Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/103

 as not to be obliged every day to again go over so much danger and trouble, which unquestionably were very great, and certainly it must appear thus to those who were absent. But Your Majesty should know that this could in no wise be done, because two things were required to do it, either that the camp should be transferred from where it was to the square enclosure of the towers of the idols, or that a guard should be placed at the bridges during the night; and neither one nor the other could be done without great danger, nor was there possibility of it, because placing the camp in the city we should have had to sustain a thousand contests day and night and at every hour, and they would have fought us and given us intolerable labour, attacking us on every side, they being so many and we so few. As for placing people to guard the bridges by night, the Spaniards were so weary after fighting all day, that it was impossible to do this, and hence we were obliged to retake them every day when we entered the city. That day, as we were delayed in retaking those bridges and refilling them, no time was left for anything else, except that by another principal street leading to the city of Tacuba, two other bridges were captured and filled up, and many good houses in this street were burned; thus the afternoon came on and with it the hour for retiring, which was always accompanied by little less danger than taking the bridges, for seeing that we were in retreat, those of the city would recover as much courage as if they bad won the greatest victory in the world, and we were flying from them. To retire it was necessary that the bridges should be well filled up and made level with the ground of the streets, so that the horsemen might freely gallop from one place to another; and as they pursued so eagerly we sometimes feigned in the retreat to be flying, and then the horsemen would turn on them and we would always capture twelve or thirteen of the bravest, and with these