True Words for Brave Men
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Charles Kingsley >> True Words for Brave Men
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II. THE STORY OF CORTEZ; OR PLUCK IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A LECTURE
DELIVERED AT ALDERSHOT CAMP, NOV. 1858.
It seemed to me that, having to speak to-night to soldiers, that I ought
to speak _about_ soldiers. Some story, I thought, about your own
profession would please you most and teach you most. Some story, I say,
for it is not my business to tell you what soldiers ought to be like.
That, I daresay, you know a great deal better than I; and I only hope I
may do my duty as a parson half as well as British soldiers do their
duty, and will always do it.
So I thought of telling you to-night some sort of a story--a true one, of
course, about wars and battles--some story about the British army; but
then I thought there are plenty of officers who can do that far better
than I,--so I will take some story of foreign armies, and one of old
times too. And though no soldier myself, but only a scholar, and reader
of queer old books, I may make my scholarship of some use to you who have
to drill and fight, and die too, for us comfortable folks who sit at home
and read our books by our fireside.
Then I thought of the story of Cortez the Spaniard, and how he conquered
the great empire of Mexico with a handful of brave men. That, I thought,
would be an example to you of what men can do who have stout hearts and
good weapons, and who have faith too in God, and believe that if they do
their duty God will prosper them. And I thought I could do it all the
better, because I like the story, and enjoy reading it again and again;
for I know no such dashing and desperate deed of courage in history,
except Havelock's advance upon Lucknow.
So now I will begin my story, telling you first where Mexico is, and what
it was like when Cortez landed in it, more than three hundred years ago.
You, all of you, have heard of the West India station--some of you have
been there. Beyond those West India Islands lies the great Gulf of
Mexico, and beyond that the mainland of North America, and Mexico itself.
It is now thinly peopled by Spaniards, the descendants of settlers who
came over after Cortez's time; and a very lazy, cowardly set most of them
are,--very different from the old heroes, their forefathers. Our Yankee
cousins can lick them now, one to five, and will end, I believe, in
conquering the whole country. But in Cortez's time, the place was very
different. It was full of vast numbers of heathens, brownish coloured
people, something like the Red Indians you see in Canada, but a fairer,
handsomer, stouter, heavier-bodied race; and much more civilised also.
They had great cities and idol temples, aqueducts for water, and all
sorts of noble buildings, all of most curiously carved stone; which is
all the more wonderful and creditable to them, when we remember that they
had no iron--not a knife--not a nail of iron among them. But they had
found out how to make bronze by mixing tin and copper, and with it could
work the hardest stones, as well as we can with iron. They had another
stuff which was curious enough, of which they made knives, razors, arrow
heads, and saw-edged swords as keen as razors--and that was _glass_. They
did not make the glass--they found it about the burning mountains, of
which Mexico is full; itztli they called it; we call it obsidian. It is
tougher than our glass, and chips to a fine razor edge. I have seen
arrows of it, which I am certain would go clean through a man, and knives
which would take his arm off, bone and all. I want you to remember these
glass weapons, for Cortez's Spaniards had cause enough to remember them
when they came to fight. Gunpowder, of course, they knew nothing of, nor
of horses or cattle either. They had no beasts of draught; and all the
stones and timber for their magnificent buildings were carried by hand.
But they were first-rate farmers; and for handicraft work, such as
pottery, weaving, and making all kinds of ornaments, I can answer for it,
for I have seen a good deal of their work--they had not then their equals
in the world. They made the most beautiful dresses out of the feathers
of birds--parrots, humming birds, and such like, which fill the forests
in hot countries. And what was more, their country abounded in gold and
jewels, and they knew how to work them, just as well as we do. They
could work gold into the likeness of flowers, of birds with every feather
like life, and into a thousand trinkets. Their soil was most fruitful of
all that man can want--there was enough of the best for all to eat; and
altogether there never was a richer, and need never have been a happier
people, if they had but been good. But that was just what they were not.
A bad lot they were, cruel and blood-thirsty, continually at war with
each other; and as for cruelty, just take this one story. At the opening
of a great temple to one of their idols in 1486, about thirty years
before the Spaniards came, they sacrificed to the idol seventy-thousand
human beings!
