still preserved their independence,, in the face of continual conflict with the greater power of Mexico. To this people Cortés sent despatches. They were important to his enterprize. His object was to use them against their neighbors, to employ their understood hate of the Mexicans, as a means of his own progress. The Senate of Tlascala was divided in its opinion as to the reception to be given to the Spaniards. A party was favorable to their application, but another opposed it; and it was first determined to try the strength of the Spaniards, before making any concessions. Twice, thrice did the brave savages meet him, without any decisive results. The Tlascalans were beaten on all occasions, but they were still unsatisfied. Thousands fell, but they always left the field in good order, ready to resume the fight next day. On the 5th September, 1519, a terrible battle was fought, giving the Spaniards a conclusive victory. But the conflict had been marked with such vicissitudes, as more than once moved the invaders to despair. Numbers nearly reconciled the inequality of weapons. Masses almost succeeded in overpowering individual prowess. Faction in the Tlascalan ranks helped the Spaniards; and the failure of a last hope and effort, in which, according to the advice of their priesthood, they had substituted cunning and artifice for arms, subdued their hostility. They became firm allies and fast friends of the Spaniards, and one of the greatest obstacles to the great conquest was finally overcome.

But the followers of Cortés began to despond. If they had met such enemies in the people of Tlascala, what might they not fear in the Mexican. Our hero had his answer to their fears, and it was again successful. He showed them that their only hope was in progress. They must go forward to find safety. Flight and fear would only bring upon them Mexican, Tlascalan, Totonac, the numerous herds of foes which covered the face of the country, all united, and all against the common enemy,

Their successes against Tlascala, that formidable foe whom he himself had never been able to conquer, increased the apprehensions of Montezuma. He saw in Cortés, the creature of destiny-his own fate-appointed to realize all the vague terrors of the old tradition. Feeble and trembling still, he despatched new embassies and other presents to the advancing chieftain--congratulated him upon his victories--and concluded, as before, by regretting that it

was not possible to receive him in his capital. But Cortés was just the man to overcome the impossible. What was not possible for Montezuma was easy for him. He said as much in his reply--and the devoted Mexican now saw that his fate was unrelenting. The issue was no longer to be avoided, and he strove to make a merit of the necessity. Another Aztec embassy soon followed the preceding. It spoke a different language. The sovereign now declared his wish to see the strangers, and his ambassadors were instructed to conduct them to the capital. His policy, still insincere and vascillating, was yet rendered somewhat bolder from his necessities. Other suggestions had spoken to his fears. His purpose now, in urging their coming, was twofold-not only to get the Spaniards more completely in his power, but to prevent them from forming any alliance with his Tlascalan enemies. He was too late for the latter object. In prosecuting the former, he suggested their route by the city of Cholula, and there made his arrangements for their destruction. The Tlascalans exhorted Cortés against compliance with this suggestion. But his will was stronger than their fears. He was quite as much the creature of his destiny as Montezuma. He must go onward by that very route, by Cholula, and it was at the peril of the Aztec monarch if he played him false. It proved so.

Cholula was the sacred city of the Mexicans as Mecca is of the Mahometans. It was under the particular protection of Quetzalcoatl, their god of air, whose mystic attributes embodied unexampled powers. There was a superstitious hope, entertained by the Aztec monarch, that this deity would contribute to free him from the man of destiny whose iron hand was lifted over his empire. His altars were raised upon the loftiest mound of the place, and thousands of human victims annually bled upon his shrines. The city, embosomed among volcanic mountains, lifted four hundred sacred towers in their emulation. The population was one hundred and fifty thousand. These were warlike, inured to arms, fierce and fanatic. To these, add thousands more, trained soldiers, concealed within and without the city, sent by Montezuma to make sure the cruel purpose of his mind. Yet, into this city, thus provided for his reception, thus strengthened within and without, hating and fearing him, and sworn vassals to the will of their sovereign, the resolute conqueror threw himself, with his little band of

Spaniards. Six thousand Tlascalans attended him, whom, however, as their presence seemed to offend the Cholulans, he left without the walls.

The reception was glorious, and without a cloud. Admi rably could these cunning enemies disguise their hate. Their faces were wreathed in smiles. They covered the Spaniards with garlands, even as the lamb is dressed for the slaughter. The Spaniards were no lambs, true, but they were welcomed as victims, and conducted, as in a sort of triumphal procession, with every show of ostentatious honor and affection, to their appointed quarters.

But a few days changed the aspect of affairs, and the deportment of the Cholulans. They were now ready for the destruction of the strangers. Their plans were ripe for execution. The city was filled with armed men. The streets were barricaded-stones were carried to the house tops, missiles accumulated, and vast cavities dug in the thorough-fares and planted with upright and pointed stakes, the better to defeat the movement of the cavalry. To crown and complete all, a great sacrifice of children was made to propitiate the favor of their cruel gods!

