paper, emblazoned in gaudy colourswith all kinds of inexplicable devices. As he exhibited his treasure, helooked up for approbation to the American. The '_pobre Yankee_' surveyedhim with a humorous look:
"Father," said he, "you have succeeded to admiration, under this goodlydisguise, not only in concealing your wisdom from the penetration ofyour countrymen, but, as I think, the whole world."
The padre raised his finger to his nose very significantly, saying, witha chuckle of delight,--the delight of a diseased brain in the success ofits cunning,--
"This time, I knew I should throw dust in their eyes, even though theymight demand, for their satisfaction, to look into my work. Youperceive, that this volume, done up after the true manner of ancientMexican books, unrolls from either end. The first pages, and the last,of each volume, contain duplicates of the first and the last chapters,done in Mexican characters: the rest is in Spanish, and, I flattermyself, in very choice Spanish. _Hoc ego recte_--I knew what I wasabout.--One does not smuggle diamonds in sausages, without stuffing insome of the minced meat.--Here is the jewel!"
So saying, and spreading the sheet at its full length, so as to discoverhis hidden records, the padre rose to his feet, and began to dance aboutwith exultation.
"And what am _I_ to do with these volumes?" said the traveller, afterpondering awhile over the manuscripts.
"What are you to do with them? Dios mio! are you so stupid? Take them,hide them in your bosom, as you would the soul of some friend you weresmuggling into paradise. Leave this land forthwith, on any pretence;bear them with you; translate them into your own tongue, and let them begiven to the world. If they do not, after they have received the seal ofyour approbation, make their way back to this land, they will, at least,serve some few of the many objects, for which they were written: theywill set the character of my great ancestors in its true light, andteach the world to think justly of the unfortunate people from whom Ihave the honour to be descended; and, in addition, they will open theeyes of men to some of the specks of barbarism which yet sully their ownforeheads. As for my countrymen, were it even possible they could bepersuaded to spare these pages, and to read them, they would read themin vain. They are a thousand years removed from civilization, and thewisdom of this book would be to them as folly. The barbaric romancewhich loiters about the brains even of European nations, is the pith andmedulla of a Mexican head. The poetry of bloodshed, the sentiment ofrenown,--the first and last passion, and the true test, of the savagestate,--are not yet removed from us. We are not yet civilized up to thepoint of seeing that reason reprobates, human happiness denounces, andGod abhors, the splendour of contention. Your own people--the happiestand most favoured of modern days,--are, perhaps, not so backward."
The heretic sighed.--The padre went on, and with the smile ofgenerosity,--tying, at the same time, the string that secured thevolume, and knotting it again into the bundle.
"The profits which may accrue from the publication, I freely make overto you, as some recompense for the trouble of translation, and thedanger you run in assuming the custody. Danger, I say,--heaven forbid Ishould not acquaint you, that the discovery of these volumes on yourperson, besides insuring their speedy and irretrievable destruction,will expose you to punishment, perhaps to the flames which will bekindled for them; and this the more readily, that you are anunbeliever.--Pray, my son, listen to me; suffer me to convert you.Alas! you shake your head!--What a pity, I am compelled to entrust thisgreat commission to a man who refuses to be a Christian!"
"Buen padre, let us say nothing about that: judge me not by the creed Iprofess, but by the acts I perform. Let us despatch this business: themoon is bright, but the air is raw and unwholesome. I would willingly doyour bidding, not doubting that the world will be greatly advantagedthereby. But, father, here is the difficulty:--To do justice to yourcomposition, I should, myself, possess the skill of an author; but,really, I feel my incompetency--I am no bookmaker."
"And am I?" said the descendant of Moteuczoma, indignantly; "I am anhistorian!"
"I crave your pardon;--but _I_ am not."
"And who said you were?" demanded the historian, with contempt. "Do Iexpect of you the qualifications or the labours of an historian? Do Iask you to write a book? to rake for records in dusty closets and wormyshelves? to decypher crabbed hands and mouldered prints? to wade throughthe fathers of stupidity, until your brain turns to dough, and your eyesto pots of glue? to gather materials with the labour of a pearl-diver,and then to digest and arrange, to methodise and elucidate, with thepatient martyrdom of an almanac-maker? Who asks you this? Do I look fora long head, an inspired brain? a wit, a genius? _Ni por sueno_,--by nomeans. I ask you to read and render,--to translate;--to do the tailor'soffice, and make my work a new coat! Any one can do this!"
"Father," said the traveller, "your arguments are unanswerable; do methe favour to send, or to bring, your
production to the city, to theCalle----"
"Send! bring! _Se burla vm.?_" cried the padre, looking aghast. "Do youwant to ruin me? Know, that by the sentence of the archbishop and thecommand of the viceroy, I am interdicted from the city: and know that Iwould sooner put my soul into the keeping of a parrot, than my booksinto the hands of a messenger!"
