Narratives of Adventure and Early Discovery

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848. Excerpt: ... HERNANDO CORTES CONOUEST OF MEXICO. CHAPTER I. Ha Vino given an account of the life of Columbus and the discovery of the western continent, we now propose to trace the history of another brilliant incident in. the progress of Spanish discovery, and to record the fortunes of a man whose adventures perhaps exceed in romantic interest even those of the celebrated Genoese mariner. This is Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, the richest and most remarkable of those kingdoms that nourished in the western continent before the arrival of Europeans, and that in which civilisation had made the most extended progress. As the subject is exceedingly interesting in itself, we will, in the first place, give a short sketch of the ancient kingdom of Mexico, and the manners, customs, and religion of its inhabitants, as an introduction to the account of its overthrow and subjugation by the Spaniards. The present republic of Mexico extends over the southern part of North America, from the gulf of the same name to the Pacific Ocean. Geographers estimate its extent at nearly nine hundred thousand square miles, or ten times the extent of Great Britain. Only about a fourth of this vast territory was, however, included in the ancient kingdom, whose boundaries are very imperfectly ascertained. In this part of America the chain of the Andes, which had sunk down to a low level in the isthmus of Panama, again rises and spreads out into a wide plateau, whose mean height is estimated by Humboldt at about 7500 feet. Above this rise many volcanic mountains, whose summits range from east to west, and consequently in a direction different from that of the Cordilleras. Their summits are clothed in perpetual snow, while the low grounds near the sea have a temperature little inferior to...