was willing to send Cortes gold, silver, precious stones, or whatever else he wanted, at whatever place he might fix. Cortes answered: "I am quite unable to respond to your wishes; for my sovereign's instructions order me to visit your capital and your king, and to carefully examine everything in order that I may report exactly what I have observed." When this determination was communicated to them, the messengers asked permission from Cortes to send one of their number to deliver his response to Muteczuma. The authorisation being granted, one of them left the camp, returning on the sixth day, and bringing from Muteczuma ten wrought vases of equal weight and of admirable workmanship, fifteen hundred costumes, a thousand times more valuable than the first ones, carried on the backs of slaves, for they have no beasts of burden. Upon hearing this, people of weak imagination will doubtless be much astonished and think my report is fabulous; for they have never heard anything equal to it and will find that it passes their understanding; but I shall give them satisfaction, when I come to speak of the revenues of Muteczuma.

We have now long enough abandoned the Tascaltecans. Let us describe their town and explain its characteristics. We have already touched upon the fact that Tascalteca is a republic, somewhat democratic, somewhat aristocratic, as was the Roman government before it degenerated into a despotic monarchy.' Great chieftains have their place in it, but nobility is not tolerated. Cortes writes, and those who have returned from those parts confirm this opinion, that Tascalteca is much larger and more populous than Granada, and that it is amply provided with all the necessaries of life. The people eat maize-bread, chickens, game, and fresh-water fish, but not sea-fish, because it is too great a distance from the sea, being fifty

Cortes compared the form of government with that of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa.

leagues inland. There are also various vegetables. Inside the town walls, which are built of stone, are lofty fortified houses, also of stone, for the Tascaltecans are always on their guard, living as they do in a state of perpetual hostility towards their neighbours. They hold fairs and markets; they wear clothes and shoes. Golden necklaces set with jewels greatly please them, and they attach great importance to aigrettes and head-dresses of various coloured feathers which serve them as ornaments in time of war. Gold is everywhere used. Firewood, carried on men's backs, as well as beams for carpenter's work, planks, bricks, stones, and lime are for sale in their markets. Their architects and their potters are very clever, and none of our earthenware vases are modelled with more art than theirs. Herbalists sell medicinal plants. They make use of baths. It is known that they have a system of government and laws which they obey.

The entire province has a circumference of ninety leagues. The capital is Tascalteca, but there are other fortified places, fortresses, and towns, not to mention very fertile valleys and mountains. The population is numerous and very warlike, on account of the perpetual state of warfare with Muteczuma. One of the neighbouring provinces, Guazuzingo, has the same form of government as Tascalteca; that is to say, republican. In both these countries thieves are detested, and when they are captured they are carried bound to the public squares where they are beaten to death. They love justice.

Cortes remained twenty days at Tascalteca during which time the envoys of Muteczuma never left him. They made efforts to dissuade him from the Tascaltecan alliance, and counselled him not to confide in such faithless and perfidious people. The Tascaltecans on the other hand affirmed that Muteczuma's people were tyrants, and that if Cortes put his trust in them, they would lead him to his ruin. Although he did not reveal the fact, Cortes

was pleased at this contradiction, which could only turn to his profit; and so he answered both parties with fair speeches.

The messengers of Muteczuma insisted that Cortes should leave the town of the Tascaltecans, and betake himself to another city hardly five leagues distant which was a dependeny of Muteczuma. This place was called Chiurutecal, and they pretended that it would be simpler to conclude a treaty there with their sovereign. The Tascaltecans informed Cortes, on the contrary, that ambuscades had been prepared along the roads leading to that town, and also inside the walls. They declared that the road had been cut in various places, rendering it impracticable for the horses, and that other roads had been opened; inside the town some streets had been blocked and others had been fortified. Moreover the inhabitants had collected quantities of stones upon the terraces and small towers and windows overlooking the squares and streets, in order to crush the Spaniards with them as they marched below. As a proof of the hostile intention of the inhabitants towards Cortes and his men, the Tascaltecans called attention to the fact that none of them had come to visit Cortes, as the people of Guazuzingo had done, although the latter lived at a greater distance. This fact was true, and Cortes sent to Chiurutecal to complain of this insolent negligence. Upon receipt of his message an embassy was sent, but it was composed of common people of no consequence, who told him that they had not appeared before because the Spaniards were in a hostile country, but that

I

' Meaning Cholula, a sacred city under theocratic government, where stood the great pyramid dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. This remarkable construction of unknown antiquity and uncertain origin still stands, though so covered over with earth and shrubbery that its outlines are disfigured and its artificial character hardly distinguishable. Consult Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, lib. i., cap. iii.; also Bandelier's Archéological Tour.

otherwise their intentions towards him were of the very best.

When Cortes was informed of the outrage they had put upon him in failing to send their principal citizens, he sent these vulgar messengers back with threats that if within three days the chiefs of Chiurutecal did not present themselves in person before him, he would go and find them; and that he would teach them what it would cost them to provoke his wrath by thus delaying to pay homage to the King of Spain, who was sovereign master of the whole country. They came and presented their excuses. Cortes received them, but on condition that they should keep their promises, and they bound themselves to execute any orders they might receive; they added: "If you will come to visit us, you will be convinced of the sincerity of our promises; at the same time you will see that the Tascaltecans have lied and that we are ready to pay whatever tribute you may fix." Cortes hesitated a long time, but finally decided to take the risk and accede to the wishes of Muteczuma's messengers by going to Chiurutecal.

Upon learning this decision, and seeing their counsels were useless, the Tascaltecans declared they would by no means permit Cortes to trust himself to the loyalty of Muteczuma's people, to the extent of giving them a free hand to injure him. They showed themselves grateful to one who had been so gracious to them, and who, after such hostilities, had made friends of them when he might have wreaked well-merited vengeance and destroyed them. They insisted on furnishing him with a Prætorian guard of one hundred thousand warriors, and it was in vain that Cortes forbade them. During the first day he camped, surrounded by this phalanx of about one hundred thousand men, on the bank of a river to which he came. At this place he selected a body-guard of two thousand from amongst the number, dismissing the others with the thanks they merited. The priests of Chiurutecal

came some distance outside the city to meet the approaching Spaniards, preceded, according to their custom, by young men and girls singing and by musicians playing on drums and trumpets. Upon entering the city the Spaniards were comfortably lodged and food was provided, though scantily, and ill-served. It was suspected that some streets were barricaded and that stones had been collected on the terraces of the houses as the Tascaltecans had foretold.

Meanwhile new messengers had arrived from Muteczuma, who held secret conversations with the people of Chiurutecal but none with Cortes. When asked what communications these envoys had made to them, the inhabitants were unable to reply. The suspicions of Cortes were aroused, for he remembered the warnings of the Tascaltecans, and through the interpreter, Geronimo de Aguilar, who knew the languages of the countries where he had been a prisoner for a long time, he called a young man and questioned him. The result of this interrogatory was as follows: the young man said, that the inhabitants of Chiurutecal had sent all the old men, women, and children out of the city when the Spaniards approached, but he did not know what their intentions

were.

I

The treachery was finally discovered in the following manner: a woman of Chiurutecal had taken into her house a young girl of Cempoal, who had followed her husband or lover. This woman spoke in the following terms to her guest: "My friend, come away with me." The other asked, "whither?" To which the first replied: "Out of the city and far from here." The Cempoalan asked for what motive? to which her hostess replied: "This night a large number of Muteczuma's soldiers will enter the town, and everybody found inside its walls will be massacred. I am sorry for you, and therefore reveal this plot. Lose no time, unless you wish to perish The "young girl" was Marina.

VOL. 11-6