The star of Cortés prevailed! His own suspicions, excited, were confirmed by tidings afforded by his mistress, who had wormed the secret from an indiscreet Cholulan woman. Great were his anxieties in consequence, but he was equal to the exigency. He dissembled with the Caciques, and got them in his power. His plans were laid with equal skill and secrecy, and the event was a massacre rather than a conflict. The Holy City was sacked, and in the flames of its ruined temples, and the blood of three thousand worshippers, the imbecility of their false deity was fully shown to the wretched conspirators. Cortés seems to have stayed the havoc, the moment he conceived the safety of his people to be secure. He suffered no women to be slain and prevailed upon his Tlascalan allies, who had joined him at the first sounds of danger, to liberate their captives. How far his conduct deserves reproach--in how much it may be justified by the necessity of the case-is not a question for us. The first step of Cortés was the true offence. The attempt at conquest, not a crime in his day, is one in ours. Once within the walls of Cholula, as a guest, he had the most perfect right to anticipate the treachery of those who had sought only to make him the victim of his confidence.

The fall of Cholula carried a terrible fear to the heart of Montezuma. If he was in doubt before, he trembled now. Despondency took the place of fear in his soul, and the oracles of his gods, whose altars were made to smoke hourly with the blood of their human victims, yielded no encouraging response. Another embassy to the Spaniards disavowed any share in the conspiracy of the Cholulans. Cortés, meanwhile, was acquiring newer strength. Terrified by the vengeance inflicted on Cholula, other cities sent in their submission. To treat with these, to purify the teocallis of the conquered city, and establish Christian, upon the ruins of the pagan, churches, employed the conqueror a few weeks, and he then led his army on the route to Mexico.

What plains he passed,-what mountains he overcame,— what toils he suffered,-what snares he escaped,—these must be read in the more copious histories. Suffice it, they were such as might well have discouraged any ordinary valor,— might well have baffled a common genius, and set at nought every ambition, less honoured with the favoring smiles of fortune. But the star of Cortés prevailed. His followers had learned, even as those of another mighty spirit of modern periods, to confide in his destiny. No fatigues made. them weary, no dangers appalled. Their hopes grew with their toils, their courage with the difficulties in their progress. The very wonders by which their dangers were attended, seemed to expand their souls with sentiments of daring, which rendered progress itself something superior to triumph. At length, passing an angle of the sierra of Ahualco, they suddenly beheld the beautiful valley of Tenochtitlan unbosomed before their delighted eyes.

The sight compensated for all their toils. Never was prospect more beautiful. Woods, waters and cultivated plains, glowing, glorious cities, girdled by shadowy hills, gathered, in picturesque dependency, lovely in tint and hue, and exquisitely imposing in distinct and noble outline. Immense plains of forest stretched away beneath their feet in a wondrous circle, spanning the slopes that led downward to the valley. Within this circle, another, of cultivated fields-maize and maguey, tracts of luscious fruits and realms of delicious flowers,-seemed alone sufficient to reward the human sense for all human privation. In the centre of this great basin, lay the wondrous lakes and lakelets of Anahuac, their borders "studded with towns and hamlets, and in the

midst like some Indian empress, with her coronal of pearls, the fair city of Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing as it were upon the bosom of the waters."

We know, from the days of Cæsar, that, with a great genius, to come and see, is to secure the conquest. Cortés looked down upon the lovely realm before him, and his eagle eye at once marked it for his own. While he gazed upon his prey from the slopes of Ahualco, where was the sovereign of Tenochtitlan ?-where was Montezuma ?-with what thoughts, what last hopes, what final purposes? Sacri- . ficing before his impotent deities, elbow-deep in human blood,-summoning them in vain to his rescue, and groaning over the approaching cloud, from whose awful bosom the thunders of fate were about to vomit ruin on his kingdom. Never did brave monarch more completely cower beneath the arm of that destiny, to which he was yet most reluctant to submit. Cortés is at length in Mexico, within the palaces of her kings,-a sovereign over the very soul of her sovereign. "The gods have declared against us," said Montezuma mournfully, to those who counselled resistance; "the gods have declared against us, we should only fight in vain." In the advent of superior divinities, the savage deities might well be silent. Milton embodies the idea very nobly, in his hymn on the Nativity :

"The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum,

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving,
Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving."

The genius of the Christian faith had as effectually cowed that of the Aztec religion, as that of Cortés had overcome the spirit of their otherwise brave and despotic sovereign.

For the description of Mexico itself,-for the details of its wondrous magnificence,-the reader must be referred to the glowing narrative of Mr. Prescott. We can say as little of the modes of life,—the manners and customs of its people. As in a drama, we must confine ourselves to the action, the development of the leading characters, and the several prominent events which conduct to the catastrophe. Montezuma received his guests with a lofty hospitality. But he disguised the sufferings, and, perhaps, the evil passions, at his