if his defection were to go unpunished. He determined to take the affair into his own hands, and to lead an expedition in person to Honduras. He would thus, moreover, be enabled to ascertain from personal inspection the resources of the country, which were reputed great on the score of mineral wealth; and would, perhaps, detect the point of communication between the great oceans, which had so long eluded the efforts of the Spanish discoverers. He was still further urged to this step by the uncomfortable position in which he had found himself of late in the capital. Several functionaries had recently been sent from the mother country for the ostensible purpose of administering the colonial revenues. But they served as spies on the general's conduct, caused him many petty annoyances, and sent back to court the most malicious reports of his purposes and proceedings. Cortés, in short, now that he was made GovernorGeneral of the country, had less real power than when he held no legal commission at all.

The Spanish force which he took with him did not probably exceed a hundred horse and forty or perhaps fifty foot; to which were added about three thousand Indian auxiliaries.* Among them were Guatemozin and the cacique of Tacuba, with a few others of highest rank, whose consideration with their countrymen would make them an obvious nucleus, round which disaffection might gather. The general's personal retinue consisted of several pages, young men of good family, and among them Montejo, the future conqueror of Yucatan ; a butler and steward; several musicians, dancers, jugglers, and buffoons, showing, it might seem, more of the effeminacy of the Oriental satrap, than the hardy valour of a Spanish cavalier.† Yet the imputation

* Carta de Albornos, MS., Mexico, Dec. 15, 1525.—Carta Quinta de Cortés, MS.-The authorities do not precisely agree as to the numbers, which were changing, probably, with every step of their march across the table-land. + Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 174.

of effeminacy is sufficiently disproved by the terrible march which he accomplished.

On the 12th of October, 1524, Cortés commenced his march. As he descended the sides of the Cordilleras, he was met by many of his old companions in arms, who greeted their commander with a hearty welcome, and some of them left their estates to join the expedition.* He halted in the province of Coatzacualco, (Huasacualco,) until he could receive intelligence respecting his route from the natives of Tabasco. They furnished him with a map, exhibiting the principal places whither the Indian traders, who wandered over these wild regions, were in the habit of resorting. With the aid of this map, a compass, and such guides as from time to time he could pick up on his journey, he proposed to traverse that broad and level tract which forms the base of Yucatan, and spreads from the Coatzacualco river to the head of the Gulf of Honduras. "I shall give your Majesty," he begins his celebrated Letter to the emperor, describing this expedition, "an account, as usual, of the most remarkable events of my journey, every one of which might form the subject of a separate narration.” Cortés did not exaggerate.†

* Among these was Captain Diaz, who, however, left the pleasant farm, which he occupied in the province of Coatzacualco, with a very ill grace, to accompany the expedition. "But Cortés commanded it, and we dared not say No," says the veteran.-Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 175.

This celebrated Letter, which has never been published, is usually designated as the Carta Quinta, or "Fifth Letter," of Cortés. It is nearly as long as the longest of the printed letters of the Conqueror ; is written in the same clear, simple, business-like manner; and as full of interest as any of the preceding. It gives a minute account of the expedition to Honduras, together with events that occurred in the year following. It bears no date, but was probably written in that year from Mexico. The original manuscript is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which, as the German sceptre was swayed at that time by the same hand which held the Castilian, contains many documents of value for the illustration of Spanish history.

DREADFUL MARCH TO HONDURAS.

231

The beginning of the march lay across a low and marshy evel, intersected by numerous little streams, which form he head waters of the Rio de Tabasco, and of the other ivers that discharge themselves to the north, into the Mexican Gulf. The smaller streams they forded, or passed canoes, suffering their horses to swim across as they eld them by the bridle. Rivers of more formidable size hey crossed on floating bridges. It gives one some idea f the difficulties they had to encounter in this way, when is stated, that the Spaniards were obliged to construct less than fifty of these bridges in a distance of less an a hundred miles.* One of them was more than nine undred paces in length. Their troubles were much agmented by the difficulty of obtaining subsistence, as the tives frequently set fire to the villages on their approach, aving to the way worn adventurers only a pile of smoking ins.

