specify in proof of our assertion; almost as many are there, which we would gladly extract, were we not prevented from doing so by the necessity of keeping our article within limits-moreover, we have not at present quite the option of selecting such passages as we should otherwise have chosen, in consequence of the copious extracts, which have been made in the columns of the weekly press.

The most striking passages are undoubtedly those in which conflicts between the Mexicans and the Spaniards are described, with a spirit and vividness of detail inferior only to the tournament and storming of Torquilstone, in the romance to which we have so often referred; but we have preferred, for several reasons to take a passage of stiller life-the introduction of Don Amador to Narväez. Our reasons for this are, firstly, that the finest description in the whole work, the midnight retreat of the invading army from the city, occupies no less than five entire chapters, and is of course too long to be extracted without mutilation; and secondly, that the other battle, in the great square of the temple, was given to the public some weeks ago in the pages of a valuable fellow-periodical of this city. Without further comment we proceed to lay before our readers the scene to which we have already alluded.

While he still talked with the Morisco, Don Amador was able to cast his eyes about him, and to perceive on either side a great number of low houses of wickered cane, which seemed to him more to resemble gigantic baskets than the habitations of men; but which, even in these latter days, are found sufficient to protect the humble aborigines from the vicissitudes of that benignant clime. Each stood by itself in an enclosure of shrubs and flowers, and where it happened that the inmates were within, with torches or fires burning, the blaze, streaming through the wattled walls, illuminated every thing around, and disclosed the figures of the habitants moving about like shadows in the flame. Other buildings, equally humble in size, were constructed of less remarkable but not less romantic materials; and where the moonbeams fell over their earthen walls and palmy roofs, both were often concealed by such a drapery of vines and creeping flowers, perhaps the odoriferous vanilla and the beautiful convolvulus, as might have satisfied the longings of a wood-nymph. As he approached nearer to the town, these lowly and lovely cottages were exchanged for fabrics of stone, many of them of considerable size, and several with walls covered with the bright and silvery plaster which ornamented the temples. Each of these, the dwellings of the Tlatoani, or, as the Spaniards called them, in the language of Santo Domingo, the Caciques of the city,-stood alone in its garden of flowers, with vines trailing, and palm-trees bending over its roof, commonly in darkness, though sometimes the myrtle-taper of a fair Totonac, (for such was the name of this provincial people of the coast,) or the oily cresset of a Spanish captain, who had made his quarters wherever was a house to his fancy, might be seen gleaming from behind the curtains of cotton stuff, which were hung at the doors and windows. These sights had been seen by Amador, while yet engaged in conversation with Abdalla; but when the Morisco dropped sorrowfully away, he found himself in the great square of the city, immediately fronting the sanctuaries, and gazing on a scene of peculiarly wild and novel character. The centre of the square was occupied by a broad, and indeed a vast platform of earth, raised to a height of eight or ten feet, ascended from all sides by half as many steps, -having the appearance of a low truncated pyramid, serving as a base to the three towers which crowned it. Upon its summit or terrace, immediately in advance of the towers, was kindled a great fire, the blaze of which, besides illuminating the temple itself and all the buildings which surrounded the square, fell upon sundry groups of Indian tumblers, engaged in feats of activity, as well as upon a host of cavaliers who surveyed them close at hand, and many throngs of common soldiers and natives who looked on at a distance from the square.

Here the detachment was halted; the burthens of the Tlamémé were deposited on the earth; the horses were freed from their packs; and Amador, at the sugges

