Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/337

Rh to Tlascala to urge upon the lords the necessity for accepting peace. Before returning, Cortés ascended a hill, and thence saw the capital, with its surrounding villages. "Behold," he said to those who had objected to his leniency with the towns, "what boots it to have killed these people, when so many enemies exist over there?"

Although left in comparative peace for some days, the end of the campaign seemed to the Spaniards as remote as ever. The harass and hardship of their life, the vigils, the cold nights, the scanty supplies, the absence of salt, medicine, and many other necessaries, all this was severely felt, particularly since so large a number were either sick or wounded, including Cortés and Padre Olmedo. Nos vimos todos heridos â dos, y â tres heridos, y muy cansados, y otros dolientes. . . . y faltauan ya sobre cincuenta y cinco soldados que se auian muerto en las batallas, y dolencias, y frios, y estauan dolientes otros doze.' Bernal Diaz, 46. Prescott, i. 458, is careless enough to accept this verbally, but the run of the text here and elsewhere indicates that the sentence is rather figurative. The last four words, 'twelve others were on the sick-bed,' indicate that only three per cent. were laid low, and that the general health and condition must therefore have been tolerably good. This also indicates that the 55 missing soldiers could not have died since they left Vera Cruz, as certain writers assume. The only obstacles under which the soldiers could have succumbed in any number were the several battles with the Tlascaltecs, wherein the total number of the wounded nowhere foots up to more than 100. Of these 50 per cent. could not have died, to judge from the warfare engaged in, and from the very few, a couple at the most, it is said, who fell on the field. Nor could diseases have killed many during a month's march through a fine and fertile country, for the passage of the Cofre de Perote did not affect the Spaniards seriously. Hence it must be assumed that the 55 dead include the 35 who fell out of the ranks ere the army reached Villa Rica. This leaves, say, fifteen casualties for the present expedition since it left Villa Rica, and that appears to be a fair proportion. The only one who rightly interprets Bernal Diaz on this point appears to be Torquemada, who says, 'desde que salieron de Cuba, se avian muerto cinquenta y cinco Castellanos.' i. 428. The old soldier confirms the interpretation by stating in more than one place that the Spaniards numbered 430, or nearly so, on entering Mexico City. ubi sup., 65, 109.

The ailments and wounds were as a rule slight, yet they helped to magnify dangers, and to dim every cheerful aspect. The very cessation of regular hostile demonstrations