About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
HO FOR THE CAPITAL
THE Aztec chiefs who visited Tlascala were very anxious that Cortez should take Cholula on his way to visit Montezuma, if the Aztec council should consent that he might come to Mexico at all. They had hoped that the Totonacs and their Spanish allies would quarrel by the way, that the army would perish with hunger and cold as they crossed the bleak mountain-walls of their valley, or, should they survive these perils, that the Tlascalans would entrap and crush them in some of their deep valleys. But all these hopes had proved vain. Montezuma and his council were quaking with fear over the latest despatches from their envoys. The pictures they drew of sleeping villages attacked by a ruthless foe, of murder and pillage and fire, were only too familiar work with all Aztec reporters, but these white men had clothed war with new terrors. Marching in triumph from tribe to tribe, laying the thousands of Tobasco under tribute, they had won allies in Cempoalla without a blow. Now even Tlascalan braves, after their proud ranks had been beaten down like grass in a hailstorm, were bowing under a yoke which all the armies of the confederacy had not been able to fasten upon them. Were they gods, or were they men like themselves? The wisest of their priests now declared that it was the will of the gods that the white strangers should find their graves in Cholula; to Cholula, then, they must be enticed with a hint that the long-delayed invitation from the "chief-of-men" to visit Mexico might await them there.
Cholula, eighteen miles from Tlascala, was one of the sacred places of Mexico. It was the home of a rich and powerful tribe of merchants who had but lately broken friendship with the Tlascalans to become the allies of the Aztecs. Cortez resolved to pay a visit to the city, and fixed a day. This news caused great anxiety among the Tlascalans. It was very plainly their duty to accompany their allies to Mexico; it was quite as plain to them that the most dangerous road there would be that which should take them through Cholula.
"Do you not see,"said the wary old Tlascalans to Cortez, "that no Cholulan chief has been to visit you, though the city is only eighteen miles away? Other tribes, which live much farther off, have sent their best men to seek your friendship; why have the Cholulans been so indifferent?"
With thanks for this warning, Cortez asked that messengers be sent to the Cholulan council to demand an explanation. The very cool answer which came to this demand provoked the general to send them at once a formal summons to come immediately and submit to him as the representative of the king of Spain, "the lord of the whole earth." If they refused, he said, he would march against them and destroy them as rebels. This arrogant message had its effect. The next day the Cholulan chiefs walked over to the camp to apologize for their neglect. To make the scene more impressive to these new visitors, Cortez had their speech recorded by a notary and required them all to sign it as a fair statement of facts.
"Now," said he, "I am going back with you to Cholula, to see for myself if you have spoken the truth."
The Tlascalans again cautioned Cortez not to venture too far. No tribe in Mexico was more noted for cunning than were the Cholulans. Finding that he was bent on going, the whole native army offered to accompany him. Cortez allowed the Tlascalans to attend him until he was within six miles of Cholula, when he persuaded all but six thousand men to return until he was ready to go on to Mexico. He said that he was afraid the entrance of so large a body of armed Tlascalans would throw the city into a commotion.
The army of Cortez encamped for the night on the banks of a small stream; the next morning, in great numbers, the citizens poured out of Cholula to greet the strangers. The Cholulans were by far the best-dressed people the Spaniards had yet seen. The chiefs wore cloaks over their mantles; these were elegantly woven and embroidered, and were generally provided with pockets. Hundreds of priests in long black dresses and with flowing hair mingled with the crowd, chanting solemn temple-hymns and swinging fragrant censers as they walked. The women wore flowers in their dark hair, and came laden with wreaths to deck the horses, which here, as everywhere, created a fever of excitement.
The city of Cholula was situated in a beautiful and highly-cultivated plain, well wooded and watered by artificial canals. It was venerable with age. Its early records were probably lost when Mexican libraries were burned by order of the conquerors. Tradition said that it had been the home of Feathered Serpent ages before. An elegant temple in his honor crowned the great pyramid which the Aztecs and kindred tribes found there when they entered the valley. It was now a great resort for pilgrims, who came in multitudes to worship at this ancient shrine.
The spirit of Feathered Serpent had, however, long ago died out of his worship. Here, where he had been best known and loved, his altars reeked with human blood. It is said that six thousand victims were yearly slaughtered in this city alone.
The wide, clean streets and massive houses were noted with great admiration by the army, who now entered the city. It contained about twenty thousand houses, and, as we have seen, these were always occupied by many related families. The population was probably about two hundred thousand.
