The Nomadic Alternative – Page 219

West, the peoples of Europe were already conditioned for the luminous cities of Aztec America. The printing press had everywhere diffused a class of romantic Late Gothic novels, all of which were versions of the beautiful hero-damsel in distress-fight the monster-reward of the treasure theme. Amadis of Gaul and Sergas de Espandian were the most successful titles. They were the literary expression of that last outburst of Knight Errantry, the mock heroics of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Emperor and clerk read them insatiably, and though St. Theresa piously renounced them as a youthful aberration, the peevish militancy of her later life suggests that she continued to see herself as the active hero rather than the passive heroine.

Here, written before the discovery of America, is a description of the hero, Sergas de Espandian, helping himself to his treasure:

"... and he alone raised the outermost glass door; the inner one coloured sky-blue, was guarded by a lock of pure diamond stone. The hinges were of very precious rubies, all inlaid with enormous precious stones and a huge mother of pearl ..." And when Cortez and his hidalgos arrived at Montezuma's capital, their eyes ranged over the green quetzal plumes, sun-discs of gold, mosaics of turquoise, emeralds, red coral and pearl shell, mirror-black surfaces of obsidian and pyramids of fine masonry; and, like Chuang Tzu and the butter-fly, could not decide if they were dreaming Amadis of Gaul or Amadis of Gaul were dreaming them. "... we were amazed", wrote Diaz, "and we said it was like the enchanted things related in the book of Amadis because of the great towers, temples and buildings rising from the water. And some of the soldiers even asked whether the things we saw were not a dream ..."

A simple desire for loot cannot explain the enthusiasm which greets colonial adventures in their initial stages, nor the persistence with which they maintain them long after the riches have evaporated. Rather the colonial outpouring is a national Road of Trials - a flight from the grief of settlement. The apparent stability of British civil institutions does not depend on the depressing effect of the climate or some character for obeying laws