"A viceroy, did you say, father? It has been many long years since aking's ape has played his delegated antics in Mexico. To please you,however, I will bear the sacred treasure in my own hands; earnestlydesiring you, notwithstanding your fears, which are now groundless, andthe prohibition, which must be at this period invalid, to do me thefavour of a visit, in person, as soon as may suit your conveniency;inasmuch as there are many things I esteem needful to be----"
The padre had seized on the hands of the speaker, in testimony of hisdelight; but before the latter had concluded his discourse, he wasinterrupted by a voice at a distance, calling, as it seemed, on theCura; for this worthy, starting with fear, and listening a moment,suddenly took to his heels, and before the traveller could give vent tohis surprise, was hidden among the shadows of the cypress trees.
"May I die," said the philosopher, in no little embarrassment, "but thislunatic Cura has left me to lug away his lucubrations,--hishieroglyphical infants, for which I am to make new coats,--on my ownshoulders! Well! I can but carry them to the city, and seek some meansof restoring them to his friends, or commit them to a more fittingdepository. Pray heaven I meet no drunken Indian, or debauched soldadoon my way."
By great good fortune, he was able, in a few days, with the assistanceof a friendly Mexican, to solve the secret of the padre's confidence.
"You have seen him then?" said the excellent Senor Don AndresSanta-Maria de Arcaboba, laughing heartily at the grave earnestness withwhich his heretical friend inquired after the eccentric padre. "Heoffered you his hieroglyphics? Ah, I perceive! No man passes scot-freethe crazy Cura. Ever his books in his hand, much praise with the offer,and seven times seven maledictions when you refuse his bantlings."
"He _is_ crazy, then?"
"_Demonios!_ were you long finding it out? Ever since the oldarchbishop burned his first heathenish volumes, he has done naughtbut----"
"I beg your pardon.--Burn his books?--the old archbishop?--Prayenlighten me a little on the subject of the good father's history.
"'Tis done in a moment," said Don Andres; "the only wonder is that hedid not himself give you the story; that being, commonly, the prelude tohis petition. The mother of Don Cristobal was an Indian _damisela_,delighting in the euphonical cognomen of Ixtlilxochitl; a name, which, Iam told, belonged to some old pagan king or other, the Lord knowswho--as for myself, I know nothing about it. But this set the padre mad,or, what's the same thing, it made him an historian.--'Tis a silly thingto trouble one's noddle about the concerns of our granddads: let themsleep! rest to their bones--_Asi sea!_--They made him a licenciado, andthen Cura of some hacienda or other, out among the hills--I know nothingabout it. He wrote a book, in which he proved that the old heathenMontezuma, the great Cacique, was a saint, and Hernan Cortes, whoconquered the land, a sinner. It may be so--_Quien sabe?_ who knows? whocares? This was before the revolution--that is, before the first: (wehave had five hundred since;--I never counted them.) Somehow, theviceroy Vanegas took a dislike to the book, and so did the archbishop.They set their heads together, got the good old fathers of theBrotherhood--(We have no Brotherhood now,--neither religious nor social:every man is his own brother, as the king says in the English play.--Didyou ever read Calderon?) They got the old fathers to vote itdangerous,--I suppose, because they did not understand it. So theyburned it, and commanded Johualicahuatzin--(that's another Indianking--so he calls himself.--His father was the Senor Marhojo, a creole,a lieutenant in the viceroy's horse, a very worthy Christian, who washanged somewhere, for sedition. But Cristobal writes after his mother'sname, as being more royal.)--What was I saying? Oh, yes!--They orderedthe licentiate back to his hacienda. Then, what became of him, the lordknows; I don't.--Then came Hidalgo, the valiant priest of Dolores, withhis raggamuffin patriots,--(I don't mean any reflection, being a patriotmyself, though no fighter; but Hidalgo had a horrid crew about him!)Where was I? Oh, ay,--Hidalgo came to knock the city about our ears; andCristobal, being seized with a fit of blood-thirstiness, joins me thegang. They say, he came with an old sabre of flint--I don't know thename; it belonged to some king in the family. Then Calleja, whom theymade viceroy--the devil confound him! (He cut my uncle's throat, withsome fourteen thousand others, at Guanaxuato, one day, to savepowder.)--Calleja chased Hidalgo to Aculco, and, there, he beat him.Cristobal's brother (he _had_ a brother, a very fine young fellow, apatriot major;) was killed at Cristobal's side; Cristobal was knocked onthe head,--somebody said, with his own royal weapon:--I don'tknow,--where's the difference? They broke his skull, and took himprisoner. _Y pues?_ what then? Being a notorious crazy man, and verysavagely mauled, they did not hang him. Ever since, he has been madderthan ever. He writes histories, and, to save them from viceroys, (hetakes all our presidents for viceroys: to my mind, they _are_; butthat's nothing. You know Bustamente? a mighty great man: Santa Anna willbeat him--but don't say so!) Well, to save his books from thepresident-viceroys, or viceroy-presidents, Cristobal offers them toevery body he meets, with a petition to take them over the seas andpublish them.--That's all!--The Indians at the hacienda love him, andtake care of him.--Ha, ha! he caught you, did he? What did he say?"
