Conquest of Mexico
Page 380 (2).—Clavigero calls it oblong, on the alleged authority of the "Anonymous Conqueror." (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 27, nota.) But the latter says not a word of the shape, and his contemptible woodcut if too plainly destitute of all proportion to furnish an inference of any kind. (Comp. Rel. d'un gent., ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.) Torquemada and Gomara both say it was square (Monarch. Ind., lib. 8, cap. 11;—Crónica, cap. 80); and Toribio de Benavente, speaking generally of the Mexican temples, says they had that form.—Hist. de los Ind., MS., Parte I, cap. 12.
Page 380 (3).—See Appendix, Part 2, No. 2.
Page 380 (4).—Clavigero, calling it oblong, adopts Torquemada's estimate,—not Sahagun's, as he pretends, which he never saw, and who gives no measurement of the building,—for the length, and Gomara's estimate, which is somewhat less, for the breadth. (Stor. del Messico, tom, ii. p. 38, nota.) As both his authorities make the building square, this spirit of accommodation is whimsical enough. Toribio, who did measure a teocalli of the usual construction in the town of Tenayuca, found it to be forty brazas, or two hundred and forty feet square. (Hist. de los Ind., MS., Parte 1, cap. 12.) The great temple of Mexico was undoubtedly larger, and, in the want of better authorities, one may accept Torquemada, who makes it a little more than three hundred and sixty Toledan, equal to three hundred and eight French feet, square. (Monarch, Ind., lib. 8, cap. II.) How can M. de Humboldt speak of the "great concurrence of testimony" in regard to the dimensions of the temple? (Essai Politique, tom. ii. p. 41.) No two authorities agree.
Page 381 (1).—Bernal Diaz says he counted one hundred and fourteen steps. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 92.) Toribio says that more than one person who had numbered them told him they exceeded a hundred. (Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte i, cap. 12.) The steps could hardly have been less than eight or ten inches high, each; Clavigero assumes that they were a foot, and that the building, therefore, was a hundred and fourteen feet high, precisely. (Stor. del Messico. tom. ii. pp. 28, 29.) It is seldom safe to use anything stronger than probably in history.
Page 384 (1).—Ante, p. 38.
Page 385 (1).—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 92. Whoever examines Cortés' great letter to Charles V. will be surprised to find it stated, that, instead of any acknowledgment to Montezuma, he threw down his idols and erected the Christian emblems in their stead. (Rel. Seg., ap. Lorenzana, p. 106.) This was an event of much later date. The Conquistador wrote his despatches too rapidly and concisely to give heed always to exact time and circumstance. We are quite as likely to find them attended to in the long-winded, gossiping,—inestimable chronicle of Diaz.
Page 385 (2).—Three collections, thus fancifully disposed, of these grinning horrors—in all 230,000—are noticed by Gibbon! (Decline and Fall, ed. Milman, vol. i. p. 52; vol. xii. p. 45.) A European scholar commends "the conqueror's piety, his moderation, and his justice!"—Rowe's Dedication of Tamerlane.
Page 386 (1).—The desire of presenting the reader with a complete view of the actual state of the capital, at the time of its occupation by the Spaniards, has led me in this and the preceding chapter into a few repetitions of remarks on the Aztec institutions in the Introductory Book of this History.
Page 386 (2).—Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 12.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 80.—Rel. d'un gent., ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 309.
Page 392 (1).—Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 84.—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 85.—P. Martyr, De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 3.—-Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 6. Bernal Diaz gives a very different report of this matter. According to him, a number of478