tion of Salvatierra, dismounted, and leaving Fogoso to the care of his attendants, and these again to the disposition of the captain, ascended the pyramid, followed by the secretary. He was somewhat surprised, when this worthy commander, whom he looked for to conduct him to the general, resuming much of the stately dignity he had found it convenient to support on the march, made him a low bow, and informed him with much gravity he would find the commander-in-chief cither on the terrace among his officers, or at his head-quarters in the middle tower. The feeling of indignation which for a moment beset him, would have been expressed, had not Salvatierra with another bow retired, and had he not perceived, at the same moment, the young Fabueno draw from his girdle the letter which was doubtless to secure him the good-will of Narvaez. Checking therefore his anger, he straightway ascended the platform. Arrived at its summit, he now beheld the scene which he had imperfectly witnessed from below. The great fire, crackling and roaring, added the ruddy glare of a volcano to the pallid illumination of the moon; and in the combined light, the operations of the gymnasts and dancers, the athletes and jugglers, were as visible as if performed in the glitter of noon-day. For a moment Amador thought, as had been thought by all other Spaniards, when looking for the first time on the sports of these barbarous races, that he had got among a group of devils, or at least of devilish magicians; and he crossed himself with an instinctive horror, when he beheld, so to speak, three piles of men, each composed of three individuals, half-naked, standing one upon the head or shoulders of another, whirling about in a circle, and each, as he whirled, dancing on the head or shoulders of his supporter, and tossing abroad his penacho, or long plume of feathers, as if diverting himself on the solid earth. This spectacle entirely distracted his attention from others scarcely less worthy of observation,-as was indeed that, where two men seesawed on a pole, in the air, and, as might be said, without support, except that which was occasionally rendered by the feet of a sinewy pagan, who lay on his back, and ever and anon, as the flying phantoms descended, spurned them again into the air. Such also was that magical dance of the cords, brought from the unknown tribes of the South, wherein a score of men each holding to a rope of some brilliant color, and each decorated with the feathers of the parrot and the flamingo, whirled in fleet gyrations round a garlanded post, till their cords were twisted together in a net of incomprehensible complexity, but which before the observer had leisure to digest his amazement, were again unravelled in the rapid and mysterious evolutions of the dance. A thousand other such exhibitions, similar in novelty but different in character, were displayed at the same moment; but the eyes of the neophyte were lost to all but that which had first astonished him; and it was not till the voice of the secretary roused him from his bewitchment, that he collected his senses, and observed an officer of the household of the general standing before him, and doing him such reverence as was evident y the right of his dignity. It was then that Don Amador looked from the dancers to the cavaliers whom they were diverting. The fire flashed over the walls of the square and lofty towers up to the shelving thatch of palm-leaves, under which they were grouped, making, with the glitter of their half-armed persons, a suitable addition to the romance of the scone. In the centre of that group which lounged before the middle and loftiest tower, in a chair, or indeed, as it might be called, a thione, of such barbaric beauty as was known only to the magnificos of this singular people, sat a cavalier, tall and somewhat majestic of stature, with a ruddy beard, and yellow locks falling over an agreeable countenance; in whom, not so much from the character of his deportment and the quality of his decorations, as from the evident homage rendered him by the officers around, Don Amador did not doubt he beheld the Biscayan general. At the very moment when his eyes fell upon this smiling dignitary, he was himself perceived by the general; and Narvaez started up with a sort of confusion, as if ashamed to be discovered in such trivial enjoyment by so gallant a cavalier. In fact, the glittering casque of steel had supplanted the velvet cap on the head of the novice; and as he approached in full armor, clad also in the dignity with which he was wont to approach his fellows in rank, Don Amador presented a figure, to say the least, equally noble with that of the commander,-and, what was no slight advantage in those days, with the additional manifestation of high blood, such as was certainly less questionable in him than in Narvaez. It seemed for a moment, as if the general would have retreated into the temple, doubtless with the view of assuming a more stately character for the interview; but perceiving that Don Amador had already recognised him, and was advancing, he changed his purpose, and making a step forward to do honor to his visiter, he stood still to receive him. The eyes of all those gallant adventurers were turned from the dancers to the new

comer; but Don Amador, not much moved by such a circumstance, as indifferent to their curiosity as their admiration, approached with a stately gravity, and making a courteous reverence to the general, said,—

"I have no doubt it is my felicity at this present moment to offer my devoirs to the noble and very respected senor, the general Don Panfilo de Narvaez; on the presumption of which, I, Amador de Leste, of Cuenza, a novice of the holy hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, do not hesitate to claim the hospitalities, which, as an hidalgo of Spain, and kinsman of the noble senor, the admiral Cavallero, your excellency's confederate, I hold myself entitled to expect."

"The very noble and valiant senor Don Amador de Leste shall not claim those hospitalities in vain," said the general, with a voice whose natural and voluminous harshness did not conceal an attempt at amity; "and I hope he will not anticipate in them too little of the roughness of a soldier, by reason that he has seen us unbending a little from the toils of war to the foolish diversions of these ingenious barbarians."

"I will not take upon the to judge either of the tactics or the recreations of your excellency," said Amador, very coolly. "I will only demand of your favor to accept, at this present moment, such protestations of respect as become me in my function of suitor; and, in especial, to credit my companion, the secretary Fabueno, the messenger of the admiral, who is charged with certain letters to your excellency, of which, I believe, I am myself, in part, the subject."

"I receive them with respect, and I welcome the very distinguished Don Amador with much joy," said Narvaez; "in token of which I must beg him to allow himself to be considered, at least as long as he honors my command with his presence, as my own peculiar guest: and that I may the sooner know in what it may be my happiness to do him service, I must entreat him to enter with me into my poor quarters."

