Produced by KD Weeks, Juliet Sutherland and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note
This original of this text contained numerous punctuation errorsand several other obvious printer's errors. It also suffered fromthe age of the volume, particularly near the margins, both leftand right. Wherever the correct characters could be reliablyconfirmed, they have been corrected or restored.
Please consult the detailed notes at the end of the text for anlist of those issues, and their resolution, as well as any otherissues that arose during the preparation of this text.
The current format could not reproduce italics characters, whichwere used to emphasize non-English words. Italics will be denotedhere with the underscore character as _italics_. The use of "smallcapitals" was also not possible, and have all been simply shiftedup to all capital letters. The 'oe' ligature, which appears twice,has been separated.
The 53 footnotes have been gathered at the end of each chapter. Thesymbols used in the text (e.g., "*") have replaced with sequentialnumbers.
OVER THE BRIDGES, THE HORSEMEN GALLOPED]
THE FAIR GOD
OR, THE LAST OF THE 'TZINS
A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico
BY
LEW WALLACE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERIC PAPE
From Mexico ... a civilization that might have instructed Europe was crushed out.... It has been her [Spain's] evil destiny to ruin two civilizations, Oriental and Occidental, and to be ruined thereby herself.... In America she destroyed races more civilized than herself.--DRAPER, _Intellectual Development of Europe_.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1873 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
COPYRIGHT 1898 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO.
COPYRIGHT 1901 BY LEW WALLACE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.
A personal experience, though ever so plainly told, is, generallyspeaking, more attractive to listeners and readers than fiction. Acircumstance from the tongue or pen of one to whom it actually happened,or who was its hero or victim, or even its spectator, is always moreinteresting than if given second-hand. If the makers of history,contradistinguished from its writers, could teach it to us directly, onetelling would suffice to secure our lasting remembrance. The reason is,that the narrative so proceeding derives a personality and reality nototherwise attainable, which assist in making way to our imagination andthe sources of our sympathy.
With this theory or bit of philosophy in mind, when the annexed book wasresolved upon, I judged best to assume the character of a translator,which would enable me to write in the style and spirit of one who notmerely lived at the time of the occurrences woven in the text, but wasacquainted with many of the historical personages who figure therein,and was a native of the beautiful valley in which the story is located.Thinking to make the descriptions yet more real, and therefore moreimpressive, I took the liberty of attributing the composition to aliterator who, whatever may be thought of his works, was not himself afiction. Without meaning to insinuate that THE FAIR GOD would have beenthe worse for creation by Don Fernando de Alva, the Tezcucan, I wishmerely to say that it is not a translation. Having been so written,however, now that publication is at hand, change is impossible; hence,nothing is omitted,--title-page, introductory, and conclusion are givento the reader exactly as they were brought to the publisher by theauthor.
L.W. Boston Mass. August 8, 1873.