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