Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/761

Rh while to the buildings on either side the torch was applied. The object of the movement was partly to open intercourse with Alvarado's forces, which were advancing less rapidly, owing to the number of intrenched channels. Progress was slowly increased during the succeeding entries, when Andrés de Tápia and Ávila pushed along adjoining streets with detachments.

One result of the Spanish successes was the submission of all the threatening and neutral lake and island towns to the south and south-west of Mexico, from Iztapalapan and Culhuacan to Cuitlahuac. To this step they had been partly impelled by the repeated raids of the Chalcan confederates, and since their submission was so tardy they were employed chiefly as laborers and purveyors. Gomara now estimates the native auxiliaries at two hundred thousand men, "some engaged intent on fighting, some on eating, some on stealing, and many on gazing." These lake peoples, known as Chinampanecs, from their floating gardens and aquatic life, possessed canoes in abundance, and Cortés availed himself of this to reënforce the blockading fleet with a boat flotilla, three thousand in all, which harassed the city on every side, entering into the canals to burn and pillage, and landing sallying parties to carry desolation all through the suburbs.

Allured by the prospect of spoils, the Chinampanec crews arranged a plan whereby a still richer draught might be made. Before their adhesion to the Spanish cause, or knowledge of it had yet come to Quauhtemotzin, they sent to offer him their services against the invaders, with whom they proposed to deal treacherously. They were assigned a post and played their part well. No sooner were the Mexicans occupied with the Spanish forces than they rushed