540 573 573 573 573 573 573 573 429 262. A Blast of Wind Instruments 573 430 264. A Heavy Blow..... 574 574 430 266. Scudding under Bare Poles............ 574 173. View of Jutecalpa 174. Street in Jutecalpa 176. Travelers Nooning. 177. Street in Cairo..... 178. Bazaar at Cairo 179. Ferry at Old Cairo 180. Whirling Dervise 181. Portrait of Dickens.... 182. Mr. Flintwinch Mediates 379 252. Bal Zooayleh...... 381 253. Little Mother 386 254. Making off. ..... 183. The Room with the Portrait............ 388 255. Raising the Wind 184. Miss Seraphina Poppy's Valentine..... 429 256. A Fair Wind.... 186. Widow Sparkle's Valentine...... 185. Tom Lightfoot's Valentine.. 187. Peter Squeezum's Valentine. 188. Doctor Purgeum's Valentine......... 429 257. A Head Wind 429 258. A Spanking Breeze.. 429 259. A White Squall... 429 260. An Ill Wind 189. Rev. Narcissus Violet's Valentine...... 429 261. Running before the Wind..... 190. Singleton Jink's Valentine......... 191. Miss Wigsby's Valentine....... 192. Mr. Done Brown's Valentine 193. Lionel Lavender's Valentine.............. 430 265. Blowing Great Guns....... 194. Bridget Malony's Valentine.......... 282. Putnam's Escape down the Rapids 601 602 344. Caverns in Guayavilla Mine. 291. Hauling Wine on Sledges ............... 602 349. Japanese Wrestlers 292. São Jorge 603 350. Japanese Ladies....... ..... 610 357. View of Hakodadi.. 617 364. The Agouti ........ 574 325. The April Fool...... 718 718 574 327. The Matrimonial Fool 718 574 328. Not a Bit of a Fool 718 575 329. Promenade and Dinner Toilet........ 719 576 330. Mantilla...... 720 576 331. Infant's Robe.... 720 732 734 736 737 738 715 377. May Day in New York... 715 378. May Day in the Country 718 379. Promenade Costumes .................................................. 718 380. Mantilla 323. The Moneyed Fool..................... 718 381. Bonnet Shape 324. The Bashful Fool.......... ................. 718 382. Bonnet.................................................. 757 757 758 758 758 759 759 759 760 816 824 861 862 863 864 864 864 NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. LXVII. DECEMBER, 1855.-VOL. XII THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY HER- BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. The night of the 11th of October, 1492, darkened over these lonely adventurers. The stars came out in all the brilliance of tropical splenTHREE hundred and fifty years ago the ocean dor. A fresh breeze drove the ships with inwhich washes the shores of America was one creasing speed over the billows, and cooled, as vast and silent solitude. No ship plowed its with balmy zephyrs, brows heated through the waves; no sail whitened its surface. On the day by the blaze of a meridian sun. Christo11th of October, 1492, three small vessels might pher Columbus could not sleep. He stood upon have been seen invading, for the first time, these the deck of his ship silent and sad, yet indomhitherto unknown waters. They were as specks itable in energy, gazing with intense and uninon the bosom of infinity. The sky above, the termitted watch into the dusky distance. Sudocean beneath, gave no promise of any land. denly he saw a light as of a torch far off in the Three hundred adventurers were in those ships. horizon. His heart throbbed with irrepressible Ten weeks had already passed since they saw tumult of excitement. Was it a meteor, or was the hills of the Old World sink beneath the it a light from the long-wished-for land? It horizon. For weary days and weeks they had disappeared, and all again was dark. But sudstrained their eyes looking toward the west, denly again it gleamed forth, feeble and dim in hoping to see the mountains of a new world the distance, yet distinct. Soon again the exrising in the distance. But the blue sky still citing ray was quenched, and nothing disturbed overarched them, and the heaving ocean still the dark and sombre outline of the sea. The extended in all directions its unbroken and in- long hours of the night to Columbus seemed interminable expanse. Discouragement and alarm terminable, as he waited impatiently for the now pervaded nearly all hearts, and there was a dawn. But even before any light appeared in general clamor for return to the shores of Eu- the east the mountains of the New World rose rope. Christopher Columbus, who heroically towering to the clouds before the eyes of the guided this little squadron, sublime in the con- entranced, the now immortalized navigator. A fidence which science and faith gave, was still cannon, the signal of the discovery, rolled its firm and undaunted in his purpose. peal over the ocean, announcing to the two vesEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. VOL. XII.-No. 67.