A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 4 | Page 7

their backs; and as it was clear moon-light, our cavalry pursued them
with great effect, so that they returned to their camp heartily repenting
of their night attack; insomuch that it was reported they sacrificed two
of their priests for deceiving them to their hurt. In this action one only
of our allies was killed, and two Spaniards wounded; but our situation
was far from consolatory. Besides being dreadfully hard harassed by
fatigue, we had lost fifty-five of our soldiers from wounds, sickness,
and severity of the weather, and several were sick. Our general and
Father Olmedo were both ill of fevers: And we began to think it would
be impossible for us to reach Mexico, after the determined resistance

we had experienced from the Tlascalans.
In this extremity several of the officers and soldiers, among whom I
was one, waited on Cortes, and advised him to release his prisoners and
to make a fresh offer of friendship with the Tlascalans through these
people. He, who acted on all occasions like a good captain, never
failing to consult with us on affairs of importance, agreed with our
present advice, and gave orders accordingly. Donna Marina, whose
noble spirit and excellent judgment supported her on all occasions of
danger, was now of most essential service to us, as indeed she often
was; as she explained in the most forcible terms to these messengers,
that if their countrymen did not immediately enter into a treaty of peace
with us, that we were resolved to march against their capital, and would
utterly destroy it and their whole nation. Our messengers accordingly
went to Tlascala, where they waited on the chiefs of the republic, the
principal messenger bearing our letter in one hand, as a token of peace,
and a dart in the other as a signal of war, as if giving them their choice
of either. Having delivered our resolute message, it pleased GOD to
incline the hearts of these Tlascalan rulers to enter into terms of
accommodation with us. The two principal chiefs, named Maxicatzin
and Xicotencatl the elder[8], immediately summoned the other chiefs
of the republic to council, together with the cacique of Guaxocingo the
ally of the republic, to whom they represented that all the attacks which
they had made against us had been ineffectual, yet exceedingly
destructive to them; that the strangers were hostile to their inveterate
enemies the Mexicans, who had been continually at war against their
republic for upwards of an hundred years, and had so hemmed them in
as to deprive them of procuring cotton or salt; and therefore that it
would be highly conducive to the interests of the republic to enter into
an alliance with these strangers against their common enemies, and to
offer us the daughters of their principal families for wives, in order to
strengthen and perpetuate the alliance between us. This proposal was
unanimously agreed upon by the council, and notice was immediately
sent to the general of this determination, with orders to cease from
hostilities. Xicotencatl was much offended at this order, and insisted on
making another nocturnal attack on our quarters. On learning this
determination of their general, the council of Tlascala sent orders to
supersede him in the command, but the captains and warriors of the

army refused obedience to this order, and even prevented four of the
principal chiefs of the republic from waiting upon us with an invitation
to come to their city.
After waiting two days for the result of our message without receiving
any return, we proposed to march to Zumpacingo, the chief town of the
district in which we then were, the principal people of which had been
summoned to attend at our quarters, but had neglected our message. We
accordingly began our march for that place early of a morning, having
Cortes at our head, who was not quite recovered from his late illness.
The morning was so excessively cold, that two of our horses became so
exceedingly ill that we expected them to have died, and we were all
like to perish from the effects of the piercing winds of the Sierra
Nevada, or Snowy Mountains. This occasioned us to accelerate our
march to bring us into heat, and we arrived at Zumpacingo before
daybreak; but the inhabitants, immediately on getting notice of our
approach, fled precipitately from their houses, exclaiming that the
teules were coming to kill them. We halted in a place surrounded with
walls till day, when some priests and old men came to us from the
temples, making an apology for neglecting to obey our summons, as
they had been prevented by the threats of their general Xicotencatl.
Cortes ordered them to send us an immediate supply of provisions, with
which they complied, and then sent them with a