"He gave me his books," said the traveller.
"_Fuego!_ you took them? Ha, ha! now will the poor padre die happy!"
"I will return them to his relations."
"Relations! they are all in heaven; he is the last of theIxtlilxochitls! Ha, ha! I beg your pardon, amigo mio! I beg yourpardon; but if you offer them to any body, never believe me, but folkswill take you for Cristobal the Second, _el segundo maniatico_, or someone he has hired to do the work of donation. Ha, ha! cielo mio, pity me!say nothing about it;--burn them."
"At least, let us look over them."
"_Olla podrida!_ look over a beggar's back! a pedler's sack! or adictionary!--Any thing reasonable. Burn them; or take them to America,to your North, and deposit them in a museum, as the commonplace books ofMontezuma. _Vamos; que me manda vm.?_ will you ride to theAlameda?--Pobre Cristobal! he will die happy----"
The traveller returned to his own land: he bore with him the books ofCristobal. Twenty times did he essay to make examination of theircontents, and twenty times did he yawn, in mental abandonment, overtheir chaotic pages,--not, indeed, that they seemed so _very_ incoherentin style and manner, but because the cautious historian, as it seemed,with a madman's subtlety, had hit upon the device of so scattering andconfusing the pages, that it was next to impossible that any one, afterreading the first, should discover the clue to the second. Each volume,as has been hinted, consisted of a single great sheet, folded up in themanner of a pocket map; both sides were very carefully written over, theparagraphs clustered in masses or pages, but without numbers; and, butfor the occurrence, here and there, of pages of hideous hieroglyphics,such as were never seen in a Christian book, the whole did not seemunlike to a printed sheet, before it is carried to the binder. The taskof collating and methodising the disjointed portions, required, in thewords of the padre himself, the devotedness which he had figured as 'thepatient martyrdom of an almanac-maker;' it was entirely too much for thetraveller. He laid the riddle aside for future investigation: butCristobal was not forgotten.
A year afterwards, in reading a Mexican gazette, which had fallen intohis hands, his eye wandered to the little corner which appeals soplacidly to the feelings of the contemplative,--the place of obituaries.His attention was instantly captivated by a name in larger charactersthan the others. Was it? could it be? Pobre Cristobal!--'_El Licenciado_Cristobal Santiago Marhojo y Ixtlilxochitl, _Cura de la Hacienda de_Chinchaluca, _ordinariamente llamado_ El Maniatico Historiador'----. Thesame! But what is this? the common immortality of
a long paragraph?--Theheretic rubbed his eyes. "Several MSS., historical memoirs, relating tothe earlier ages of the Aztec monarchy, the work of his own hand, havebeen discovered; and a lucky accident revealing the expedient which headopted to render them illegible, or at least inexplicable to commonreaders, they have been found to be in all respects sane and coherent,the work less of a madman than an eccentric but profound scholar. Thepages are arranged like those in the form of the printer; and, being cutby a knife without unfolding----" The heretic started up, and drew forththe long-neglected tomes.--"It is said that a North American, a yearago, received, and carried away, many of the volumes, which theeccentric clergyman was accustomed to offer to strangers. It is hoped,if this should meet his eye----" 'Enough! if thy work be at allreadable, departed padre, it shall have the new coat!'
Great was the surprise of the philosopher, when having, at thesuggestion of the gazetteer, cut the folded sheet of a volume, he beheldthe chaos of history reduced to order. There they were, the annals ofAztecs and Toltecs, of Chechemecs and Chiapanecs, and a thousand other_Ecs_, from the death of Nezahualcojotl, the imperial poet, up to theconfusion of tongues. "Here's a nut for the philosophers," quoth thetraveller; "but now for a peep at Montezuma!--Poor Cristobal! what awonderful big book you have made of it!"
