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temozin. And, besides, Cortes, in addition to all his other great qualities, was a Christian, and a most sincere and devout one. One cannot read the history of the conquest, without being impressed with the conviction that, if not the primary object, his predominant idea was that he was spreading "nuestra santa fé”— -our holy faith. In this particular he stands at an immeasurable height above all other conquerors; he would have suffered death before he would have said as did Bonaparte in Egypt, "There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet." On the contrary, wherever he passed he erected a cross, and tore down the Mexican idols, often at imminent peril to himself and his army.

If the reader has been sufficiently interested in the character of Donna Marina to desire to know more of her history, he will find it in the following short chapter from the history of the conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz:

How Donna Marina was a Caciquess, and the daughter of a great lord, and was a Princess of many villages and vassals.

BEFORE I say anything more of the great Montezuma and his city of Mexico and the Mexicans, I desire to say that Donna Marina, in her childhood, was a princess of many villages and vassals. It was in this way:— Her father and mother were the Cacique and Cacica of a village called Painala, and had other villages subject to them about eight leagues from the town of Guaxacualco. Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother married another young cacique, by whom she had one son. And as they loved this son very much, they determined that he should inherit their title and estate; and that there might be no difficulty in the way, they delivered the child, Donna Marina, in the night time, to some Indians of Xicalango, and spread the report that she had died. It happened at the same time that the child of one of their Indian slaves died, and they gave out that it was the heiress Donna Marina. The Indians of Xecalango gave her to the Tobascans, and the Tobascans gave her to Cortes. I knew her mother and her half brother after he was grown, when they jointly had command of their village, the last husband of the old woman then being dead. After they became Christians they were baptized, the mother by the name of Martha, and the son by that of Lazarus.

All this I know perfectly well, for in the year fifteen hundred and twen-* ty-three, after the conquest of Mexico and the other provinces, when Christoval de Olid revolted, with the army under his command, in Higueras, and Cortes went there, we passed by Guaxacualco. Nearly all the inhabit

ants of that town went with us, as I will relate in the proper time and place.

As Donna Marina, in all the wars of New Spain, Tlascala, and Mexico, had shown herself so excellent a woman and so good an interpreter, Cortes always took her with him. It was on that expedition that he married her to a Hidalgo, whose name was Juan Xamarillo, in the village of Orizaba, before certain witnesses, one of whom was Aranda, an inhabitant of Tobasco; and he told me about the marriage, which was not all as Gomara relates it. Donna Marina had great influence and authority with all the Indians of New Spain. Whilst Cortes was at Guaxacualco he sent to sum-mon all the caciques of that province, to speak to them, and explain our holy doctrines, and to urge them to conduct themselves properly; and the mother of Donna Marina, and her half brother Lazarus, came with the other caciques. Donna Marina had long before this told me that she was a native of that province, and was a princess of many vassals-and Cortes and Aguilar, the interpreter, also knew it very well. The mother and daughter thus met, and knew each other; and they knew very well that she was her daughter, for she resembled her very much.

The mother and son were greatly alarmed, supposing that Cortes had sent for them to kill them, and they wept. When Donna Marina saw them weeping, she consoled them, and told them to have no fear, for that when they had delivered her to the Indians of Xicalango they knew no better, and that she pardoned them. She gave them some clothes, and many jewels of gold, and told them to return to their village. She said that God had shown her great mercy in making her a Christian, and no longer a worshipper of idols, and in giving her a son by her lord and master, Cortes, and marrying her to such a gentleman as Juan Xamarillo; and that if they would make her princess of all the provinces in New Spain, she would not accept it; and that she took more pleasure in serving Cortes and her husband than in everything in the world besides.

All this I heard myself, and moreover, I swear to it. It seems to me that it very much resembles the case of the brothers of Joseph, when they went into Egypt for corn. But now let us return to our subject. Donna Marina understood the language of Tobasco and of Guaxacualco, which is also the language of Mexico; and Geronimo de Aguilar understood the language of Tobasco and Yucatan, which is the same; and Aguilar so understanding, Donna Marina would explain it to Cortes in the Castilian,. and this was a great beginning in the conquest. And thus things went on most prosperously, praised be God.-Without Donna Marina we could not have understood the language of Mexico.

II.

PASSAGE RELATING TO GENERAL VICTORIA.

(From Ward's Mexico.)

"Two thousand European troops landed with Myares, and two thousand more with Apodoaca, in 1816; and notwithstanding the desperate efforts of Victoria's men, their courage was of no avail against the superior discipline and arms of their adversaries. In the course of the year 1816, most of his old soldiers fell; those by whom he replaced them had neither the enthusiasm nor the same attachment to his person. The zeal with which the inhabitants had engaged in the cause of the revolution was worn out, with each reverse their discouragement increased, and as the disastrous accounts from the interior left them but little hope of bringing the contest to a favorable issue,-the villages refused to furnish any further supplies. The last remnant of Victoria's followers deserted him, and he was left absolutely alone,-still his courage was unsubdued, and his determination not to yield to the Spaniards under any circumstances, was unshaken. He refused the rank and rewards which Apodoaca offered him as the price of his submission, and determined to seek an asylum in the solitude of the forests, rather than accept the pardon on the faith of which so many of the insurgents yielded up their arms. This extraordinary project was carried into execution with a decision characteristic of the man.

