tive of the general, and to supply him with every requirement.[1]
Some nine days after the sinking of the fleet a messenger arrived from Escalante, announcing that four vessels[2] had passed by the harbor, refusing to enter, and had anchored three leagues off, at the mouth of a river. Fearing the descent upon him of Velazquez, Cortés hurried off with four horsemen, after selecting fifty soldiers to follow. Alvarado and Sandoval were left jointly in charge of the army, to the exclusion of Ávila, who manifested no little jealousy of the latter. Cortés halted at the town merely to learn particulars, declining Escalante's hospitality with the proverb, "A lame goat has no rest." On the way to the vessels they met a notary with two witnesses,[3] commissioned to arrange a boundary on behalf of Francisco de Garay, who claimed the coast to the north as first discoverer, and desired to form a settlement a little beyond Nautla. It appeared that Garay, who had come out with Diego Colon, and had risen from procurador of Española
- ↑ 'Luego le zahumaron [the chiefs] al Juan de Escalante con sus inciensos.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 40. 'Dejé en la villa de la Veracruz ciento y cincuenta hombres con doze de caballo.' Cortés, Cartas, 52-3. One hundred and fifty Spaniards, with two horses and two fire-arms, were left here under Pedro de Ircio, Gomara, Hist. Mex., 65-6, but Bernal Diaz corrects him. 'Al Pedro de Ircio no le auian dado cargo ninguno, ni aun de cuadrillero.' ubi sup.; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., 291. The force seems to be altogether too large. Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 51, says 60 old and suffering soldiers were left as garrison.
- ↑ Bernal Diaz says one vessel; but Cortés and other authorities mention four.
- ↑ Bernal Diaz, who appears to have been with the party, names them as Guillen de la Loa, notary; Andrés Nuñez, shipwright; Pedro de la Arpa, a Valencian, and a fourth man. Hist. Verdad., 40.
Castilians. 'Ingenio Conceptuoso, Floridisimo, i Eloquente,' is the observation in the work of his historiographic predecessor, Pinelo, Epitome, ii. 697. But it lacks in boldness and dignity; the rhapsodies are often misplaced, and the verboseness is tiresome. Some of the faults are of course due to the time, but not the many, and it also becomes only too apparent that Solis is so conceitedly infatuated with his affected grandiloquence as to sacrifice facts wherever they interfere with its free scope. It is said that he intended to continue the history of Mexico after the conquest, and that death alone prevented the consummation of the project. But this is mere conjecture, and it appears just as likely that the dramatist recognized the effect of closing a great work at so appropriate a point as the fall of Mexico. The work was taken up, however, by Salazar y Olarte, who published in 1743 the second part of the Conquest, till the death of Cortés, abounding in all the faults of the superficial and florid composition of Solis.
