Chapter 53

The Street of Tacuba.--The Spaniards and the Indian Women.--The Retreat of Cortez.--The Aqueducts of Mexico.--The English and American Burying-grounds.--The Protestant President.--The rival Virgins.--An Image out of Favor.--The Aztecs and the Spaniards.

As I rode along the street to the gate and causeway of Tacuba, over which Cortez retreated on the "sorrowful night" (_triste noche_), I naturally fell into reflections upon the righteous retribution that overtook a portion of the Spanish robbers on that night, and upon the mysterious ways of Providence in allowing Cortez and a remnant to escape being burned alive by the Indians after the infamous lives which, by their own admissions, they had been leading in the city. The Indians had made a feeble resistance when Alvarado murdered their chiefs, and had cringed into submission when Cortez returned. But now their wrongs had reached that point where even Aztecs could endure no more. Their cup of iniquity seemed full, when Cortez, who had left a wife in Cuba, sent to the little village of Tacuba, called by Diaz Tlacupa, to fetch thence some "women of his _household_, among whom was the daughter of Montezuma [he had already one daughter of Montezuma in his power] whom he had given in charge of the King of Tlacupa, her relative, when he marched against Narvaez."[36] The women being rescued, Cortez afterward sent Ordaz, with four hundred men, which brought on hostilities that ended in this night retreat.

THE HOUSEHOLD OF CORTEZ.

Cortez was worse than the Mormon governor of Utah, who is said to have thirty-six wives in his household. But they are, at least, voluntary inmates of his harem, while the "household" of Cortez had been taken by violence. It is one of the prominent traits of Indian character that, while they are inhuman to their female captives, they guard with the utmost jealousy the virtue of their wives. Even among the debased Indians of California, female infidelity is punished with death; and I have seen the whole population of an Indian village on the Upper Sacramento thrown into the utmost confusion--the women howling, and the men brandishing their weapons--because a base Indian had sold his wife to a still baser white man. "Such a thing was never," they said, "done in the tribe before." And here we have Cortez, in contempt of even Indian notions of virtue, sending to bring to his harem, by violence, another daughter of Montezuma.

As Bernal Diaz goes more into detail than Cortez, he now and then drops an expression that furnishes a clew to many an enigma otherwise unexplainable. In speaking of the avarice of the officers, he lets fall the following confession of his own infamy:

"This was a good hint to us in future, so that afterward, when we had captured any beautiful Indian females, we concealed them, and gave out that they had escaped. As soon as it was come to the marking day, or, if any one of us stood in favor with Cortez, he got them secretly marked [viz., branded with a red-hot iron] during the night-time, and paid a fifth of their value to him. In a short time we possessed a great number of such slaves."[37]

Never was there a band of Anglo-Saxon outlaws, cut-throats, pirates, or buccaneers that reached that point of human depravity that they could brand, as cattle are branded, with a red-hot iron, swarms of women taken by violence, in order that they might not make any mistakes in recognizing their numberless wives! None but Spanish heroes of a "holy war" ever exhibited such a picture of total depravity.

When the Aztecs were thus roused to action by the brutal lust of Cortez, they assailed him with phrensy rather than with courage, until his quarters in the city became untenable, and then this night retreat was undertaken, in which all the gold, if there really was any, and all other treasures, and two sons and one daughter of Montezuma, were lost in the confused rush of such a multitude over this foot-path. The Indian story is that Cortez slew the children of Montezuma when he found himself unable to carry them off. Perhaps he did, but the probability is that they perished by chance, or, rather, it seems to have been by chance that Cortez or any of his gang escaped and came safe to Tacuba.

We must now give up history to talk of things by the road-side.

The "hard water" from the springs on the south side of Chapultepec is carried over stone arches upon the causeway of Tacubaya to the gate of Belin. But at Santa Fe, several leagues distant from the city, is a stream of soft water, which is brought to the powder-mill (_Molina del Rey_), where it turns a wheel. Thence the aqueduct, passing by the north side of Chapultepec, is carried along the highway to the causeway of San Cosmo. It passes the gate of San Cosmo, enters the city, and terminates in the street of Tacuba. By these two gates, and by the side of these two parallel aqueducts, the American army entered the city of Mexico.

The objects of interest by the road-side, after I had passed the city gate, were, first, the French Academy, which is well worthy of a visit for its pretty grounds, if nothing more. When we had got farther on, the land rose a little above the water-level of the swamp. Here a branch-road and the aqueduct turned off to Chapultepec, and in the angle thus formed by the two roads is the English burying-ground or cemetery. In this resting-place of the dead there is not a spot that can not be irrigated at all seasons of the year, while the art of man has been busy in improving the advantages that nature has so lavishly bestowed.

