Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/240

232 were marked a number of towns about to attack them, with the roads the parties would take. A force was sent immediately to help these Chalco allies. The wild ravines and mountain-fastnesses now resounded with the din of war as Cortez made a circuit of the valley, leaving behind him a track marked by death and ruin.

Martin Lopez now had his boats all ready; eight thousand Tlascalans had been detailed to bring them in pieces on their shoulders a distance of fifty-four miles. The way was rough and steep, leading over the mountainous back-bone of the continent. This procession of porters was six miles long. Besides these were thousands of armed warriors as a guard, and two thousand men loaded with provision for the multitude. When the long procession came in sight of Tezcuco, Cortez went out to meet it. A salute was fired, the drums beat, the bugles sounded and the cheers of thousands rent the air. For six hours this vast fierce multitude streamed into Tezcuco. Cortez might well tremble over the responsibility of leading an army which were not only savages, but cannibals with a thirst for Aztec blood which was no mere figure of speech. Before the war was over he found that it was so much harder to hold back his merciless allies than to let them carry on a battle in their ordinary way that he set them loose to ravage the country like fiends in human shape.

Every day during these weeks of preparation the army increased in numbers. The Tezcucans must have come back to their beautiful city in crowds, for, cold as they were at first, they rallied under a new chief, a grandson of Hungry Fox, and came to Cortez fifty thousand strong. His first blow was struck at the aqueduct by which the City of Mexico was supplied with water.