The conduct of Cortez, when he first landed on the coast of Mexico, was as remarkable for that hardy spirit of adventure, to which success gives the name of policy, as his subsequent operations were for cruelty and perfidy. As soon as his army was on shore, he dismantled his fleet of such articles as would be useful in building a new one; he then set fire to his ships, and burnt them in presence of his men; that they might fight their battles with more desperate courage, knowing that it would be impossible to save themselves from a victorious enemy by flight. He constructed a fort, in which the iron and the rigging were preserved. No. 16. _With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay To the bright orb that gives the changing day._ Book II. Line 421. It is worthy of remark, that the countries where the worship of the sun has made the greatest figure are Egypt and Peru; the two regions of the earth the most habitually deprived of rain, and probably of clouds, which in other countries so frequently obstruct his rays and seem to dispute his influence. Tho in the rude ages of society it is certainly natural in all countries to pay adoration to the sun, as one of the visible agents of those changes in the atmosphere which most affect the people's happiness, yet it is reasonable to suppose that this adoration would be more unmixed, and consequently more durable, in climates where the agency of the sun appears unrivalled and supreme. On the supposition that Greece and Western Asia, regions whose early traditions are best known to us, derived their first theological ideas from Egypt, it is curious to observe how the pure heliosebia of Egypt degenerated in those climates in proportion as other visible agents seemed to exert their influence in human affairs. Greece is a mountainous country, subject to a great deal of lightning and other meteors, whose effects are tremendous and make stronger impressions on rude savages than the gentle energies of the sun. The Greeks therefore, having forgotten the source of their religious system, ceased to consider the sun as their supreme god; his agency being, in their opinion, subject to a more potent divinity, the Power of the air or Jupiter, whom they styled the Thunderer. So that Apollo, the god of light, became, in their mythology, the subject and offspring of the supreme god of the atmosphere. This religion became extremely confused and complicated with new fables, according to the temperature and other accidents of the different climates thro which it passed. The god of thunder obtained the supreme veneration generally in Europe: known in the south by the name of Jupiter or Zeus and in the north by that of Thor.