This offering in sacrifice of human beings to their idols was their
regular practice. They got these poor creatures by conquering all the
nations round, and carrying back their prisoners to sacrifice; and if
they failed, they took poor people of their own, for blood they and their
false gods must have. Men, and sometimes women and children, were
murdered by them in their temples, often with the most horrible tortures,
to the number, I am afraid there is no doubt of it, of many thousands
every year; and their flesh afterwards cooked delicately, was eaten as a
luxury by people who, as far as outward show went, were just as fine
gentlemen and ladies as there are now.
When the Spaniards got into Mexico, they found the walls of the temples
crusted inches thick in blood, the altars of the idols heaped with
smoking human hearts, and whole houses full of skulls. They counted in
one house one hundred and thirty-six thousand skulls. It was high time
to get rid of those Mexicans off the face of the earth; and in God's good
time a man was found to rid the earth of them, and that man was Hernando
Cortez.
And who was Cortez? He was a poor young Spanish gentleman, son of an
infantry captain, who, in his youth, was sickly and weakly; and his
father tried to make a lawyer of him, and would have done it, but young
Cortez kicked over the traces, as we say, right and left, and turned out
such a wild fellow, that he would not stay at college; and after getting
into plenty of scrapes, started as a soldier to the West Indies when he
was only nineteen. Little did people think what stuff there was in that
wild, sickly lad!
How he got on in the Spanish West Indies would be a long story. I will
only tell you that he turned out a thoroughly good soldier, and a very
dashing smart fellow, a first-rate rider and fencer, a great dandy in his
dress; but also--and if you go to hot climates, keep this in mind--a
particularly sober and temperate man, who drank nothing, and could eat
anything. And he had, it is said, the most extraordinary power of
managing his men. He was always cool and determined; and what he said
had to be done, and they knew it; but his way with them was so frank and
kind, and he was so ready to be the foremost in daring and enduring,
living worse often than his own men, while he was doing every thing for
their comfort, that there was nothing they would not do for him, as the
event proved--for if those soldiers had not trusted him for life and
death, I should not have this grand story to tell.
At last he married a very pretty woman, and got an estate in the West
Indies, and settled down there; and the chances were ten to one that no
one ever heard of him. However, dim reports came to the West Indies of
this great empire of Mexico, and of all its wonders and wealth, and that
stirred up Cortez's blood; and nothing would serve him but that leaving
wife and estate, he must start out again to seek his fortune.
He got a commission from the Governor, such as it was, for they were
lawless places those Spanish West Indies then; and everybody fulfilled a
certain Irishman's notion of true liberty--for he did "what was right in
the sight of his own eyes, and what _was wrong too_"--and Cortez's
commission was to go and discover this country, and trade with the
people, and make Christians of them--that is, if he could.
So he got together a little army, and sailed away with it for the unknown
land. He had about one hundred sailors, five hundred and fifty soldiers
armed with sword and pike, and among them thirty-two cross-bow men, and
thirteen musketeers. Above all, he had sixteen horses, ten heavy guns--or
what may be called heavy guns in those times--about 9-pounders, I
suppose, and four smaller guns; and with that he set out to conquer a new
world; _and he conquered it_!
He did not know whither he was going. All he knew was, that this
wonderful country of Mexico was _somewhere_, and treasures inestimable in
it. And one other thing he knew, that if mortal man _could_ get there,
he _would_.
He landed at Tabasco--where Vera Cruz city stands now--fought with the
Indians, who ran away at the sight of the horses and noise of the cannon;
and then made friends with them. From them he got presents, and among
others, a present which was worth more than its weight in gold to him,
namely, a young slave girl, who had been born near Mexico, and knew the
language. She was very clever, and very beautiful; and soon learnt to
speak Spanish. She had been a princess in her own country, and was sold
as a slave by her cruel stepmother. They made a Christian of her, and
called her Dona Marina,--her Indian name was Malinche,--and she became
Cortez's interpreter to the Indians, and his secretary. And she loved
him and served him as faithfully as true woman ever loved man, and saved
him and his from a hundred dangers. And the Spaniards reverence her name
still; and call a mighty snow mountain after her, Malinche, to this day.
After that he marched inland, hearing more and more of the wonders of
Mexico, till he came at last, after many adventures, to a country called
Tlascala, up among high mountains.
