CHAPTER VII.
THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO.
And he knew their desolate palaces, and be laid waste their cities.
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-
