number of cavalry and Indians, and a hundred and seventy-five infantry, commanded one of the branches of the southern causeway at Cojohuacan; and Sandoval, with a force nearly equal, the other branch of the same causeway at Iztapalapan. Cortes himself took the command of the flotilla of brigantines. For several days, the three captains conducted operations more or less successfully at their respective stations, one of Alvarado's services having consisted in destroying the pipes which supplied the Mexicans with fresh water, so that, during the rest of the siege, they had no other way of procuring a supply than by means of canoes. The brigantines, when they were launched, did immense service in overturning and dispersing the Mexican canoes, and also in protecting the flanks of the causeways on which the other detachments were pursuing their operations. At length, after much resistance on the part of the Mexicans, the two causeways, the western and the southern, were completely occupied by the Spaniards; and Sandoval having, by Cortes's orders, made a circuit of the lake, and seized the remaining causeway of Tepejacac, the city was in a state of blockade. But so impatient were the Spaniards of delay, that Cortes resolved on a general assault on the city by all the three causeways at once. Cortes was to advance into the city from Xoloc, Alvarado from his camp on the western causeway, and Sandoval from his camp on the northern; and the three detachments, uniting in the great square in the centre of the city, were to put the inhabitants to the sword. The plan had nearly succeeded. The vanguard of Cortes's party had chased the retreating Mexicans into the city, and were pushing their way to the great square, when the horn of Guatemozin was heard to sound, and the Aztecs, rallying, commenced a furious onset. The neglect of Cortes to fill up a trench in one of the causeways, impeded the retreat of the Spaniards in such a way as to cause a dreadful confusion, and it was only by efforts almost superhuman that they were able to regain their quarters. Their loss amounted to upwards of a hundred men, of whom about sixty had been taken alive.

This triumph elated the Mexicans as much as it depressed the Spaniards and their allies. It was prophesied by the Mexican priests that in eight days all the Spaniards should be slain; the gods, they said, had decreed it. This prediction, reported in the quarters of the besiegers, produced an extraordinary effect on the allies. They regarded the Spaniards as doomed men, refused to

fight with them, and withdrew to a little distance from the lake. In this dilemma, Cortes showed his wonderful presence of mind, by ordering a total cessation of hostilities for the period specified by the Mexican gods. When the eight days were passed, the allies, ashamed of their weakness, returned to the Spanish quarters, and the siege recommenced. These eight days, however, had not been without their horrors. From their quarters, the Spaniards could perceive their fellow-countrymen who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans, dragged to the top of the great war temple, compelled to dance round the sanctuary of the gods, then laid on the stone of sacrifice, their hearts torn out, and their bleeding bodies flung down into the square beneath.

Famine now assisted the arms of the Spaniards; still, with that bravery of endurance for which their race is remarkable, the Mexicans continued the defence of the city, and it was not till it had been eaten into, as it were, on all sides by the Spaniards, that they ceased to fight. On the 14th of August, a murderous assault was commenced by the besiegers. It lasted two days; and on the evening of the second, some canoes were seen to leave the city and endeavoured to reach the mainland. They were chased and captured; and on board of one of them was found Guatemozin, with his family and his principal nobles. Guatemozin's capture was the signal of complete defeat; and on the 16th of August, 1521, the city was surrendered to the Spaniards. The population was reduced to about forty thousand, and in a few days all these had disappeared, no one knew whither. The city was in ruins, like some huge churchyard with the corpses disinterred and the tombstones scattered about.

HUS was the ancient and beautiful city of Mexico destroyed, and its inhabitants slain or dispersed. A monstrous act of unjustifiable aggression had been completed. Following up this great blow, Cortes pursued the conquest of the country generally; and in this, as well as in organizing it into a colony of Spain, he did not experience any serious

difficulty. On proceeding to Spain, he was received with honour by Charles V. He returned to Mexico in 1530; and again revisiting Spain in 1540, for the purpose of procuring the redress of real or alleged grievances, he died in 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. It is very much to be lamented, that, in the execution of his

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purposes of colonization, the monuments of Mexican civilization were everywhere destroyed, leaving nothing to future generations but the broken relics of palaces, temples, and other objects of art, scattered amidst the wilderness. Some of these ruined monuments, recently explored by Stephens and other travellers, show that the ancient Mexicans had made remarkable advances in social life as well as in the arts, more particularly architecture; and what renders all such relics the more interesting to the archæologist is, the growing conviction, that the old Mexican civilization was of an original type-a thing noway derived from, or connected with, the civilization of Egypt, or any other nation in the eastern hemisphere.

FTER two years of continuous and laborious warfare, Cortes succeeded in overturning the empire of the Aztecs, and the smaller states were subjected to the Spaniards almost without a struggle. The position which the Spaniards held with respect to the natives of the country very much resembling that of the nations of German ori

gin who overturned the Roman empire and settled in the countries of Western Europe. Like them, the Spaniards were obliged to establish a kind of feudal system, to protect

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themselves against the much more numerous native population. In Europe, the victors and the vanquished in the course of time united so as to form one nation, but such a change has not taken place in Mexico, and probably never will take place. The Spaniards and natives belong to two different races of men, differing in colour and in many other respects. The Spanish conquerors also had attained a higher degree of civilization, while in Europe the conquerors learned from the conquered the most useful arts of civilized life. Even now, more than three centuries since the conquest, the Spaniards and natives constitute two perfectly distinct classes.

As the number of the conquistadores, or companions of Cortes, was very small in comparison with the native population, they were anxious to bring over more of their countrymen. A considerable number of Spaniards accordingly annually emigrated to Mexico, and there acquired great wealth, as officers of government, merchants, and adventurers in mining. As many of these Spaniards were possessed of extensive property in land within Mexico, their descendants, the Creoles, settled, of course, in that country, and their numbers were continually increasing. The Spanish government, however, seems not to have formed a correct idea of their condition among the natives, and to have thought that the government of that country could only be entrusted to persons who considered Spain as their native country; it, therefore, excluded all the Creoles, or descendants of Spaniards born in Mexico, from all offices of government, and even from commissions in the army. Such exclusion excited in them a considerable degree of ill-will against Spain and the Spaniards, which would probably have manifested itself in resistance and rebellion, if they had not feared that the native population would take advantage of such a circumstance to effect their own destruction. They had still to fear another enemy which had grown up imperceptibly among them. Few of the Spaniards had brought wives with them. From their intercourse with the native women sprung up a race called metis, or mestizos, which increased still faster than that of the Creoles, who, however, being in possession of great wealth, were well aware that as long as a regular government subsisted they had nothing to fear either from the natives or the mestizos. This will account for the fact, otherwise difficult of explanation, that no signs of active dissatisfaction manifested themselves in Mexico during the first thirty years after the United States of North America had obtained their Independence, though the