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unwearied solicitude and zeal. All that he could gather to illustrate 

 the ancient Capital,, its monuments,, religion, inscriptions, feelings, and 

 customs, is here combined in the best manner his judgment could 

 devise. Anxiously does he trust that it will not disappoint any ex- 

 pectations which may have been raised ; and if it should gratify the 

 public at large, and promote the interests of science and learning, all 

 his toils will be amply rewarded. 



Baron Humboldt has given us the letter of Cortez to the Emperor 

 "Charles V., describing the state of the country at the period of its 

 subjugation : and there is also extant a faithful and interesting nar- 

 rative of that transaction, written by one Bernal Dias, a soldier in the 

 same expedition. Having had frequent opportunities of putting the 

 veracity of these statements to the test, their accuracy may be confi- 

 dently vouched for. It is with regret that their length precludes their 

 entire introduction in this place, throwing light as they do upon many 

 of the objects which form this exhibition : the statement of an eye-witness 

 must ever be preferable to the conjectural accounts of modern His- 

 torians. Not one of whom having ever set foot in the country, it is not to 

 be wondered at, that their accounts should aboundin misconceptions, from 

 which charge even our illustrious Robertson is not wholly exempt. 



The account of Dias, a person who bore an active part in the as- 

 tonishing conquest of this great city, by a few Europeans, after a 

 sanguinary contest, and the endurance of sufferings, on both sides, 

 unexampled in the annals of any nation or people, will serve to show 

 the state of the ancient capital of what is now called Mexico, or New 

 Spain, before its final destruction by the Spaniards. From that 

 moment, as has elsewhere been alluded to, the Conquerors employed 

 all their means to efface every vestige and recollection of what had 

 been, from the minds of the subjugated people, whom they treated 

 with every species of ignominy and cruelty. Not a single building or 

 wall of this superb city remained ; all was indiscriminately levelled to 

 the ground, and every trace of its former splendour was destroyed by 

 the unsparing hand of the victor. Such of the native colossal sculpture 

 as could not be burnt, or broken, was buried under the foundations of 

 the new city; and all their valuable books, hieroglyphics, paintings, and 

 historical manuscripts which could be discovered, either by art or force, 

 were indiscriminately committed to the flames. In such quantities 

 were these consumed, that in the great square of Tezcuco, the seat of 

 learning of the Aztecks, they formed, when collected together, an im- 

 mense pyramid, and were reduced to ashes in one general blaze, amid 

 the unavailing regrets of the intelligent of that city, whose inhabitants 

 (how ill were they repaid) had been the first friends of the Spaniards. 



