120 
SCENES IN TIIE PACIFIC. 
murderer of Montezuma and Guatimozin, the slender, live 
feet seven inch conqueror of Mexico, undertakes this. 
On the thirteenth of August, 1521, Mexico surrenders to 
Cortez, and the King of Mechoacan, whose dominions extend 
to the shores of the Pacific, also submits to this magistrate 
of San Diego. Men are sent to explore three different 
points for a ship-yard on the coast of the Great South Sea ; 
forty Spaniards, carpenters, sawyers, and blacksmiths, are sent 
to the chosen port; iron, anchors, cables, sails, rigging, pitch, 
oakum, bitumen, and other naval stores, sufficient to build two 
brigantines, are borne by Indian slaves and a few mules, from 
Vera Cruz to Zacatula ; a distance of six hundred miles! 
But misfortune is beginning to tread on the heel of Cortez’ 
enterprise. These materials, soon after their arrival at Zaca¬ 
tula, are consumed by fire. He has used all his private funds 
in the purchase; but as his credit is still good, a thousand 
Indian backs, stout and subservient, are again gored and 
broken by similar burthens. And the mountain path-ways 
from Vera Cruz are a second time thronged with victims, 
dying under the bales of materials for building the magis¬ 
trate’s brigantines. Cortez sees them rise from keel to top¬ 
mast, constructed with very sharp bows, and masts leaning 
forward, carrying triangular sails; and although ill-shaped, 
they run near the wind. In 1524, this fleet sails under com¬ 
mand of one Christopher de Olid, on a voyage among the 
unseen waters of the North ! This expedition, however, re¬ 
sults in nothing but wind and storm, and the return of the 
ships in a miserable condition. 
Great minds in different ages have reposed belief in strange 
things. Caesar trusted in the entrails of birds; the British 
Parliament enacted laws against witchcraft; and this Cortez, 
in 1524, believes in a nation of immense women, called Ama¬ 
zons, inhabiting a very large island whose shores are strewn 
with pearls and gold ! A sufficient variety of taste has hu¬ 
man credulity, to give it a keen appetite and capacious 
throat. Cortez determines to discover the habitation of these 
k 