With such superb expressions of etiquette, the common compliments of an overchivalrous age and people, Don Amador was ushered into the interior of the temple. A curtain of a certain strong and checkered matting, that served the purpose of a door, was pushed aside, and, entering with the general and two or three of his most favored officers, he found himself in the heathen sanctuary. A table covered with brilliant drapery of cotton-a product of the country-and strewed over with pieces of armor, as well as with divers vessels wherein glowed some of the rich wines ripened by the breath of the Solano, contained also a great silver cresset filled with oil tempered with liquid amber, which, besides pervading the whole atmosphere with a delicious odor, shed abroad such a light as enabled Don Amador to survey the apartment. It was of good height, and spacious: the walls were hung with arras of a sombre-hued cotton, and the floor covered with thick matting. In one corner was a ladder, leading to the upper chambers. Two sides of it were occupied by a low platform, on which lay several mattresses stuffed with the down of the ceiba; over one of which, on a small altar of wood, illuminated by tapers of the myrtle wax, was a little image of the Virgin. In this chamber, the chief adoratory of the temple, where now flashed the weapons of the iconoclasts, stood once the altar of an idol, whose fiendish lips had been often died with the blood of human sacrifices. There were rude chairs about the table; and Amador, at the invitation of the general, did not hesitate to seat himself, and cast an eye of observation on his companions, while Narvaez, with the assistance of the secretary, proceeded to decipher the advices of the admiral,

Hardly pressed as we are for space, we cannot resist from making room for the capture of Don Amador, by the Moor Abdallah. This is, perhaps, the only battle which tends directly to the fate of Don Amador and Jacinto, inasmuch as it leads to the imprisonment of the Knight in the dwelling of the Moor, and to his partial discovery of the sex and identity of the pretended page. No description can be superior to this, in strength or fire; and, had the groundwork been woven with skill equal to that which has been displayed in the ornaments, Calavar would have been a most splendid novel. One word before we quit the subject, how can a man of Dr. Bird's antiquarian knowledge make so gross a blunder, as to use the words sabre

and scimitar, as descriptive of the espada or straight, double-edged, sharppointed, sword, which was the destinctive weapon of the Christian knighthood, and constantly set in opposition to the curved blade of the Saracen infidel? The error might have escaped notice, had not the general correctness made the slightest mistake at once obnoxious to censure.

"Do you hear! Ho! to your lances, and back upon the wolves that are behind us !” cried the trumpet-voice of Don Hernan. The neophyte turned, and clapping spurs to Fogoso, charged, with the cavaliers, upon those squadrons which had pursued them ;-but, like his companions, he checked his horse with surprise, and no little consternation, when he beheld in what manner the infidels were prepared to receive them. The street was packed with their bodies, as far as the eye could see; and darts and swords of obsidian were seen flashing above the heads of the most distant multitude; but he perceived that those combatants who stood in front, stretching from wall to wall, were armed with long spears, mostly, indeed, with wooden points, sharpened, and fire-hardened, though some few were seen with copper blades, full a yard in length, which they handled with singular and menacing address. Thus, no sooner did the cavaliers approach them, than those of the first rank, dropping, like trained soldiers, to their knees, planted the butts of their wea pons on the ground, while those held by others behind, were thrust over the kneelers and presented, together, such a wall of bristling spines, as caused the bravest

to hesitate.

"Have we Ottomies of the hills here!" cried Don Hernan, aghast. "Or are these weapons, and this mode of using them, the teaching of the traitor Moor?"

A loud shout, mingled with laughs of fierce derision, testified the triumph of the barbarians; and Cortez, stung with fury, though hesitating to attack, called for his musketeers, to break the line of opponents.

"Our musketeers are in heaven! carried up in the fiend of a burro !" cried Alvarado, waving his sword, and eyeing the vaunting herd. "Before the days of saltpetre, true men were wont to shoot their foes without it.-All that is to be done, is to conceive we are hunting foxes, and leaping over a farmer's wall. Soho! Saladin, mouse! And all that are brave gentlemen, follow me! Hah!"

As he concluded, the madcap soldier spurred his steed Saladin, and, uttering a war-cry, dashed fearlessly on the spearmen. Before he had yet parted from his companions, Don Amador de Leste, fired, in spite of his melancholy, by the boldness of the exploit, and unwilling to be outdone by a cavalier of the islands, brushed up to his side, and spurring Fogoso at the same moment, the two hidalgos straightway vaulted among the barbarians.

The show of resolution maintained by the exulting spearmen, while the Christians stood yet at a distance, vanished when they beheld those animals, which they always regarded with a superstitious awe, rushing upon them with eyes of fury, and feet of thunder. To this faltering, perhaps, it was owing, that the two Dons were not instantly slain; for, though the heavy armor that guarded the chests and loins of the steeds, could repel the thrust of a wooden spear as well as the corslets of their riders, no such protection sheathed their bellies; and had they been there pierced, their masters inust instantly have perished. As it was, however, the front rank recoiled, and when it closed again, the cavaliers were seen wielding their swords, (for in such a môlée their spears were useless,) and striking valiantly about them, but entirely surrounded.

