soldier. In 1511 he accompanied Velasquez to Cuba, and was made
_alcalde_ (judge) of Santiago, where he won further praise by his
courage and firmness in several important crises. Meantime Francisco
Hernandez de Cordova, the discoverer of Yucatan,--a hero with this mere
mention of whom we must content ourselves,--had reported his important
discovery. A year later, Grijalva, the lieutenant of Velasquez, had
followed Cordova's course, and gone farther north, until at last he
discovered Mexico. He made no attempt, however, to conquer or to
colonize the new land; whereat Velasquez was so indignant that he threw
Grijalva in disgrace, and intrusted the conquest to Cortez. The
ambitious young Spaniard sailed from Santiago (Cuba) Nov. 18, 1518, with
less than seven hundred men and twelve little cannon of the class called
falconets. No sooner was he fairly off than Velasquez repented having
given him such a chance for distinction, and directly sent out a force
to arrest and bring him back. But Cortez was the idol of his little
army, and secure in its fondness for him he bade defiance to the
emissaries of Velasquez, and held on his way.[4] He landed on the coast
of Mexico March 4, 1519, near where is now the city of Vera Cruz (the
True Cross), which he founded,--the first European town on the mainland
of America as far north as Mexico.

The landing of the Spaniards caused as great a sensation as would the
arrival in New York to-day of an army from Mars.[5] The awe-struck
natives had never before seen a horse (for it was the Spanish who
brought the first horses, cattle, sheep, and other domestic animals to
the New World), and decided that these strange, pale new-comers who sat
on four-legged beasts, and had shirts of iron and sticks that made
thunder, must indeed be gods.

Here the adventurers were inflamed by golden stories of Montezuma,--a
myth which befooled Cortez no more egregiously than it has befooled some
modern historians, who seem unable to discriminate between what Cortez
_heard_ and what he _found_. He was told that Montezuma--whose name is
properly Moctezuma, or Motecuzoma, meaning "Our Angry Chief"--was
"emperor" of Mexico, and that thirty "kings," called _caciques_, were
his vassals; that he had incalculable wealth and absolute power, and
dwelt in a blaze of gold and precious stones! Even some most charming
historians have fallen into the sad blunder of accepting these
impossible myths. Mexico never had but two em