of Martin Lopez, a skilful shipwright, who had accompanied Cortes. These vessels were to be taken to pieces, and transported, together with the ironwork and cordage belonging to the ships which Cortes had destroyed off Villa Rica, across the mountains to the great Mexican lake. At length all was ready, and on the 28th of December 1520 the whole army left Tlascala on its march towards Mexico. It consisted of about six hundred Spaniards, with nine cannon, and forty horses, accompanied by an immense multitude of native warriors, Tlascalans, Tepeacans, and Cholulans, amounting probably to sixteen thousand men, besides the tamanes, who were employed in transporting the brigantines. Garrisons had of course been left at Villa Rica and Segura.

No opposition was offered to the invaders on their march, the Mexicans fleeing at their approach; and on the 1st of January 1521 they took possession of the city of Tezcuco. Cuitlahua, Montezuma's successor on the throne, was now dead, and his place was occupied by his nephew, Guatemozin, yet a young man, but the most heroic and patriotic of all the Mexicans. The policy of Cortes was first to subdue all the states and cities on the margin of the five lakes, so as to leave Mexico without protection or assistance, and then to direct his whole force to the final reduction of the capital. For four months, therefore, Cortes, Sandoval, Alvarado, and his other officers were employed, sometimes separately, sometimes in concert, in reconnoitring expeditions into various parts of the Mexican valley -from Chalco, on the banks of the southernmost, to Xaltocan, an island in the northernmost lake. Scarcely a day of these four months was passed in idleness; and it would require far more space than we can afford to do justice to all the engagements in which the Spaniards were victorious, or to all the feats of personal valour performed by Cortes, Alvarado, Olid, Sandoval, and other brave cavaliers. Passing over these, as well as the account of a conspiracy among his men, which the prudence and presence of mind of Cortes enabled him to quash, and of the execution of the Tlascalan chief, Xicotencatl, for deserting the Spaniards, we hasten to the concluding scene.

On the 10th of May 1521, the siege commenced. Alvarado, with a hundred and fifty Spanish infantry, thirty cavalry, and eight thousand Tlascalans, took up his station at Tlacopan, so as to command the western causeway; Christoval de Olid, with the same number of cavalry and Indians, and a hundred and seventy-five infantry, commanded one of the branches of the southern causeway at Cojohuacan; and Sandoval, with a force nearly equal, the other branch of the same causeway at Iztapalapan. Cortes himself took the command of the flotilla of brigantines. For several days the three captains conducted operations more or less successfully at their respective stations, one of Alvarado's services having consisted in destroying the pipes which supplied the Mexicans with fresh

water, so that, during the rest of the siege, they had no other way of procuring a supply than by means of canoes. The brigantines, when they were launched, did immense service in overturning and dispersing the Mexican canoes, and also in protecting the flanks of the causeways on which the other detachments were pursuing their operations. At length, after much resistance on the part of the Mexicans, the two causeways, the western and the southern, were completely occupied by the Spaniards; and Sandoval having, by Cortes's orders, made a circuit of the lake, and seized the remaining causeway of Tepejacac, the city was in a state of blockade. But so impatient were the Spaniards of delay, that Cortes resolved on a general assault on the city by all the three causeways at once. Cortes was to advance into the city from Xoloc, Alvarado from his camp on the western causeway, and Sandoval from his camp on the northern, and the three detachments, uniting in the great square in the centre of the city, were to put the inhabitants to the sword. The plan had nearly succeeded. The vanguard of Cortes's party had chased the retreating Mexicans into the city, and were pushing their way to the great square, when the horn of Guatemozin was heard to sound, and the Aztecs rallying, commenced a furious onset. The neglect of Cortes to fill up a trench in one of the causeways impeded the retreat of the Spaniards in such a way as to cause a dreadful confusion, and it was only by efforts almost superhuman that they were able to regain their quarters. Their loss amounted to upwards of a hundred men, of whom about sixty had been taken alive.

This triumph elated the Mexicans as much as it depressed the Spaniards and their allies. It was prophesied by the Mexican priests that in eight days all the Spaniards should be slain; the gods, they said, had decreed it. This prediction, reported in the quarters of the besiegers, produced an extraordinary effect on the allies. They regarded the Spaniards as doomed men, refused to fight with them, and withdrew to a little distance from the lake. In this dilemma Cortes shewed his wonderful presence of mind, by ordering a total cessation of hostilities for the period specified by the Mexican gods. When the eight days were passed, the allies, ashamed of their weakness, returned to the Spanish quarters, and the siege recommenced. These eight days, however, had not been without their horrors. From their quarters the Spaniards could perceive their fellow-countrymen who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans dragged to the top of the great war-temple, compelled to dance round the sanctuary of the gods, then laid on the stone of sacrifice, their hearts torn out, and their bleeding bodies flung down into the square beneath.

Famine now assisted the arms of the bravery of endurance for which their Mexicans continued the defence of the

Spaniards; still, with that race is remarkable, the city, and it was not till it

had been eaten into, as it were, on all sides by the Spaniards, that they ceased to fight. On the 14th of August a murderous assault was commenced by the besiegers. It lasted two days; and on the evening of the second some canoes were seen to leave the city, and endeavour to reach the mainland. They were chased, and captured; and on board of one of them was found Guatemozin, with his family and his principal nobles. Guatemozin's capture was the signal of complete defeat; and on the 16th of August 1521 the city was surrendered to the Spaniards. The population was reduced to about forty thousand, and in a few days all these had disappeared, no one knew whither. The city was in ruins, like some huge churchyard with the corpses disinterred and the tombstones scattered about.

