Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/104

 manœuvres and some ambushes we constantly laid for them, they would always get the worst of it. Certainly it was an admirable thing to see, for, although the injury and damage, with which they were threatened from us at the hour of our retreat, was notorious, they would nevertheless follow us until they saw us out of the city. With this we returned to our camp, and the captains of the other camps reported to me that they had done very well that day, and had killed many people by water and land.

The captain Pedro de Alvarado who was in Tacuba, wrote to me that he had captured two or three bridges, for he was on the causeway which leads from the market of Temixtitan to Tacuba, and the three brigantines I had given him could reach a landing place on the same causeway, and he had not been exposed to as much danger as on the preceding days, and where he was there were more bridges and breaks in the causeway, although there were fewer roofs than in the other directions.

During all this time the natives of Iztapalapa, Oichilobuzco, Culuacan, Mezquique, and Cuitaguaca, which as  Defection of the Mexican's Vassals I have said are on the fresh-water lake, would never seek peace, nor had we all this time sustained any injury from them; and as the Calcans were very loyal vassals of Your Majesty, and saw that we had enough to do with those of the great city, they joined with other towns on the borders of the lake, to do all the damage they could to those towns on the water. Seeing we were daily victorious over those of Temixtitan, and on account of the injury they were sustaining and might sustain from our friends, these rebellious natives determined to come; and they arrived in our camp and besought me to pardon them the past, and to order the Calcans and their other neighbours to do them no further injury. I told them