it is an admirable thing to see the charm and grandeur of this place. We reposed that day here, where the natives provided us all the pleasure and service they could. The next day we left, and at eight o'clock in the morning we arrived at a great town called Yautepeque, where many hostile warriors were awaiting us. When we first arrived, it seemed that they wanted to make us some sign of peace, either out of fear or to deceive us, but immediately afterward, without any further cause, they fled, abandoning their town. As I did not care to delay there, I pursued them with my thirty horsemen for about two leagues till I got them to another town called Gilutepeque,[1] where we killed many of them. We found the people in this town off their guard, because we got there ahead of their scouts, so some were killed, and many women and children were taken, and the rest fled. I remained there two days, believing the chief would give himself as vassal to Your Majesty, but as he never came I ordered fire to be set to the town when I departed. Before I left it, there came certain persons of the former town, called Yautepeque, praying me to pardon them and offering to give themselves as vassals to Your Majesty. I received them willingly because they had already been well chastised.
On the same day I left, I came at nine o'clock in the morning within sight of a well-fortified town, called Coadnabaced,[2] within which was a large force Capture of of warriors. The town was so strong, and Cuernavaca surrounded by so many hills and ravines some sixty feet in depth, that no horseman could enter it
- ↑ Xiuhtepec.
- ↑ Cuauhnahuac: the present Cuernavaca. This town, the ancient capital of the Tlahuica tribes, situated on an isolated sort of promontory at an elevation of over five thousand feet, and surrounded, save on one side, by a narrow but profound canon which was impassable, was defended by a strong garrison under Coatzin, its lord. The feat of the Tlascalan, to which Cortes does scanty justice, was
