Europeans as the capitals of Mars and Sirius.  The wonderful catalogue of which we speak is rich in relics of this hero.  We are offered a chance to buy his “trunk,” a carved wooden trunk in which Cortes carried his personal property.  His army chest, which held the sacred gold of Montesuma and the treasure of the Temple of the Sun, is to be sold for a consideration.  His pistols are also on sale, and his “field-glass,” which must be an exceedingly early example of that useful invention.  Whether the field-glass is binocular or not, the catalogue does not pause to inform us.  Corslets worn by his brave Castilians are also to be vended, perhaps the very leather and steel that guarded the honest heart of good Bernal Diaz.  But all these treasures, and even the very “scissors” of Fernando Cortes, are less enticingly romantic than the iron head of Alvarado’s spear.  Surely no spear since that of Peleus’ son, not to be wielded by meaner men, has ever been so well worth acquiring as the spear of Alvarado, Tonatrish the sun-god, as he was called by the Mexicans, by reason of his long, bright, golden hair.  This may have been, probably was, the spear that Alvarado bore when he charged up the steps of the great Teocalli or God’s house, rained upon by Aztec darts, driving before him the hordes of heathendom.  With this very spear, when the summit was gained, he may have fought in that strange fight, high in air, beheld by all the people of the city and all the allies of Spain.  Here stood the Christian cross; there was planted the war-god, Huitzilopochtli; there the two faiths fought out their battle, and the vanquished were tossed dying down the sides of the Teocalli.  Then the Spaniard was victorious; fire was set to the Teocalli, and the cannibal Aztec religion rolled away in the clouds of smoke and vapour of flame.  With the self-same spear (no doubt) did Alvarado make his famous leap, using it as a leaping pole to clear the canal during the retreat of the Night of Dread.  Assuredly Alvarado’s spear, or even the iron head of it alone, is an object worthy of an archaeologist’s regard, and scarce less curious than that

   “Broomstick o’ the Witch of Endor,
   Weel shod wi’ brass,”

which Burns describes in the collection of Captain Grove.  But extraordinary as is the charm of these relics of Anahuac and of Castille, perhaps even more engrossing is the last article in this romantic catalogue, namely, “a green portfolio” giving an account of the various articles, and how they came into the hands of their proprietor.  Their pedigree, if authentic, must be most important.