Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 1.djvu/499



I believe, in the Romancero de Amberes, and lately by Duran, Romances Cabellerescos é Históricos, Parte 1, p. 82.

Page 168 (2).—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 37.

Page 169 (1).—Las Casas notices the significance of the Indian gestures, as implying a most active imagination. "These Indians employ signs and gestures for the intercommunication of ideas far more extensively than other peoples, because their external impressions and their internal conceptions are extremely vivid, owing to the liveliness of their imagination."—Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.

Page 170 (1).—"Hermosa como Diosa," beautiful as a goddess, says Camargo of her. (Hist. de Tlascala, MS.)

Page 171 (1).—Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 25, 26.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. pp. 12-14.—Oviedo, Hist. de Las Ind., MS., lib. 13, cap. 1.—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.—Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 37, 38. There is some discordance in the notices of the early life of Marina. I have followed Bernal Diaz,—from his means of observation, the best authority. There is happily no difference in the estimate of her singular merits and services.

Page 171 (2).—The name of the Aztec monarch, like those of most persons and places in New Spain, has been twisted into all possible varieties of orthography. Modern Spanish historians usually call him Montezuma. But as there is no reason to suppose that this is correct, I have preferred to conform to the name by which he is usually known to English readers. It is the one adopted by Bernal Diaz, and by no other contemporary as far as I know.

Page 171 (3).—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS. cap. 79.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. p. 16. New Vera Cruz, as the present town is called, is distinct, as we shall see hereafter, from that established by Cortés, and was not founded till the close of the sixteenth century, by the Conde de Monterey, viceroy of Mexico. It received its privileges as a city from Philip III. in 1615.—Ibid., tom. iii. p. 30, nota.

Page 172 (1).—The epidemic of the matlazahuatl, so fatal to the Aztecs, is shown by M. de Humboldt to be essentially different from the vomito, or bilious fever of our day. Indeed, this disease is not noticed by the early conquerors and colonists; and Clavigero asserts was not known in Mexico till 1725. (Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 117, nota.) Humboldt, however, arguing that the same physical causes must have produced similar results, carries the disease back to a much higher antiquity, of which he discerns some traditional and historic vestiges. "We must distinguish," he remarks with his usual penetration, "between the date at which a malady is first described, owing to the fact that it has made great ravages in a short space of time, and the date at which it made its first appearance."—Essai Politique, tom. iv. p. 161 et seq., and 179.

Page 177 (1).—His name suited his nature; Montezuma, according to Las Casas, signifying in the Mexican, "sad or severe man."—Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 70.—Acosta, lib. 7, cap. 20—Col. de Mendoza, pp. 13-16.—Codex Tel. Rem., p. 143, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi.

Page 178 (1).—The address is fully reported by Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 3, cap. 68), who came into the country little more than half a century after its delivery. It has been recently republished by Bustamente.—Tezcuco en los Ultimos Tiempos (Mexico, 1826), pp. 256-258.

Page 182 (1).—}Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.—The Interpreter of the Codex Tel.-Rem. intimates that this scintillating phenomenon was probably nothing more than an eruption of one of the great volcanoes of Mexico.—Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 144.