CHAPTER LXIII.

CHAPTER LXIII.

_Of the terrible battles we fought with the Tlascallans, and what
further happened._

The next morning, after we had commended ourselves to God in prayer, we broke up our quarters. Each company marched in close order, and our cavalry were to be particularly upon their guard; were either to advance suddenly, or fall back upon us, according as circumstances might be, and at all events to watch that our ranks were nowhere broken, and that no one strayed from his own company.

After we had marched onwards for some time we came up with two large bodies of the enemy, amounting to about 6000 men. They set up a most terrific noise with their drums and trumpets, and yelled awfully. They then let fly their arrows, threw their lances at us, and upon the whole were most daringly valiant. Cortes now ordered us to halt, and despatched three Indians, whom we had made prisoners the day before, to the enemy, requesting them to stay hostilities, as we were very desirous of looking upon them as brothers and friends. At the same time he ordered one of our warriors, Diego de Godoy, who was the royal secretary, to pay particular attention to everything that should take place, in order that if any reproach were made us for having destroyed any of the Indians, he might give evidence, and be able to prove that we on our side had shown every disposition for peace.

The prisoners went off with this message to the enemy, but not the slightest notice was taken of it; on the contrary, they attacked us so furiously that we could no longer look idly on. "Forward! St. Jacob is with us! On to the enemy!" cried Cortes; and in an instant we greeted the Indians so sharply with our firearms, that numbers were immediately killed and wounded; among the former three chiefs. After this first volley they fell back to about the distance of a musket-shot, where they took up their position. Here an army of above 40,000 warriors, commanded by their general-in-chief Xicotencatl, lay in ambush. Their standards bore his colours, white and variegated. As the ground here was full of deep cavities our cavalry were completely useless, until by using the greatest precaution they managed to pass over these. This was not done without considerable risk, for the enemy plied their bows and lances with great dexterity, having, moreover, the advantage of the higher ground. The stones from their slings were no less annoying; but all this only lasted until we had gained the level ground. For now we richly rewarded them for their pains, and killed great numbers. Yet we durst not venture to open our ranks; for the instant any one stepped out to assist any other soldier or officer he was that moment dangerously wounded. We were, therefore, obliged to keep our ranks firmly closed, and by degrees had to contend with more than twenty different divisions, which was, indeed, pretty hot work. Besides all this the Indians kept continually throwing sand in our faces to blind us. Here, indeed, the great mercy of God alone could save us. The chief object of the enemy was to capture one of our horses, in which they did not altogether fail; for, as Pedro de Moron on his well-trained mare, attended by three others of our cavalry, was attempting to break through the enemy's ranks, the Indians wrenched the lance out of his hand, and fell furiously upon him with their broad swords, wounding him severely. They gave his mare such a terrific cut with the same weapon in the neck, that the animal instantly fell down dead. If Moron's three companions had not immediately hastened to his assistance, he would have shared his horse's fate; for this gave our whole company time to come up.

I must again repeat, that the worst was, we had to keep ourselves so close together in order not to run the danger of being cut off, which of course greatly encumbered our movements. Nevertheless, we were obliged to open our ranks to rescue the mare and Moron whom they were already dragging off half dead. The mare we were obliged to relinquish, though we managed to cut the girth asunder in order at least to save the saddle. In this battle we had nine wounded. As for the enemy I believe on this occasion we killed four of their chiefs. We pushed forward shoulder to shoulder, and made considerable havoc with our swords. The enemy retreated, carrying off the dead mare, which was subsequently cut into pieces to be sent into every township of Tlascalla. As we afterwards learnt, the horse's shoes, the Flanders hat, and the letter we sent them, were brought as an offering to their idols. The mare belonged to Juan Sede�o, who, on the previous day, was wounded in three several places, and had, therefore, lent her to Moron. This Moron was a capital horse soldier, and died a few days after; at least, I do not remember to have seen him again after this battle.

We had fought for a good hour, and our firearms must have done considerable destruction among the enemy who stood so crowded together. Every man among us did his duty, and we fought away like brave warriors, for in all truth we were placed in greater jeopardy this time than we had ever been before. Numbers of the Indians lay dead on the field of battle; among whom were eight of the principal chiefs, all sons of old caziques, who dwelt together in the chief town of the country. At last our enemies retreated in good order, which we were glad enough to see, for we could scarcely stand any longer from over-fatigue, nor durst we think of following the enemy. Add to which, the ground was greatly to our disadvantage, partly on account of the number of straggling houses, partly on account of a species of pits in which many of the inhabitants dwelt. This battle was fought on the first two days of September, 1519, near the village of Tehuacacinco, and we returned fervent thanks to God for having rescued us from such great peril and for the victory we had gained.

After the battle, we fell back to some temples, which were very high, and large enough to serve us for castles. We dressed the wounds of our men with the fat of Indians, as we had done on previous occasions. Five of our horses were wounded, and fifteen men, of whom one subsequently died. Upon this we took our suppers, and made a good meal off the number of dogs and fowls which we found in the dwellings. Before, however, we lay down to rest, we posted our sentinels, and continually patrolled during the night: not before all these things were properly ordered did we lie down, and slept till morning.

For the rest, we made fifteen prisoners, among whom were two of the most distinguished personages; but we could never discover how many we killed or wounded, as it was customary with the Tlascallans immediately to carry off the wounded and dead from the field of battle.[24]

[24] (This note refers to the last sentence of the chapter.) To this custom of the Tlascallans of carrying off their killed and wounded from the field of battle, the historian de Solis partially attributes Cortes' great success in these battles; for as a great number of the enemy were constantly occupied in this work, they naturally offered a less formidable front, and considerable openings were made in their ranks. (p. 147.)