The men who lived there seem to have been rough honest fellows; and brave
enough they showed themselves. The Mexicans who lived in the plains
below never could conquer them, though they had been fighting with them
for full two hundred years. These Tlascalans turned out like men, and
fought Cortez--one hundred Indians to one Spaniard they fought for four
mortal hours; but horses and cannon were too much for them, and by
evening they were beaten off. They attempted to surprise him the same
night, and were beaten off again with great slaughter. Whereon a strange
thing happened.
Cortez, through Dona Marina, his interpreter, sent them in fair terms. If
they would make peace he would forget and forgive all; if not, he would
kill every man of them, and level their city to the ground. Whereon,
after more fighting, the Tlascalans behaved like wise and brave men. They
understood at last that Cortez's point was not Tlascala, but Mexico; and
the Mexicans were their bitterest enemies; and they had the good sense to
shake hands with the Spaniards, and make all up. And faithful friends
they were, and bravely they fought side by side during all the terrible
campaign that followed. Meanwhile, Cortez's own men began to lose heart.
They had had terrible fighting already, and no plunder. As for getting
to Mexico, it was all a dream. But Cortez and Dona Marina, this
wonderful Indian girl, kept them up. No doubt they were in awful
danger--a handful of strangers walking blindfold in a vast empire, not
one foot of ground of which they knew: but Cortez knew the further they
went the further they must go, for it was impossible to go back. So on
and on they went; and as they went they met ambassadors from Montezuma,
the great Emperor of Mexico. The very sight of these men confirmed all
that they had heard of the riches of that great empire, for these Indian
lords came blazing with gold and jewels, and the most magnificent
dresses; and of their power, for at one city which had let Cortez in
peaceably without asking the Emperor's leave, they demanded as a fine
five and twenty Indian young men and forty girls to be offered in
sacrifice to their idols. Cortez answered that by clapping them in
irons, and then sending them back to the Emperor, with a message that
whether he liked or not, he was coming to Mexico.
You may call that desperate rashness; but like a good deal of rashness,
it paid. This great Emperor Montezuma was utterly panic-stricken. There
were old prophecies that white gods should come over the sea and destroy
him and his empire; and he took it into his head that these Spaniards
were the white gods, and that there was no use resisting them. He had
been a brave man in his youth, and a great warrior; but he utterly lost
his head now. He sent magnificent presents to the Spaniards to buy them
off; but that only made them the more keen to come on; and come they did,
till they saw underneath them the city of Mexico, which must have been
then one of the wonders of the world.
It lay in the midst of a great salt lake, and could only be reached from
shore by long causeways, beautifully built of stone. On this lake were
many islands; and what was most curious of all, floating gardens, covered
with all sorts of vegetables and flowers.
How big the city was no one will ever know now; but the old ruins of it
show how magnificent its buildings must have been, full of palaces and
temples of every kind of carved stone, surrounded by flower gardens,
while the whole city was full of fountains, supplied with pure water
brought in pipes from the mountains round. I suppose so beautiful a
sight as that city of Mexico has never been seen since on earth. Only
one ugly feature there was in it--great pyramids of stone, hundreds of
them, with idol temples on the top, on each of which was kept up a
perpetual fire, fed with the fat of human beings.
To their surprise the Emperor received them peaceably, came out to meet
them, gave them such presents, that the common soldiers were covered with
chains of gold; invited them into the city, and gave them a magnificent
palace to live in, and endless slaves to wait upon them. It sounds all
like a fairy tale; but it is as true as that you and I are here.
But the cunning emperor had been plotting against them all the while; and
no great blame to him; and at last one of those plots came to light; and
Cortez made up his mind to take the Emperor prisoner. And he did it.
Right or wrong, we can hardly say now. This Montezuma was a bad, false
man, a tyrant and a cannibal; but still it looks ugly to seize a man who
is acting as your friend. However, Cortez had courage, in the midst of
that great city, with hundreds of thousands of Indians round him, to go
and tell the Emperor that he must come with him. And--so strong is a man
when he chooses to be strong--the Emperor actually went with Cortez a
prisoner.
Cortez--and that was an unworthy action--put him in irons for an hour, to
show him that he was master; and then took off his irons, and treated him
like a king. The poor Emperor had all he wanted--all his wives, and
slaves, and finery, and eatables, and drinkables; but he was a mere
puppet in the Spaniard's hands; and knew it. And strangely enough, not
being able to get out of his mind the fancy that these Spaniards were
gods, or at least, the children of the gods, he treated them so
generously and kindly, that they all loved him; he obeyed them in
everything; took up a great friendship with several; and ended actually
by giving them all his treasures of gold to melt down and part among
themselves. As I say, it sounds all like a fairy tale, but it happened
in this very month of November 1519.
