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Show CAMPAIGN Of HEROISM Spanish March Unparalleled Nature's Prodigality Dangerous Place to Travel Cortez and Band Dare Peril and Seek Caribbean Sea, Romantic Marina Carried Car-ried by Slaves Caring for the Dead and Sick Flemish Monks in Expedition-Reach Expedition-Reach Medellin River. "Ti y j-iniiigo, An awful conflict nn unearthly war. it i a? if the dead has risen up Id lull tie wit h each other the stern strife Of iiriH iivhle to mortal eyes. There i not in modern history, and taking uo :!, -remit of numbers, ix-rhaps not in all history an i ( nt less generally known or more striking to the im ipiiiiitioii than the march of the .Spaniards from ;he City uf Mexico to the shorts of the Bay of Honduras. Hon-duras. It has no parallel in history. It was a trial strength on the )art of man of human will and -i;duranet against the sjeetre of famine and the I. mental forces of nature!; not indeed of nature l! its awful mood of hurricanes, cyclones and vol-wrath, vol-wrath, but in its wild state, it? anger and por--Nteiit irritability. The Parthian expedition of the le'iiLins. ihe Anabasis of the younger Cyrus and ihe subsequent retreat of the ten thousand to the -iiores of the Black sea, and above all, the retreat of iiie French from Moscow are in a class by them-selves them-selves and invite no comparison. The flight of the Ti"iitate.s the last of ihe Ilurons before the pursuing pur-suing hatred and hund-like pertinacity of the Tro-U"is, Tro-U"is, and the race for Manchuria of the Ubock Tar-:;irs Tar-:;irs with the Cossack cavalry, amid starvation and pitiless cold in the early part of the eighteenth ccn-ir.ry. ccn-ir.ry. evoke our commiseration and pity, but the expedition ex-pedition of the Spaniards to Honduras asks only for our admiration and wonder. After centuries of occupation by the white race there are yet in this mysterious land vast tropical n Lriens whore trackless waste? of pestilential jun-des jun-des and reeking morasses rear an almost impassable impassa-ble barrier to exploration. There, in the vast laboratory of the sun. nature N'ttlts in her own monstrous fecundity, waited upon .'.v a no less monstrous destruction. Prodigal of life, she seem? to riut in a prodigious exuberance of ore-Mive ore-Mive force, and to fling out in reckless profusion wln.le systems of organisms, only to see them devour nn dproy upon each other. Karth. quickened by the stimulus of solar energy jti.d humidity, teems wilh genus, and. as in a seeth-inff seeth-inff hot-bed. forces them into rapid and luxuriant vitality followed by a correspondingly swift dissolution. disso-lution. 1 he very surface of the small lakes becomes 'evcred each season with a tangle of succulent vegetation: vege-tation: a festering mass of decay where the putre- inv of a disappearing vegetation vitalizes the birth of a new generation and feeds its rank" redundance. redun-dance. Into ibis tremendous orgy of nature man enters at his peril an unwelcome intruder upon the wan-ten wan-ten mood of the universal mother. All her elements euiispire against him and develop monstrous activities activi-ties hostile to his life. The earth breeds poison, the stagnant waters exhale fever, and the very air swarms with a microscopic life fatal to his own life. Snakes and poisonous reptiles of sanguinary and predatory habits, swarms of winged enemies of ven-"i!j..us ven-"i!j..us bite and sting, and plants exuding infection make- war upon ihe intruder and bar his path. This was the land and these the enemies which re;, fronted the daring Spaniard Cortez and his hardy band of veterans when be entered upon his lisioric march to the Bay of Honduras. Plutarch, writing of the achievements of Caesar, and comparing compar-ing him with other great generals, says: ''He sur-la-esd one in the difficulty of the scene of action, n.uthcr in the extent of the countries he subdued, : ;s iio i nthe number and strength of the enemies iie overcame, that in the savage manners and treach- rotis dispositions of the people he humanized.'' Heading this encomium, one would believe that the -asoncd old campaigner and chronicler, Bernal I!:az. was recording his opeinion of his friend and e-Tjiiiiander, Hernandez Cortez. The Spanish chief had fought his way, from eer-an to ocean, conquered the warlike Aztecs .rebuilt City of Mexico after its ruin, and now hearing :a; his lieutenant, Christobal de Olid, whom he had t miissjonod to found a settlement in distant Ilon-'iuras. Ilon-'iuras. revolted against his authority. Cortez. suni-!iio:i;;g'ihe suni-!iio:i;;g'ihe remnants of his veterans and his Indian illies to his aid, organized his punitory expedition. Tardy j e morning of October 12, 1524, the troops mobilized m the plaza of Taeuba, a suburb of the A -tec citv. and at once entered upon a march to the ' . ribbeaii sea that will for all time hold a conspicu- -.'