Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 2.djvu/438

Conquest of Mexico

eighth of July, not the tenth, as Clavigero misquotes him (Stor. del Messico, tom. lii. pp. 135, 136, nota); and from the general's accurate account of their progress each day, it appears that they left the capital on the last night of June, or rather the morning of July ist. It was the night, he also adds, following the affair of the bridges in the city.—Comp. Rel. Seg., ap. Lorenzana, pp. 142-149.

Page 109 (¹).—"The Allies, seeing this great deed, were struck with amazement, and on the instant threw themselves prostrate on the ground as a sign of homage before an act so heroic, astonishing and strange that they could not have imagined it; they made obeisance to the Sun, eating handfuls of earth and tearing up the grass of the fields, and crying out loudly that Alvarado was indeed the Child of the Sun."—(Camargo, Hist, de Tlascala, MS.) This writer consulted the process instituted by Alvarado's heirs, in which they set forth the merits of their ancestor, as attested by the most valorous captains of the Tlascalan nation, present at the conquest. It may he that the famous leap was among these "merits," of which the historian speaks. M. de Humboldt, citing Camargo, so considers it. (Essai Politique, tom. ii. p. 75.) This would do more than anything else to establish the fact. But Camargo's language does not seem to me necessarily to warrant the inference.

Page 109 (²).—The spot is pointed out to every traveller. It is where a ditch, of no great width, is traversed by a small bridge not far from the western extremity of the Alameda. As the place received its name in Alvarado's time, the story could scarcely have been discountenanced by him. But, since the length of the leap, strange to say, is nowhere given, the reader can have no means of passing his own judgment on its probability.

Page 113 (¹).—"Tacuba," says that interesting traveller, Latrobe, "lies near the foot of the hills, and is at the present day chiefly noted for the large and noble church which was erected there by Cortés. And hard by, you trace the lines of a Spanish encampment. I do not hazard the opinion, but it might appear by the coincidence, that this was the very position chosen by Cortés for his entrenchment, after the retreat just mentioned, and before he commenced his painful route towards Otumba." (Rambler in Mexico, Letter 5.) It is evident, from our text, that Cortés could have thrown up no entrenchment here at least on his retreat from the capital.

Page 113 (²).—Lorenzana, Viage, p. xiii.

Page 115 (¹).—The table below may give the reader some idea of the discrepancies in numerical estimates, even among eye-witnesses, and writers who, having access to the actors, are nearly of equal authority.

	Spaniards.	Indians.
Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 145,	150	2000	killed and missing.
Cano, ap. Oviedo, lib. 33, cap. 54,.	1170	8000	"⁠⁠"
Probanza, etc.,	200	2000	"⁠⁠"
Oviedo, Hist, de las Ind., lib. 33, cap. 13,	150	2000	"⁠⁠"
Camargo,	450	4000	"⁠⁠"
Gomara, cap. 109,	450	4000	"⁠⁠"
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., cap. 88,	450	4000	"⁠⁠"
Sahagun, lib. 12, cap. 24,	350	2000	"⁠⁠"
Herrera, dec. 2, lib. 10, cap. 12,	150	4000	"⁠⁠"

Bernal Diaz does not take the trouble to agree with himself. After stating that the rear, on which the loss fell heaviest, consisted of 120 men, he adds, in the same paragraph, that 150 of these were slain, which number swells to 200 in a few lines further! Falstaff's men in buckram!—See Hist, de la Conquista, cap. 128. Cano's estimate embraces, it is true, those—but their number was comparatively small—who perished subsequently on the march. The same authority states, that 270 of the garrison, ignorant of the proposed departure of their countrymen, were perfidiously

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