in a future state according to his conduct in the present, you will do no hurt to those who do none to you.'"

Let the reader also, after listening to these exalted sentiments addressed by a savage, as we are pleased to term him, to a Christian, a term likewise used with as little propriety, read this account of the reception of Bartholomew Columbus by Behechio, a powerful cazique of Hispaniola. "As they approached the king's dwelling, they were met by his wives to the number of thirty, carrying branches of the palm-tree in their hands, who first saluted the Spaniards with a solemn dance, accompanied with a song. These matrons

were succeeded by a train of virgins, distinguished as such by their appearance; the former wearing aprons of cotton cloth, while the latter were arrayed only in the innocence of pure nature. Their hair was tied simply with a fillet over their foreheads, or suffered to flow gracefully on their shoulders and bosoms. Their limbs were finely proportioned, and their complexions though brown, were smooth, shining and lovely. The Spaniards were struck with admiration, believing that they beheld the dryads of the woods, and the nymphs of the fountains realizing ancient fable. The branches which they bore in their hands, they now delivered with lowly obeisance to the lieutenant, who, entering the palace, found a plentiful, and according to the Indian mode of living, a splendid repast already provided. As night approached, the Spaniards were conducted to separate cottages, wherein each was accommodated with a cotton hammock, and the next morning they were again entertained with dancing and singing. This was followed by matches of wrest

ling and running for prizes; after which two great bodies of armed Indians suddenly appeared, and a mock engagement ensued, exhibiting their modes of warfare with the Charaibes. For three days were the Spaniards thus royally entertained, and on the fourth the affectionate Indians regretted their departure."

What beautiful pictures of a primitive age! what a more than realization of the age of gold! and what a dismal fall to that actual age of gold which was coming upon them! To turn from these delightful scenes to the massacres and oppressions of millions of these gentle and kind people, and then to the groans of millions of wretched Africans, which through three long centuries have succeeded them, is one of the most melancholy and amazing things in the criminal history of the earth; nor can we wonder at the feelings with which Bryan Edwards reviews this awful subject:"All the murders and desolations of the most pitiless tyrants that ever diverted themselves with the pangs and convulsions of their fellow-creatures, fall infinitely short of the bloody enormities committed by the Spanish nation in the conquest of the New World -a conquest, on a low estimate, effected by the murder of ten millions of the species! After reading these accounts, who can help forming an indignant wish that the hand of Heaven, by some miraculous interposition, had swept these European tyrants from the face of the earth, who like so many beasts of prey, roamed round the world only to desolate and destroy; and more remorseless than the fiercest savage, thirsted for human blood without having the impulse of natural appetite to plead in their defence!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO.

And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities. Ezekiel xix. 7.

How Cortez conquered,—Montezuma fell.—Montgomery.

Much of a Southern Sea they spake,
And of that glorious city won,

Near the setting of the sun,

Throned in a silver lake:

Of seven kings in chains of gold,

And deeds of death by tongue untold,-
Deeds such as breathed in secret there,
Had shaken the confession-chair!-Rogers.

Six and twenty years had now elapsed since Columbus arrived in the New World. During this period the Spaniards had not merely committed the crimes we have been detailing, but they had considerably extended their discoveries. Columbus, who first discovered the West Indian islands, was the first also to discover the mainland of America. He reached the mouth of the Orinoca; traversed the coasts of Paria and Cumana; Yanez Pinzon, steering southward, had crossed the line to the river Amazon; the Portu

guese under Alvarez Cabral had by mere accident made the coast of Brazil; Bastidas and De la Cosa had discovered the coast of Tierra Firmè; in his fourth voyage, Columbus had reached Porto Bello in Panama; Pinzon and De Solis discovered Yucatan, and in a second voyage extended their route southward beyond the Rio de la Plata; Ponce de Leon had discovered Florida; and Balboa in Darien had discovered the South Sea. These were grand steps in discovery towards those mighty kingdoms that were soon to burst upon them. Cordova discovered the mouth of the river Potonchan, beyond Campeachy; and finally, Grijalva ranged along the whole coast of Mexico from Tabasco to the river Panuco. Of their transactions on these coasts during their progress in discovery, nothing further need be said than that they were characterized by their usual indifference to the rights and feelings of the natives, and that, finding them for the most part of a more warlike disposition, several of these commanders had suffered severely from them, and some of them lost their lives.

But a strange and astounding epoch was now at hand. The names of Cortez and Pizarro, Mexico and Peru, are become sounds familiar to all earslinked together as in a spell of wild wonder, and stand as the very embodiment of all that is marvellous, dazzling, and romantic in history. Here were vast empires, suddenly starting from the veil of ages into the presence of the European world, with the glitter of a golden opulence beyond the very extravagance of Arabian fable; populous as they were affluent ; with a new and peculiar civilization; with arts and a literature unborrowed of other realms, and unlike

those of any other. Here were those fairy and most interesting kingdoms as suddenly assaulted and subdued by two daring adventurers with a mere handful of followers; and as suddenly destroyed! Their young civilization, their fair and growing fabric of policy, ruthlessly dashed down and utterly annihilated; their princes murdered in cold blood; their wealth dissipated like a morning dream; and their swarming people crushed into slaves, or swept from their cities and their fair fields, as a harvest is swept away by the sickle!

It is difficult, amid the intoxication of the imagination on contemplating such a spectacle,—for there is nothing like it in the history of the whole world-it is difficult, dazzled by military triumph, and seduced by the old sophisms of glory and adventure, to bring the mind steadily to contemplate the real nature and consequences of these events. The names of Cortez and Pizarro, indeed, through all the splendour of that renown with which the acclamations of their interested cotemporaries, and the false morality of their historians have surrounded them, still retain the gloom and terror of their cruelties. But this is derived rather from particular acts of outrageous atrocity, than from a just estimate of the total villany and unrighteous nature of their entire undertakings. Their entrance, assault, and subduction of the kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, were from first to last, in limine et in termino, the acts of daring robbers, on flame with the thirst of gold, and of a spurious and fanatical renown,-setting at defiance every sentiment of justice, mercy and right, and bound by no scruples of honour or conscience, in the pursuit of