Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/182

Rh to the foot of mountains, where the sunshine for ever warmed the fruits and flowers into vigorous life.

Such was the city of Mexico, and the style of the Emperor; but it was not alone in externals, that the nation was great and powerful. It was regulated by good laws, well and speedily administered; the relations of life were recognized and guarded; it fostered a good system of education; the arts were cultivated and encouraged; architecture had advanced to a high degree of excellence; the knowledge of astronomy, and of the calculation of time, was exact and scientific. The Aztecs were bold in war; they had built a vast Empire, springing from a sparse tribe which found its first home among the reeds and marshes of the lake where they had hidden for safety from their foes; and, although their religious rites were brutal and bloody, they still had some glimmering ideas of an invisible and omnipotent God. It was a nation of splendid contradictions, where social elegance and comfort were almost unequalled, and yet where religious brutality was quite as unparalleled.

The sight of this splendid city was too tempting for Cortéz—"The kingdoms of the world were at his feet." He had resolved, before, to attempt the entire subjugation of this people; and the view of this wealth only stimulated his resolution, while the bloody rites of the Temple aided in exciting his ambition to give another land of idolatry to the control of the Holy Cross.

He soon afterward seized the King, and, as some assert, caused him to be put to death, or to be so exposed that his death was inevitable; yet, when the wonted spirit of the Mexicans was aroused, his troops were driven from the Capital.

He returned with Indian allies. He invested the city with a sort of mimic navy, which he launched on the lake from Tezcoco; and at length, after a severe struggle, the Capital fell into his hands.

"What I am going to say is truth, and I swear, and say Amen to it!" (exclaims Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his quaint style:) "I have read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but I cannot conceive that the mortality there exceeded that of Mexico; for all the people from the distant provinces, which belonged to this Empire, had concentrated themselves here, where they mostly died. The streets, and squares, and houses, and the courts of the Tlatelolco were covered with dead bodies; we could not