Just before my first arrival in Mexico, public attention had been particularly directed to this quiet spot, from its having been chosen as the place for depositing the ashes of the last President of Mexico, at whose burial no holy water had been wasted and no candles had been burned, and for the repose of whose soul no masses had ever been said, or other religious rites performed, and yet he slept as quietly as those who had gone to their burial with the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral. No priest had shrived his soul, his lips had not been touched with the anointing oil, nor was incense burned at his funeral; yet he died in peace, declaring in his last hours that he had made his confession to God, and trusted in him for the pardon of his sins, and refused all the proffered aid of priests in facilitating his journey to heaven. Thus died, and here was privately buried, the first and last Protestant President of Mexico, the only really good man that ever occupied that exalted station, and probably the only native Mexican who ever had the moral courage to denounce the religion of his fathers upon his dying bed.

THE AMERICAN CEMETERY.

Adjoining the English cemetery on the south side is the American burying-ground, which has been established since the war, where have been collected the remains of 750 Americans, that died or were killed at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An appropriation of $500 a year would make this more attractive than the English cemetery, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress since that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There is a pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign countries, draw close together these two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family. A common language and a common religion overmaster political differences, and the English and American dead are laid side by side to rest until the judgment. At the south of the American cemetery is a vacant lot, which the King of Prussia should purchase, so that the Germans may no longer be dependent on Americans for a burying-place, and that the three great Protestant powers of the world may here, as they every where should, be drawn close together.

Tacuba is a very small village, and is not in any wise noted except for an immense cypress-tree, that must have been a wonder even in the time of Cortez. Tacuba has the historical notoriety of being the place where hostilities first broke out between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, and the spot where the night retreat of the latter terminated. Here the land is quite fertile, and a little way from the village are several water-mills, where the grain raised in this part of the valley is ground into flour.

THE VIRGIN OF REMEDIES.

A little way beyond Tacuba is the hill and temple of the Virgin of Remedies. It was upon this hill, within the inclosure of an Indian mound, that the retreating party of Cortez made their first bivouac, and built fires and dressed their wounds. Hence they gave to the hill the name of _Remedios_, and the church afterward erected was dedicated to our Lady of Remedies. Diaz tells us that it became very celebrated in his time. The story about Cortez finding a broken-nosed image in the knapsack of one of his soldiers is not mentioned either by himself or Bernal Diaz, and must therefore be an afterthought, to give plausibility to a subsequent imposition. From this point Cortez and his party, without their women or treasures, trudged along to the foot of the hills to Tepeac, or Guadalupe, and thence around the foot of Tezcuco to the plains of Otumba.

The story is, that while Cortez and his men were resting here, a soldier took from his knapsack an image, with nose broken and an eye wanting, which Cortez made the patron saint of the expedition, and held it up to their adoration, and that this little incident so encouraged the men that they started off with renewed vigor. The whole of this story is probably a very silly modern invention. The bulk of the forces of Cortez was most probably composed of that class of reprobates that to this day can be found about almost any of the West India sea-ports, ready for any enterprise, however hazardous. They have no religion; they are not even superstitious, but yield a nominal acquiescence to the forms of the Catholic religion. Cortez speaks often of his efforts to effect the conversion of the Indians, but it is in such a business sort of way as to lead to the impression, that it was all done to make an impression at home, but was really a matter that he did not care much about. The famous image, according to the current story, disappeared soon after the Conquest, but was found about 150 years afterward in a maguey plant, and was as much dilapidated as if it had been exposed to the weather for the whole of that century and a half.

Such, in substance, is the tradition of the Virgin of Remedies, who for a century divided with the Virgin of Guadalupe the adoration of the people in the most amicable manner. But when the insurrection of 1810 broke out, these two virgins parted company. "_Viva_ the Virgin of Guadalupe!" became the war-cry of the unsuccessful rebels, while "_Viva_ the Lady of Remedies!" was shouted back by the conquering forces of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary propensities, while all honors were lavished upon the Lady of Remedies by those who wished to make protestations of their loyalty. Pearls, money, and jewels were bestowed upon her by the nobility and the Spanish merchants; and as one insurrectionary leader after another was totally defeated, the conquering generals returned to lay their trophies at the feet of the Lady of Remedies, to whose interposition the victory was ascribed. They carried her in triumphant procession through the streets of Mexico, singing a _laudamus_. Then it was that the Lady of Remedies was at the zenith of her glory. Her person was refulgent with a blaze of jewels, and her temple was like that of Diana of Ephesus, and all about the hill on which it stood bore marks of the greatest prosperity.

RISE AND FALL OF THE VIRGIN.

