Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/288

264 I assure Your Highness I do not know where to begin, so as to finish what I would say of any part respecting it. For, as I have already said, what greater grandeur can there be, than that a barbarian monarch, like him, should have imitations in gold, silver, stones, and feather-work, of all the things existing under heaven in his dominion? — gold, and silver, things, so like to nature, that there is not a silversmith in the world who could do it better; and, respecting the stones, there is no imagination which can divine the instruments with which they were so perfectly executed; and respecting the feather-work, neither in wax, nor in embroidery, could nature be so marvellously imitated.

So far, the extent of Montezuma's kingdom is not known, but everywhere within two hundred leagues on this and the other side of this capital,  Extent of the Aztec Sovereignty wherever he sent, his messengers were not disregarded, although there were some provinces in the midst of these countries with which he was at war. From what has been learned, and from what I understand from him, I judge that his territories were as large as Spain; for he sent messengers from here to Puntunchan, at sixty leagues distance, beyond the river of Grijalba, ordering the natives of a city, called Cumatan, to give themselves as vassals to Your Majesty; and that is a distance of two hundred and thirty leagues from the great city. This I know for I have made the Spaniards go a distance of more than a hundred and fifty in that direction.

All the other lords of this country and province, especially those of the neighbourhood, resided as I have already said, a greater part of the year in the capital,