returned to Cempoala by a new route,11 and was received with demonstrations of joy by the populace. With a view of binding more closely such powerful allies, Chicomacatl proposed intermarriages. And as a beginning he presented eight young women,12 richly dressed, with necklaces and ear-rings of gold, and each attended by servants. “Take them,” said he to Cortés. “They are all daughters of caciques. Seven are for your captains, and this, my niece, is for yourself, for she is the ruler of towns.”
Matters were becoming interesting. Cortés and some of his captains had wives in Cuba, and nearly all of them had mistresses here. The damsels of Cempoala were not famed for their beauty; the one offered Cortés was particularly ill-favored. With regard to captives and slaves, of course no marriage vow was necessary, but with princesses the case was different. But even here there was little difficulty. The aboriginal form of marriage, while it satisfied the natives, rested lightly on the Spaniards. Indeed, with them it was no marriage at all; and so it has been throughout the New World; in their marital relations with foreigners the natives have felt themselves bound, while the Europeans have not. To the ceremony in this instance no objection was offered.
At this happy consummation, though the rite is not yet performed, serious meditation takes possession of the mind of Cortés, who bethinks himself that he is doing little of late for his God, who is doing so much for him. Success everywhere attends his strategies. And these female slaves and princesses! While trying to quiet his conscience for accepting this princess, he was exceedingly careful in regard to taking unto himself real wives, as we have seen in Cuba. But here marriage after the New World fashion would surely advance his purposes. And so they are compelled to submit to the stronger, who by the right of might proceeds to rob them of their gold and to desolate their homes; and now assumes the higher prerogative of requiring them to relinquish the faith of their