sake of the white men that half the houses in Tlascala would be in mourning.
In one of the skirmishes by the way four or five Spaniards were badly wounded; among them was Cortez himself. The death of a horse at this time caused great lamentation. The general says, "We derived some consolation from the flesh of this animal, which we ate, not leaving even his skin, so great were our necessities," In this sorry plight they traveled about fifty miles to reach a point only eighteen miles distant, as a bird flies, from the City of Mexico.
About a week after the retreat the troops stood on a mountain-ridge from whose height they looked eastward over the vast plain of Otumba. It was the place called by the early settlers of Mexico Teot-huacan—"the habitation of the gods." Here were built some of the largest and oldest pyramids on this continent, and here the Aztecs, coming from their distant home a tribe of wandering savages, found one of the most flourishing Toltec cities. At the time when the Spaniards stood on these mountains the ruins of this nameless city were strewn over the plain, but a pyramid almost as large as the great pyramid of Egypt was still standing, crowned with a temple dedicated to the sun. As the army came to the summit of this range they saw what well might strike terror to their hearts. Spread before them as far as the eye could reach was a mighty host arrayed for battle. The white tunics of the common soldiers made the plain look like a field of snow. Gay banners held aloft—each the ensign of some clan or tribe—showed that the multitude had been gathered from many parts of the country. They were there to dispute the passage of the Spaniards to Tlascala.
"We thought it certain that our last hour had come,"