- place in the annals of military achievements. I:: advance rode the trumpeters, Ortegc and Christo-; Christo-; ': ''oral, bearing aloft the banner of conquest, . we., and on their heels was a battery of four '. Then marched three thousand Indian al- led and officered by their caciques and war '; i fs. In their company, carried in palanquins and .,. b va plumed guard, were the king of Tacu-U-Mi and C.uatemozin. the last of the Montczumas. S'tidov-rl the dauntless, rode at the head of his fifty marching veterans. Unmailed and unvisorod came onez. conqueror of Mexico, and one of the most 'oraordinarv men that ever trod the American .ntinrut. On his rizht was Father John de las Varillas. chaplain of the troops, and on his left. Pedro de Alvaredo, he of the gianl leap and lion ' "The romanlic Marina, who saved the army at ' n!ua. f(,nalo interpreter to the Spanish chief, a ,d hr-lovr,l of lho army, was carried by negro slaves. The j.can.e one hundred and fifty mounted men, hot tie-sea red veterans, bronzed to the hue of Etrus--an statues seasoned warriors all of them, revel ers in the canq, and fighting demons on the field Mas-' Mas-' rs f,f t, SWord they were, and trained to the use "f the lance, whom no dangers could appal or fa- work lay yet some weeks before them, two Flemish monks, a physician and a surgeon. A drove of swine, a herd of cattle driven by negroes, a mob of camp followers, jugglers and tumblers, soon to succumb to fatigue and sneak back, imparted a ragged finish to a brave and warlike cavalcade. Before the conqueror con-queror stretched one thousand one hundred miles of unexplored land, unprofaned by the boot of the white man. Pugged mountains, torrential rains, pathless forests, swollen streams and raging rivers divided with venomous reptiles, savage tribes and gnawing hunger, tho horrors of the march. Against these Cortez was warned by his Maya guides, but the unconquerable Spaniard held to his resolution and crossed the Rubicon. When the expedition came to the Medellin river, Cortez shipped his artillery, much of his ammunition ammuni-tion and many of his small arms to the mouth of the Pio Tobasco, flowing through Yucatan to the ocean. And now began in earnest the march to Honduras Hon-duras with all its attendant horrors. In four days they stood on the banks of a watercourse eight hundred hun-dred yards wide, where, drenched to the skin, they lost three weeks felling timber, skidding and rolling roll-ing logs and building a bridge. Traversing the forests for-ests and swamp lands of Copilco, they constructed fifty bridges. Here the guides and sappers deserted them. The Spanish chief took the precaution to bring with him a compass, and maps drawn on cotton cot-ton by Indian draughtsmen, showing the mountains, rivers, fordablo streams, towns and forests. By these he now directed his march. On the frontiers of Chuatlau the expedition entered en-tered the marsh lands where the horses "sank to their ears." as Cortez expresses it, and where three Spaniards and many Indians were lost. In their rear stalked the spectre of famine, before them were rivers overflowing their banks, yielding humus, and everywhere eternal solitude and desolation. Exhausted Ex-hausted and half famished, with blistered feet and limbs chafed and raw from marching and wading, with unbroken spirits and undaunted hearts, these men of iron held the course. Through forests almost "impenetrable, across vast morasses, wading and swimming streams, bridging rivers swollen by tropical rains into great torrents, they kept the pace till at last they crossed into the land of snakes. Here they disappeared in the great mahogany and cypress forests, -whore the trees, swathed in dense masses of vines, swarmed with venomous serpents and noxious reptiles. Climbing lianas which crossed from tree to tree, like ropes passing from mast to mast, compelled the riders to dismount and lead their horses. The beasts, stung to madness by mosquitoes mos-quitoes and marabuntas giant wafps were controlled con-trolled with difficulty by the men, who themselves were blistered and bleeding from the bites and stings of the poisonous pests. Men began to fall in the ranks, overcome by exhaustion, ex-haustion, hunger and mephitic exhalations escaping from a riotous and decaying vegetation. The weight of heavy armor, the cumbrous weapons and an atmosphere at-mosphere charged with great humidity and carbonic acid wore down the troops, and Cortez called a halt. Here a temporary hospital was thrown up, a clearance clear-ance made, a foraging party sent back, and the men went into camp. Nothing hut the inexorable demand de-mand of exhausted nature induced Cortez to select this place to rest and refresh his command. The woods swarmed