characterized the cavalier,
ready to grant absolution in case of all excesses.

MALINCHE.

INTRODUCTION.

I may properly place "Malinche" as supplementary to "Montezuma," as
dealing with characters coincident to, and cotemporaneous with those
concerned in the "Conquest," and also as covering a period subsequent
to, and immediately succeeding the Conquest.

To the student of history, Malinche (in her position of interpreter
during the entire period of the Conquest) presents at once so much that
is unique and charming, and yet such a sad commentary on the criminal
practices of the sixteenth as well as the nineteenth centuries, that I
have often wondered that a stronger and more practiced hand has not ere
this claimed the privilege of championship.

According to Prescott, she was born in the town of Painnalla, Province
of Coatzacualco, in the southeastern extremity of what is now Mexico;
that she was the daughter of a Cacique (a sort of provincial Governor)
and prospective heiress to large estates; that after the death of her
father, her mother, with indecent haste, forms another union, and in
time presents the stepfather with a son; that they jointly combine to be
rid of Malinche, whom they sell to itinerant traders; and, to cover
their device, they pretend that she is sick and use the child of a
servant for their criminal pantomime; the child dies, thus completing
the deception, except the hypocritical mourning to which this unnatural
mother is said to have been equal.

Malinche is sold by the traders to the Cacique of Tabasco, and reaches
maturity about the time of the Conquest. She seems to have been a
favorite in the house of the Cacique, which would indicate that he had
become acquainted with her origin, and after the surrender of the town
to Cortez, she is one of the twenty female slaves presented to the
Conqueror and his allies.

Either from enlarged opportunities or her natural aptness, and probably
both, she is found by Cortez to be just the person he needs for
interpreter. Mutual attraction leads them into the closest relations,
and it is but just to Malinche to state that there is no indication of
her knowledge of the Conqueror's wife in Cuba, until she arrives at the
Capitol. There is also nothing to indicate more than a momentary
estrangement between Malinche and Catalina.

Catalina lived but about three months after her arrival at Mexico; and
it seems that Malinche assumes the same r