96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



away in a northeasterly direction for his own country, the Holy 

 Island, or Tlapallan, beyond the great ocean. 



Such, in outline, was the tradition which Cortes found preva- 

 lent in Mexico on his arrival there, and powerfully influencing 

 every inhabitant of the country. The Spaniards found that their 

 advent was hailed as the fulfillment of the promise of Quetzatcoatl 

 to return. The natives saw that they were white men, and beard- 

 ed, like him ; they had come in sailing-vessels such as the one he 

 had used across the sea; they had clearly come from the mys- 

 terious Tlapallan; they were undoubtedly Quetzatcoatl and his 

 brethren come, in fulfillment of ancient prophecy, to restore the 

 period of peace and prosperity which the country had experienced 

 for a short time many hundreds of years before. 



The Spaniards made no scruple of encouraging and confirming 

 a belief so highly favorable to their designs, and it is conceded by 

 their writers that this belief, to a large extent, accounts for the 

 comparative ease and marvelous rapidity with which a mere 

 handful of men made themselves masters of a great and civilized 

 empire and subjugated a warlike population of millions. To the 

 last the unfortunate emperor Montezuma held to the belief that 

 the King of Spain was Quetzatcoatl and Cortes his lieutenant and 

 emissary under a sort of divine commission. 



The Mexicans had preserved a minute and apparently an accu- 

 rate description of the personal appearance and habits of Quetzat- 

 coatl. He was a white man, advanced in years and tall in stature. 

 His forehead was broad ; he had a large beard and black hair. 

 He is described as dressing in a long garment, over which there 

 was a mantle marked with crosses. He was chaste and austere, 

 temperate and abstemious, fasting frequently, and sometimes in- 

 flicting severe penances on himself, even to the drawing of blood. 

 This is a description which was preserved for centuries in the tra- 

 ditions of a people who had no intercourse with or knowledge of 

 Europe, who had never seen a white man, and who were them- 

 selves dark-skinned, with but few scanty hairs on the chin to 

 represent a beard. 



It is, therefore, difficult to suppose that this curiously accurate 

 portraiture of Quetzatcoatl as an early European ecclesiastic was 

 a mere invention in all its parts. Nor is it easier to understand 

 why the early Mexicans should have been at pains to invent a 

 Messiah so different from themselves and with such peculiar 

 attributes. Yet, in spite of destructive wars, revolutions, and in- 

 vasions ; in spite of the breaking up and dispersal of tribes and 

 nations once settled in the vast region now passing under the 

 name of Mexico, the tradition of Quetzatcoatl, and the account of 

 his personal peculiarities, survived among the people to the days 

 of the Spanish invasion. 



