among other articles of tribute, to the Spaniards at Tabasco. On inquiry, it was found that this girl was an Aztec by birth, of the tribe Teuthile represented, a chiefs daughter, who after her father's death had been sold by her mother, and had been taken south to Tabasco. She was the first person baptized at Tabasco, and was thus the first nominal Christian Indian in all America. She soon brought Gortez and Teuthile into conversation, and afterward became chief interpreter between her people and their conquerors.
It was on Easter Sunday that this first visit of the Aztecs to the Spanish camp took place. Cortez and his men, having first attended mass, invited their Indian guests to a Spanish dinner.
As they were viewing the camp Teuthile saw a gilt helmet belonging to Cortez, and expressed a wish that Montezuma might have one like it. Cortez immediately handed it to him, saying,
"Take it to your master, and may he soon return it to me full of his gold! I wish to compare it with some we have in Spain."
The helmet was not the only thing sent to Montezuma on that eventful day. Some of the Spanish officers, observing a group of Aztecs busy in one corner, went to see what they were doing, and were surprised to find that they were official reporters getting up the despatches which their chief was obliged to send to Mexico. Pencil in hand, these men were sketching the camp, the Spanish soldiers in their helmets and coats of mail, the horses—in gala-array, to do honor to the occasion—the black-throated guns, the tall-masted ships riding at anchor not far away, with many other things which they did not comprehend, but which gave the Mexican
