t first
with mixed feelings to the accounts of the friendly Indians who greeted
them at the shore, feelings in which the spirit of conquest rose high
and dominant.

The ten caravels of Cortes are swinging at anchor in the bay, whose
white-capped waters they have just passed. The Spaniards have
reconnoitred the beach, and their eyes have followed the rising
landscape to where, beyond the forest-clad mountains, and emerging from
the clouds which girt them, a single gleaming, snowy point appeared,
piercing the blue heavens like the gnomon of a mighty dial. It was
Citlaltepetl, the "mountain of the star," the natives told them. It was
the lofty Orizaba, the sunlight on its perpetual snow-cap bringing it
to deceptive nearness.

Halting thus upon this sunny shore, who were these Spaniards, and what
was their mission and character? Let us briefly sketch them. Those were
stirring times in "ocean chivalry." The dream of Columbus had been
accomplished for twenty-five years; Balboa had crossed the isthmus a
few years since and Panama was known. The islands of Cuba and Santa
Domingo had been settled and made starting-points for further
discoveries, and two years before--in 1517--a Cuban _hidalgo_,
Hernandez de Cordova, blown by a fierce gale, with his three ships, far
from his objective point of the Bahamas, landed on an unknown land
where the Indians said "_Tectecan_"--"I do not understand you." What
was this land? It was the peninsula now called
Yucatan--"_tectecan_"--part of the Mexico of to-day. And on Cordova's
return to Cuba, the governor of that island, Don Diego de Velasquez,
bestirred himself right actively, impelled by certain longings for
conquest he had long nourished, and by the adventures, and curious
things of laboured gold brought back by Cordova. Fitting out four
vessels, Velasquez put them under the command of his nephew, Juan de
Grijalva, and quickly sent them forth to win him riches and fame in
those unknown lands--May, 1518. Grijalva duly touched and coasted upon
the islands and shores of Yucatan, and his name remains to-day in the
great Grijalva river. Thence he followed the horseshoe curve of the
Gulf of Mexico, and arrived and landed at San Juan de Ulua, the same
point where we left Cortes and his Spaniards halting. To Grijalva is
due the prestige of first landing on the shores of Mexico, and of
having intercourse with its people of the Aztecs. But, Grijalva
tarrying long, Don Diego de Velasquez had despa