CONCLUSION.

Thus was the ancient and beautiful city of Mexico destroyed, and its inhabitants slain or dispersed. A monstrous act of unjustifiable aggression had been completed. Following up this great blow, Cortes pursued the conquest of the country generally; and in this, as well as in organising it into a colony of Spain, he did not experience any serious difficulty. On proceeding to Spain, he was received with honour by Charles V. He returned to Mexico in 1530; and again revisiting Spain in 1540, for the purpose of procuring the redress of real or alleged grievances, he died in 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. It is very much to be lamented that, in the execution of his purposes of colonisation, the monuments of Mexican civilisation were everywhere destroyed, leaving nothing to future generations but the broken relics of palaces, temples, and other objects of art, scattered amidst the wilderness. Some of these ruined monuments shew that the ancient Mexicans had made remarkable advances in social life as well as in the arts, more particularly architecture; and what renders all such relics the more interesting to the archæologist, is the growing conviction, that the old Mexican civilisation was of an original type-a thing noway derived from, or connected with, the civilisation of Egypt, or any other nation in the eastern hemisphere.

The Spaniards have not succeeded in making Mexico a perpetual tributary of their monarchy. The cruelties they committed seem to have contained in themselves the elements of retribution. After a career of indolence, oppression, and bigotry, extending to comparatively recent times, their yoke was thrown off; and their feeble and ignorant successors may be said to be in the course of coming under the thraldom of their Anglo-Saxon neighbours.

32

HERE is not, perhaps, in the whole world a city more difficult to describe than London, the great metropolis of the British empire. This does not arise merely from the vastness of the area necessary to accommodate three millions of people and four hundred thousand houses; it is due also to the fact, that there are no walls, gates, barriers, divisions, visible boundaries-nothing except the Thames. We may go ten or twelve miles east and west, from Stratford or Blackwall to Shepherds' Bush or Hammersmith, and meet clusters of houses all the way, unbroken by any marked lines of separation. Of the ten parliamentary boroughs which represent this huge place in the legislature, we see no boundaries, no sign to shew where one begins and another ends. And so of all other modes of cutting up or dividing the metropolis for practical purposes-the city within the walls,' and the city without the walls' (words which had at one time a clear meaning), the city of Westminster, the ten postal districts, the twenty police districts, the thirty-seven registration districts, the numerous parishes which elect delegates to the Metropolitan Board of Works, the forty districts of the Poor-law Unions, the districts of the London Fire Brigade-none of the dividing lines between these districts are perceptible; and hence the metropolis becomes every year more and more a gigantic labyrinthine puzzle to strangers.

In size, the City of London, the original London, barely covers

No. 143.

I

one square mile; but the metropolis, as understood by the registrargeneral and by the Metropolitan Board of Works, spreads over nearly 120 square miles, with the City forming a mere kernel in the centre. The Post-office and the Police make their metropolis of much more vast dimensions, extending out twelve or fifteen miles from Charing Cross in every direction; but for most purposes it will be found convenient to treat our metropolis as covering 120 square miles, and as containing (in 1870) about 3,000,000 people and 400,000 houses. The Quarterly Review (1870) gives some curious statistics concerning the mileage of street and road in the metropolis; but as it is in some places left doubtful whether the area adverted to includes only the registrar-general's metropolis, or comprises the whole of the police metropolis, the figures lose much of their value. Kelly's Post-office London Directory contains the names of about 9000 streets, &c.; the editor makes it commercially useful, but it is not certain whether his metropolitan area agrees exactly with any of those above mentioned. The official Postal Guide gives about 7500 names of 'principal' streets and places in the London postal districts.

THE THAMES AND THE BRIDGES.

As the Thames is the only visible line of division in the metropolis, a stranger ought to make acquaintance with it as soon as possible. Rising in Gloucestershire, and passing through and between many counties, this noble river enters the metropolis at the western suburbs. Taking Hammersmith as a western limit, and Victoria Docks as an eastern, the windings of the Thames within this metropolitan area extend in length about 16 miles. At Hammersmith is a pretty Suspension Bridge; next comes Putney Bridge, near which is Fulham Palace (residence of the Bishop of London), and Putney, where the far-famed Oxford and Cambridge boat-race usually begins. Passing Wandsworth on the right bank, and a few remaining market-gardens on the left, we meet the West London Railway Bridge, which connects Kensington and the northern lines with Clapham Junction and the southern lines. Next comes Battersea Bridge (lately rebuilt); beyond it lie Chelsea on the left, with the old red-brick Hospital for soldiers; and the nicely laidout Battersea Park on the right. After passing under Chelsea Suspension Bridge and Victoria Railway Bridge, we proceed eastward to Vauxhall Bridge, having the Grosvenor Road Embankment on the left, and Nine Elms on the right. A farther reach of river, spanned by Lambeth Suspension Bridge, presents on the left hand the Milbank Penitentiary and the magnificent Houses of Parliament, and on the right the new Southern Embankment, and the noble new pile of St Thomas's Hospital, with its seven blocks of building united by corridors. Next, for about two miles, we