Our Vessels Were Now In The Best Situation For Service; As Those On Board
Had Ready Access To The Houses In The Water, Which Were Beyond Our Reach,
Whence They Carried Away All The Best Of The Plunder.
Their crews also
discovered a great many valuable articles which the Mexicans had concealed
among the tall reeds on the borders of the lake, and they intercepted a
great deal that the inhabitants of the city endeavoured to carry away in
their canoes; all of which was beyond our reach:
Indeed the wealth which
our mariners procured at this time was quite incalculable, as Guatimotzin
and all his chiefs declared that far the greater part of the public
treasure fell into their hands.
Soon after the capture of Guatimotzin, it was ordered on his suggestion,
that all the remaining inhabitants of Mexico should remove to the
neighbouring towns, in order to have the the city cleared of the dead
bodies, to restore its salubrity. In consequence of this order, all the
causeways were full for three days and nights, of weak, sickly, and
squalid wretches, men, women, and children, covered with filth, worn out
by famine and disease, so that the sight was shocking in the extreme. When
all were gone who had been able to get away, we went to examine the
situation of the city, which was as I have already described, in a most
miserable state. All the streets, courts, and houses were covered with
dead bodies, among whom some miserable wretches were crawling about in the
different stages of the most offensive diseases, occasioned by famine, the
most unnatural food, and the pestilential smell of the corrupting carcases.
Even the trees were stripped of their bark, and the ground had been
everywhere dug up in search of any kind of roots it might be able to
afford.
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