scene shows Cortes seated, with his followers behind him, and at his
side Marina, a young native woman who was his companion and interpreter.
The_ Lienzo de Tlaxcala _was a long strip of canvas, containing
forty-eight representations of scenes of the early Spanish invasions.
The original was destroyed during the revolution following the downfall
of Maximilian, but a copy had fortunately been made before the
destruction._]

Shortly before the marriage of Dona Marina, Cortes's legal wife a woman
of low birth and a drag upon him in his upward career had come over from
the Islands to New Spain, but she did not live long after her arrival,
and her death furnished the later detractors of Cortes with a pretext to
attack him in the way that could most deeply and yet safely pierce his
defence. This was absurd enough, since Cortes had always treated his
wife with affection and consideration; but suspicion was never entirely
allayed. The facts of having thus influenced in some degree the fortunes
of the Conqueror and of having been one of the first ladies of Spain to
die on the shores of New Spain form the only title to mention in this
history of Dona Catalina Xuarez.

There are indeed but few names of women associated with the conquest of
Mexico, that of Marina standing out preeminent. Yet there were women not
a few who exercised a certain influence on the fortunes of the Conqueror
and his army, though their names are generally unknown to us. In the
second march upon the Mexican capital many of the soldiers had brought
their wives with them, and during the stress and storm of the days when
Guatemozin was hurling his forces again and again upon the fearfully
outnumbered but better armed Spaniards, these women did service in true
Amazon style. Not only did they cheer and encourage the downhearted and
prick the cowards--though there were very few of the latter in that
little army--with the needle of their scorn, but they actually did
soldier service as well. When Cortes had besought these women to remain
at Tlascala, they had replied that "It was the duty of Castilian wives
not to abandon their husbands in danger, but to share it with them, and,
if necessary, to die with them." Though some of the names of these
heroines have been embalmed in history by Herrera, they have but little
meaning for us now; it is more to the point to know that one and all
acted to the utmost of their conception of duty and that some of them
mounted gua