Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/65

Rh the pomp of an Oriental satrap, taking with him besides the necessary soldiers, guides, Indian allies, and camp followers, a complete household of stewards, valets, pages, grooms, and other attendants, all under the command of a major-domo of the household. Gold and silver plate for his table was provided, also musicians, jugglers, and acrobats to amuse the company. Spanish muleteers and equerries were taken to have charge of the carriages and horses, and, in addition to the usual provender, to ensure a supply of meat, an immense drove of pigs was driven along, which could not have accelerated the march. He had a map painted on cloth by native artists, which showed after their fashion the rivers and mountain chains to be crossed. This and his compass were all Cortes could rely upon to guide him during his perilous undertaking. Doña Marina went as chief interpreter, but Geronimo de Aguilar did not accompany this expedition, though he was not dead, as Bernal Diaz states, for in 1525 he applied for a piece of land on which to build a house in the street now called Balvanera (Alaman, Dissertazioni IV.). The record of these events, however noteworthy, may seem tame reading after the exciting chronicle of the siege and fall of Mexico — a war drama of the most intense kind, but, in forming a correct estimate of Cortes's character we must not restrict ourselves to a study of the qualities displayed in the course of the conquest, and which prove him a most resourceful military genius. At five and thirty years of age he had successfully completed as daring and momentous an undertaking as history records, and it is as conqueror of Mexico that he takes his place among the world's great heroes. M. Desiré Charnay, in the preface to his French translation of the Five Letters, says: ''La conquête de Cortes. . . coûta au Mexique plus de dix millions d'êtres humains emportés par la guerre, les maladies et les mauvais traitements: de sorte que cet' homme de génie''