This was the
celebrated picture-writing of the Aztecs, and as Teuhtlile informed him,
this man was employed in portraying the various objects for the eye of
Montezuma, who would thus gather a more vivid notion of their appearance
than from any description by words. Cortes was pleased with the idea;
and as he knew how much the effect would be heightened by converting
still life into action, he ordered out the cavalry on the beach, the
wet sands of which afforded a firm footing for the horses. The bold
and rapid movements of the troops, as they went through their military
exercises, the apparent ease with which they managed the fiery animals
on which they were mounted, the glancing of their weapons, and the
shrill cry of the trumpet, all filled the spectators with astonishment;
but when they heard the thunders of the cannon, and witnessed the
volumes of smoke and flame issuing from these terrible engines, and the
rushing sound of the balls, as they dashed through the trees of the
neighboring forest, shivering their branches into fragments, they were
filled with consternation, from which the Aztec chief himself was
not wholly free. Nothing of all this was lost on the painters, who
faithfully recorded, after their fashion, every particular, not omitting
the ships--"the water-houses," as they called them--of the strangers,
which, with their dark hulls and snow-white sails reflected from the
water, were swinging lazily at anchor on the calm bosom of the bay.
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