"Shall we be thus shamed, my masters ?" cried Don Hernan, sharply. "Methinks there are two more such cavaliers in this company? Santiago, and at them!"

Thus saying, and, with a word, inflaming their pride, he leaped against the foe, followed by all the horsemen.

The two leaders in this desperate assault had vanished,-swallowed up, as it were, in the vortex of contention; and it was not until his friends heard the voice of Alvarado exclaiming, wildly, as if in extremity, "Help me, De Leste, true friend! for I am unhorsed! Help me, or the hell-hounds will have me to the temple !"that they were convinced the young men were living.

"Be of good heart!" cried Don Amador, (for he was at his side,) drawing his sabre, with a dexterous sleight, over the sinewy arms that clutched his companion, and releasing, without doing him harm. "If thou art disarmed, draw my dagger

from the sheath and use it; and fear not that I will leave thee, till rescued by others."

"Who gets my sword, takes the arm along with it!" cried Alvarado, grasping again his chained weapon, and dealing fierce blows, as he spoke. “I will remember the act-Ho! false friends! forsworn soldiers! condemned Christians! why leave us unsupported?" "Press on,

"Courage, and strike well! we are near," answered Don Herman. friends; trample the curs to death! Join we our true cavaliers; and then sweep back for victory!"

"Where goest thou, now, mad Amador?" they heard the voice of Alvarado exclaiming; "Return: thy horse is shod with piraguas; but mine sticks fast in this bog of flesh. Return; for, by heaven, I can follow thee no further!"

"Come on, as thou art a true man; for I am sore beset, and wounded!" These words, from the lips of the neophyte, came yet through the din of yells; but it seemed to those who listened, that there was feebleness in the voice that uttered them.

"Onward!" cried Cortes, with a voice of thunder, and urging his dun steed furiously over the trampled barbarians; "the young man shall not perish!"

A wolf-hound, weary and spent with the chase, suddenly surrounded by a pack of the destroyers he has been tracking, and falling under the fangs of his quarry, may figure the condition of Don Amador de Leste, surrounded and seized upon by the enemy. Nothing but the vigor of powerful and fiery-spirited steeds could have carried the two cavaliers so far into a crowd of warriors almost compacted. While the neophyte gave assistance to his friend, a dozen blows of the maquahuitl were rained upon his body; and so closely was he invested immediately after, (when, as Alvarado reined in his steed to await the rest, the two cavaliers were separated,) that he thought no longer of warding off blows; but, giving himself up to smiting, he trusted to the strength of his mail for protection. But the heavy bludgeons bruised where they did not wound; and his armor, being at last broken by the fury of the blows, the sharp glass penetrated to his flesh, and he begun to bleed. He cast his eye over his shoulder, for his strength was failing; but the plume of Don Pedro waved at a distance behind, and the shouts of Cortes seemed to come from afar. He turned his horse's head, to retreat; but half a dozen savages, emboldened by this symptom of defeat, clutched upon the bridle; and the hand raised to smite at them, was seized by as many others. It was at this moment that he called out to his companion, in the words we have recorded; but answer, if answer were made, was drowned in the savage yells of exultatiou, with which his foes beheld him in their power. He collected all his energies, struggled violently, and striking the rowels deep, and animating Fogoso with his voice, hoped, by one bound, to spring clear of his capturers. The gallant steed vaulted on high, but fell again to the earth, under the weight of the many that clung to him: a dozen new hands were added to those that already throttled the rider.

"Rescue me, if ye be men!" he cried, with a voice that prevailed over the uproar. The cry was echoed by twenty Christian voices hard by, and a gleam of hope entered his heart. Another furious struggle, another plunge of Fogoso, and he thought that the hands of his enemies were at last unclenching. A bright weapon flashed before his eyes-It was steel, and therefore the falchion of a friend! -It feel upon his helmet with irresistible weight; his brain spun, his eyes darkened, and he fell, or rather was dragged, like a dead man, from his horse. But ere his eyes had yet closed, their last glance was fixed on the visage of the striker; and the sting of benefits forgotten was added to the bitterness of death, when, in this, he perceived the features of Abdallah, the Moor.

In an instant more, the barbarians parted in terror before the great Teuctli "Where art thou, De Leste ?" he cried. "We are here to rescue thee !" As he spoke, there sprang, with a fierce bound, from among the Mexicans, the well-known bay, Fogoso, his foamy sides streaked with gore, the stirrups rattling against his armed flanks, the reins flying in the air,-but no rider on the saddle. "By heaven, false friends! craven gentlemen! you have lost the bravest of your supporters!" cried Don Hernan, "On! for he may yet live: on! for we will avenge him!"

The band, resolute now in their wrath, plunged fiercely through the mob. They struck down many enemies,-they trampled upon many corses; but, among them, they found not the body of De Leste.