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 message to Tlascala, commanding the chiefs of the republic to attend him at this place to establish a peace, as we were still ignorant of what had taken place in consequence of our former message.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 20 of 796
Words from 5210 to 5469 of 221091