Sketches of Aboriginal Life

tremble on

h the gem

r, and en

-

ey c

us, drea

trumpet, tor

speed, with l

he lofty mou

p along

rest their p

our doo

d severely blaming them for their unheard of outrage upon the rites of hospitality. Whether the sharp-sighted Castilian placed any confidence in these professions, or not, it suited his designs to appear to do so. With the utmost seeming cordiality, he assured the royal messengers that it gave him the most heartfelt satisfacti

d with it that of his family and crown. He was in the hands of an unappeasable fate. He gave himself up to fasting, prayer and sacrifice. He consulted all his oracles anew. But they gave no response. He then sought counsel of his chiefs, and the sages of his court. Here again he was distracted by the divided opinions of his friends. While many of the princes, overawed by the inv

in terms of humble and earnest supplication, proposing, if the Spaniards would now return, not only to send them home laden with gold to their utmost wish, but to pay an annual tribute of gold to their master, the king of Spain. Finding that this bribe only fired the grasping conqueror with a more fixed determination to secure the whole prize for whi

As they advanced, they were continually surprised and delighted with the growing evidences of civilization and high prosperity which met them on every side. In the cultivation of the land, in the style of architecture, and in all that constitutes the refinement, or contributes to the comfort of life, the regions they were now traversing very far exceeded the best of those through which they had passed. They were continual

or diminished aught of the strict discipline of his little corps. With an eye ever awake to his own safety, and feeling that the artful contriver of one stratagem could easily invent another, he advanced from post to post, in mar

ed up in his, as the father of his people, to whom he had been a kind of demi-god, the vicegerent of heaven, entitled to their unqualified reverence, obedience and love, he felt with tenfold intensity the bittern

at had brooded so darkly over the infancy of his lovely daughter, had never ceased to shed a chilling gloom over his mind. Her clouded destiny was linked with his, not merely as a child, but as one specifically marked out, by infallible signs from heaven, for a signal doom. His superstitious faith invested her and her fate with a peculiar sacredness. She was as one whom the gods had devoted to an awful sacrifice, from which neither imperial power nor paternal love could rescue her. It therefore pierced his soul with a deeper pang to gaze upon her loveliness, and witness her amiable efforts to soothe and sustain him in the midst of calamities that were more terrible and

t resistance was wholly vain, and had only attempted it, in deference to the urgent advice and solicitations of his best and most experienced counsellors. For himself, he was ready, at any time, to stand at his post, and die, if necessary, in defence of his crown and his people. But he could not contend with the gods. Empires and crowns, and the lives and happiness of nations, were at their disposal, and kings and subjects alike must submit to their righteous requirements. I

l might yet be averted, through the favor of the gods, to whom a childlike, cheerful confidence in their benignity and paternal regard, was more acceptable, than that blind abandonment, sometimes mistaken for submiss

e it. Steeped in the dismal superstitions of the Aztec faith, and yielding himself unreservedly to the guidance and dictation of its constituted oracles, he had never, for a moment, allowed himself to fa

alled, and, as soon as the unhappy princess was restored to consciousness, the king directed the royal barges to be prepared, and went out, with all his household, to enjoy the invigorating

ndants; the rich and fanciful attire of the women; the light, graceful, arrowy motions of the painted skiffs, as they danced along the waves; together with the wonderful beauty of the lake, and its swimming gardens of flowers, presented a toute ensemble more like the fairy pictures of some ench

of the ocean, danced over the waters to the sound of music, and the merry voices of glad hearts, rejoicing in the sunny smiles that now played on the countenance of the king, as if the clouds that had so long overshadowed it, were never to return. Tecuichpo, restored to more than her wonted gaiety, was full of life and animation. Never had she seemed, in the eyes of her doting father, and of the admiring courtiers, half so lovely as at this moment.

hope that Montezuma would put on all the monarch again, and assert the majesty of his insulted crown,

. Suddenly rising in the midst, and pointing, with great energy of expression, to the royal eagle of Mexico

s he! our im

ds to our a

n my dream,

his airy fl

hout, with t

g foe, borne

s dark with the

eaglets, tha

ff, in fiercen

ir prey, in the

ivated chinampa, which they were then passi

, and I hear

f my dark and

f despair for o

were bound by

wreathed with

prey, and he

d him down, in t

ch looked on wi

d his sceptre in

htitlan had pas

ous Karee had constructed, for the double purpose of an arbor and look-out, at one of the angles of her chinampa. Leaning over the brow, and

ild of

ealed dest

dark, dre

those bl

day sh

lorious

earthly en

hall l

rthly

rry sceptre

upon the ear of Montezuma. It announced the arrival, within the mountain wall which encompassed his golden valley, of the dreaded strangers. It heralded their near approach to his capital, and the exposure of all he held dear to their irresistible power-their terrible rapacity. His heart sunk within him.

residence of the father of Montezuma, was fitted up for their accommodation. With its numberless apartments, its spacious courts, and magnificent gardens, it was sufficient for an army much larger than that of the Castilians, swelled as it was by the company of their Tlascalan allies. Every room wa

of the Aztec nobility, and go out to meet the strangers; and bid them welcome, in his name, to his realm and his capital. From this the soul of the proud undaunted soldier revolted, and he entreated so

ttering with gold, Cacama, preceded and followed by a long train of noble veterans and youths, all apparelled in the gayest costume of their country, presented himself before the advancing hos

oo rude a contact with the earth. He was a young man of about twenty five years, with a fine manly countenance, a noble and commanding figure, and an address and manners that would have done honor to the most courtly knight of Christendom. Stepping forward with a bland and dignified courtesy, he made the customary Mexican salutation to persons of high rank, touching his right hand to the ground, and raising it to his head. Cortez embraced him as he rose, and the prince, in the name of his

Emperor, Cuitlahua, as governor of this place, received the strangers with courtesy, and treated them with attention. But it was a cold courtesy, and a constrained attention. With a proud and haughty mien, the brave soldier exhibited to the wondering strangers, all the riches and curiosities of the place, disposing every thing in such a manner as to impress them most powerfully with the immense wealth of the empire, and the irresistible power of the Emperor. He collected around him all the richest and most potent nobles in his neighborhood, and displaye

and purpose to possess themselves of the incalculable treasures which every where met their eyes. The cold aspect, and lofty bearing of the Prince Cuitlahua, the commander-in-chief of the Mexican armies, and heir apparent to its throne, left no doubt that the final struggle for power would be ably and bitterly contested, and that the wealth they so ardently coveted, would be dearly bought. To a heart less bold and self-reliant than that of Cortez, it would have been no enviable position, to b

ircuit, like mingled gems and pearls, richly set in the band of the imperial diadem, all reposing under the shadow, and eclipsed by the superior glory, of the capital, the crowning jewel of the Western World. They had seen the chinampas, those wandering gardens of verdure and flowers, seeming more like the fairy creations of poetry, than the sober realities of life, and reminding them of those islands of the blest, which they had been told, in their childish days, floated about in the ethereal regions above, freighted with blessings for the virtuous, and sometimes stooping so