o his authority, and acted in perfect harmony
with him, as if they were but subordinate parts of himself, were each
competent to command a host, and lead it on to certain victory. The
impetuous, daring Alvarado, the cool, courageous, trusty Sandoval, the
high-spirited, chivalrous Olid, the rash, head-long, cruel Velasquez de
Leon, and others, worthy to be the comrades of these, and of
Cortez--when have the ranks of the war-god assigned so many master
spirits to one enterprize? And the brave, the gifted, the indomitable
Xicotencatl, the mountain chief of Tlascala, whom the Spaniards, with so
much difficulty, first subdued and then won to their cause, as an
ally--what a noble personification of the soul and spirit of heroism,
realizing in personal bravery, martial skill and prowess, and in all the
commanding qualities of person and of character, which go to constitute
the victorious warrior, the best pictures of the type-heroes of epic
poetry and history.

In all their previous discoveries in the New World, the progress of the
Spaniards to victory was easy, and almost unresisted. The invaders of
Mexico, however, found themselves suddenly introduced to a new people,
and new scenes--to nations of warriors, to races intelligent, civilized,
and competent to self-government and self-defence. And all the skill,
courage, and energy of their ablest commanders, and their bravest men,
would have availed them nothing in their herculean enterprize, if they
had not craftily and skilfully worked upon the jealousies and
differences existing between the various tribes and nations of Anahuac,
and fomented the long smothered discontents, and unwritten complaints of
an over-taxed and sternly-governed people, into open and clamorous
resistance to the despotic sway of Montezuma. It is curious and
melancholy to observe, how eagerly they shook off the golden yoke of
their hereditary monarch, for the iron one of a new master, and
exchanged their long-established servitude to their legitimate king and
their pagan gods, for a more galling, hopeless, and wasting slavery to
the cruel and rapacious invader, under the life-promising Sign of the
Cross, the desecrated banner of the Prince of Peace.

[B] One version of this singular prophetic legend represented
the expected invaders, as the descendants of the ancient god
Quetzalcoatl, who, ages agone, had voluntarily abdicated the
throne of Anahuac, and departed to a far country in the East,