Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/339

Rh which they can fight. They keep a great quantity of all sorts of large and small stones all along this wall which they use in fighting. This city may have some five or six thousand households, and in the surrounding hamlets subject to them as many others or more. It is very extensive, and within the city are many gardens of fruits and aromatic herbs, as is their custom.

After resting three days in this said city, we went to another, called Izzucan, four leagues distant from Guacachula, because I was informed that there were many Culuans in garrison there also, and that the people of the said city, and of other towns and places dependent on them, were, and showed themselves to be, very partial to the Culuans because their chief was a blood relation of Montezuma. So many of the natives, vassals of Your Majesty, accompanied me that they almost covered the country and the mountains as far as we could see, and in truth there were more than one hundred and twenty thousand men; and we arrived at the said town of Izzunca at ten o'clock, finding it deserted by women and young people, but there were about five or six thousand well-armed warriors in it. When the Spaniards appeared before it, they attempted some defence of their city, but they shortly abandoned it, because from the side to which we were guided for entering we found a practical entrance. We pursued them through the city, forcing them to jump over the crenellated top of the wall into a river which surrounds it on the other side, whose bridges being destroyed we were somewhat delayed in crossing it; and we followed in pursuit of them about a league and a half, in which distance I believe few escaped. Returning to the city, I sent two of its natives who had been taken prisoner to speak to the principal persons of the city, for the chief of it had also gone with the Culuans of the garrison, so as to induce them to return to their city; and I promised them in the name of Your Majesty that,