Aztec Land - Maturin Murray Ballou (universal ebook reader .txt) 📗

the sky becomes darkened by clouds of sand driven by fierce gusts of wind. It is a fact that passengers have been obliged to remain for a whole week upon a European steamer, unable to land during a protracted norther. These storms are terrific in violence. It is not a straight out-and-out gale, an honest tempest, such as one sometimes meets at sea, and with which an experienced mariner knows how to cope. A norther is an erratic succession of furious squalls with whirlwinds of sand, the wind blowing from several points at the same time. When a norther blows, work is suspended in the city, and the streets are deserted until the fury of the blast has subsided. This wind, however, like most other serious annoyances in life, has its bright side. Very true is the saying: "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." The norther drives away that fatal enemy of the city, the yellow fever; and when it fairly sets in to blow, that surely ends the disease for the season; its germs are swept away as if by magic. The insect plague is only second to that of the vomito as regards the danger and discomfort to be encountered in this "City of the True Cross." But even mosquitoes succumb to the northers. The muslin bars which surround the beds of the Hotel Diligencia, fronting the plaza, are effectual, so that one can generally sleep during the two or three nights that he is likely to stay in the city. A longer sojourn is simply inviting disease, besides which there is no possible attraction to keep one here any longer.

The only good harbor in the Gulf of Mexico within a hundred miles of this point is that of Anton Lizardo, about fifteen miles to the southward of Vera Cruz, which, in fact, should have been made the commercial port. This position is now, doubtless to be filled by Tampico, in connection with the Mexican Central Railroad branch running from the main trunk of that road to the Gulf, by way of San Luis Potosi. We heard of another element operating very seriously against the interests of Vera Cruz. It seems that the sand of the Gulf shore, moved by various currents, is gradually depositing itself in the shallow roadstead in such quantities as to seriously imperil navigation. It is admitted that should this continue for a few years it would close the port to commerce. The railroad management are already talking of extending the line southward to Anton Lizardo.

On an island, less than one mile off the shore of Vera Cruz, stands the grim old fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa, a most conspicuous object with its blackened and crumbling walls. It has often been declared to be impregnable, and yet, curious to say, it has never been attacked by a foe without being compelled to surrender. Here Cortez landed on Mexican soil, April 21, 1519. He disembarked on a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart for the adoration of the cross; he therefore called the place Vera Cruz (The True Cross). The mere handful of followers which he brought with him to conquer and possess a nation consisted of four hundred and fifteen men at arms, sixteen horses, and seven cannon! These last were mere howitzers. Was ever a more daring and reckless scheme conceived of? Fully realizing the peculiar nature of the venture, and fearing that when his followers should awaken to the extravagant folly of the invasion, they would mutiny, forcibly seize the ships which had brought them, and return in them to Cuba, he deliberately destroyed all the galleys save one, and thus cut off the means of retreat. This was quite in accordance with the desperate nature of the enterprise and the reckless spirit of its leader, who had boldly taken upon himself unauthorized responsibility. In bringing about the destruction of his vessels, Cortez resorted to a subterfuge so as to deceive the people about him. He did not "burn" his ships, as has been so commonly reported, but ordered a marine survey upon them, employing an officer who had his secret instructions, and when the report was made public it was to the effect that the galleys were unseaworthy, leaky, and not fit or safe for service. A certain sea worm had reduced the hulls to mere shells! So the stores and armament were carried on shore, and the vessels sunk or wrecked. "His followers murmured at the loss of the ships," says Chevalier, "but were quieted by Cortez, who promised them salvation in the next world and fortunes in this." This is one version of the famous episode which has come down to us, and which we believe to be the true one. It is certainly the most in accordance with all the known facts in the case.

