Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/318

198 writes, "than there is in half Spain, defended by a wall, barbican, and moats." The cacique who had invited the visit made amends for the cold reception of the previous chief, and the Spaniards remained for three days waiting in vain for the return of the messengers sent to Tlascala. They the passed onward, reinforced by about three hundred warriors from the town. Two leagues' march brought them to the boundary of Tlascala, conspicuous by a wall of stone and mortar nine feet in height and twenty in breadth, which stretched for six miles across a valley, from mountain to mountain, and was provided with breastworks and ditches.

Between latitude 19° and 20° ranges of hills cut the plain of Anáhuac into four unequal parts. In the centre of the one eastward stood the capital of Tlascala. The state so carefully protected was about the same small territory which we now sec on the map, with twenty-eight towns, and one hundred and fifty thousand families, according to the rough census taken by Cortés. A branch of the Teo-Chichimec nation, the Tlascaltecs had, according to tradition, entered upon the plateau shortly before the cognate Aztecs, and, after occupying for a time a tract on the western shore of Tezcuco Lake, they had tired of the constant disputes with neighboring tribes and proceeded eastward, in three divisions, the largest of which had, late in the thirteenth century, taken possession of Tlascala, 'Place of Bread.' The soil was rich, as implied by the name, but owing to the continued wars with former enemies, reinforced by the Aztecs, they found little opportunity to make available their wealth by means