But Cortez had been too prosperous not to meet with a mishap. Every
great man must be tried by trouble; and so was Cortez. News came to him
that a fresh army of Spaniards had landed, as he thought at first, to
help him. They had nine hundred men, eighty of whom were horse soldiers,
eighty musqueteers, one hundred and fifty cross-bow men, a good train of
heavy guns, ammunition, &c. What was Cortez's disgust when he found that
the treacherous Governor of Cuba had sent them, not to help him, but to
take him prisoner as a rebel? It was a villainous business got up out of
envy of Cortez's success, and covetousness of his booty. But in the
Spanish colonies in those days, so far from home, there was very little
law; and the governors and adventurers were always quarrelling and
fighting with each other.
What did Cortez do? made up his mind as usual to do the desperate thing,
and marched against Narvaez with only seventy men, no guns, and hardly
any muskets--seventy against nine hundred. It was fearful odds; but he
was forced to leave the rest to keep Mexico down. And he armed his men
with very long lances, tipped at both ends with copper--for he had no
iron; with them he hoped to face Narvaez's cavalry.
And he did it. Happily on his road he met an old friend with one hundred
and twenty soldiers, who had been sent off to form a colony on the coast.
They were as true as steel to him. And with that one hundred and ninety
he surprised and defeated by night Narvaez's splendid little army. And
what is more, after beating them, made such friends with them, that he
engaged them all next morning to march with him wherever he wanted. The
man was like a spider--whoever fell into his net, friend or foe, never
came out again till he had sucked him dry.
Now he hurried back to Mexico, and terribly good reason he had; for
Alvarado whom he had left in garrison had quarrelled with the Mexicans,
and set upon them at one of their idol feasts, and massacred great
numbers of their leading men. It was a bloody black business, and
bitterly the Spaniards paid for it. Cortez when he heard it actually
lost his temper for once, and called his lieutenant-general a madman and
a traitor; but he could not afford to cashier him, for after all he was
the best and bravest man he had. But the mischief was done. The whole
city of Mexico, the whole country round, had risen in fury, had driven
the Spanish garrison into the great palace; and worst of all, had burnt
the boats, which Cortez had left to get off by, if the bridges were burst
down. So there was Alvarado shut up, exactly like the English at
Lucknow, with this difference, that the Spaniards deserved what they got,
and the English, God knows, _did not_. And there was Cortez like another
Havelock or Colin Campbell marching to deliver them. But he met a very
different reception. These crafty Mexicans never struck a blow. All was
as still as the grave. As they came over the long causeways and bridges,
there was not a canoe upon the lake, not an Indian in the floating
gardens. As they marched through the streets of the glorious city, the
streets were as empty as a desert. And the Spaniard knew that he was
walking into a trap, out of which none of them might come out alive; but
their hearts never failed them, and they marched on to the sound of their
bugles, and were answered by joyful salutes of cannon from the relieved
garrison.
The Mexicans had shut up the markets, and no food was to be got. Cortez
sent to open them. He sent another messenger off to the coast to say all
was safe, and that he should soon conquer the rebels. But here, a
cleverer man than I must tell the story.
"But scarcely had his messenger been gone half an hour, when he returned
breathless with terror and covered with wounds. 'The city,' he said,
'was all in arms! the drawbridges were raised, and the enemy would soon
be upon them! He spoke truth. It was not long before a hoarse sullen
sound became audible, like that of the roaring of distant waters. It
grew louder and louder, till from the parapet surrounding the enclosure,
the great avenues which led to it might be seen dark with the masses of
warriors, who came rolling on in a confused tide towards the fortress. At
the same time the terraces and flat roofs in the neighbourhood were
thronged with combatants, brandishing their missiles, who seemed to have
risen up as if by magic! It was a spectacle to appall the stoutest. The
Spanish forces were crowded into a small compact mass in the palace, and
the whole army could be assembled at a moment's notice. No sooner,
therefore, did the trumpet call to arms, than every soldier was at his
post--the cavalry mounted, the artillerymen at their guns, and the
archers and arquebusiers stationed so as to give the assailants a warm
reception. On they came, with the companies, or irregular masses, into
which the multitude was divided, rushing forward each in its own dense
column, with many a gay banner displayed, and many a bright gleam of
light reflected from helmet, arrow, and spear head, as they were tossed
about in their disorderly array. As they drew near, the Aztecs set up a
hideous yell, which rose far above the sound of shell and atabat, and
their other rude instruments of warlike melody. They followed this by a
tempest of missiles--stones, darts, arrows--which fell thick as rain on
the besieged. The Spaniards waited till the foremost column had arrived,
when a general discharge of artillery and arquebusses swept the ranks of
the assailants, and mowed them down by hundreds." {222} . . .