-A sels in the rear the joyful tidings. A shout, excited by the heart's intensest emotions, rose over the waves, and with tears, with prayers, and embraces, these enthusiastic men accepted the discovery of the New World. an accurate acquaintance with the movements of the heavenly bodies. Agriculture was practiced with much scientific skill, and a system of irrigation introduced, from which many a New England farmer might learn a profitable lesson. Mines of gold, silver, lead, and copper, were worked. Many articles of utility and of exqui Iron, the ore of which must pass through so many processes before it is prepared for use, was unknown to them. The Spanish goldsmiths, admiring the exquisite workmanship of the gold and silver ornaments of the Mexicans, bowed to their superiority. The bright autumnal morning dawned in richest glory, presenting to them the scene as of a celestial paradise. The luxuriance of trop-site beauty were fabricated from these metals. ical vegetation waved and bloomed enchantingly around them. The inhabitants, in the simple and innocent costume of Eden before the fall, crowded the shore, gazing with attitude and gesture of astonishment upon the strange phenomena of the ships. The adventurers landed, and were received as angels from heaven by the peaceful and friendly natives. Bitterly has the hospitality been requited. After cruising around for some time among the beautiful islands of the New World, Columbus returned to Spain, to astonish Europe with the tidings of his discovery. He had been absent but seven months. A quarter of a century passed away, during which all the adventurers of Europe were busy exploring the waters which washed those newlydiscovered islands and continents. Various colonies were established in the fertile valleys and upon the hillsides which emerged, in the utmost magnificence of vegetation, from the bosom of the Caribbean Sea. The eastern coast of North America had been, during this time, surveyed from Labrador to Florida. The bark of the navigator had crept along the winding shores of the Isthmus of Darien and of the South American continent, as far as the river La Plata. Bold explorers, guided by intelligence from the Indians, had even penetrated the interior of the Isthmus, and from the summit of the central mountain barrier, had gazed with delight upon the placid waves of the Pacific. But the vast indentation of the Mexican Gulf, sweeping far away in an apparently interminable circuit to the west, had not yet been penetrated. The field for romantic adventure which these unexplored realms presented, could not, however, long escape the eye of that chivalrous age. Fairs were held in the great market-places of the principal cities every fifth day, where buyers and sellers in vast numbers thronged. They had public schools, courts of justice, a class of nobles, and a powerful monarch. The territory embraced by this wonderful kingdom was twice as large as the whole of New England. The population of the empire is not known; it must have consisted, however, of several millions. The city of Mexico, situated on islands in the bosom of a lake in the centre of a vast and magnificent valley in the interior, was the metropolis of this realm. Montezuma was king; an aristocratic king, surrounded by nobles upon whom he conferred all the honors and emoluments of the state. His palace was very magnificent. He was served from plates and goblets of silver and gold. Six hundred feudatory nobles composed his daily retinue, paying him the most obsequious homage, and exacting the same from those beneath themselves. Montezuma claimed to be lord of the whole world, and exacted tribute from all whom his arm could reach. His triumphant legions had invaded and subjugated many adjacent states, as this Roman Empire of the New World extended in all directions its powerful sway. It will thus be seen that the kingdom of Mexico, in point of civilization, was about on an equality with the Chinese empire of the present day. Its inhabitants were very decidedly Some exploring expeditions were soon fitted elevated above the wandering hordes of North out from Cuba, and the shores of the Gulf were America. Montezuma had heard of the arridiscovered, and the wonderful empire of Mexico val, in the islands of the Caribbean Sea, of the was opened to European cupidity. Here every strangers from another hemisphere. He had thing exhibited the traces of a far higher civil-heard of their appalling power, their aggresization than had hitherto been witnessed in the New World. There were villages, and even large cities, thickly planted throughout the country. Temples and other buildings, imposing in massive architecture, were reared of stone and lime. Armies, laws, and a symbolical form of writing, indicated a civilization far superior to any thing which had yet been found on this side of the Atlantic. Many of the arts were cultivated. Cloth was made of cotton and of skins nicely prepared. Astronomy was sufficiently understood for the accurate measurement of time in the divisions of the solar year. It is indeed a wonder, as yet unexplained, where these children of the New World acquired such sions, and their pitiless cruelty. Wisely he resolved to exclude these dangerous visitors from his shores. As exploring expeditions entered his bays and rivers they were fiercely attacked and driven away. These expeditions, however, brought back to Cuba most alluring accounts of the rich empire of Mexico and of its golden opulence. The Governor of Cuba now resolved to fit out an expedition sufficiently powerful to subjugate this country, and make it one of the vassals of Spain. It was a dark period of the world. Human rights were but feebly discerned. Superstition reigned over hearts and consciences with a fearfully despotic sway. Acts upon which |