It would be useless to encumber the page with the names of dian towns which lay in the route of the army, but which y be now obsolete, and, at all events, have never found their y into a map of the country. The first considerable place ich they reached was Iztapan, pleasantly situated in the dst of a fruitful region, on the banks of one of the tributaries the Rio de Tabasco. Such was the extremity to which the

"Es tierra mui baja y de muchas sienegas, tanto que en tiempo de erno no se puede andar, ni se sirve sino en canoas, y con pasarla yo en po de seca, desde la entrada hasta la salida de ella, que puede aver ti leguas, se hiziéron mas de cinquenta puentes, que sin se hazer, fuera osible pasar."-Carta Quinta de Cortés, MS.

I have examined some of the most ancient maps of the country, by ish, French, and Dutch cosmographers, in order to determine the e of Cortés. An inestimable collection of these maps, made by the ned German, Ebeling, is to be found in the library of Harvard UniverI can detect on them only four or five of the places indicated by the ral. They are the places mentioned in the text, and, though few, may

Spaniards had already, in the course of a few weeks, been reduced by hunger and fatigue, that the sight of a village in these dreary solitudes was welcomed by his followers, says Cortés, "with a shout of joy that was echoed back from all the surrounding woods." The army was now at no great distance from the ancient city of Palenque, the subject of so much speculation in our time. The village of Las Tres Cruzes, indeed, situated between twenty and thirty miles from Palenque, is said still to commemorate the passage of the Conquerors by the existence of three crosses which they left there. Yet no allusion is made to the ancient capital. Was it then the abode of a populous and flourishing community, such as once occupied it, to judge from the extent and magnificence of its remains?

Or was

it, even then, a heap of mouldering ruins, buried in a wilderness of vegetation, and thus hidden from the knowledge of the surrounding country? If the former, the silence of Cortés is not easy to be explained.

On quitting Iztapan, the Spaniards struck across a country having the same character of a low and marshy soil, chequered by occasional patches of cultivation, and covered with forests of cedar. and Brazil-wood, which seemed absolutely interminable. The over-hanging foliage threw so deep a shade, that, as Cortés says, the soldiers could not see where to set their feet.* To add to their perplexity, their guides deserted them; and when they climbed to the summits of the tallest trees, they could see only the same cheerless, interminable line of waving woods. The compass and the map furnished the only clue to extricate them from this gloomy labyrinth; and Cortés and his officers, among whom

* "Donde se ponian los pies en el suelo açia arriba la claridad del cielo no se veia, tanta era la espesura y alteza de los árboles, que aunque se subian en algunos, no podian descubrir un tiro de piedra.”—Carta Quinta de Cortés, MS.

was the constant Sandoval, spreading out their chart on the ground, anxiously studied the probable direction of their route. Their scanty supplies meanwhile had entirely failed them, and they appeased the cravings of appetite by such roots as they dug out of the earth, or by the nuts and berries that grew wild in the woods. Numbers fell sick, and many of the Indians sank by the way, and died of absolute

starvation.

When at length the troops emerged from these dismal forests, their path was crossed by a river of great depth, and far wider than any which they had hitherto traversed. The soldiers, disheartened, broke out into murmurs against their leader, who was plunging them deeper and deeper in a boundless wilderness, where they must lay their bones. It was in vain that Cortés encouraged them to construct a floating bridge, which might take them to the opposite bank of the river. It seemed a work of appalling magnitude, to which their wasted strength was unequal. He was more successful in his appeal to the Indian auxiliaries, till his own men put to shame by the ready obedience of the latter, engaged in the work with a hearty good-will, which enabled them, although ready to drop from fatigue, to accomplish it at the end of four days. It was, indeed, the only expedient by which they could hope to extricate themselves from their perilous situation. The bridge consisted of one thousand pieces of timber, each of the thickness of a man's body and full sixty feet long.* When we consider that the timber was all standing in the forest at the commencement of the labour, it must be admitted to have been an achievement worthy of the Spaniards. The well-compacted beams presented a solid structure, which nothing, says Cortés, but

* "Porque lleva mas que mil bigas, que la menor es casi tan gorda como un cuerpo de un hombre, y de nueve diez brazas en largo."-Carta Quinta de Cortés, MS.