Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/157

Rh own palace, bring him into subjection to the pope and the king of Spain, convert the people to the true faith, settle the country, and, best of all, turn into the coffers of his own land the stream of gold which he believed to be flowing into those of Mexico. He saw that the greatest difficulty would be to bring his own army so to appreciate the grandeur of such an enterprise as to forget personal ambition in this splendid conquest for Church and State. His first step was to send a party northward along the coast to explore the country, and to find, if possible, a good harbor and a navigable river which would furnish a path into the interior. After an absence of three weeks his men came back with the report that, although they could find no good harbor, they saw a spot sheltered by a high rock where two rivers emptied into the Gulf. There was plenty of fine timber, good stone for building, pasture for cattle and tillable lands. Cortez decided to send his vessels up to this point with the stores, while he, with four hundred men and the horses, went by land.

Before camp was broken five Indian visitors came in one morning who quite turned the current of thought for the homesick men and made it much easier for Cortez to carry out his plans. In dress, manner and appearance these Indians were quite different from any the Spaniards had seen, although they were red like other Indians, with straight black hair. But their faces were curiously decorated with gold-leaf, put on in patches, and bright blue stones and gold rings in ears and nostrils. Two of these five men understood enough of the Aztec language to tell the girl Marina that they were Totonacs, of a powerful tribe at Cempoalla, a place twenty-five miles distant toward the north. Not long before the arrival of the