There are important circumstances connected with this often repeated episode which are not always considered in forming an estimate of the whole affair. The departure of the expedition from Cuba was nothing less than open rebellion on the part of Cortez. Had it eventuated in failure, its leader would have been pronounced a pirate and filibuster. It was Talleyrand who declared that nothing succeeds so well as success. Thus it is that history makes of the fortunate adventurer a hero, never pausing to consider the means by which his success was attained. "Cortez and his companions," says Chevalier, "had incurred the necessity of signalizing themselves by some great exploit. They had committed a fault which the laws of all states treated as crime, and one that the leaders must expiate on the gibbet and their followers at the galleys, unless atoned for by brilliant deeds. Their departure from Cuba was an act of flagrant rebellion." In his great haste to get away from Cuba he embarked in nine small vessels, the largest not over one hundred tons and some were even undecked boats. Velasquez, the governor of the island of Cuba, had for some time previously contemplated sending an expedition to Mexico, and having got it about ready for departure, he was over-persuaded to give Cortez the command; but after due consideration, repenting of his decision, he took steps to replace him by a more trusted officer. Cortez learned of this, and hastily got as many of the people together who had enlisted for the purpose as he could, and putting the munitions on board, sailed without taking leave! He had already been once pardoned out of prison by Velasquez, where he was confined for gross insubordination, and for the baseness of his private life, which, though he was thirty-four years of age, exhibited all the faults of earliest manhood. R. A. Wilson pronounces the expedition to have been "purely piratical, whose leader could have no hope of royal pardon but in complete success." Cortez knew that it would not answer for him to return to Cuba, therefore he unhesitatingly destroyed the means by which even his comrades could do so. These facts rob the act which has been so lauded by historians of all heroism. Depend upon it, all our heroes have feet of clay. He had just made a rough campaign with the natives of Tabasco, in Yucatan, where he learned that farther up the Gulf, where he finally landed, there was "a people who had much gold." That was what he sought. It was not God but gold that drew him onward from Vera Cruz to Montezuma's capital. He was not seeking to christianize the natives; that was a plausible subterfuge. His aim was to enrich himself with native spoils and to acquire empire, nor did he pause until he had consummated the ruin of a kingdom and his own aggrandizement.

The traveler should not fail to take a boat across the bay to the castle, and there visit the dark and dismal dungeons built below the surrounding waters of the Gulf, like those in the castle of Chillon beneath the surface of the lake of Geneva. One may obtain an admirable view of the city and its neighborhood from the cupola of the lofty lighthouse, which is of the first class, and rises grandly to ninety feet above the sea. The fortress is now only partially manned, being used mostly as a place of confinement for political prisoners. As this island was the first landing-place of the Spaniards, so it was their last foothold in Mexico. There is a familiar anecdote, which is always retailed by the guides to the strangers whom they initiate into the mysteries of the fortress upon which Cortez is said to have expended uselessly many millions of dollars. Charles V., being asked for more funds wherewith to add to the defenses of San Juan d'Ulloa, called for a spyglass, and, seeking a window, pointed it to the west, seeming to gaze through the glass long and earnestly. When he was asked what he was looking for, he replied: "San Juan d'Ulloa. I have spent so much money upon the structure that it seems to me I ought to see it standing on the western horizon."

The low-lying town--nearly eight thousand feet below the city of Mexico--is, perhaps, one of the most unhealthy spots on this continent, where the yellow fever, or _vomito_ as it is called, prevails for six or seven months of the year, claiming myriads of victims annually, while a malarial scourge, known as the stranger's fever, lingers about the place more or less fatally all the year round, according to the number of persons who are liable to be attacked. The yellow fever, which makes its appearance in May, is generally at its worst in August and September, at which periods it is apt to creep upwards towards the higher lands as far as Jalapa and Orizaba, though it has never been known to exist to any great extent in either of these places. The dangerous miasma which prevails seems to be quite harmless to the natives of the locality, or at least they are rarely attacked by it. When a person has once contracted yellow fever and recovered from it, as a rule he is presumed to be exempt from a second attack, but this is not a rule without an exception. In summer the streets of Vera Cruz are deserted except by the buzzards and the stray dogs. These quarrel with each other for scraps of food. The latter by no means always get the best of it. Even the Mexicans at such times call the place _Una ciudad de los muertos_ (a city of the dead).

A large share of the business of Vera Cruz is carried on by French or German residents who have become acclimated, or by those born here of parents belonging to those nationalities. Many of the merchants of the city keep up a permanent residence at Jalapa for sanitary reasons. It is singular that the climate of this port on the Gulf side of the peninsula should be so fatal to human life, while the Pacific side, in the same latitude and quite near at hand, is perfectly salubrious. When the French army landed here in 1863-64, the ranks were decimated by the epidemic, and the graveyard where the bodies of between three and four thousand French victims lie buried near the city has been named by their countrymen, with grim humor, "Le Jardin d'Acclimatation"!

On viewing the town from the castle of San Juan d'Ulloa, one is struck by the oriental aspect which it presents. Everything is seen through a lurid atmosphere. The glare of sunshine reflected by the porcelain domes and the intense blue of the sky are Egyptian. Groups of mottled church towers surmounted by glittering crosses; square, flat-roofed houses; rough fortifications; a long reach of hot sandy plain on either side relieved by a few palm-trees; and scattered groups of low-growing cactus,--these make up