Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/62

 vassals of Your Majesty and to be our friends, as they had never killed any Spaniards nor rebelled against Your Majesty's service. They brought me certain pieces of cotton cloth for which I thanked them, and promised them that if they were good, they would receive good treatment; so they went away very well content.

The Friday following, which was the fifth of April of the said year 152 1, I left this city of Tesaico, with the  Cortes Takes the Field thirty horsemen and three hundred footmen who had been equipped, leaving in it twenty other horsemen and three hundred footmen under the command of Gonzalo de Sandoval, the alguacil mayor. More than twenty thousand men of Tesaico went with me, and we marched in good order and slept in a town in Calco, called Talmanalco, where we were well received and quartered. Since the Calcans became our friends, they have kept a strong fort and garrison there, for it is on the Culuan frontier. We arrived at Calco the next day at nine o'clock but did not stop, except to tell the chiefs of my intention to make a tour round the lakes, as I believed that after accomplishing this march, which was important, the thirteen brigantines would be found complete and ready to be launched. After speaking to the Calcans, I left at vespers that day, and reached one of their towns where more than forty thousand friendly warriors joined us, and there we slept that night. As the natives of the town told me that the Culuans were expecting me in the field, I ordered that at a quarter before daybreak everybody should be on foot and ready.

After hearing mass, we began our march, I taking the vanguard with twenty horsemen, and leaving ten for the rear-guard; and in this order we crossed some very steep sierras. At two o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived at a very steep hillock on the top of which there were