Her healing powers were then unrivaled, and the list of cures which she is claimed to have effected surpasses that of all the patent medicines of our day. She was an infallible healer, alike of the diseases of the mind and of the body. A glimpse of her broken nose and battered face instantaneously cured men of democracy and unbelief. Heretics stood confounded in her presence, while the halt, the lame, and the leprous hung up their crutches, their bandages, and their filthy rags, as trophies of her healing power, among the flags and other trophies of her victories over the rebels. Nothing was beyond her skill; from mending a leaky boat to securing a prize in the lottery; from giving eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, mending a broken or a paralyzed limb, or a broken heart, to putting the baby to sleep. Her votaries esteemed her omnipotent, and carried her in procession in times of drought, as the goddess of rain; and when pestilence raged in the city, she was borne through the infected streets. Such was she in the times of her glory.

Now all is changed. She is still a goddess, but her glory is eclipsed. She, like many a virgin in social life, neglected to make her market while all knees were bowing to her, and now, in the sear and yellow leaf, she is a virgin still. Her temple is dilapidated, her garlands are faded, her gilding is tarnished, the buildings about her Court are falling to decay, while the bleak hill which her temple crowns looks tenfold more uninviting than if it never had been occupied. When I entered this neglected temple of a neglected image, an old, superannuated priest was saying mass, and three or four old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed the revolution of Iguala. Not only was her hated rival of Guadalupe elevated from her long obscurity to be the national saint, but the animosity against this dilapidated image of Remedies was carried to that extreme of cruelty that, when the Spaniards were expelled from Mexico, the passports of the "Lady of Remedios" were made out, and she was ordered to leave the country. Poor thing!

The porter's eye glistened at the now unwonted sight of a silver dollar, and he soon had me through the most secret recesses of the sanctuary. The only things I saw worthy of admiration were some pictures, made from down or the feathers of the humming-bird, by which a richness of color was imparted to the pictures that could not be obtained from paints.

At last we came to the back of the great altar, and the curtain of damask silk being drawn up by a little string, we saw sitting in a metallic maguey plant a bright new Paris doll, dressed in the gaudy odds and ends of silk that make such a thing an attractive Christmas present for the nursery. Paste supplied the place of jewels, and a constellation of false pearls were at the back of her shoulders. The man kept his gravity, and did reverence to the poor doll, while I burned with indignation at being imposed upon by a counterfeit "universal remedy for all diseases." I had often read in the apothecaries' advertisements cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection, and I always noticed, from these printed evidences, that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the worthlessness of the genuine article, and that medicine which was utterly valueless itself suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was with the Lady of Remedios; after she had fallen below the dignity of a humbug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited away to the Cathedral of the city of Mexico, in order to save her three jeweled petticoats from being stolen, and a child's doll, covered with paste jewels, now personified the great patron saint of the vice-kingdom of New Spain.

AZTEC AND ROMISH IMAGES.

I again mounted my horse, angry at being cheated. Though the day was a most lovely one, I rode home in fit humor to contrast the system of paganism which Cortez introduced with the more poetical system which preceded it, and to compare these cast-off child's dolls with the allegorical images of the Aztecs. My landlord had two boxes of such images, collected when they were cleaning out one of the old city canals. By way of parlor ornaments, we had an Aztec god of baked earth. He was sitting in a chair; around his navel was coiled a serpent; his right hand rested upon the head of another serpent. This, according to the laws of interpreting allegories, we should understand to signify that the god had been renowned for his wisdom; that with the wisdom of the serpent he had executed judgment; and that his meditations were the profundity of wisdom. And yet this allegorical worship, defective as it may have been, was forcibly superseded by the adoration of a child's doll--one that had very possibly been worn out and thrown from a nursery, and perhaps picked up by some passing monk, was made the goddess of New Spain, and clothed with three petticoats, one adorned with pearls, one with rubies, and one with diamonds, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. Which was the least objectionable superstition?

We have been taught to look upon the worship of the Aztecs as monstrous; but the witnesses against them were themselves monsters, who were seeking for a pretense to excuse their own brutality in reducing the Indians to the most debasing slavery, while they appropriated to their own use the best looking of the squaws, and kept such swarms of supernumerary wives that each Spaniard had to brand them with a red-hot iron in order to know his own family. The fathers of the present mixed-breed population of Mexico tell us that the Aztecs offered human sacrifices, and feasted upon human flesh. They hope, by dwelling upon the enormities of the Indians, to excuse their own still more detestable crimes. For three centuries their stories were uncontradicted, and they have been received as historical verities. But the character of the witnesses warrants us in receiving their statements with some incredulity.

[36] _Bernal Diaz_, vol. i. p. 338.

[37] _Bernal Diaz_, vol. i. p. 31, 32.