The Spaniards gazed at him with astonishment. From his language he was evidently a Castilian, but to all appearance he was an Indian. He was perfectly naked; wore his hair braided round his head in the manner of the country, and his complexion was burnt by the sun to a tawny color. He had a bow in his hand, a quiver at his shoulder, and a network pouch at his side, in which he carried his provisions.

The Spaniards proved to be a reconnoitring party sent out by Cortez to watch the approach of the canoe, which had been descried coming from Yucatan. Cortez had given up all hopes of being joined by the captives, the caravel having waited the allotted time at Cotoche, and returned without news of them. He had in fact made sail to prosecute his voyage, but fortunately one of his ships sprung a leak, which obliged him to return to the island.

When Geronimo de Aguilar and his companions arrived in the presence of Cortez, who was surrounded by his officers, they made a profound reverence, squatted on the ground, laid their bows and arrows beside them, and touching their right hands wet with spittle on the ground, rubbed them about the region of the heart, such being their sign of the most devoted submission.

Cortez greeted Aguilar with a hearty welcome, and raising him from the earth, took from his own person a large yellow mantle lined with crimson, and threw it over his shoulders. The latter however had for a long time gone entirely naked, that even this scanty covering was at first almost insupportable, and he had become so accustomed to the diet of the natives, that he found it difficult to reconcile his stomach to the meat and drink set before him.

When he had sufficiently recovered from the agitation of his arrival among Christians, Cortez drew from him the particulars of his story, and found that he was related to one of his own friends, the Licentiate Marcos de Aguilar. He treated him therefore with additional kindness and respect, and retained him about his person, to aid him as an interpreter in his great Mexican expedition.

The happiness of Geronimo de Aguilar at once more being restored to his countrymen was doomed to suffer some alloy from the disasters that had happened in his family. Peter Martyr records a touching anecdote of the effect produced upon his mother by the tidings of his misfortune. A vague report reached her in Spain, that her son had fallen into the hands of cannibals. All the horrible tales

concerning the treatment of these savages to their prisoners rushed to her imagination, and Ishe went distracted. Whenever she beheld roasted meat, or flesh, upon the spit, she would fill the house with her outcries. “Oh, wretched mother! oh, most miserable of women!" would she exclaim; 'behold the

limbs of my murdered son!”

It is to be hoped that the tidings of his deliverance had a favorable effect upon her intellects, and that she lived to rejoice at his after fortunes. He served Hernando Cortez with great courage and ability throughout his Mexican conquests, acting sometimes as a soldier, sometimes as interpreter and ambassador to the Indians, and in reward of his fidelity and services was appointed regidor, or civil governor of the city of Mexico.

* P. Martyr, decad. iv., cap. 6.

MICER CODRO, THE ASTROLOGER

Τ

HE fate of the Italian astrologer, Micer
Codro, who predicted the end of Vasco
Nuñez, is related by the historian Oviedo

with some particulars that border upon the marvellous. It appears that after the death of his patron he continued for several years rambling about the New World, in the train of the Spanish discoverers; but intent upon studying the secrets of its natural history rather than searching after its treasures.

In the course of his wanderings he was once coasting the shores of the Southern Ocean, in a ship commanded by one Geronimo de Valenzuela, from whom he received such cruel treatment as to cause his death, though what the nature of the treatment was, we are not precisely informed.

Finding his end approaching, the unfortunate astrologer addressed Valenzuela in the most solemn manner : Captain," said he,

"you have caused my death by your cruelty; I now summon you to appear with me, within a year, before the judgment-seat of God!"

The captain made a light and scoffing answer and treated his summons with contempt.

They were then off the coast of Veragua, near the verdant islands of Zebaco, which lie at the entrance of the gulf of Parita or Paria. The poor astrologer gazed wistfully with his dying eyes upon the green and shady groves, and entreated the pilot or mate of the caravel to land him on one of the islands, that he might die in peace. "Micer Codro," replied the pilot,

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those are not islands, but points of land: there are no islands hereabout."

"There are, indeed," replied the astrologer, "two good and pleasant islands, well watered and near to the coast, and within them is a great bay with a harbor. Land me, I pray you, upon one of these islands, that I may have comfort in my dying hour."

The pilot, whose rough nature had been touched with pity for the condition of the unfortunate astrologer, listened to his prayer and conveyed him to the shore, where he found the opinion he had given of the character of the coast to be correct. He laid him on the herbage in the shade, where the poor wanderer soon expired. The pilot then dug a grave at