Unaccompanied by a single attendant, and provided only with a little linen and a sword, Victoria threw himself into the mountainous district which occupies so large a portion of the province of Vera Cruz, and disappeared from the eyes of his countrymen. His after history is so extremely wild that I should hardly venture to relate it here, did not the unanimous evidence of his countrymen confirm the story of his sufferings as I have often heard it from his own mouth.

During the first few weeks, Victoria was supplied with provisions by the Indians, who all knew and respected his name. But Apodoaca was so apprehensive that he would again emerge from his retreat, that a thousand men were ordered out in small detachments, literally to hunt him down. Wherever it was discovered that a village had either received him or relieved his wants, it was burnt without mercy; and this rigor struck the Indians with such terror that they either fled at the sight of Victoria, or were the first to announce the approach of a man whose presence might prove so fatal to them. For upwards of six months he was followed like a wild beast by his pursuers, who were often so near him that he could

hear their imprecations against himself and Apodoaca too, for having condemned them to so fruitless a search. On one occasion he escaped a detachment, which he fell in with unexpectedly, by swimming a river which they were unable to cross. And on several others he concealed himself, when in the immediate vicinity of the royal troops, beneath the thick shrubs and creepers with which the woods of Vera Cruz abound.

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At last a story was made up to satisfy the Viceroy of a body having been found which was recognized as that of Victoria, a minute description was given of his person, which was published officially in the Gazette of Mexico, and the troops were recalled to more pressing labors in the interior. But Victoria's trials did not cease with the pursuit; harassed and worn out with the fatigues which he had undergone, his clothes torn to pieces and his body lacerated by the thorny underwood of the tropic, he was indeed allowed a little tranquillity, but his sufferings were still almost incredible. During the summer he managed to subsist on the fruits of which nature is so lavish in those climates, but in winter he was attenuated by hunger, and I have heard him repeatedly affirm that no repast had furnished him so much pleasure since as he experienced after being long deprived of food, in gnawing the bones of horses or other animals which he found dead in the woods. By degrees he accustomed himself to such absti nence that he could remain four and even five days without taking any-. thing but water without experiencing any serious inconvenience, but whenever he was deprived of sustenance for a longer period, his sufferings were very acute.* For thirty months he never tasted bread, nor saw a human being, nor thought at times ever to see one again; his clothes were reduced to a single wrapper of cotton which he found one day when driven by hunger he approached nearer than usual to some Indian huts, and this he regarded as an inestimable treasure. The mode in which Victoria, cut off as he was from the world, received intelligence of the revolution of 1821, is hardly less extraordinary than the fact of his having been able to support existence amidst so many hardships during the intervening period.

When, in 1818, he was abandoned by all the rest of his men, he was asked by two Indians who lingered with him to the last, and on whose fidelity he knew that he could rely, if any change took place, where he wished them to look for him, he pointed in reply to a mountain at some

* When first I knew General Victoria in Vera Cruz, in 1823, he was unable to eat above once in twenty-four hours, or even in thirty-six hours; and now, though he conforms with the usual hours of his countrymen with regard to meals, he is one of the most abstemious of men.

distance, and told them that on that mountain perhaps they might find his bones. His only reason for selecting it was its being particularly rugged and inaccessible, and surrounded by forests of vast extent; the Indians treasured up this hint, and as soon as the first news of Iturbide's declaration reached them they set out in quest of Victoria. They separated on arriving at the foot of the mountain, and spent six whole weeks in examining the woods with which it was covered. During this time they lived principally by the chase, but finding their stock of maize exhausted and all their efforts unavailing, they were about to give up the attempt when one of them discovered, in crossing a ravine which Victoria occasionally frequented, the print of a foot which he immediately recognized to be that of a European; by European, I mean of European descent, and, conse quently accustomed to wear shoes, which always gives a different shape to the foot very perceptible to the eye of a native. The Indian waited two days upon the spot, but seeing nothing of Victoria and finding his supply of provisions quite at an end, he suspended upon a tree near the place four tortillas (little maize cakes) which were all he had left, and set out for his village in order to replenish his wallets, hoping that if Victoria should pass in the meantime the tortillas would attract his attention, and convince him that some friend was in search of him.

His little plan succeeded completely; Victoria, on crossing the ravine two days afterwards, perceived the maize cakes, which the birds had fortunately not devoured; he had then been four whole days without eating, and upwards of two years without eating bread,—and he says himself that ne devoured the tortillas before the cravings of his appetite would allow him to reflect upon the singularity of finding them on this solitary spot, where he had never before seen any trace of a human being. He was at a loss to determine whether they had been left there by friend or foe, but feeling sure that whoever had left them intended to return, he concealed himself near the place in order to observe his motions and to take his own measures accordingly.

Within a short time, the Indian returned, and Victoria, who recognized him, started abruptly from his concealment to welcome his trusty follower; but the man, terrified at seeing a phantom covered with hair, emaciated, and clothed only with an old cotton wrapper, advancing upon him with a sword in his hand from amidst the bushes, took to flight, and it was only on hearing himself called repeatedly by his name that he recovered his composure sufficiently to recognize his old general. He was affected beyond measure at the state in which he found him, and conducted him instantly to his village, where Victoria was received with the greatest enthusiasm.

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