those of the fireflies with which they lighted their own houses. The new camp was now a regularly-organized colony of Spain. Cortez was chosen mayor, with his particular friends as subordinates—a precaution very necessary among these restless adventurers. The name of the city was very long and very religious, according to the fashion of the times. It was Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz—"the Rich City of the True Cross."
Past experience had taught Cortez that either great difficulties or a life of idleness would make his men homesick. He saw that hardship and delay were inevitable, and feared that the sight of ships riding at anchor, ready to carry them back to Cuba, would be a temptation to them to desert; he therefore determined to cut off this opportunity by sinking all these vessels before he left the coast. He induced those who inspected the vessels to pronounce them worm-eaten and unseaworthy. The sails, the iron and the cordage were carefully taken out of them, and then a hole cut in the bottom of each ship sent it to the bottom, where no deserter could reach it.
The chief of Cempoalla sent his ally abundance of provisions for the journey, with two hundred porters and four hundred warriors. It was the rainy season, and all nature was rioting in a luxuriance of growth known only in this high tide of a tropical year. Field and forest were teeming with life. Where the latter was threaded by footpaths a tangled undergrowth disputed every inch of a way which was never wide enough for two travelers to walk abreast. Passing from these forests into the cultivated fields which surrounded every hamlet, the eye was gladdened by corn of such magnificent growth as completely to overtop the low-roofed houses in which most
