, I may make my scholarship of some use to you who have
to drill and fight, and die too, for us comfortable folks who sit at home
and read our books by our fireside.

Then I thought of the story of Cortez the Spaniard, and how he conquered
the great empire of Mexico with a handful of brave men. That, I thought,
would be an example to you of what men can do who have stout hearts and
good weapons, and who have faith too in God, and believe that if they do
their duty God will prosper them. And I thought I could do it all the
better, because I like the story, and enjoy reading it again and again;
for I know no such dashing and desperate deed of courage in history,
except Havelock's advance upon Lucknow.

So now I will begin my story, telling you first where Mexico is, and what
it was like when Cortez landed in it, more than three hundred years ago.

You, all of you, have heard of the West India station--some of you have
been there. Beyond those West India Islands lies the great Gulf of
Mexico, and beyond that the mainland of North America, and Mexico itself.
It is now thinly peopled by Spaniards, the descendants of settlers who
came over after Cortez's time; and a very lazy, cowardly set most of them
are,--very different from the old heroes, their forefathers. Our Yankee
cousins can lick them now, one to five, and will end, I believe, in
conquering the whole country. But in Cortez's time, the place was very
different. It was full of vast numbers of heathens, brownish coloured
people, something like the Red Indians you see in Canada, but a fairer,
handsomer, stouter, heavier-bodied race; and much more civilised also.
They had great cities and idol temples, aqueducts for water, and all
sorts of noble buildings, all of most curiously carved stone; which is
all the more wonderful and creditable to them, when we remember that they
had no iron--not a knife--not a nail of iron among them. But they had
found out how to make bronze by mixing tin and copper, and with it could
work the hardest stones, as well as we can with iron. They had another
stuff which was curious enough, of which they made knives, razors, arrow
heads, and saw-edged swords as keen as razors--and that was _glass_. They
did not make the glass--they found it about the burning mountains, of
which Mexico is full; itztli they called it; we call it obsidian. It is
tougher than our glass, and chips to a fine razor edge. I have seen
arrows of it, which I am c