A large temple with its surrounding courtyard was given to Cortez for the accommodation of his men, who, with the exception of the Tlascalans, were all quartered within the city walls. Provisions were sent to them, "although not in a bountiful manner," as Cortez complained. Every day the fare provided for the army grew worse. The Cholulans explained that corn was scarce, but those who looked out on the waving fields around them concluded that this was an excuse unworthy of so wealthy a people. It was noted, also, that the chiefs paid very few visits to the Spanish quarters. Their guests soon began to compare notes among themselves. Some had observed the loaded house-roofs here and there, where piles of stone could be hidden behind parapets or among the flowering plants with which they were often adorned. The watchful Totonacs, who had the liberty 
Hearing this confirmation of his own fears, Cortez requested a meeting of the city council. He told them that he saw he had become a burden to them and that he had made up his mind to leave Cholula for Mexico the next day, and asked that they would furnish him with two thousand men to transport his artillery and baggage. After some consultation among themselves this request was granted. Cortez next sought an interview with the Aztec embassy and told them of the plot he had discovered, charging Montezuma with it. They feigned great surprise and declared that neither their chief nor the council knew anything about it; the fault lay entirely with the Cholulans. Cortez, although satisfied that they were deceiving him, affected to believe the Aztecs. At the same time, he kept them apart from the people of the city, lest his plan to take vengeance upon the latter should fail of execution.
That was a sleepless night for the Spanish general; his little army seemed to be standing over a magazine. They were in the heart of an enemy's country and surrounded by friends quite as capable of treachery as were the foes he dreaded. There were also many among his own men who had no sympathy with his ambitious schemes; these malcontents counseled a retreat to Tlascala. Others found fault that he had dealt so mildly with the Indians, and still others said that he had been foolhardy and had ruined the expedition by leading them into this dangerous place. Most of them, however, sided with their general, who thought a time had come to strike a blow which should for ever put a stop to Indian treachery. The next morning Cortez so posted his guns as to command the great avenues of the city and stationed a guard of picked men at the three entrances to his own quarters. The Tlascalans had orders to come to his assistance when a signalgun should be fired.
It was still very early when some of the Cholulan chiefs came into the courtyard with the two thousand porters they had promised the day before, and these, with the Spanish soldiers on duty, soon crowded the place. Then, calling aside their leader, Cortez charged the Cholulans with the plot he had discovered. Small time was allowed for explanation, as the signal to fire on the unarmed crowd penned in the enclosure was immediately given to those who held the entrances. The noise within the courtyard attracted a furious mob outside, but they were mowed down by the guns, which swept the avenues. As the foremost fell others rushed on over the heaps of slain. The Tlascalans, who had been eagerly listening for the signal, now came pouring into the city and attacked the Cholulans in the rear. By the orders of Cortez his allies wore sedge-leaves on their heads, to distinguish them from the natives of Cholula and Mexico.
As usual in Mexican warfare, the battle raged most fiercely around the temple, and on this awful day the great pyramid of Cholula became the centre of the storm which broke over the city. Many of the Cholulans rushed up its steep stairways and took refuge in the towers with which it was crowned. From thence they hurled stones, but with little effect, on the heads of the invaders who pressed up behind them. These tall towers, which were of wood, were soon wrapped in flames. The city was given up to pillage. The fierce Tlascalans captured scores of victims for their altars, and led them away to their camp, to be offered up to the gods in that feast which would mark their triumphal return to their own valleys.
Some of the Cholulan chiefs who had escaped implored Cortez to shield Cholula from the vengeance of his terrible allies. However foreign was his conduct from the spirit of Him in whose cause he professed to be engaged, there was something which led the poor Cholulans to trust in the white men rather than in those whose religion was one of vengeance. The efforts of Cortez to quell the uproar were in time successful. It is said that he prevailed on his allies to give up their captives. If this be true, they gave the highest proof of their regard for his wishes which was possible to a Mexican Indian. All the inhabitants but the chiefs who had been shut up were driven from the city. Many of the towers and houses were burned, and more than three thousand of the people had been killed.
Returning to his quarters, Cortez called his Cholulan prisoners to account. With one consent they excused themselves and blamed the Aztecs. If he would forgive them this time, they promised to be henceforth and for ever faithful subjects of the great lord across the sea. Two of these chiefs were sent out to invite the people to come back to their homes, and, says Cortez, "the next day the whole city was filled with men, women and children in as much security as if nothing had occurred."
