Destruction of Mexico

It was April of the next year when Cortes at last arrived before the
city and began the siege. The force which he had mustered for this
tremendous undertaking consisted of seven hundred Spanish infantry, one
hundred and twenty arquebuses, eighty-six horsemen, twelve cannon, and
a countless multitude of Tlascalan fighters together with numbers of
slaves and servants.

As the city was connected with the mainland by three causeways, it was
necessary to invest it on three sides. The army was divided into three
equal divisions. He himself commanded the force that was to attack
along the south causeway; with him was Sandoval, his most trusted and
efficient lieutenant; Alvarado led that which was to advance over the
west causeway and Olid was to close the north causeway. The
brigantines were brought over the mountains by hand by thousands of
Tlascalans. There were no vehicles or highways of any sort in Mexico;
the Mexicans not having domesticated any animals there was no use for
anything broader than a foot-path, a fact which throws an interesting
side-light on their civilization, by the way. These Spanish boats were
put together on the shores of the lake and when they were launched they
served to close the ring of steel which surrounded the doomed city.

The three great tribal divisions of the Aztec empire were the Aztecs
themselves, the Cholulans and the Tezcocans. Cholula had been
conquered and with Tezcoco at this critical juncture went over to the
Spaniards, leaving Guatemoc and his Aztecs to fight the last fight
{195} alone. Besides the forces enumerated, each Spanish division was
accompanied by formidable bodies of Tlascalans. The Tlascalans were
nearly, if not quite, as good fighters as the Aztecs; perhaps they were
better fighters, so far as their numbers went, when led and supported
by the white people.

The first thing that Cortes did was to cut the aqueduct which carried
fresh water into the city. The lake of Tezcoco in which Mexico stood
was salt. By this one stroke, Cortes forced the inhabitants to depend
upon a very meagre, scanty supply of water from wells in the city, many
of which were brackish and unpalatable. The shores of the lake were
swept bare by the beleaguerers. Iztatapalan, a rocky fortress was
taken by storm and on April 21, 1521, the first attack was delivered
along the causeways. The Mexicans met the advance with their customary
intrepidity. The water on