The Chief Made Answer, That His Sovereign
Would Assuredly Be Happy To Hold Intercourse With Ours, And That He Should
Convey A True Report Of This Request To Montezuma, Who Would Instruct Him
What Answer He Should Make.
Some able Mexican painters accompanied the two chiefs on this occasion,
who drew accurate representations of Cortes and the other Spanish officers
and soldiers, of Donna Marina, Aguilar, and every circumstance that seemed
worthy of remark, even our dogs, guns, and balls, in order to convey exact
information to Montezuma.
On perceiving this, Cortes ordered the cannon to
be loaded, and ordered the cavalry to be exercised in their presence under
Alvarado. He drew off the attention of the chiefs as if by accident, and
had the cannon discharged without any previous notice. The prodigious
noise of the explosion, and the strange effects of the balls among the
trees, impressed the natives with terror and amazement, yet their painters
endeavoured to represent even this for the information of their king.
Teuchtlile happened to notice a partly gilt helmet[4] on one of our
soldiers, which he said resembled one which had belonged to their
ancestors, and which was now placed on the head of Huitzilopochtli,
their god of war, and which he wished to carry along with them to
Montezuma. Cortes immediately complied with his request, saying that it
would be proper to return it full of grains of gold, as a fit present for
our emperor, in order to see whether the gold of Mexico was the same with
that of Spain.
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