How many days and nights were given to the examination of the history,we do not think fit to record. It is enough, that the inheritor of thistreasure discovered with satisfaction, that, if Cristobal had been mad,he had been mad after a rule,--dramatically so: he was sane in the rightplaces. A thousand eccentricities were, indeed, imbodied in his work,the result, doubtless, of a single aberration, in which he persuadedhimself that men were yet barbarians, and that civilization, even to theforemost of nations, was yet unknown. Under the influence of thisconceit, he was constantly betrayed, for he was a philanthropist, intosharp animadversion upon popular morals; and he stigmatized as vices ofthe most brutal character, many of those human peculiarities which theworld has consented to esteem the highest virtues. In other respects, hewas sane, somewhat judicious, and, as far as could be expected in anhistorian, a teller of the truth.
His work consisted of several divisions; it was, in fact, a series ofannals, relating to different epochs. Of these, that volume whichtreated of the Conquest of Mexico, had the most charms for thetraveller; and he thought it would possess the most interest for theworld. It was this which he determined to introduce to the public. Itdiffered greatly from common histories in one particular; it descendedto minutiae of personal adventure, and was, indeed, as much a generalmemoir of the great _Conquistadores_ as a history of the fall ofTenochtitlan. Of this the writer was himself sensible; the running titleof the division, as recorded in his own hand, being, "_Una Cronica de laConquista de Megico, y Historia verdadera de los_ Conquistadores,_particularmente de esos_ Caballeros _a quienes descuidaron celebrar losEscritores Antiguos_. _Por Cristobal Johualicahuatzin Santiago Marhojo yIxtlilxochitl_;"--that is to say, 'A Chronicle of the Conquest ofMexico, and true History of the Conquerors, especially of thoseCavaliers who were neglected by the ancient authors.'
The first portion of this,--for there were several,--treated of thoseevents which occurred between the departure of the first army ofinvasion from Cuba, and its expulsion from Mexico, and this portion theexecutor of Cristobal resolved to present to the world.
In pursuance of this resolution, he instituted a long and laboriouscomparison of the MS. with the most authentic printed histories; theresult of which was a conviction, (which we beg the reader constantly tobear in mind,) that, although the good padre had introduced, and uponauthority which his editor could not discover, the characters of certainworthy cavaliers, of whom he had never heard, the relation, in all otherparticulars, corresponded precisely with the narratives of the mostesteemed writers. The events--the great and the minute alike--of thewhole campaign were, in point of fact, identical with those chronicledby the best authors; and in no way did this history differ from others,except in the introduction of the above-mentioned forgotten or neglectedcavaliers, such as the knight of Calavar and his faithful esquire, andin the recital of events strictly personal to them. It is true, thenarrative was more diffuse, perhaps we should say, verbose; butCristobal lived in an age of amplification. It was here alone that thetraveller felt himself bound to take liberties with the original; forthough the march of mind and the general augmentation of ideas, havemade prolixity a common characteristic of each man in his own person,they have not made him more tolerant of it in another. He shaved,therefore, and he cut, he amputated and he compressed; and he felt thejoy of an editor, when exercising the hydraulic press of the mind.
This will be excused in him. He expunged as much of the philosophy as hecould. The few principles at variance with worldly propensities, whichhe left in the book, must be referred to another responsibility.--Thehallucinations of philanthropy are, at the worst, harmless.
For the title adopted in this, the initial chronicle, he confesseshimself answerable. The peculiar appetites of the literary community,the result of intellectual dyspepsia, require and justify empiricism innomenclature. A good name is sugar and sweetmeats to a bad book. If itshould be objected, that he has called the _Historia Verdadera_ aromance, let it be remembered, that the world likes romance better thantruth, as the booksellers can testify; and that the history of Mexico,under all aspects but that of fiction, is itself----a romance.
* * * * *
NOTE.--It was said by the learned Scaliger, of the Basque language, 'that those who spoke it were thought to understand one another,--a thing which he did not himself believe.' For fear that the reader, from the specimens of Mexican words he will meet in this history, should imagine that the Mexican tongue was not meant even to be _spoken_, we think fit to apprise him, that all such words are to be pronounced as they would be uttered by a Spaniard. In his language, for example, the G, when before the vowels E and I, the J always, and, in certain cases, the X, have the value of the aspirate. Thus, the name of the city, the chief scene of our history, has been spelled, at different times, _Mexico_, _Mejico_, and _Megico_; yet is always pronounced _May-he-co_. The sound of our W he represents by HU,--as _Huascar_, for Wascar; and, indeed, JU has nearly the same sound, as in _Juan_. The names Johualicahuatzin, Anahuac, Xocojotzin, Mexitli, and Chihuahua, pronounced Howalicawatzin, Anawac, Hocohotzin, Meheetlee, and Chewawa, will serve for examples. But this is a thing not to be insisted on, so much as the degree of belief which should be accorded to the relation.
Esto importa poco a nuestro cuento: basta que en la narracion de el, no se salga un punto de la verdad.--_Don Quijote._
CALAVAR.
Calavar; or, The Knight of The Conquest, A Romance of Mexico Page 2