Many a fatherless family there was that sad day as the women and children who had fled for shelter to the mountains came flocking back to their desolate homes. Saddest of all were the black-robed priests who had escaped the general carnage. Now that the fight was over and the dead were buried, the Spanish general began his work of cleansing their temples and converting their flocks to the new religion. What was left of the great teocallis was turned into a Christian church. An immense cross was erected among the smouldering ruins, and, but for the wise counsel of Fathers Olmedo and Diaz, the war for conquest would have been followed by as fierce a crusade for the Church. Yet happy were the captives who were waiting their turn to be sacrificed. Every door of every cage was opened. If there was anything in all that troublous time which satisfied the Indians that Feathered Serpent had come again in the person of Cortez, it was this act of mercy. How strangely were the cruelties of that dark and bloody age in which he lived mingled with the fulfillment of that prophecy of "liberty to the captive and the opening of the prison to them that are bound"!
Another embassy from Mexico showed what a fright events in Cholula had given to the Aztec council. They begged that the white men would not trouble themselves to come any farther, as they inhabited a cold and barren country and the people were poor; they would, however, supply their visitors with such provision as they could spare. It is plain that from first to last the European idea of conquest never entered their minds; they supposed that Cortez persisted in coming because he was not satisfied with the amount of tribute they offered. It was not strange, therefore, that the representatives of these poverty-stricken tribes should come laden with more gifts for the conquerors. They had already poured enough of their treasure at the feet of the invaders to lure the most homesick man in the camp across the mountains, and every time they came the army were fired with new courage to seek a place where gold and gems were so plentiful. Besides their protest, the council sent an explanation of the part they had taken in the Cholula affair. They professed sincerely to deplore the treacherous conduct of their allies in that city, and said that their army had been sent to that neighborhood to quell some disturbances in two tributary tribes whose lands joined those of the Cholulans.
Cortez wisely forbore to express his doubts of Aztec sincerity; his face was now turned toward Mexico, and it was politic to show himself as friendly as possible toward the authorities there. He soothed the evident fears of his visitors, at the same time assuring them that he was certainly coming to visit their country.
And yet again the terror-stricken chiefs sent messengers over the gradually shortened way between their city and the Spanish camp. The burden of their story now was that Montezuma was anxious that Cortez should take a safe road on his inevitable journey.
This message reached the general on his way to Mexico. The army had come to a place where the road forked. One well-worn footpath was choked with trunks of prostrate trees and other rubbish which had recently been put there by order of the Mexican council; the other path was that which had been marked for the army as the best and safest for the horses. It is not strange that fresh treachery was suspected here. Finding that the road which the Indians had blocked up was the most direct, Cortez ordered his men to clear it of stones and of timber. They made short work of this, the Tlascalans especially laboring with a will to open a path toward the citadel of their lifelong enemies. The courage of the Totonacs, however, gave out at the last moment; so, thanking them for their fidelity in the time of his greatest need, Cortez dismissed them with liberal rewards out of the abundance with which Montezuma had provided him.
The army now pressed on and up the highest of the great mountain-ranges on which are piled the central table-lands of Mexico. Cortez writes of it: "Eight leagues from the city of Cholula are two very lofty and remarkable mountains.[1] In the latter part of August their summits are covered with snow, and from the higher a volume of smoke arises equal in bulk to a spacious house. It ascends above the mountain to the clouds as straight as an arrow, and with such force that, although a very strong wind is always blowing on the mountain, it does not turn the smoke from its course. As I wished to ascertain the cause of this phenomenon, as it appeared to me, I despatched ten of my companions, with several natives of the country for guides, charging them to ascend the mountain and find out the cause of that smoke. They went and struggled with all their might to reach the summit, but were unable, on account of the great quantity of snow which lay on the mountains, the whirlwind of ashes which swept over it and the insupportable cold."
From one of the dizzy heights on this burning mountain, Popocatapetl, the explorers saw an Indian trail winding down through the stunted shrubbery of a pass at their feet which seemed much more direct and easy than the one which the army had chosen. Wrapping some huge icicles in their blankets, to prove that they had actually been in this frigid zone, the party retraced their steps. After some conference with their Aztec leaders, it was decided to take the route just discovered.
A storm of rain and sleet was now sweeping wildly through the pass. Men and horses were benumbed with cold, but they struggled on till nightfall, when they came to an inhabited place in Chalco, where the Aztecs pointed out a large house newly built by their country-folk for the accommodation of the traveling public. In this building Cortez and all his men, numbering between four and five thousand, found shelter for the night. Abundance of provision had been stored up here, with firewood ready for use. Every lodging-room was soon warmed by a blazing fire built on the stone floors. The smoke escaped through the open window or door, there being no chimneys in all Mexico.
The army was now approaching the valley by a road which crossed its mountain-wall between the two great peaks, Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl, which rise on the south-east like the pillars of some majestic gateway. They had not yet reached the highest point in the pass when they were met by messengers from the Aztec council; they were charged with one more almost despairing message from the council. With childish fear and persistence, they begged the Spaniards even 
- ↑ Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl, both snow-clad all the year.