with tropical life, with creeping things and ants whose bites burned like the prick of a red-hot needle. Through trees, creepers, vines and undergrowth, snakes, venomous insects and poisonous poi-sonous plants crawled. The heat was oppressive; to great heat they were inured, but now they contended with a subtle condition, with the weight and septic nature of an atmosphere charged with debilitating forces, with mephitic humidity, with electricity, with mysterious agencies inimical to human life. The immense melancholy of tropical ruin, the heavy, damp Fmells of fetid, feculent, warm air, as of mould freshly upturned, and the swarms of venomous ven-omous insects began to affect the spirits of the men. Around them were Tines distilling venom, cold, clamy creepers, whose touch blistered tho flesh, and fanged, poisonous plants whose resemblance to snakes bore in upon them fear and loathing. The vast profundity and loneliness of the forest, and the millions of strange sounds wrought upon their imaginations till the ghosts of their dead comrades com-rades materialized, walked, sat down and slept Avith them. In the perpetual struggle of the blood to preserve itself from fermentation, there was such an expenditure of vital energy that little was left for bodily and mental eexrtion. Coriez buried his dead, broke camp; and, carrying his sick and exhausted ex-hausted in litters, began again his melancholy march. When they emerged from the gloomy depths the soldiers were dazzled by the bright light, and staggered like men overcome with new wine. For one hundred and fifty miles they tramped, feeding on roots, mountain cabbage and food found in the deserted Indian villages. Through swales and marsh lands they waded, building more bridges, one of which consumed seyen-davs and took for its completion com-pletion one thousand trees, "thick," writes Bernal Diaz, "as a man's body." Overcome by hunger and fatigue, many unable to proceed lay down to die, and. to impart additional horrors to their gruesome condition, captured savages were cooked and devoured de-voured by their Mexican allies. Here, says Torque-mada. Torque-mada. the Franciscan priest. Juan de Testo, worn out by hunger and weakness, leaned his head against a tree and died. Four miles from the town of Teotilac, a cacique of the Mayas, leading four thousand warriors, challenged chal-lenged their right to advance. Cortez shouting his battle cry, "Santiago, y a ellos," (St. James, and at them), cut his way through the. enemy with his cavalry cav-alry and opened a passage for his exhauseed men. , That night they bivouacked in Teotilac and fared sumptuously on maize and fruit. In one of the temples was the statue of a cruel goddess, whose fierce wrath could be appeased only by the flesh and blood of virgin maidens. Taken in childhood, girls weer brought up in strictest seclusion till they ripened into the age for yielding their fair young bodies to the sacrifice. Cortez destroyed the idol, marveling at the atrocious superstition. For seven days they now marched through uninhabited unin-habited wilds, skirting pestiferous swamps, or plunging into snake-infested fields. Torrential rains deluged them, bridgeless rivers confronted Continued on Page 5. 4 A CAMPAIGN OF HEROISM. (Continued from Page One.) them, forests and stretches of sodden earth were ever before them; and now they began the ascent of the Pedernales the Mountain of Flints which for twenty miles lay in rugged opposition, contesting contest-ing their march. The horses began to bleed, for they could hardly move a pace without slipping and cutting their legs. The soldiers, losing heart, were sinking on the mountain slope, and again the rations ra-tions were failing. Cortez, with pike in hand, led the way over the most trying parts of the road; he moved among the men dividing food with the sick and famishing, cheering the despondent, and em-bolding em-bolding the faint-hearted. "At last," he writes, "after twelve days" of toil, the terrible flint road' ended." Forty-three men and sixty-eight horses perished, some from exhaustion and hunger, others slipped from the rocks into the abyss and were swept away by the raging torrent. They left Mexico City in October, 1524, and on April 15, 1525, Cortez, thin and emaciated, but full of fight, brought what remained re-mained of his cavalry and infantry, with his auxiliaries, auxil-iaries, to the shores of the Bay of Honduras, where his vessels, with food and recruits, awaited him. From the old books and archives in the library of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, I have gathered the incidents inci-dents of this wonderful campaign. Of necessity I have omitted many harrowing but interesting details, de-tails, but have recorded sufficient to show what manner of men were these early Spaniards. |