So the fight raged on with fury for two days, while the Aztecs, Indians
who only fought by day, howled out to the wretched Spaniards every night.
On the third day Cortez brought out the Emperor Montezuma, and commanded
him to quiet the Indians. The unhappy man obeyed him. He had made up
his mind that these Spaniards were the white gods, who were to take his
kingdom from him, and he submitted to them like a sheep to the butcher.
He went up to a tower in all his royal robes and jewels. At the sight
the Indians who filled the great square below were all hushed--thousands
threw themselves on their faces; and to their utter astonishment, he
asked them what they meant by rebelling. He was no prisoner, he said,
but the Spaniard's guest and friend. The Spaniards would go peaceably,
if they would let them. In any case he was the Spaniard's friend.
The Indians answered him by a yell of fury and contempt. He was a dog--a
woman--fit only to weave and spin; and a volley of stones and arrows flew
at him. One struck him on the head and dropped him senseless. The
Indians set up a howl of terror; and frightened at what they had done,
fled away ashamed.
The wretched Emperor refused comfort, food, help, tore the bandages from
his wounds, and died in two days. He had been a bad man, a cannibal, and
a butcher, blood-thirsty and covetous, a ravisher of virgins, and a
tyrant to his people. But the Spaniards had got to love him in spite of
all; for a true friend he had been to them, and a fearful loss to them
just now. The battle went on worse than ever. The great idol temple
commanded the palace, and was covered with Mexican warriors. And next
day Cortez sent a party to storm it. They tried to get up the winding
stairs, and were driven back three times with fearful loss. Cortez,
though he had but one hand to fight with, sallied out and cleared the
pyramid himself, after a fearful hand-to-hand fight of three hours, up
the winding stairs, along the platforms, and at last upon the great
square on the top, an acre in breadth. Every Mexican was either killed,
or hurled down the sides. The idol, the war god, with its gold disc of
bleeding hearts smoking before it, was hurled down and the whole accursed
place set on fire and destroyed. Three hundred houses round were also
burnt that night; but of what use?
The Spaniards were starving, hemmed in by hundreds of thousands. They
were like a single wasp inside a bee-hive. Let him kill the bees by
hundreds, he must be killed himself at last. He made up his mind to
evacuate the city, to leave all his conquests behind him. It was a
terrible disappointment, but it had to be done.
They marched out by night in good order, with all their guns and
ammunition, and with immense plunder; as much of poor Montezuma's
treasures as they could carry. The old hands took very little; they knew
what they were about. The fresh ones from Narvaez's army loaded
themselves with gold and jewels, and had to pay dear for them. Cortez, I
ought to tell you, took good care of Dona Marina. He sent her forward
under a strong guard of Tlascalans, with all the other women. The great
street was crossed by many canals. Then the causeway across the lake,
two miles long, was crossed by more canals, and at every one of these the
Indians had taken away the bridges. Cortez knew that, and had made a
movable bridge; but he had only time to make one, and that of course had
to be taken up at the rear, and carried forward to the front every time
they crossed a dyke; and that made endless delay. As long as they were
in the city, however, all went well; but the moment they came out upon
the lake causeway, out thundered the serpent-skin drums from the top of
every temple, the conch shells blew, and out swarmed the whole hive of
bees, against the one brave wasp who was struggling. The Spaniards
cleared the dyke by cavalry and artillery, and got to the first canal,
laid down the bridge, and over slowly but safely, amid a storm of stones
and arrows. They got to the second canal, fifteen or twenty feet broad.
Why, in God's name, was not the bridge brought on? Instead of the bridge
came news from the rear. The weight of the artillery had been too great
for the bridge, and it was jammed fast. And there they were on a narrow
dyke fifty feet broad, in the midst of the lake, in the dark midnight,
with countless thousands of Indians, around, before, behind, and the lord
have mercy on them!
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